"the lower spring keeps tension on the upper spring so if the vehicle was to completely unload the suspension, the upper spring will not come out of it's alignment/perch"
"the lower spring keeps tension on the upper spring so if the vehicle was to completely unload the suspension, the upper spring will not come out of it's alignment/perch"
Whew !! That was hard. :-)
Sounds like a special purpose thing just for potholes or the far side of bumps.
It handles the "downstroke" of the wheel, and so does rebound. But rebound occurs after the spring is compressed, so it's not really for rebound, I think.
Last edited by artichoke : 05-08-2006 at 08:51 PM.
Sounds like a special purpose thing just for potholes or the far side of bumps.
It handles the "downstroke" of the wheel, and so does rebound. But rebound occurs after the spring is compressed, so it's not really for rebound, I think.
According to KW, on the LX platform this spring does NOTHING besides act as a spacer and keep tension on the upper spring. All of their kits are designed with a dual spring setup and in some instances, (other vehicles), there is actually some spring rate built into the lower spring.
Now in my case, the lower spring is for when my wife is driving over curbs, it keeps the springs from falling out of the front end.
Well, I finished installing the KWs and The Hotchkis swaybars about 1:00 PM today (three hours today and three hours yesterday. Not to bad). After taking a little break and rechecking all the fasteners I put the tires back on and took a little drive. I immediately could feel the difference in the ride quality. It was firmer without being overly harsh. I can now "feel" the road much better than I did with the stock setup.
I have the shocks adjusted to KWs recommended settings and I think it should be fine for now. Once I get some more driving time in, I may make small adjustments and see how I like them.
I didn't push the car hard for the first 20 minutes. I just drove it on some roads that I know are a little rough to get an idea how the suspension would react. While it is an improvement over the stock SRT8 suspension, it wasn't a huge one. I may feel different later on as I get in more driving time in varying conditions.
When I decided to start getting more agressive, I was very impressed with the way she now handles. Quick lanes changes were very stable and this thing was staying flat even when taking turns at a fairly high rate of speed (without breaking the law of course). I would have to say that the Hotchkis swaybars are a very big improvement over the stock ones.
I wasn't able to get more than an hour to play with my new mod, but I will experiment some more when I get back on the 23rd (Duty calls and I got to get underway tommorrow).
Some tips about the install:
If you are planning on doing the swaybars (and I highly recommend that you do), save yourself some hassle by buying them now and put them on at the same time that you install the suspension. You will already have most of the steps required to be accomplished done anyway and it would be a pain in the butt to have to repeat all that work later. I am glad somebody convinced me to get them now.
When I got to the part where I needed to remove the coil from the front shock I couldn't find my spring compressor (honestly, I have one somewhere). Thank goodness for the local part store and their free loaner tools. The spring compressor (at least the one I had) was too big to fit on the tightly wound coils of the KW springs. After trying to force it to work and getting frustrated, I figured out I could just adjust the adjusting ring all the way down, install the spring and get the nut on, then adjust the adjusting ring back up. No spring compressor needed!
I also needed to modify the top boot on the front shocks. I had to cut off the lower portion because it didn't fit inside the new coil.
I'll post more info when I get back and do some more driving..
__________________ Mods:
Ziebart Diamond Coat
Ziebart Undercoat
Body Color Matched Painted Grill by Aaron
Mopar CAI
Cat Back Magna Floww
Posi Quiet brake pads
KW varient 2 suspension
180 T-Stat
3200 Stall Converter
Long Tube Headers
High Flow Cats
PPP Stage II Heads
PPP Custom Cam
PPP 426 Shortblock
502 RWHP 502 RWTQ
Well, I finished installing the KWs and The Hotchkis swaybars about 1:00 PM today (three hours today and three hours yesterday. Not to bad). After taking a little break and rechecking all the fasteners I put the tires back on and took a little drive. I immediately could feel the difference in the ride quality. It was firmer without being overly harsh. I can now "feel" the road much better than I did with the stock setup.
I have the shocks adjusted to KWs recommended settings and I think it should be fine for now. Once I get some more driving time in, I may make small adjustments and see how I like them.
I didn't push the car hard for the first 20 minutes. I just drove it on some roads that I know are a little rough to get an idea how the suspension would react. While it is an improvement over the stock SRT8 suspension, it wasn't a huge one. I may feel different later on as I get in more driving time in varying conditions.
When I decided to start getting more agressive, I was very impressed with the way she now handles. Quick lanes changes were very stable and this thing was staying flat even when taking turns at a fairly high rate of speed (without breaking the law of course). I would have to say that the Hotchkis swaybars are a very big improvement over the stock ones.
I wasn't able to get more than an hour to play with my new mod, but I will experiment some more when I get back on the 23rd (Duty calls and I got to get underway tommorrow).
Some tips about the install:
If you are planning on doing the swaybars (and I highly recommend that you do), save yourself some hassle by buying them now and put them on at the same time that you install the suspension. You will already have most of the steps required to be accomplished done anyway and it would be a pain in the butt to have to repeat all that work later. I am glad somebody convinced me to get them now.
When I got to the part where I needed to remove the coil from the front shock I couldn't find my spring compressor (honestly, I have one somewhere). Thank goodness for the local part store and their free loaner tools. The spring compressor (at least the one I had) was too big to fit on the tightly wound coils of the KW springs. After trying to force it to work and getting frustrated, I figured out I could just adjust the adjusting ring all the way down, install the spring and get the nut on, then adjust the adjusting ring back up. No spring compressor needed!
I also needed to modify the top boot on the front shocks. I had to cut off the lower portion because it didn't fit inside the new coil.
I'll post more info when I get back and do some more driving..
Hi BBSRT8. I'm having the KW 2 suspension installed tomorrow. My main goal is to reduce the harshness in the ride of my 300CSRT8. I have the Goodyear supercar F1 tires, very stiff ride. I see you mention in your post that the KW suuspension improved your ride quality, but it wasn't huge. Now that you have had the suspension for a while, has the ride improved? Would you spend the money for the KW's again? What tires are you running. any help would be appreciated.
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