Ksport coils: delivering plenty of dissapointment

[black_gst]

Kontrol Pro Damper System
Ksport Kontrol Pro Fully Adjustable Coilover Kits provide the ultimate in suspension technology for your street or track car. 36 levels of dampening adjustment allow you to fine tune the ride to your handling and comfort needs. The dampening adjusts compression and rebound simultaneously for ease of adjustment. Pillow ball top mounts in the front and rear on some applications allow you to maintain vehicle manufacturer suspension geometry design. The pillow ball top mounts also allow you a more direct feel for solid driver response. Camber adjustability is included on pillow ball top mounts that allow it for the ability to adjust camber from the actual coilover, instead of a separate camber kit.

Most applications utilize an adjustable lower mount, which means you adjust height without losing suspension travel like some other coilover designs do. With the mounts and most pieces of the coilover being designed for 6061 billet aluminum the kit is lightweight, durable, and rust resistant. The steel shock body is electroplated with zinc to resist rust and the elements. The valving of each set is matched to the springs installed for unmatched ride quality and reliability.

The Ksport system uses a Monotube design in which the oil and gas are separated within the cylinder. When compared to twin tube designs the Monotube dissipates heat better, allows finer dampening adjustments, and requires more expensive design process. Aeration and cavatation are a lot less common in a Monotube design, which results in a better ride.

The Ksport Kontrol Pro Coilover kit has been designed with professional road racing in mind offering extremely high value and performance.

 

[steve]

ksport does say that this is not street suspension.

So for 99% of the people that have them, they bought the wrong thing. Is that what your saying?

 

[black_gst]

if you want race suspension that is somewhat streetable then i think ksport is an option to consider

if you want street suspension that is raceable then Tokico Illumina's may be a better option

The Ksport Kontrol Pro Coilover kit has been designed with professional road racing in mind offering extremely high value and performance.----- this tell me to expect racing suspension not so much DD suspension

 

[slowgsr]

I have them on my 1g.

Been about a year or so, my car only goes straight.. they do what I expect for the price. I run a very high springrate in the rear, and have about 2" of preload on the front and rear. My car is not lowered since im using a 26" tall tire.. Mine do not leak.

When they fail I will upgrade.

Until then, the 2" of travel or whatever it is, seems to be doing OK. I keep my fingers crossed they don't start leaking.

 

[pboglio]

Treebonker,

Interesting data on the Ksport shock dyno testing. If I paid $2000 I'd be pissed, but at $700 they do what I want them to do and are good enough for an amateur like myself.

I think these things really need sways to tighten up the front end, the coilovers alone are still allowing some transient steering response problems during hard left and right turns like an autocross race would see. If I saw fast enough, I can get 180* out of phase between the steering input direction and the actual direction of the front of the car. My STi has no such problems flinging left and right without the whole suspension lagging behind the steering inputs.

 

[miniturbo23]

My K sports have no problems and they have a office here in AZ so if they ever mess up they replace the part, I had them im my 1st gen and now in this 2nd gen, not the best but stiff like if on viagra specialy the back making it launch insane. good for the 600 i paid for them.

 

[JOEY A]

These have always been ####en junk! They just look cool

 

[pboglio]

why is that?

 

[red_devil]

I have mine adjusted with maximum spring travel, fronts set to 13 and rears set to 12. The car rides almost stock and handles good. I think a lot of people are using just the spring height for adjustment instead of the lower shock adjustment. My car does not bottom out and I have it dropped 1.5". If your slamming your car with these and running a stiff setting then no wonder they aren't lasting and ride like crap. Paid $600 shipped which I think is worth it since you don't need to disassemble anything and you can get the ride height where you want it.

 

[JOEY A]

why is that?

Look up a shock dyno and you will see why


And all those fancy pants super JDM 3,000 doller coilovers with 100,000 settings really dont do alot once you get past a certain point.


Lots of info on honda-tech about this


koni with custom spring rates and valving is the best way to go over anything

 

[FonZ454]

I have mine adjusted with maximum spring travel, fronts set to 13 and rears set to 12. The car rides almost stock and handles good. I think a lot of people are using just the spring height for adjustment instead of the lower shock adjustment. My car does not bottom out and I have it dropped 1.5". If your slamming your car with these and running a stiff setting then no wonder they aren't lasting and ride like crap. Paid $600 shipped which I think is worth it since you don't need to disassemble anything and you can get the ride height where you want it.

That's key... the lower shock adjustment. My car is LOW and rides fine. Obviously it's stiff, but it's to be expected.

And whoever said an AGX on 4 is stiffer... I don't believe it. My car has zero squat on launch when my AGX's would be squating a good amount.

 

[bOOstd GSX]

koni with custom spring rates and valving is the best way to go over anything

But your forgetting that these coils are only $700, you cannot get koni's w/ custom rates and get them revalved for that.

I had the ksports on my last hatch. They were a good coil for the money and I ran them pretty damn hard. I agree with the ride quality being pretty harsh, but it's something you either have to get used to or pick a slightly less aggressive setup.

You can't have your cake and eat it to... not when it comes to price, not when it comes to ride quality.

 

[pboglio]

The vast majority of gripes people have with these things stems from the large amount of adjustability they have, which is a blessing or a curse. I can't vouch for quality control or having "matched" valving cause lets face it, they are a freaking $700 set of coilovers, what do you expect from them? For the panzies that keep complaining about ride stiffness, do me a favor and just buy a set of KYB's already. You know what your getting into buying a set of coilovers since you can provide shock dyno data and the like, so don't complain about ride stiffness that you should have been well aware of.

 

[bOOstd GSX]

 

[99gst_racer]

Awesome to see the pics in post #1 are already dead. If people can't leave their damn photobucket accounts alone, I sure wish they'd just host their images here in the thread instead...

My D2's are pretty much identical to the K-sports. I'm not saying they use the best valving, the best wire for the springs, or even the most ideal spring rates for racing, but the adjustability in the design is excellent. You can move the shock up or down in the assembly to gain or take away shock travel. I'm not sure why anyone would say there is only 2" of travel, unless you purposely set it up for only 2" of travel. And I obviously can't "see it here" either...

 

[lowell]

2" at the shock is a little more at the wheel. What's the motion ratio on a 2G again?

 

[jtmcinder]

.75/.86

 

[cait sith]

The vast majority of gripes people have with these things stems from the large amount of adjustability they have, which is a blessing or a curse. I can't vouch for quality control or having "matched" valving cause lets face it, they are a freaking $700 set of coilovers, what do you expect from them? For the panzies that keep complaining about ride stiffness, do me a favor and just buy a set of KYB's already. You know what your getting into buying a set of coilovers since you can provide shock dyno data and the like, so don't complain about ride stiffness that you should have been well aware of.

So from my view, basically what you're saying is, you're paying 700-1000 dollars to lower a car poorly, with products that have horrible quality control, and make the car handle worse.

Sounds like a wise investment.

Edit: And for that matter, I've never seen anyone have their K Sports "adjusted" to the way a real set of coilovers should behave.

 

[twicks69]

I have had absolutely no issues with my Kontrol Pro Ksport coilovers over several years of use. The most I did was replace the rear springs with a higher spring rate and put lower thrust bearings on them, then aligned and corner weighted the car with the springs preloaded, then adjusted ride height and re-checked corner weights.

It has been just fine for me. These are seriously cheap coilovers in price. If you want to whine, either go to a stock style suspension, or do a better mid level coilovers like the KW VARIANT, or JIC FLTA2, or invest in a custom valved race coilovers like a Penske, Carrera or Moton.


Dammit, thread necromancer.

Oh well.

 

[99gst_racer]

Dammit, thread necromancer.

I found it while searching for something else and felt compelled to post.