New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :)

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (Reddtarga)

Sun, 11 May 2014 16:54:53 GMT

Steve, just daily driving so far with bump and rebound settings about 2 clicks off soft to give a good ride.
But for the next track day I'll certainly stiffen them up to see what happens.
A great feature of these coil-overs is the ability to easily reset them again to exactly what you had before.

Re potholes and welding up that elongated hole in the KW bracket:
Unfortunately like most coilovers, KW's also have the problem of tyre clearance with the fronts.
I use stock strut tops, and on the fronts I run - 1 degree camber (close to stock) giving only about 3 mm tyre/coil clearance, so in my case I doubt if welding them up to make them round would help much, because there would only have to be a tiny bit of movement for the tyre to rub on the front coil. You would also loose camber adjust-ability.

My solution to prevent this ever happening was to first carefully check for the right camber and the bolts for tightness.
Then I fitted a spacer/wedge in between the hub and the strut body at the top. Since the elongated hole is at the top, that should totally stop any tendency for the hub to rotate in the bracket.
I only fitted these to the fronts because the rears have heaps of tyre/strut clearance anyway.

These were made from aluminum with the inside surface concave to match the shape of the strut, and the step at the top makes for easy removal.
They were carefully ground down to the right thickness with a very slight taper, and are tapped in so they are wedged tight, then wired so they can't fall out.

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (Steve_A)

Sat, 10 May 2014 00:17:26 GMT

PrivateJoker
Do you still have the wiper cowl?

Yep I've still got the wiper cowl, but haven't installed it yet. I decided that I didn't want to go single wiper OR LHD conversion due to poor coverage. I ended up taking it to a carbon fibre specialist to see about getting the cowling converted instead.

Turns out its a pretty simple job, just drill the hole in the right space and use the carbon fibre from that to plug up the unused hole! I had a few clutch issues which needed to be taken care of first though so I haven't had the money to get it done yet.

Reddtarga the KW's are great, hands down the best money I've spent on the car! I just wish they came with camber plates from KW. I don't have a great deal of clearance between the rims and the coilover so I can't run much camber at all at the moment. I just need to get the spring diameter and send it through to Dylan and he'll hook me up with some Cusco camber plates which will sort that out.

Have you had the chance to push the car since installing yours, or just daily driving so far?

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (Reddtarga)

Fri, 09 May 2014 11:37:43 GMT

Congrats Steve on a great choice in the KW's
I recently fitted a set of these (also thanks to Dylan) and the car feels great with them.
Surprisingly good ride for daily driving when using softer settings for both bump and rebound.

And yeah, important to tighten strut bolts properly. The Toyota service manual says 188 ft/lbs, and as has been mentioned, that is well into breaker bar territory.

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (PrivateJoker)

Thu, 08 May 2014 22:50:14 GMT

Do you still have the wiper cowl?

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (dylmrt)

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:05:58 GMT

lookin sweet steve. Let me know how it all goes!

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (Steve_A)

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:46:05 GMT

Looks like I'll be going for the single wiper conversion instead, installation is supposedly pretty simple just a little tight on space.

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (Dudeman)

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 03:40:26 GMT

Steve_A
I will have to swap in LHD wipers for it, I haven't really checked how legal that is, but ah well.

With the linkages, and whatever else. Get someone to drive you around during heavy rain with you in the passenger seat - thats how good the coverage is going to be." />

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (IMR22C)

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 22:03:33 GMT

Nah I had it come out of adjustment, scored the coilover pretty bad and put a nice deep scratch into the sidewall of my tyre.

There's pics in my showroom thread, wasn't pretty.

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (Steve_A)

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 22:00:03 GMT

Thanks for the heads up mate, I'll make sure I spend some extra time getting them nice and tight! Did you weld yours up after it happened to you a couple times or just do it straight up so it was never an issue?

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (IMR22C)

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:53:15 GMT

The KW's are awesome mate, make sure you have a fiddle around with the bound and rebound rates. The factory rates are pretty stiff for daily driving, took me over a year to get around to adjusting them and I regret not doing them sooner. Rides very comfortably now and handles even better...

Also make sure your hub bolts are tight! I'm talking breaker bar with a pipe for leverage on it tight. The slots in the coilovers where the hubs bolt can quickly come out of adjustment with a bad pothole or two (not sure if other coilovers are like this), potentially causing your tyre to rub on the coilover. Bad situation that a few of us have been in.
I went as far as welding mine to get rid of the slot.

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (Steve_A)

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:31:01 GMT

Yep thats right its from madpsi, I got it cheap with the ducktail bootlid. I will have to swap in LHD wipers for it, I haven't really checked how legal that is, but ah well. The other option is to go for a single wiper conversion but I'm not sure which way I'll go yet.

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (Mrskylighter)

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:13:08 GMT

The CF cowl looks awesome. Is that a madpsi one? Looks like its for a LHD car though???

Re: New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (beagle_senior)

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:52:21 GMT

will be interested how the coilovers go mate, have been pondering these for some time now

New Coilovers and Wiper Cowl have arrived! Pics included :) (Steve_A)

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:41:26 GMT

My KW V3's have finally arrived, big thanks to Dylan from Gorilla industries for organising these for me!! They will be going on the car next Tuesday and I can't wait to see how they perform.

I'm constantly getting leaves coming through the air system in the car so this new wiper cowl will take care of that once I've installed the black mesh in the two holes you can see below, and it was a good excuse to get some carbon fibre haha

I'll post up some more pics once everything is installed.