When you think of top-of-the-range, high end suspension used on some of the most advanced motorsport vehicles in the world, only one name comes to mind: KW Automotive. The German specialists have been producing bespoke suspension solutions since 1995 and have claimed numerous race victories and championship titles in an array of motorsport disciplines around the globe.
Offering quality above and beyond that of OEM manufacturers (in some cases even supplying suspension for high-end manufacturer models such as AMG Mercedes, Roush Performance and Dodge SRT) KW have been the go-to company for motorsport teams running Ferraris, Porsches and many other prestigous brands. So where does Team Japspeed fit into all of this?
Well, the sport of drifting has evolved massively in the UK since its arrival just over ten years ago. No longer are drivers using cars fitted with nothing but a set of lowering springs and a welded diff – things have moved on a bit since then! The rate of chassis and engine development in the last few years has been spectacular and, with the competition moving forward at such a fast rate, nobody can rest on their laurels for too long.
Coilovers are an area of chassis development that is often overlooked, despite their critical role in keeping the car on the black stuff. Our Daiyama coilovers are a fantastic mid-range coilover perfect for 99% of drifters and we have sworn by them for many years, but with the aforementioned rapid development in the drifting scene we felt that the time was right to try something a little more upmarket on one of our cars during our campaign to hold onto our 2012 BDC title.
Enter a set of KW’s Competition 2-way coilovers. Specifically designed for our V8 powered S15 driven by Shane Lynch, the coilovers feature independent compression and rebound adjustment, with rebound being another often overlooked tuning parameter by the vast majority of coilover manufacturers on the market.
Within minutes of receiving the coilovers we had already torn open the box like a bunch of excited children on Christmas day and immediately started admiring every little detail of them.
Everything from the camber adjustable bolts to the C spanners (provided in their own little KW branded toolbox, naturally) blew us away and it seemed a shame to have to bolt them to the car instead of putting them on display and admiring them.
Inevitably though, we did have to bolt them to the car, so off came the wheels…
…and off came the existing Daiyama coilovers, not looking too shabby after three years of hard abuse.
After loosely locating the KW camber adjustable top mounts for the fronts…
…it was time to get them mounted up on the hubs.
After standing back and admiring our handywork for a few minutes, it was time to crack on with the rears.
Fitting or swapping coilovers on any Nissan S13, 14 or 15 is a piece of cake thanks to the MacPherson strut setup at the front and simple hub arrangement at the rear. After whipping off the old Daiyama items (again, looking great after three years of abuse)…
…the KW items were fitted within a matter of minutes.
After getting the wheels back on and the car back on the ground it was time for an all-important alignment session to ensure that everything was pointing in the right direction. With so many adjustable suspension components fitted to drift cars nowadays it is crucial to get the car aligned after replacing any important parts or adjusting the ride height.
Of course, after all of this work there was only thing left to do – drive the car of course!
With Round 2 of the Maxxis British Drift Championship just a few days away at the time it would be the perfect environment to do some quality testing in a high pressure environment with plenty of other cars to compare our V8 S15 to.
KW suspension guru Michael Grassl was also on hand at Pembrey to ensure that the coilovers were setup correctly and, with his experience and knowledge at our disposal, we hoped to fine tune the setup to perfection.
After taking a few measurements…
…Michael did a few calculations…
…and explained his thoughts setup-wise to the rest of the team.
Michael’s experience and knowledge were invaluable; we all learnt a lot from him and his pointers will prove useful for the future setting up of all the Team Japspeed cars. It’s one thing to be able to drive a drift car but a whole other ball game when it comes to knowing how to adjust the setup to suit the track conditions.
Unfortunately for Shane, while he really enjoyed the handling of the S15 out on track, like many drivers he struggled to get comfortable with the somewhat unique track layout and found himself unable to achieve the result he wanted.
However, with Round 3 of the Maxxis British Drit Championship being held at Teesside this coming weekend (a track all of the Japspeed drivers are very much familiar with) we are hoping the Shane and the rest of the guys really get the opportunity to shine and put our new KW coilovers through their paces.
Hopefully we’ll come home with some silverware too!
All of us here at Team Japspeed would like to thank KW Automotive UK with their help in putting together this feature and for their continued support and assistance.
