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Thread: Help adjusting damping on generic coilovers

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2019
    Location
    San Jose
    Posts
    8
    My Cars
    1995 m3

    Help adjusting damping on generic coilovers

    I know, this is gonna be a general question. Obviously not all coilovers are created equal and there's a lot of factors involved such as tires, spring rates, alignment, sways, etc... But I would like to know how the damping should be set on my k sport 36 way coilovers or as a matter of fact any other budget off-the-shelf coilover which adjusts compression along with rebound like many other affordable coilovers in the market like BC's, D2's, megan racing, etc. I know with these cheaper solutions the damping adjustment isn't linear so there is no magic number to set these at, instead I'd like some advice from knowledgeable members on how one should set up these kind of coilovers up for spirited driving and track days.

    The instructions on my coilovers said to set the up halfway towards stiff and make further adjustments from there, so I tried that and the car felt good, but a little over steery mid corner where the car seemed like it wanted to keep turn more than the input I gave, also I noticed the rear felt light and very willing to rotate under heavy braking. so I took some advice of setting up the front stiffer than the rear on a RWD car, and now I'm getting slight understeer which I feel like is safer on a street car. But since the local track is closed I am unable to tell what the faster set up is without times... So being curious I turned to the forums and found surprisingly little info on how coilovers should be set up since most posts are regarding real coilovers and dual adjustable coilovers (the nice stuff like KW's, AST's, GC's, etc.) I know I'm not the only one stuck with coilovers with questionable damper quality so I figured I'd ask the experts here and maybe help some others along the way.

    In short, I have read the ride quality is strongly influenced by the stiffness of the rear dampers so one should set up the rear as firm as they can tolerate without jumping/skipping or wallowing over bumps. And then adjust the front to be equal and then fine tune the front from there to exhibit the desired qualities of slight understeer on corner entry, neutral mid corner, and slight oversteer under power at the corner exit. Does this sound right to you guys or am I going about this the wrong way?

    Thanks in advance! For anyone curious my current set up is a 95 M3 with 245/35r18 federal RSRR's, stock sways, 3.5 F camber, 2.5 R camber, zero toe F and slight toe in R

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    ATL
    Posts
    164
    My Cars
    '91 325i
    If you want to have meaningful damper adjustments, you need to trash your K-Sports. They will dyno completely different from one another, some will have the max lower than the min of the second damper in a set. Plus the adjustment range is a joke. Most cheap coilovers are just that, cheap. BC is probably one of the better ones and seem to have an actual QC department.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Middle of a corn field
    Posts
    14,770
    My Cars
    E39 hamster/ruberbandPWR
    Quote Originally Posted by Pavlo View Post
    If you want to have meaningful damper adjustments, you need to trash your K-Sports. They will dyno completely different from one another, some will have the max lower than the min of the second damper in a set. Plus the adjustment range is a joke. Most cheap coilovers are just that, cheap. BC is probably one of the better ones and seem to have an actual QC department.
    Have you dyno'd the Ksports ?

    Looking for an E39 belly pan , passenger front inner fender liner …

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