Design911 appear to be the cheapest for the KW V3's at £1,600.01. If anyone knows anywhere cheaper let me know! Motorsport World or Euro Performance would probably be a good shout for Koni and Bilstein dampers. I really rate the Weltmeister front springs too, as the stock spring rates on the non M030 cars are soft as poo. You'll be needing a stiffer rear ARB with those too though...
Suspension Recommendations '91 Turbo
- Thread starter JSHammond
- Start date
Flip me that's dear! They were something like £1200 including fitting and alignment when they were first released.
£1600 (or even £1400), plus fitting, plus the mandatory geo, and you won't be getting any change from £2000 all in.
That's a LOT of dough for some suspension.
Oli.
edh
New member
I think some people offered free fitting at one point (without reindexing). AFAIK KW tries to get its dealers to avoid heavy discounting.
If your spring plates go down far enough, they can be fitted without reindexing, so can be a fairly easy DIY fit. The rears need to sit so that the helper is just fully compressed at rest. That's the advice from KW, EMC and Promax. I know mine are fitted like that.
They are firkin expensive, but then if you listen to the comments they are a top notch suspension and are on a par price and quality wise with the likes of Ohlins and more specialist suspension companies. For me I want a competitive car to race in speed events that can still be comfortably driven on an early morning Welsh B-road blast. KW's benefit from running some relatively firm spring rates with some clever dampers so you get flat cornering and decent ride quality through the bends.
They're not a race damper, but seem to be the best compromise for enthusiast drivers that use their cars on road and track. That does come at a price though!!!
I'm not particularly flush and that will be well over twice the price I've ever spent on a set of dampers, but for me I can't really see any viable alternatives for what I need. Plus everything I do is DIY, so fitting is not an issue for me so it will just be the cost of the kit. Shelling out for them is going to smart though and it looks like I'm probably going to have to shed a car to realistically afford them.
Anyone fancy a group buy if it's a possibility?
They're not a race damper, but seem to be the best compromise for enthusiast drivers that use their cars on road and track. That does come at a price though!!!
I'm not particularly flush and that will be well over twice the price I've ever spent on a set of dampers, but for me I can't really see any viable alternatives for what I need. Plus everything I do is DIY, so fitting is not an issue for me so it will just be the cost of the kit. Shelling out for them is going to smart though and it looks like I'm probably going to have to shed a car to realistically afford them.
Anyone fancy a group buy if it's a possibility?
MartinRS2K
Active member
A group buy.... Yes please 😄
As an aside how much are the Bilsteins and where's best to get them?
As an aside how much are the Bilsteins and where's best to get them?
Monkeythree
New member
D911 have them on offer right now.
http://www.design911.co.uk/fu/pt65_...rbo-25L-8V-1989-91/Bilstein-SPORT-B6-Dampers/
http://www.design911.co.uk/fu/pt65_...rbo-25L-8V-1989-91/Bilstein-SPORT-B6-Dampers/
George Elliott
New member
I think you will find the euro was about 67p then Oli, so £1200 was 1791 euro, £1432 today is 1791 euro so about the same, and a bit of inflation should be added.
Plus as Paul says, their reputation means they don't have to discount heavily, and they probably can't afford to because they are a quality product.
I'm seriously considering pulling the trigger on them (V3 that is)
There is an unavoidable cost connected to the upgrade with bushes and alignment, thats a bit of a pain but it applies no matter what suspension we fit. Perhaps reindexing is something that is KW unique, but it brings a benefit with lower COG. The Bilsteins would be very good too, but the strut mods Oli does in Finland are involved and potentially costly although he makes it look easy [
]George
944t
MJL944
New member
Indeed! As I've described in the other suspension thread that's currently running, I'm astonished at what a total PITA sorting the suspension out on a 944S2 or Turbo is.
After reading pretty much every 944 S2/Turbo suspension thread there's ever been on this forum while researching what my best course of action would be when changing my 944S2's original 198,00 mile old suspension, I was not really any the wiser!
I knew I dearly wanted to go the Bilstein route but despite constant Bilstein recommendations there doesn't actually seem to be anyone in the UK who'll perform the modification to the struts required to fit them, so as far as I can see that option is a bit of a non-starter.
A very well known specialist (one of the 'Big 3' when it comes to 944s in the UK) told me less than a year ago that 'we can do the Koni Sport inserts mod and rear Konis plus a geo set up for £1000, but there's nobody in the UK we know of that'll do the Bilstein mod'.
I'd love Oli in Finland to be able to do the Bilstein mod for us or if anyone else out there can do this to a perfect standard please let us know!
The Koni shocks option just doesn't get particularly great feedback from many forum members here over the years and from everything I read it certainly didn't warrant the extra expenditure I'd incur from asking a garage to butcher my struts and faff about with settings, plus I'd have to find someone who knew what they were doing and the garage I trust with my S2 hasn't done that mod and I suspect many specialists would be uncomfortable doing such a mod if they were unfamiliar with it.
So, I decided to go stock for the sake of an easy life but that hasn't proved to be the case as my 'new but actually 11 year old struts' (as supplied by Porsche) have demonstrated!
As for the costs involved in KW's (including all the geo set-up stuff after fitting) that's a pipe dream for most of us (and that's coming from someone whose just forked out £894 for 2 standard 'new/old' struts, 2 rears and 2 standard springs!).
I have an E36 328 Sport Coupe and it was so straight forward (and compared to a 944 astonishingly cheap!) to recently replace that car's standard but 16 years old Bilstein suspension with all new OEM Bilstein & Eibach parts. If only such a job on my dear old S2 was as straight forward!
ChasR
New member
I have Konis fitted to my E36 and whilst they are great they are slightly on the firm side (although I am running 17" wheels. I may try playing about with the damper adjustments to get it smoother but for what they cost my friend they are a great damper, and softer in some respects than the Escort (if you want to hear about pricey dampers the Ledas on the car retail for £1200 and whilst the car is very planted for a MkIII Escort they are not what you would call a bargain when you consider what the KWs have (stainless bodies ; future adjustment is a doddle, Bypass valves so as to handle the bigger bumps, and other pleasant featues (one of my Ledas is already leaking after 3k, something which I understand now is not too uncommon for them!).
One item you forget is that E36s were made in much greater numbers. Try getting bits for an M3 for comparison ; now they are damned expensive!
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