nick49

I saw these on ebay and they look like they have some good features like several dampening adjustments, height and preload adjustments as well as upper camber mtg plate adjustments. The price seems good at under $1300 shipped if they are a good quality shock. I think they are made in Taiwan or possibly China which means nothing any more. There are Bosch parts on my Factory Replacement motor that say Made In China.

I read some reports from owners of Subaru and Hondas that are very happy with these suspension units but you know how that goes. Some people are happy to drive 20 year old heavily modded Civic with all the add on ground effects and wings. It is possible that these could be good and work well but then again they could be very poor. Any experience with them out there?

AudiOn19s

I could write a book on everything wrong with that kit. Please do not buy them.

You can feel free to PM me about further details if you wish.

Andy

newport996

Why do it in private? This forum is for people looking for knowledge and if you had a bad experience, tell us ALL....I too would like the info.

AudiOn19s

Still waiting on my credit card dispute to be completely settled as this company's view is that if you attempt to install their coilovers and they do not fit that they are now used goods and they won't return them.

I was suckered by these as on paper they are everything I was looking for in a coilover...sadly they did not deliver.

Andy

Paul 996

I agree, they look very interesting on paper. So they don't fit 99 C2s as they advertise? Sheesh.

Benjamin Choi

This is a case where you want to flock together with the 911 birds of this forum. No need to be a Columbus along this front.

nick49

Thanks for the warning.

I be interested in knowing the fitment problems if you care to share them. Give me a condensed version of the book.

TIA Nick

Porsche_Smile

there's a thread out there that asked this question........ i know, because i started it...... sadly, i did not get them, i got the jic instead..... very happy with them....

AudiOn19s

OK...so here's the story on these units...I'll keep things as short as possible.

The front struts are too long. With the ride height adjusters all the way down my car was the same height or maybe even higher than it was with H&R springs. At first I thought that a shorter spring was the solution but K-sport doesn't make their springs in differing lengths and could not send me a shorter spring. Then I started to look closer at shock travel and with the height all the way down there was very little travel available until the car hit the bump stops. (not a safe combo). Also at this height the springs are loose in the perches and when the suspension was unloaded they clank all over the place as there's no tension on the springs. I patiently waited for 3 weeks getting the runaround from k-sport on this issue (tech support was waiting for an engineer to return from vacation). When they finally addressed the issue they blamed it on me for ordering higher spring rates than standard (which they allow you to do) and said I should have known that this was a consequence of ordering the increased spring rates. I asked them to send me a set of the standard springs (only a 100lb rate difference) to proove their theory and they would not.

Also all of the studs in the upper mounts of the kit have a different thread pitch than the stock units. No additional hardware was included so you have to make a run to the hardware store in the middle of your install to get new hardware for the coilovers.

The rear coilovers never even made it on the car. The lower metal bushing provided with the coilovers is too wide to fit into the factory mounting location. These bushings would have required machining to take off material to even get the coilovers on the car.

In my 3 week wait to get blamed for my own issues (ride height was the only one addressed...they never even got to the lower bushing issue)....I took one of the struts and had it tested on a shock dyno. The dyno graphs were more linear than digressive and the performance was just poor. There is too much rebound force in these units and not enough compression. From full soft to full hard the compression force only changed ~20 lbs from 72lbs to 94 lbs at peak. The minimum rebound force was around 250 lbs of force and at full hard the rebound force was off of the charts high (500 lb graph). Needless to say this was the final straw, but where the story gets even more interesting.

K-sport AND the retailer I bought the units from stated that since I had tried to install the coilovers that they were used goods and not returnable. I never even got the car out of the garage due to the various issues with these units. I promptly sent them back anyhow and filed a credit card dispute. The retailer refudned me for 80% of the purchase and witheld a 20% restocking fee that I'm now disputing as well.

The craziest part is that a week after returning them K-sport called me and said they had a shorter set of struts made for me and wanted to know where to send them????...I declined their offer.

Cliff Notes:
Front struts too long
Rear lower bushing too wide and need machined to fit
New hardware required and not provided
Poor shock performance

Andy

nick49

I, and certainly many others will appreciate the details. You probably just saved the Porsche community $10s K dollars and lots of potential grief.

Again thanks for taking the time to do this. What are you running now? and are you happy with it?

Nick

Paul 996

I think Andy's unfortunate experience just closed the book on the possibility of using KSports on 996 cars. I had an open mind on them until now.

AudiOn19s

I'll probably post a review today on what I went with. I was going to wait until next week as I anticipated getting some track miles with them on Friday but as is the story of my life my schedule changed last minute so no track for me this weekend...I'm down to only 6 more planned dates right now which is a bummer.

Andy

lsellenraad

Has anyone tried Ksports on a 996 since this post in 07? I know they used to be crap but I think they've vastly improved since this posting.

Pulx30

I had them on my C2 for about 3,000 miles before getting PSS10s. They weren't that bad. They rode better than my tired stock suspension. I'd probably still be using them if I didn't get the deal on the PSS10s.

lsellenraad

No issues fitting them like these other guys have said? Any clarity on the install and 3k miles you had would be great.