So,

I'm in the process of putting together a suspension on the Accent that will make me more competitive on the autocross course.

Off the shelf there are only a couple of semi-valid choices IMO.

Ksport coilovers

Koni yellow strut inserts & a set of springs

I know a lot of people say they're happy with their Ksport coilovers, but at the end of the day they're actually crap. I think Andy is running them on his autox X3 and doing 100 times better than I would be happy with, but he is the only person I know running autocross that has been satisfied and/or had success with Ksports. On the other hand a lot of my racing friends have owned Ksports personally and ended up removing them and going with something else. After a lot of debate, and a couple of near purchases, I've decided that the Ksports aren't for me.

Koni yellows are good quality struts, and matched with a good spring they would be plenty potent. That is if I could find a good set of springs. IMO, no good racing springs are made for the Accent. I would have liked to get my hands on a set of Whiteline Flatout springs, but they don't make them anymore, and were $500 a set when they were making them. It seems like my best 2 options are H&R or B&G springs. There are a lot of brands making springs that I haven't heard of, some of them might be fine, but it's nearly impossible to get any real info on these off brand springs.

Ok, so I'm not happy with that option either.

Anyone ever use a set of Ground Control coilover sleeves? I was not considering coilover sleeves because of all the bad things I've heard about them, but they actually come pretty highly recommended by some serious racers. It won't be as easy as bolting on an aftermarket spring and it won't be nearly as pleasant on the street, but at this point I don't care. I just want to have a setup that lets me get as much out of my car as I can. There are no Ground Control sleeve kits for the Accent, but I'm confident that with some research and maybe a couple of emails I could make a set work just fine. The ones stocked for the RD Tiburon might be fine as-is actually.

As far as struts go, I'm thinking a set of Koni 8610 or 8611 inserts. The dual adjustability of the 8611 race inserts (along with their $300 each price tag) seem like overkill somewhat. I think the 8610 single adjustable insert might be just about perfect.

So Ground Control coilover sleeves and Koni 8610 inserts are at the top of my list right now. Any thoughts?

 

Anybody have any experience with a setup like this? Even on another car?

 

what about some custom K-Mac coils?
they dont seem too exxy...but ive got some on my x3 and they are awesome
i got em unused 2nd hand...and the spring rates are pretty hard...i had a feeling they were made to put on a track x3 that didnt eventuate

What about HSD?
http://www.otomoto.com.au/HDSystems/
They are from australia so postage potentially could be a bit exxy
$1600AUD for the HR street/track setup with a 44mm monotube shock with 15 step damper adjustement with strut top adjustable camber and pillowball mounts
i know a guy who is using em on his x3....reckons they are mintox

 

The Otomoto HR does look fairly good, but I can't find any real racing reviews of them or good independent data. Even K-Sports look nice and have great sounding features it's all about the dampening quality, consistency, and range.

I'm sure there are more decent products, but it takes a LOT to build a good adjustable strut.

Thanks for responding, I'll see if I can find more info on the Otomoto's. I don't think the price plus shipping would be too bad.

 

I got the K-sports in my car. They are the fully adjustable full race coils. They have held up quite nicely. Never had an issue with them only trouble is getting the adjustment perfectly balanced. I have hieght, damper stiffness and camber control on all...Camber is adjustable in the front only. I you get the op. to get them I would if I were you...just dont get the cheepy kind as they suck.

 

The Ksport struts are junk. Sure you can adjust everything which is good, but the dampening range is inconsistent from strut to strut.

See what I mean on a shock dyno graph:



What it shows is that on this particular set there is only a tiny bit of overlap where you could adjust the front's rebound to be at the same level of dampening and the rears it would be impossible to even adjust them to match one another. As far as compression goes, the stiffness adjustments didn't even do anything for compression.

That's just to match each other, let alone give you a range of adjustment that allows you to fine tune your suspension setup. The struts are also too stiff for most spring rates people would be running.

Compare that to a set of Koni's:


You can see that the range of adjustment where they overlap is quite large. Looking below the line labeled "0" the two upper lines are the two Konis at minimum stiffness and the two bottom lines are the two Konis at max stiffness. So everything in between the green lines and black lines is useful adjustment range. The same is true above "0" the entire range between the green and black lines is useful overlap.

The Ksports are nice looking and have a lot of good features, but their struts are junk. I would even say to the point of being dangerous on a road car, not to mention horrible on a race car. If you had the struts rebuilt and properly valved they might work alright, assuming that somehow they are able to make the compression adjustable also.