KW HAS Experiences?

[HiFi]

hi guys
keen for feedback from anyone running kW has and how they find the ride comfort and stock shocks performance with them fitted.

I know there are heaps of reviews in the other threads but keen for local perspectives given our b and C roads

[mfurse]

I've not tried the KW HAS but keen to hear about experiences as the latest revision does look identical to the MP HAS which are supposed to be great.

[Scootah]

I had KW Has fitted at Southern BM around 1 year ago , and TBH apart from ride height I struggle to feel the difference ...

I had them fitted for aesthetic reasons , i don't do track days , so was for looks only

Also i never really had issues with ride quality either before or after , at a push i would say ride quality in comfort is a bit more compliant with the KW

[Uwish]

I run mine on the lowest setting ( rear ) and the ride is OK.
Just depends on your expectations

[HiFi]

thanks everyone.
pulled the trigger on a set today.

install, alignment and corner balance to be done by trutrack in the coming weeks

[mfurse]

Originally Posted by HiFi

thanks everyone.
pulled the trigger on a set today.

install, alignment and corner balance to be done by trutrack in the coming weeks

Keen to get a review on how they feel on Melbourne tarmac - might pull the trigger too!

[HiFi]

yep will write up a review once they are on. I think the wheel alignment and corner balance will make more of a difference then the springs... I have used trutrack before and they are known for their great street and track setups
really just doing the springs for looks .

[mfurse]

Originally Posted by HiFi

yep will write up a review once they are on. I think the wheel alignment and corner balance will make more of a difference then the springs... I have used trutrack before and they are known for their great street and track setups
really just doing the springs for looks .

Have you had the springs fitted yet? Keen to understand how it changes the car, particularly on our broken tarmac.

[HiFi]

Originally Posted by mfurse

Have you had the springs fitted yet? Keen to understand how it changes the car, particularly on our broken tarmac.

hi mate, getting fitted tomorrow, will provide pics and update following

[HiFi]

Originally Posted by mfurse

Have you had the springs fitted yet? Keen to understand how it changes the car, particularly on our broken tarmac.

So got these fitted yesterday, along with corner weighting balance and alignment done by Trutrack in north melbourne. If you need wheel or suspension work and are in melbourne, highly recommend these guys as they have been around street and track car suspension for a long long time...

First before i start - Describing "ride" and "feel" is difficult and very subjective, this is what I have noticed, someone else's experience may be vastly different..

To the review
- I am very happy. You can definately feel the spring rate is firmer than stock ZCP, but at the same time the car feels more planted over the road imperfections we have, and the suspension doesnt have such a pronounced secondary movement/rebound/wolllow, what ever you want to call it.

It seems to ride over the road imperfctions better than stock, but at the same time is a slightly firmer ride. You notice the firmness when taking an undulation in the road at higher speeds (eg 80kms) where you feel the higher spring rates bouce you out of the undulation. You can also feel it over cateyes etc, but no worse than stock and no spring will fix this, you need to do shocks to address this properly on this platform.

Cornering is great, you can definately feel the car turns in better and there is definately a bit more weight in the steering also. It also dives less under braking but most springs will have that effect.

So to summarise its firmer but more complaint at the same time, with better turn in

I dont have any photos yet but will post some shortly as im going to put up a build post with all my mods.

My only issue, is that im still sitting a bit high at the front as i went a conservative drop of 15mm-ish at the front and about 10 mm at the rear (about 140mm clearance of front bumper to ground) so will go back to Trutrack next week for a final adjustment a little lower, which is a great benefit of the HAS - anyone with eibach or HAS setups let me know what height has worked for you around melbourne?

As to the future for this car and suspension, i would have loved to have gone coilovers (trutrack really rate the Tractive setup) but most are bloody expensive and not something i can justify at the moment. I think what i may end up doing down the track is getting a set of the Bilstien EDC compatible B6/B8 shocks and fitting these while retaining the KW HAS. Early reviews seem to be quite positive on these

Ralph at Trutrack also mentioned i may want to get some shims for the rear to get max traction as we're at the limit of the stock rear camber (although still within BMW spec) do ill probably get those before i take it back for final height adjustment

Hopefully the above is useful to someone.

[mfurse]

Originally Posted by HiFi

So got these fitted yesterday, along with corner weighting balance and alignment done by Trutrack in north melbourne. If you need wheel or suspension work and are in melbourne, highly recommend these guys as they have been around street and track car suspension for a long long time...

First before i start - Describing "ride" and "feel" is difficult and very subjective, this is what I have noticed, someone else's experience may be vastly different..

To the review
- I am very happy. You can definately feel the spring rate is firmer than stock ZCP, but at the same time the car feels more planted over the road imperfections we have, and the suspension doesnt have such a pronounced secondary movement/rebound/wolllow, what ever you want to call it.

It seems to ride over the road imperfctions better than stock, but at the same time is a slightly firmer ride. You notice the firmness when taking an undulation in the road at higher speeds (eg 80kms) where you feel the higher spring rates bouce you out of the undulation. You can also feel it over cateyes etc, but no worse than stock and no spring will fix this, you need to do shocks to address this properly on this platform.

Cornering is great, you can definately feel the car turns in better and there is definately a bit more weight in the steering also. It also dives less under braking but most springs will have that effect.

So to summarise its firmer but more complaint at the same time, with better turn in

I dont have any photos yet but will post some shortly as im going to put up a build post with all my mods.

My only issue, is that im still sitting a bit high at the front as i went a conservative drop of 15mm-ish at the front and about 10 mm at the rear (about 140mm clearance of front bumper to ground) so will go back to Trutrack next week for a final adjustment a little lower, which is a great benefit of the HAS - anyone with eibach or HAS setups let me know what height has worked for you around melbourne?

As to the future for this car and suspension, i would have loved to have gone coilovers (trutrack really rate the Tractive setup) but most are bloody expensive and not something i can justify at the moment. I think what i may end up doing down the track is getting a set of the Bilstien EDC compatible B6/B8 shocks and fitting these while retaining the KW HAS. Early reviews seem to be quite positive on these

Ralph at Trutrack also mentioned i may want to get some shims for the rear to get max traction as we're at the limit of the stock rear camber (although still within BMW spec) do ill probably get those before i take it back for final height adjustment

Hopefully the above is useful to someone.

Nice write up - thanks! I'm thinking B6 EDCs or possibly KW DDC (got to stomach the $6K).

Bilstein should be around $8-900 a corner I reckon looking at German, UK and US pricing and should do the job for fast road driving.

[domino_z]

I've had the tractives on my car for a while now (also installed by trutrack)

They are the best thing you can do for both compliance and handling on this chassis imo, the difference in dampening is night and day better, especially on a bumpy b and c road

But no shock will remove the nvh like you get driving over road reflectors, that's just coming from the low profile tyres (worse on zcp) combined with the stiffness of the chassis and a solid mounted rear subframe

I can hit a typical bumpy country back road and revel in the dampening quality and front end turn in, but also have to accept the loud road noise from the chassis on coarse surfaces

this car reminds me a lot of my evo x on ohlins dfv's as it had the same compromise - terrible nvh but brilliant on the right road

[seattle0099]

I had my KW HAS installed on my F83 for nearly 2 weeks now. The difference I had felt was the driving become less bumpy. Now I felt less difference among 3 suspension settings (comfort, sport and sport plus). I felt suspension was softer in sport and sport plus than stock spring.

I haven't got a chance to track my car so it's hard to tell the real difference in cornering performance. I tried to corner quick on the road, but I didn't feel any difference v the stock spring.

IMO, KW HAS is just for lowering your car while it's maintaining stock feel. If you need better performance, I think you should go for full coilover such as v3.

[Heyeug]

Originally Posted by HiFi

My only issue, is that im still sitting a bit high at the front as i went a conservative drop of 15mm-ish at the front and about 10 mm at the rear (about 140mm clearance of front bumper to ground) so will go back to Trutrack next week for a final adjustment a little lower, which is a great benefit of the HAS - anyone with eibach or HAS setups let me know what height has worked for you around melbourne?.

I had the M perf. HAS installed by TruTrack. The M perf. range is not as large as the KWs but i dropped it about 15mm at the front to preserve my CF lip. I've scrapped it a few times now so any lower will be RIP to the lip. I clear most speed humps by rolling over them but the sudden dip on roads always catches the lip by a tiny bit.

Did you have any issues after install? One of the front strut started creaking every time i go over a bump or turn the wheel. Many weeks and $$$ later, it turned out that the strut was sitting on the axle mount at a slight angle due to the height drop. Just needed lubrication. Oh and I had to replace the shims too... process of elimination during troubleshooting.

[HiFi]

Originally Posted by Heyeug

I had the M perf. HAS installed by TruTrack. The M perf. range is not as large as the KWs but i dropped it about 15mm at the front to preserve my CF lip. I've scrapped it a few times now so any lower will be RIP to the lip. I clear most speed humps by rolling over them but the sudden dip on roads always catches the lip by a tiny bit.

Did you have any issues after install? One of the front strut started creaking every time i go over a bump or turn the wheel. Many weeks and $$$ later, it turned out that the strut was sitting on the axle mount at a slight angle due to the height drop. Just needed lubrication. Oh and I had to replace the shims too... process of elimination during troubleshooting.

No issues so far, no scraping at the height im currently at (630mm from bottom of front wheel to top of guard) but i dont have a front lip on my car.

Why did you have to replace the shims? Im looking at getting the Fall Line Toe LInk Carriers and rear shim kit but that is more for ideal camber/performance benefit than anything else.

[RevNev]

BMW's minimum ride heights to maintain suspension geometry integrity measured from the bottom of the rim to top of guard on 19" wheels is 614mm front and 608mm rear. 20" wheels it's 633mm front and 626mm rear. The Eibach Pro kit (non HAS) lowers the front to the minimum ride height and the rear is 5/6mm higher. The minimum rear ride height is intended for track use as it induces too much negative camber in the rear for optimum tyre wear when used purely as a road car.

If you increase the spring rate on a ZCP car particularly at the rear, it needs the CS EDC software coded in to increase the shock's rebound dampening otherwise they'll skip around in the rear on bumpy corners with the potential for the car to snap sideways unpredictably, in fact the ZCP M4 is a bit too skippy in the rear on bumps particularly sunroof optioned M4's that are fitted with the stiffer CS rear springs without the CS rebound coding. Non ZCP cars don't have the shock valving to make use of the CS EDC coding unfortunately and ultimately require ZCP/CS struts and shocks.

The question arising with the KW HAS over the MPE HAS; are the KW spring rates compatible with the OEM (ZCP/CS) strut and shock valving?

At the minimum front ride height with a CS front spoiler, it's low to the point that I had to re-work my brick paving entry into the garage to prevent the spoiler scraping. Spoilers and lips are vulnerable with lowered cars on driveways, car parks etc.

[Heyeug]

Originally Posted by HiFi

No issues so far, no scraping at the height im currently at (630mm from bottom of front wheel to top of guard) but i dont have a front lip on my car.

Why did you have to replace the shims? Im looking at getting the Fall Line Toe LInk Carriers and rear shim kit but that is more for ideal camber/performance benefit than anything else.

When troubleshooting where the creaking noise was coming from, the shims were replaced to see if that was the problem.

What wheel/tyre combo are you using? I have the 763M/PS4S and at the front the offset was horrendous with the car lowered. I had to put 12mm spacers to make it flush with the fender. Getting a bit of rubbing though

[HiFi]

Originally Posted by Heyeug

When troubleshooting where the creaking noise was coming from, the shims were replaced to see if that was the problem.

What wheel/tyre combo are you using? I have the 763M/PS4S and at the front the offset was horrendous with the car lowered. I had to put 12mm spacers to make it flush with the fender. Getting a bit of rubbing though

Im on the stock 20" 666m wheels but with orignial PSS's (will go PS4s when these are done) - i also have 12mm spacers all round. No rubbing

[Heyeug]

Originally Posted by HiFi

Im on the stock 20" 666m wheels but with orignial PSS's (will go PS4s when these are done) - i also have 12mm spacers all round. No rubbing

Will be interested to see if you get rubbing when you change over.....

[MPoweRo]

I have brand new fall line rear shims that Ralph didn't need to use aligning my car if you're interested.

[HiFi]

Originally Posted by MPoweRo

I have brand new fall line rear shims that Ralph didn't need to use aligning my car if you're interested.

ok cool I'll PM you. do you know what your rear camber setting was? what suspension do you have?

we need to orogsnise this melb meet. I'll post on a new thread ...!

[SE7EN335]

Originally Posted by RevNev

BMW's minimum ride heights to maintain suspension geometry integrity measured from the bottom of the rim to top of guard on 19" wheels is 614mm front and 608mm rear. 20" wheels it's 633mm front and 626mm rear. The Eibach Pro kit (non HAS) lowers the front to the minimum ride height and the rear is 5/6mm higher. The minimum rear ride height is intended for track use as it induces too much negative camber in the rear for optimum tyre wear when used purely as a road car.

If you increase the spring rate on a ZCP car particularly at the rear, it needs the CS EDC software coded in to increase the shock's rebound dampening otherwise they'll skip around in the rear on bumpy corners with the potential for the car to snap sideways unpredictably, in fact the ZCP M4 is a bit too skippy in the rear on bumps particularly sunroof optioned M4's that are fitted with the stiffer CS rear springs without the CS rebound coding. Non ZCP cars don't have the shock valving to make use of the CS EDC coding unfortunately and ultimately require ZCP/CS struts and shocks.

The question arising with the KW HAS over the MPE HAS; are the KW spring rates compatible with the OEM (ZCP/CS) strut and shock valving?

At the minimum front ride height with a CS front spoiler, it's low to the point that I had to re-work my brick paving entry into the garage to prevent the spoiler scraping. Spoilers and lips are vulnerable with lowered cars on driveways, car parks etc.

A lot of people say that the CS EDC works wonders on non ZCP cars though and completely transforms the ride. Wonder how much truth there is to that...