Hi
I am buying a new suspension kit for my r56.
Now i have just H&R springs on stock suspension, and its not good on cornerig.
Can you please tell me if you have any experiance with bilstein b14 becouse my friend has a kw3, and i want something simmilar to that. Is a bilstein b14 simmilar on track or cornering to kw3.

thanks!

 

Don't know much about the Bilstein b14s, but it really depends on what you do with your car. Are you tracking it? If it's just a daily driver, the KW V3's are totally overkill, unless you're going to add endlinks, and really know how to dial in bound/rebound properly, which most of don't.

The KW V2's are great, I have them, and I track the car a bit. Great dual duty coilover, and you can adjust the dampening to your liking, which most of us CAN do. Even the V1's may fit your needs. Like I said, really depends on what you are doing with your car.

 

Sometimes im tracking it. I know that kw v2 will be enough for me but for now i can get kw v3, and bilstein b14 but with bilstein you cant set the hardness. Becouse of that, i want know how hard are they i need them for fast sundays ride and sometimes for tracking.

 

how easy is it to adjust the KW V2's? Do you have to remove the suspension to do so?

 

Great question, forgot to mention this!

The fronts adjust very easy, right through the strut tower with an allen wrench.

The rears are tricky. There was talk that KW was working on a variant where you could adjust the dampening from the rear wheel well (In fact, in the instruction sheet, it shows this), but on mine, the adjustment, like the fronts, is on the top of the coilover. So....I had a hole drilled above my shock towers for easy access. Only other way is to remove it, like you mentioned.

So you have to set the rears to where you want them off the bat, or drill holes to get at them. I like being able to change for the street and track, so I drilled the holes...

 

I have the TSW KW2s and I love them. Great for street driving and for some HPDE and autocross too.

I was going to drill a hole in the back as well to access the adjustment valve. Do you mind snapping a pic for those of us (me included) to use as a guide so we'll know exactly where to drill.

And to the OP, I highly recommend the KWs. I don't have experience with the Billsteins but word is they are also very good.

 

You should really check out our TSW spec'd KW's we have both V2's and V3's with specific matched springs for different MINI's. So you will get something put together for a MINI, not just an off the shelf setup from KW. We've had alot of success with these and you will too. If you have questions just give us a call.

WAY

 

I'll snap a pic this weekend, have a bunch of stuff to do on the car. Don't know how well it will show up though--Rollbar went in at the same time, and the interior went back over the top of that--so to get to the holes, you go through those rear rectangle storage thingies in the back. In other words, you have to put the allen wrench in by feel rather than by sight, so I'm not sure how well a picture will show the holes. I'll try to give some reference points though.

 

Thanks!

 

Hi,

Bilstein and KW are both excellent quality off the shelf coilovers that will are similar in performance and durability.

The B14's (more commonly known as PSS) are height adjustable only, and are not adjustable for damping. However, they can be revalved by a bilstein specialist. These are similar to the KW variant 1.

Mini owners more commonly use the Bilstein PSS9 or PSS10 series (B16). These are adjustable for damping by a single adjuster (combined bump and rebound) as well as height adjustable. These are similar to the kw variant 2. One advantage of the bilsteins is they are easily adjustable within a minute, as the rear adjusters are mounted on the bottom of the shock, so you can adjust these without jacking the car or drilling a hole in the top of the shock tower.

The KW variant 3 allows 2 way adjustment, with individual adjustment for rebound and compression. This allows fine tuning of shock adjustment, but is really beyond the scope (or knowledge) of 99% of users. If you don't know the difference between rebound and compression then there is no point paying the extra over the V2 IMHO.

Both bilstein and kw are excellent products, and it probably more depends on $$, availability and who you are going to get to install and service them

Robbo