Drop links for KWV 3's...?

[Ed Doe]

When installing adjustable suspension, one should plan on corner balancing and dialing out sway bar preload; otherwise, the suspension modifications will be suboptimal. If it were not for the shorter KW endlinks, one adjustable endlink would be enough to dial out preload.

Oh christ, and I can well imagine that would make a difference to the handling dynamic of a car never driven on track. Come on mate I totally understand why adjustable droplinks are useful, but if the op isn't corner weighting the car, or racking the car, it's not exactly any use is it?

I'd thought you might be able to feel the adjustments on the road, but I've never used adjustable ones tbh.

What are you expecting to feel?

If you corner weight the car, you'll find the suspension may be a slightly different height across the axle. By using adjustable droplinks (or by buying coilovers with adjustable droplink mounting points like intrax for instance), you will effectively then be able to dial out any consequential pre-load on the arb. Will the preload be minimal? Yes. Will you feel that on the road? Very unlikely (imo).

It's just my opinion, for sure do what you feel is right for you, but honestly I would say adjustable droplinks are a waste of time and money unless you're tracking the car and therefore fully corner weighting it after fitting the suspension. If you're just lowering the car a bit and wanting the ride height to be visually equal across the axle then I'd not worry at all.

Just touching on your point regarding droplink length, if you drop the ride height you're effectively lowering the chassis relative to the mounting point on the damper. So the angle between the droplink and the arb will change, and this will affect the effective 'spring rate' of the arb. By reducing the length of the droplink, you bring the arb angle relative to the droplink back to the oe angle, so the rate becomes the same as oe again. Ultimately this is stuff that matters if you're chasing tenths on track - I honestly wouldn't worry a jot for road use.

[john-e89]

Oh christ, and I can well imagine that would make a difference to the handling dynamic of a car never driven on track. Come on mate I totally understand why adjustable droplinks are useful, but if the op isn't corner weighting the car, or racking the car, it's not exactly any use is it?

I'd thought you might be able to feel the adjustments on the road, but I've never used adjustable ones tbh.

What are you expecting to feel?

If you corner weight the car, you'll find the suspension may be a slightly different height across the axle. By using adjustable droplinks (or by buying coilovers with adjustable droplink mounting points like intrax for instance), you will effectively then be able to dial out any consequential pre-load on the arb. Will the preload be minimal? Yes. Will you feel that on the road? Very unlikely (imo).

It's just my opinion, for sure do what you feel is right for you, but honestly I would say adjustable droplinks are a waste of time and money unless you're tracking the car and therefore fully corner weighting it after fitting the suspension. If you're just lowering the car a bit and wanting the ride height to be visually equal across the axle then I'd not worry at all.

Just touching on your point regarding droplink length, if you drop the ride height you're effectively lowering the chassis relative to the mounting point on the damper. So the angle between the droplink and the arb will change, and this will affect the effective 'spring rate' of the arb. By reducing the length of the droplink, you bring the arb angle relative to the droplink back to the oe angle, so the rate becomes the same as oe again. Ultimately this is stuff that matters if you're chasing tenths on track - I honestly wouldn't worry a jot for road use.

No that all makes sense Ed, I'm not going to track it, I don't want it much lower than standard either, I'll stick with OE, thanks for the more detailed insight than I was aware of.

[BMWZ4MC]

I used adjustable drop links with mine only because the OEM drop links are not compatible with the combination of KW Clubsports / H&R ARBs.

[Vanne]

lol, def dont need corner balance for the road.. hell even on track sometimes.. prob spend the cash elsewhere...

[plenty]

I'd thought you might be able to feel the adjustments on the road, but I've never used adjustable ones tbh.

If you're the sort of person who can tell the difference in the way a car handles when it's full of fuel versus half empty, or when you change tyre pressures by 2 psi, you might be able to notice. Most people can't.

[mmm-five]

I'd thought you might be able to feel the adjustments on the road, but I've never used adjustable ones tbh.

If you're the sort of person who can tell the difference in the way a car handles when it's full of fuel versus half empty, or when you change tyre pressures by 2 psi, you might be able to notice. Most people can't.

Not sure about 2PSI or half-full of fuel...but 4-up in an Alfa diesel on Cross-Climates makes it understeer onto the grass at Schwedenkreuz, when 1-up doesn't

[john-e89]

I'd thought you might be able to feel the adjustments on the road, but I've never used adjustable ones tbh.

If you're the sort of person who can tell the difference in the way a car handles when it's full of fuel versus half empty, or when you change tyre pressures by 2 psi, you might be able to notice. Most people can't.

I'm not, never suggested otherwise, what I said was I 'Thought' as above, ...not 'I can'...