Another question about AST coilovers

[mbarnes]

Ok, so still unsure as to coilovers blah blah blah.

Car is a Clio 197.

I notice Kam Racing list Sportline II and Sportline I kits.

Now there is only 70quid difference between the two kits.

The sportline I are 1,489 (without top mounts) and the Sportline II are 1,552 without top mounts.

The only difference i can see is the more expensive ones have a 45mm front shaft, and the cheaper have a 22mm front. Does anyone know of any other differences.

They both seem to be 12point adjustable for compression and rebound (although one knob to do both, whereas the KW v3s have two seperate adjusters).

With the V3's at 1200 inc vat is there much difference?

I like the idea of a proper real coilover unit, but on the flip side, often hear bad things about AST reliability.

So:

what are the differences between Sportline I and Sportline II and are either better than v3 kw's?

 

[Fred@BTM]

KW's all day long IMO, i don't rate the AST stuff for the 172/182

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

The KW v1s are about £700 I think, so a much cheaper alternative, but you loose adjustable dampening.

Im still debating this at the moment too

 

[mbarnes]

yeah, i like the adjustability, even if once professionally setup i dont change it, to actually be able to tailor it for the car and use will be a benefit.

I dont mind buying any of the 3 listed but dont want to make the wrong choice. I do worry about the quality of AST stuff, but then there are as many people saying buy it, as dont buy it.

 

[Dan R]

KW's all day long IMO, i don't rate the AST stuff for the 172/182

because yozza sell them u mean!! lmfao. god im glad ive got a megane!!!
Loved the clio but GOD this forum is painful at times.....

 

[d4ve86]

What do u mean at times Dan ... More like All the time! I've just sold my LEDAs for an AST sportline 2 kit so I hoping it's a bit of an improvement and in Freds defence if he was still workin with Yoz he would be plugging the PSS10 kit....

 

[Slammed172]

Thought you were selling up fullstop D4ve ?

 

[Fred@BTM]

D4ve will tell you i've never liked LEDA either!

yozza has f**k all to do with this, unlike some of the companies out there i only sell stuff i rate, i only sell KW, H&R, Bilstein, Eibach and Koni, all proper TUV approved stuff, sorry Dan, but AST's are close but no cigar which is annoying, they could be "the best" but their front setup ain't right, i've told you that numerous times!

Bilstein is hard to beat, i know one of their test drivers (prodrive) and i know a few of the development engineers, what do i know though? i'm only a clio specialist

 

[d4ve86]

who said you were a specialist Fred ... I know you dont like the LEDA's but they are very good and im sure a new set with coilovers all round would be great, i also agree with you (again i know!!!) that the front dampers on the AST's worry me, ive only used th rears before and they were good, hopefully Mark Fish will be able to get a good set up going for me!

No real interest in the car so ive sold half of it to a mate and were using it as a track car for a few years, trailering it etc

 

[Fred@BTM]

i'm just special! LOL

 

[mbarnes]

whats up with the front ast dampers then?

 

[drhowser]

whats up with the front ast dampers then?

spring rates i think?

i'd say go for the kw's myself, they are the best quality set i've used.
worth it just for this..

http://www.kw-suspension.co.uk/salt-spray-test.htm

 

[Fred@BTM]

too hard on the front

 

[172Ben]

The rear AST's are great though!

 

[Tom@JMS]

Personal opinion from an owners point of view - I think they provide excellent performance & adjustability, well matched springs and damping rates if correctly valved - providing OEM comfort on the road, with minimal roll and pitch under weight transfer - I couldn't ask for much more if I'm honest.

However that said I also think some of the aspects like the useless helper springs and the dirt ingression into the rear adjustment collar are all issues that should not have been there in the first place.

sorry Dan, but AST's are close but no cigar which is annoying, they could be "the best" but their front setup ain't right, i've told you that numerous times!

Don't forget fred this is your opinion on how a car should behave based on your preferences... I think to say that they ain't right is a bit of a sweeping statement if I'm honest?

 

[Fred@BTM]

but compare them to all the german stuff!

i can list probably 10 people that agree with me! 4 have switched to KW's, one was the prodrive test engineer (aka test pilot, every special road car to come out of prodrive in the past 10years my mate did the suspension on) and the others are pretty well motorsport based (hi Tony!)

as i said they could be bollock on out the box, they just need to soften up the fronts a fair bit!

 

[Tom@JMS]

I think I'll stick with my own experience of them, not your mates

I think Tony may have used Jays car on incorrectly valved front shocks IIRC, I remember jay mentioning something along those lines, in fact I don't think THE original Burpspeed car had correctly valved front dampers and springs?

 

[Fred@BTM]

pass fella, Tony knows how to drive and he didn't rate them, and i'm relativley confident in setting up cars after 8 years of cocking about in motorsport i'd hope i have a fair idea of how to set stuff up

but you've just confirmed my point though, the dampers were incorrectly valved (i assume out of the box) from the offset!

 

[Tom@JMS]

Jay fitted stiff springs to a soft valved set IIRC?

I believe the intial batch that were produced were half finished in a rush (which was as you rightly point out was a mistake!) and the valving was not right for the 350lb springs, Curtis then addressed with with a stiff & soft set valved to suit.

Either way I have no complaints about my setup from a road and occasional track day point of view (valved to suit the hard springs) and I am yet to hear any from anyone else with the correctly valved setups (apart from your good-self & aforementioned mates )

 

[Fred@BTM]

whatever suits you sir, see you on track, i'll be the one coming past you (joke!)

 

[Aron]

Im another one who would say the AST's can be too stiff on the front. Driven on both the sportline II's and KW V2's would much prefer the V2's. 100% better on the road then on track was much nicer.

 

[ForceIndia]

Plus one on the ast's. They aren't shocking, but they aren't right out of the box. Dan won't hear a bad word said about ast, he'll deny the setup could be better, dent there's a problem with the rear adjuster, deny the plastic rear collar was an issue.
What bothers me is that they knew the rear collar is a problem (snapping). Mine were completely split. I'd consider that a fairly important issue, both interms of quality and safety. But they didn't contact owners running the plastic collars, despite knowing of the issue.

As far as the setup goes, personal preference. But I can tell you 100%, I'm quicker on the kw's.

 

[Gray]

KW's FTW!

 

[drhowser]

from listening to peoples comments it sounds like the high speed bump value is/was too hard.

how do the ast's adjust, are there seperate controls for bump and rebound? does anyone know if they have a seperate value for high and low speed movement?

 

[Phil @ P5]

ASTs (1-way), like most of the rest, use a needle bleed valve by way of adjustment that effects both bump and rebound in low/high speed. The trouble with that is that you often find that one area is correct whilst the others are not. From what I've seen, a lot of these adjustable dampers use the adjustment as a way of negating any model specific R&D. A proper R&D'd fixed damper will spank and single/double adjustable off-the-shelf.

There is a place for adjustability, but it needs to adjust the right parts of the damping curve, ideally just one, and have no cross-talk and be linear. For the ultimate, think 4-way adjustable

Phil

 

[Tom@JMS]

Ah the BTM brigade have arrived lol

As you say warren, these issues should never have been there to start with, I had a ali front collar fail on mine on the second day of ownership and had to get over to tewkesbury to get a replacement. In ASTs defense all the replacement parts were free of charge.

I believe the issue arose from the fact that the soft valved dampers were matched with high rate springs, yes essentially making the rebound to fast at both low & high speed.

 

[mbarnes]

cheers for the feedback guys. Certainly sounds a topic with strong opinions. I love the kw gear for its durability etc. I am not sure how track focused it is vs road focused but hey. The appeal of the ast is a proper rear coilover unit which kw dont offer. If kw did a v4 with rear coilover i would have bought it. To be fair kw are s**t at helping customers too. I have had more info from ast than kw. Kw couldnt even tell me whether their competition spec stuff had proper coilover rear.

 

[Fred@BTM]

i have a brigade! awesome

mbarnes are you delaing with KW uk or KW zee germans?

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

Hmmm...very intereting thread. When I get coilies, im torn between KWs and ASTs.

Still not sure which!

 

[ForceIndia]

Let's be honest, there's a few people on here that have experience of racing, suspension development etc. I've not heard a positive comment re ast from many (any?) of them.
I'm sure of you have the time/money/inclination they could produce a cracking kit. Out of the box, mine didn't work, on either spring options. I could of had it sorted, by revalving etc, but that meant putting my faith/cash in a company that couldn't align my car.
Have you driven the v2's Tom?

 

[Tom@JMS]

i have a brigade! awesome

hmm on second thoughts, having met Warren brigade sounds a bit manly, lets go with the BTM village people

 

[drhowser]

that is kind of what i'm getting at. so there is one adjuster for both bump and rebound?
i'm asking because i had a gaz kit a long time ago with this system and had real issues with the ratio.

for me a track set up needs to have a fairly low high speed value with a higher low speed value.

so for instance if you hit a curb there is flexibility and the car is less unsettled, but through a corner it stays solid with less roll.

 

[Tom@JMS]

Have you driven the v2's Tom?

No I haven't mate, but I would like too. Your right about the valving aspect costing extra money, if you received one of the early sets that were not quite right, you are looking at more £age to get them right, when they should have just been that way in the first place.

 

[Dan R]

too hard on the front

change the spring rates to how you like them then!!! Its hardly fu**ing rocket science!!! if ur so great with suspension then u shud be able to get them how u like them. everyones ****OPINION*** at the end of the day.

 

[Dan R]

Plus one on the ast's. They aren't shocking, but they aren't right out of the box. Dan won't hear a bad word said about ast, he'll deny the setup could be better, dent there's a problem with the rear adjuster, deny the plastic rear collar was an issue.
What bothers me is that they knew the rear collar is a problem (snapping). Mine were completely split. I'd consider that a fairly important issue, both interms of quality and safety. But they didn't contact owners running the plastic collars, despite knowing of the issue.

As far as the setup goes, personal preference. But I can tell you 100%, I'm quicker on the kw's.

thats not true. if u dont like the setup then change them to how u like them. They are well manufactured and am pretty sure im right in saying that the whole point of a decent coilover is that u have the ability to change them to how YOU like them.

 

[Fred@BTM]

i'm on about OUT OF THE BOX! you don't have to change rates on zee german stuff, that's what i'm on about, zee germans bothered with R&D, AST seem to of skipped that stage

 

[Dan R]

Hmmm...very intereting thread. When I get coilies, im torn between KWs and ASTs.

Still not sure which!

just buy a megane. mine walks all over the clio lol

 

[Dan R]

i'm on about OUT OF THE BOX! you don't have to change rates on zee german stuff, that's what i'm on about, zee germans bothered with R&D, AST seem to of skipped that stage

ill leave u guys to it. im not fussed tbh. each to their own as they. if u dont like them dont buy them!! but dont witter and moan about it lol

 

[riz]

Hmmm...very intereting thread. When I get coilies, im torn between KWs and ASTs.

Still not sure which!

Having driven both, i would get the KW's. I didnt like the AST's fro fast road use.

 

[Dan R]

i'm on about OUT OF THE BOX! you don't have to change rates on zee german stuff, that's what i'm on about, zee germans bothered with R&D, AST seem to of skipped that stage

have u driven on the new ones tho?? the ones i had replaced with them revalved with different rebound settings? like ive said before, if ur going to use it on the road and on track sometimes have the softer setup