079: Suspension Setup Secrets From KW’s Head of Motorsport. [

What spring rate should I run? How should I adjust my bump and rebound damping? And how low is too low? We’re always getting asked the same questions when it comes to suspension, so on this episode of Tuned In, we sit down with KW Suspension’s Head of Motorsport Thomas Rechenberg to get some definitive answers from someone who knows his way around a coilover, to say the least.
Use ‘PODCAST75’ for $75 off your first HPA course here: hpcdmy.co/hpa-...
Thomas Rechenberg grew up a mere 50 kilometres from the Nurburgring, and after spending his youth watching all kinds of motorsport at the fabled track, the question of what to do with his life was an easy one.
We kick off this episode by following Thomas’s trajectory as he left school to study mechanical and motorsport engineering before joining famous teams like Zakspeed and VW Racing to work as a tyre technician, a race mechanic, and a specialist engineer. With this sort of resume, podcast host Andre couldn’t resist getting Thomas’ opinion on subjects like tyre heat management and pressure before moving on to the meat and potatoes of the conversation - suspension.
After a stint going out on his own as a gun-for-hire race engineer, Thomas joined KW as its head of motorsport back in 2018, and has since helped develop the company’s race car programs and motorsport-focused coilover offerings. This means he’s the perfect person to get right down into the weeds of suspension, breaking down his thoughts on everything from spring rates, damping, roll centres, and much more.
Thomas also spends time talking us through how the everyday home enthusiast that doesn’t necessarily have access to high-end data-logging equipment or advice from professional drivers and engineers should go about initially setting up and tuning their suspension systems.
Ultimately, how quickly you can drive is always going to come down to the contact patch between your four tyres and the track surface. Suspension plays a massive role in how big that contact patch is at any given time. Want to get a better understanding of suspension systems? This episode of Tuned In with KW’s Thomas Rechenberg is going to be the perfect way to spend a couple of hours.
As discussed in this episode, check out images of the Porsche 963 rear suspension system here: hpcdmy.co/963
Has this conversation inspired you to improve your own car’s handling? Use the discount code ‘THOMASKW50’ to get 50 percent off our Suspension Tuning & Optimization course: hpcdmy.co/alignb
#kwsuspension #coilovers #circuitracing #motorsportengineering #highperformanceacademy #dontletthesmokeout #datanerd #gofasterwithdata #learndriveoptimise #motorsport

[@d3inx251]

38:45 what spring rate should I run? 47:50 stiffer better? 1:22:45 ride height 1:31:20 adjusting ride height on coilover suspension

[@hpa101]

Cheers for taking the time to do that to help a few people out mate! - Taz.

[@stuhill9500]

Kw v1 were vastly better than oem on road, and their v3 were better than 2 other big-name dual road /track day setups I'd had. So when I needed slick race car club sport suspension (that nobody made for that vehicle) Kw got me to send them 1000 measurements, and some of my existing components to Germany. A few weeks later for a very modest bill, they sent me back some one off coil overs that knocked it out the park first time.

[@bmxriderforlife1234]

This is suoer good to know. Have a few projects im working on that could do with some good suspension but very limited on options. Q1 penske or bilstein on the one project are the only 3 coilovers you can use.

[@efernandez8499]

Not boring at all. Technicalities like suspension are never an easy way to explain it and also it is the proper way to talk about it. Kudos to both of you guys for being so thorough.❤❤❤

[@rikomanaro]

This podcast pretty much just sums up and confirms everything I’ve done on a personal special project I had of mine to have a custom set of coilovers special tailored and made to my specs for my STI road / weekend rallyx car! Took me about 5-6 years of getting and studying these exact suspension philosophies, info and data mentioned, as opposed to majority of the big and popular name brand coilovers on the market people tend to recommend and purchase without any research or idea what actually is going on inside and what product they’re really buying into as advertised. After figuring out my chassis corner weights, suspension geometry and motion ratio I want to shoot for, I went through 3 valving revisions and 3 sets of different spring length and rates, now with helper spring to achieve my final product!

[@Flowermouth]

Got any must reads for chassis tuning that gave you some eureka moments? I generally get the gist of the bigger picture but I’m finding it hard to piece it all together to move towards informed decisions for calculating what changes to actually make.

[@StreetDreamzTT]

Really think i gotta start taking notes for yhe first listen. Do some research then listen again. Ive never experienced such an in depth look into different parts of the car. These podcasts are gold.

[@stuhill9500]

Fantastic guest, brilliantly interviewed. A genius used to conversing with experts, steered by an expert to make the subject mater understandable fir us amateurs.👍

[@customzdream]

Never a boring guess. Amazing the guest you get. Feel real bless to be able a hear such guess talking openly.

[@hpa101]

Cheers mate! We do too! The team knows & appreciates that we're very lucky to get people of this calibre who are willing to share their experience 😎

[@killintime1311]

Enough of the long videos comments...idk way but longer the videos the better,as LONG as it's fresh and engaging. Us OG Tubers, longer the better . Sry never rele comment but been here from the jumpz.... $4k you shouldn't accepted u paid that in Port fees he lied about I kno the position u in, so anything is better than nothing, and I loved the fact you said blessing in disguise. Just some out of content and everything you created plus the knowledge and skillman ship you are earning on The daily and into the future 3 years in that hell of a lot more to go

[@brian_dc2]

Fantastic content! Exactly the technicality i love to hear spoken about

[@racingdatasystems3708]

I’d like Thomas to confirm what I found in the KW Dampers supplied to the 2016 Porsche GT4ClubSport within a month of its release. I’m a super early adopter of KW shocks. We tested and got them approved in 2010 for Porsche 997GT3 Cup cars.

[@bmxriderforlife1234]

How would you rate their dampers? Working on a few builds. One if things work out is gonna be a superlite slc. Suspension is like the only thing i dont have fully sorted in the build plan though, and trying to get it dialed enough i can play with cup cars even with a roughly 600pb weight penalty.

[@ReubenSchoots]

I have just listened from episode 1 all the way through to this episode with Thomas Rechenberg. Straight into the guts of what I want to hear and learn as an enthusiast. Please don't stop making these. I enjoyed the first course I took from HPA so much that I have just purchased a second. From Canberra Australia, thank you Andre and team.

[@hpa101]

Thanks so much for the feedback and support Reuben! We plan to keep cranking these out weekly for you fellas as long as we can 😎

[@twostorywood]

What a brilliant episode! This channel feeds my soul every week and this interview just goes to so many fascinating places of deep motorsport tuning theory. ❤

[@denisbassom172]

Impressed with Thomas, would probably consider KW dampers after this.

[@StreetDreamzTT]

With regards to the being boring comment at the end. Dude!!! I gotta do some research and ill listen again. We need more!

[@hpa101]

Stoked you enjoyed this one mate! Some people find it hard to get excited about this stuff compared to bolting on turbos etc, but others like yourself froth it, great to see and thanks for the comments 😎 - Taz.

[@StreetDreamzTT]

@@hpa101 😎👍

[@blackCamaro833]

Thomas saying unfortunately that car was built by multimatic. Shots fired

[@lornefrancis9231]

That little truck looks wicked I bin wanting one bad but I was waiting till I seen a real review like yours I got the rlaarlo 1/12 buggy because it was hiped to death but so far I am not really impressed at least I got it pretty cheep with the deal they had on it first .I like the metal chassey on that little truck and it didn't look like it got to hot on 3s so that is always good

[@jacobwells618]

GD‼️ You guys nailed it this time! I will never stop listening‼️🤓

[@hpa101]

Cheers mate! Appreciate that!

[@bilaltariq7819]

Not sure about this one Andre. Felt like you guided the conversation too much to the point where you were stating things and asking Thomas to agree or disagree. Imo it would've been more interesting to ask more open eneded questions about the philosophies and principles that Kw and Thomas use and add in your understanding with his explanations. It seemed like he wanted to speak about different suspension modes and modern damper construction which are topics there isn't much information on the Internet about.

[@Rollin8.0]

I hate to criticise (especially since this is free!) but I have to agree.

[@bilaltariq7819]

@@Rollin8.0 I think criticism is good, as long as it's genuine and not in a nasty way. I love this channel and think they're doing great work and I think they'd appreciate peoples genuine feedback

[@Talynen]

Yes, I partially agree. I think the interview we got is helpful for validating the information seen in the Mike kojima episode and HPA's own courses, but I was also really interested by the damper construction topics and would have loved to learn more about some areas HPA hasn't covered already. Perhaps a suggestion for the future is to work at being more comfortable "playing the fool" (i.e., letting the guest go into niche topics but being willing to ask the "obvious" questions needed to get the kind of clarifications that make such topics accessible for a less educated audience. It seemed like he was nervous to discuss areas where he couldn't come off as knowledgeable (as someone who has exactly that same hangup).

[@martinrodger9565]

I’ll bite as the example hobbyist on ride height travel. 😂 The example of gt86 suspension going to softer springs. Is this not simply increasing static sag due to the car weight not changing so you will lose compression travel as you have gone way out of your spring window for your fixed car weight? If you wind in preload, yes the spring rate remains linear from the point of sag. You could risk early coil bind before achieving full damper rod travel when loaded up depending on spring length and rate versus damper rod travel - that’s a horrible bottom out ahead of the damper bump stop solution and reduced travel. Lots of preload will also alter the the initiation of the suspension from full droop as it takes an increased force to initiate any travel. This will be a harsher initiation to travel than having very little preload and could affect traction at full extension. I think there is a bit more to it than straight BC type advice and straight Andre method due to considerations above. Using a spring of near half the rate of the one that gives you the right static sag with minimal preload, winding preload far in, does not sound like a great idea. BC etc are usually sold with a spring rate which is deemed in a suitable window for sag in that vehicle application so I can understand their advice - the damping window should also be setup around that advised spring rate. So again wild sweeps in spring rate with a set tune on a damper is probably not a great idea. Yes you have adjusters but adjuster orifices and shim stack pre load can only give you so large a window over a certain range of spring before you have a mismatch between spring and damper.

[@CarlDSLR]

My car was KN6 before it was repainted. It's a weird color. Looks different under different light.

[@vollcare4076]

One basics question nobody ever could really answer me: If I put/adjust a V3 damper to the same compression and rebound damping rate/curve as it is in a (non adjustable) V1 or V2 damper, does the V3 suspension drives the same as the V1 ?!

[@RaceAlliance]

No not exactly valve is a little bit different.

[@vollcare4076]

@@RaceAlliance i understand that a V3 valve is differently built as a V1 or V2. But if I adjust the V3 to the same compression & rebound values as it’s on a (non adjustable) V1 why do both V3 and V1 drive differently ? Is it ‚just‘ the high speed (bypass) valve Finten V3 which the V1 doesn’t have maybe ? So is the V3 mainly/only superior to a V1 when you have. high Speed Event such as a pothole etc ?!

[@bilaltariq7819]

@@vollcare4076 shocks also have hysteresis and the performance of the shock changes with oil temperature and cavitation, i.e. the way the damper is designed and built changes how "good" it is. On a shock dyno it might have the same curve but as conditions change the V3 might remain closer to the expected curves and the cheaper ones might not. It all depends and it's where a lot of testing time goes to

[@baribari600]

The reason you ran out of compression on your 86 was probably spring length, not because of the adjustment instructions were wrong. Using preload to adjust ride height is silly.

[@gothicpagan.666]

Nice one guys

[@Kortec_Racing]

thomas basically rechenberg