Living out of town for work leaves me very little time to get work done on my car but as my Ksports came in last week I made a concerted effort to get it done. Along with the coilovers I ordered a set of replacement headlight housings and picked up a set of Moog sway bar endlinks to try to eliminate the squeaks and clunks in my suspension.

The Ksports went in effortlessly (thanks to a compressor and impact wrench)... the thing that took the most time was all the adjusting. Kept having to take the wheels off to adjust height then finally try to get my alignment as close to spec as possible to keep my tires from tearing apart until I can get to an alignment shop. I came directly from a stock setup with functioning springs/shocks so I can't compare the Ksports to an ordinary spring/shock swap. The height of the car you see here is actually higher than when it started out - I actually raised it as far as I dared to in the front for fear that I would run out of threads on the strut! I still think its a bit too low but I'll have to live with it as I have no access to the impact wrench anymore and the alignment is coming Wednesday.

I have a couple "turns" of preload in all four corners as I read in the Ksport thread that people are having some issues with keeping their springs in compression while under full extension. I set the dampening to full as recommended by doodfood and Mr. Duck. The ride I must say is harsh. Not alot of bounce, but absolutely NO forgiveness. You will (or could) feel every little bump and rut in the road. I will be playing around with my dampening and preloads to see if I can improve the ride. As for performance, the car is solidly on RAILS. Being that I have a Progress sway bar I could just about break the rear wheels free with enough speed and some tight turns. I can definitely hear the sidewalls of the tires (stock rims) when manuevering some tight turns.

But enough with the words on with the pictures!







Headlights (before)


Headlights (after)

I must say the new headlight housings are a HUGE improvement in visibility. I will eventually do the AE mod and perhaps a set of projectors are in my future.

 

How hard was the K-Sports to install... I am interested in do it, but I definetly don't have air tools. And my car has been in New England all its life... I don't have a jack, well other then the one in my trunk. I prolly could do it...but i am not sure...

 

Where did you get the new headlights? What brand? How much?

 

very nice, drop looks great and dealights are crystal clear.

 

New England is rough on cars. You can do it, but at the very least you're going to need a cheater bar and/or a breaker bar. A long pipe does wonders if you don't have an impact wrench. The disassembly/reassembly is very straight forward. One thing I would suggest that I haven't heard from too many people doing this swap is to mark your current alignment somehow by either measuring to a reference point or scratching some marks into the spindle or the strut mount for the location of the bolts to make the reassembly match your previous alignment as close as possible. I neglected to mark my spindle and I ended up fooling around with my camber and toe as the movement of the spindle changes both.

The headlights I picked up at headlightswholesale.com. The housings were about $80 each and I don't know the brand but they fit and look just like OEM.

 

Lookin good man, mad props.
How much are the K Sports runnin now and days?,
if there close to the 740 shipped I might be makin an order this week.
Let me know man I anxious to know i finnaly got 780 saved in my bank.

 

looks good and good work but take some pictures on some pavement, the gravel makes your car look dirty and higher up from the ground in my opinion. And loose the bike rack thing if your not using it, makes the car look like its an suv. Other than that, props on all the installs and nice looking max

 

The Ksport GD ended in May and now I believe theyre up to their original prices which is around a grand or so.

I'll get more pictures eventually, but this was a sunset shot and I wanted to take advantage. The bikerack I use all the time so its staying. And the car is actually quite dirty.