Testing & Developing the new KW Clubsport Coilover Suspension for the 2020 Corvette C8 – With Videos

The Reputation of KW Suspension

In this article and video, we’re sharing the work we’ve been doing with KW suspension to develop the coilover kit for the 2020 C8 Corvette. Now you might be familiar with KW suspension. They’re one of the leaders in aftermarket suspension for street and racing applications, best known for their Variant 3 coilover kit. The V3 coilovers are a street damper, but very capable at the racetrack as well. 

For our C8 Corvette, we’ve been developing the Clubsport version of their coilover, which is like the inverse of the V3: a track/racing-oriented damper, which is also comfortable enough to drive on the street. Like the Variant 3, it has independent compression and rebound damping controls, ride height adjustments, and it comes in right around the same price point, which for this car will probably be somewhere in the $3,000 price range. 

That pricing is not yet finalized, but it will be very soon. And when it is, of course, you’ll be able to buy it here at www.motoroso.com because we are a KW Factory Elite authorized dealer. We can be reached on Live Chat, or at 1.833.MOTOROSO for all your KW Suspension needs, and over 1,000,000 other top name brand products.  

Testing & Developing the KW Clubsport Coilovers Video – On Track at Buttonwillow Raceway:

The First Step: Establish a Baseline – Buttonwillow Testing with Dai Yoshihara

The first step of this development process with KW was a track day out at Buttonwillow Raceway in Bakersfield, CA. They had us bring our car out, which was a Z51 with the magride suspension. And they had another Corvette which already had developed Variant 3’s on it, and they also brought out a set of the first iteration of the clubsport kit to be swapped into the other car. The goal was to compare those side-by-side with our magride suspension. To do that, they had professional driver Dai Yoshihara in attendance. Dai has 20 years of experience in formula drift and time attack, so the man knows what he’s doing. 

Dai spent the day driving both vehicles and all three different combinations of the suspension and giving his feedback to the KW team. Dai admitted that he thought the Z51 magride suspension was super impressive. It sounded like he didn’t expect to be as impressed with it as he was, so that was cool to see, and a testament to the effort Chevrolet has put into magride. The biggest thing Dai found to be a hindrance to the car’s performance was the fact that magride is always trying to predict what’s happening based on the inputs that are coming into the suspension sensors. In response, it’s always changing the damping using its unique technology. It is constantly changing how the shock moves through its stroke, versus the way a traditional mechanical damper works. A mechanical damper is very predictable… when you tune it to do something, it’s going to do exactly that in every situation. That predictability was a key variable for Dai to feel comfortable throwing the car into corners, and getting on the throttle when he wanted to. Once on the KW Suspension, Dai was able to produce significantly quicker lap times, although we didn’t get to see the actual numbers. 

Alex Gets Behind the Wheel of the C8 Corvette at Buttonwillow Raceway

After Dai got a couple of sessions in the car to feel out the magride, he spent most of his time driving the other car and giving the KW engineers feedback. That meant that I got to take the car out on track. Now, I know the Buttonwillow track very well. I’ve turned hundreds of laps here, but all of it has been on a motorcycle. Most of my experience is on motorcycles, and this was only the second time I’ve ever driven any car on a racetrack at all. It’s also the first time I’ve had a chance to drive the C8 Corvette at speed on a racetrack. I know…. I’m spoiled. Naturally, I wanted to take it easy, not push past the limit and making any significant mistakes and damage this fantastic machine. 

I did manage to get the lap time of 2:14, which is not fast by any means, but for a novice driver and being new to a car like this, I felt pretty good about it. I was now excited to see what I can do in a car with better suspension, brakes, and proper tires. It was very clear to me that the gap in the performance on this car is the brakes. I noticed this on the street, I’ve said it in one of our earlier videos, and I feel like the Z51 performance brakes are just not fantastic. Out on track, the Z51 brakes tended to fade rapidly after 5-6 laps, which was very concerning. It’s abundantly clear that we’re going to need to upgrade the C8 Corvette brakes very soon if we intend to keep pushing at the racetrack. Which… we do.  

KW Headquarters – Visit & Installation of the Clubsport Coilovers

A couple of weeks later, we headed out to Clovis, California to KW’s US headquarters, about two hours from San Luis Obispo, where we are. In this huge facility they do all of their research, design, development, engineering, marketing, storage, and shipping, while most of the manufacturing takes place back at their global headquarters in Germany. The team was awesome. We got to hang out with them all day, talk cars, technology, and get a real behind-the-scenes look at how KW brings these excellent products to market. In addition, we installed the last iteration of the clubsport coilovers on our Corvette and we made a step by step installation video of that, you can explore that in the video below.

2020 Corvette Coilover Suspension Installation Guide Video:

New Tires & Back to Buttonwillow for Testing with Bryan Heitkotter

With our installation done, we left the KW team and headed home to San Luis Obispo. Back in SLO we installed a set of Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 Tires, and then we went straight back out to Buttonwillow Raceway to put the C8 through the paces on track again. This time the test driver was Bryan Heitkotter. You might recognize that name because he made headlines when he won the GranTurismo GT Academy competition, which earned him a one-year contract driving with Nissan professionally in Europe. Bryan also has 10 SCCA autocross championships here in the USA, so the guy really knows what he’s doing when he’s behind the wheel. So, we handed the keys over to Bryan and he spent the whole day putting the pedal down in the C8 and giving feedback to the KW engineering team. He started the day in the 2:06’s, but ultimately got it down to a 1:58, which is legitimately quick, no surprise. I can only imagine if he was actually racing the car, considering this was just a development day where he’s trying to feel everything and give feedback. 

He kept saying this car is “really, really capable”. At the beginning of the day, he said the car’s rear felt a little light and was stepping out. With a few clicks of the dampers, the engineers were able to get the thing sticking to the ground perfectly. Bryan said in his experience with mid-engine cars, this is pretty common: as you’re getting off the throttle when going into a turn, the rear starts to feel light. It makes sense. The car is over-steering because there’s a lot more weight in the back of the car. His most significant compliment to the Corvette engineering team was that they seem to have done a great job designing that behavior out. By the end of the day, Bryan was calling the new Corvette “Refined and Seamless”. So he is obviously very impressed with the car. 

Alex Goes Back on Track With the KW Coilovers

Of course, I got to drive the car as well. In my previous sessions, I had done a 2:14 on the magride suspension and the stock run-flat tires. In my first session this time around I put down a 2:08, session 2 I got it down to a 2:0! Now that was an eight second drop in my lap times. I think the tires probably had something to do with that, but it was really the feedback from the suspension that I noticed the most. It was so much more predictable, and I could really feel what the car was doing. Even as a novice, I could feel so much more, it was massively noticable and it gave me that extra confidence, especially in the high speed corners where you’re really trying to feel the grip and control that slide. 

Blown Away. Broken Brakes.

So I am blown away. I can’t wait to drive it more. The thing that held us back from doing more time out there was the hot 104 degree temperature, and the brakes really started to fade. Towards the end of the day, we even started getting some wobble from the steering wheel and it feels like maybe the rotors were beginning to warp. So, clearly braking is a problem. We do have plans to solve this by working with Brembo, and we’re going to have the first set of Brembo GT brakes on the new C8 Corvette application. We’ve already got that on the books. 

Next Up: Laguna Seca Trackday in the C8 

Tomorrow we’re going to Laguna Seca for a track day. So the brakes that are on the car, they’re coming with us. We’re going to have to suffer through the reduced braking performance, but we can’t wait to enjoy the coilovers on the car, at a cooler track like Laguna Seca. Laguna is one of my favorite racetracks in the world and that video is coming up next. 

READ & WATCH THE LAGUNA SECA TRACKDAY ARTICLE AND VIDEO HERE

Thanks for reading, and of course when you’re ready to shop for your KW suspension, hit us up at www.motoroso.com on live chat, or call us at 1.833.MOTOROSO (1.833.668.6767).