I have CompBrake solid spherical top mounts all around which have been without issue for years, recently I had KW V1 installed to my coupe and soon thereafter I noted some knocking and other noises only on the front end.
A quick peek and I found that the bearings had worked their way loose, first one side, and a day later on the other side, even though they were air-gunned on tight as all heck, and the castle nuts on the top mounts have small locking allen threads to hold them on !
Searching around the web found numerous owners of KW V1's (fitted to BMW's and other make cars) with EXACTLY the same issues, which at least according to the you tube videos and threads I read, were essentially due to the coil springs binding and thus applying massive amounts of torque to the top mounts when turning the car, the springs can be heard torquing up as they make a 'sprung metal sound !' and after a little driving this leads to the top mounts loosening.
The V1 don't have upper perches with bearings which would allow freedom from rotation due to the steering position, thus the issue remains not ideally solved without addition of such.. which are found on other better engineered coil-over solutions.
In the threads I found on the subject, spme were able to solve the issue with the addition of a big washer insterted between the upper coil perch and the bottom of the spherical bearing of the top mount.
I'm going to pull the whole lot off tomorrow in the presence of my mechanic and see what can be done to resolve this issue, but wanted to ask any S2 Forum users of the KW V1's with solid top mounts whether they had any similar issues and/or found solutions ?
As I said, this issue is certainly not uncommon according to my trawling of the web, but I've not seen it mentioned on the S2 Forum threads and I searched high and low !!
Here are a couple of related comments to this issue which I found online:
"Solution found !
the perch was loose! There's a little screw that tightens the perch to the thread, and that screw was loose.
After tightening it, the helper springs stay in place. The buckling sound was from the helper springs moving due to the play in the perch.”
"Removing the helper spring will help.Its only purpose is to take up slack when the strut is fully extended.
I would just lose the helper spring. You don't need it. Most kits that have them just have them so they can call themselves TUV certified.
TUV calls for a helper spring IIRC."
A quick peek and I found that the bearings had worked their way loose, first one side, and a day later on the other side, even though they were air-gunned on tight as all heck, and the castle nuts on the top mounts have small locking allen threads to hold them on !
Searching around the web found numerous owners of KW V1's (fitted to BMW's and other make cars) with EXACTLY the same issues, which at least according to the you tube videos and threads I read, were essentially due to the coil springs binding and thus applying massive amounts of torque to the top mounts when turning the car, the springs can be heard torquing up as they make a 'sprung metal sound !' and after a little driving this leads to the top mounts loosening.
The V1 don't have upper perches with bearings which would allow freedom from rotation due to the steering position, thus the issue remains not ideally solved without addition of such.. which are found on other better engineered coil-over solutions.
In the threads I found on the subject, spme were able to solve the issue with the addition of a big washer insterted between the upper coil perch and the bottom of the spherical bearing of the top mount.
I'm going to pull the whole lot off tomorrow in the presence of my mechanic and see what can be done to resolve this issue, but wanted to ask any S2 Forum users of the KW V1's with solid top mounts whether they had any similar issues and/or found solutions ?
As I said, this issue is certainly not uncommon according to my trawling of the web, but I've not seen it mentioned on the S2 Forum threads and I searched high and low !!
Here are a couple of related comments to this issue which I found online:
"Solution found !
the perch was loose! There's a little screw that tightens the perch to the thread, and that screw was loose.
After tightening it, the helper springs stay in place. The buckling sound was from the helper springs moving due to the play in the perch.”
"Removing the helper spring will help.Its only purpose is to take up slack when the strut is fully extended.
I would just lose the helper spring. You don't need it. Most kits that have them just have them so they can call themselves TUV certified.
TUV calls for a helper spring IIRC."
I can't see that it would pose any issue to remove the nut.. but I'm no mechanical engineer... anybody consider this an issue ?
what bearings did you get for those?
) 
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