Quote:
Originally Posted by spxxx
Really don't know why these aren't the go-to coilover for dual duty cars. Throw a swift spring in back and you have a great track capable setup for sub-$1500
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This is the million dollar question. Seems ST/KW don't really attempt to do much marketing on them is my guess. They are just fairly unknown. FWIW I also don't know of any distributor that has the XTA in US stock so maybe that plays a part as well? People want their suspension right away?!
Now on to a sort of unrelated fun fact about this whole ST/KW thing:
I have a buddy with an LS powered 350z that I track with. He has been on OTS Koni Yellows and swift springs for a while. They ride pretty well, and do a reasonably good job on the track too, he paid maybe $1000-1200 for the whole setup I believe.
2 years later he decides to switch to R-Comps so he was looking to increase his spring rate a bit and it turns out he would need the Konis revalved as he was at the top of his adjustment range. So he started looking at getting new springs + revalving his Konis, and it starts to get a little pricey. Instead he considers getting a whole new setup that's actually a coilover and sees good reviews on KW for his car so starts his searches there. Well enough searching and we find that STs are essentially a value KW. But we don't like the spring choices for his car. Then we find Greddy (yea the JDM parts guys) spec and rebrand KW/ST for his car as well!!! And in this case Greddy creates a coilover set that is essentially an XTA but they do a much better job of going through the ST/KW parts bin and spec higher rated springs and valving that's suited to his setup and track work. We looked up and down for *anyone* running the Greddy/ST/KW setup on a 350z and come up empty handed. He ended up taking a risk and bought them (for something stupid cheap like $1200 since he had a hookup).
What do you know... they come straight from KW in Germany like my XTAs did but are colored purple and yellow or whatever Greddy's colors are and come in a Greddy branded box. He swaps them on and calls me telling me they work better both on and off-track! So instead of paying like $800 to revalve and spring what he had, he pays $1200 and gets a brand new set of suspension with true height adjust-ability, spherical mounts, the spring/damping combo he wants, and prefers the ride quality and performance over the Koni setup he had!
Of course now he can make a bunch of his money back by selling his koni setup. In the end he pays WAYYY less to upgrade, and gets more performance.
This is my guess about the whole KW/ST/Greddy/(are there others???) love triangle thing:
KW company starts out by designing and manufacturing a good medium to medium-high performance damper. They spend a bunch of $$ on R&D, tooling, marketing, etc. and establish for themselves a very good name.
However the high end market ultimately just isn't *that* big. The R&D and tooling on this stuff has already been paid for and thus the margins are actually quite high. They start eyeing the mid-range and low-end market and realize that with some tweaks here and there they figure they can sell in higher volumes, make a little less margin and still be happy with overall ROI...
BUT they need to protect the KW name, and need to prevent market overlap and cannibalization of a higher end product by a mid-range product. So they decide to make a sub-brand. Create the Toyota, when they started with Lexus if you will. Hence they enter the low/mid-range markets under a different name such as ST and appears, under some form of contract, they are also brand labeling with other established entities such as Greddy. This is all just a theory, but very interesting when you look at the data anyways.