K Sport PRO Kontrol Plus 2 Way Coilovers

Proper suspension set up is crucial to being successful on the track, or for a comfortable commute. We’ve seen a lot of different types of suspension for this platform over the years, lowering spring kits, conventional coilovers, and now something more track oriented has hit the market and we’ve been testing it all season. K Sport has always been at the forefront of product innovation across many platforms, their dedication to racing is unparalleled in the industry and we can see that with their recent release of a 2 way adjustable coilover system featuring an external reservoir that provides adjustability for rebound and compression with nitrogen gas.
That’s a lot to take in, and most of you are probably asking why that’s important. Let’s take a step back and evaluate the Veloster Turbo (It should be noted that this kit will work, or is offered, on many KDM platforms). Most modern FWD platforms utilize a multi link rear suspension. For whatever reasons, weight savings, or economy, Hyundai decided to go with a solid torsion beam rear suspension which in some cases could limit the VT on track, and maybe it does in the wrong hands. With the right modifications and suspension geometry the rear can be controlled well through proper driver input. For reference it should be noted that this kit came with custom valving and spring rates.
Install was pretty straight forward, for the fronts, but the rear require a bit of time. the rear shocks have an external reservoir as well which is separate from the shock body unlike the front shocks. The external reservoir uses a 1.5 foot long steel braided line from end to end of the shock body and K Sport suggests attaching the reservoir to the rear torsion beam, brackets are provided. We like the location they picked for the install, but anywhere you can find room and clearance will work. We’ve been lucky to have the opportunity to test this suspension in every day driving, autocross, short course time attack, and a 2.8 mile road course. In our daily driving test on some pretty rough and beat up Denver roads we stuck with the middle settings on bounce and rebound and saw a significant increase in comfort with reduced ride height. No harsh bounce at speed in highway driving. We like to keep our rear a bit stiffer so we increased the stiffness on both compression and rebound and felt increased stability in highway driving.
Our next test was at an SCCA Autocross event, we left the rebound and compression the same as our street test for the first run and noticed the car was prone to understeer so we stiffened things up a two to three clicks at a time and cornering and turn in became more predictable, but sadly our day was plagued by greasy tires. Our times became worse with every consecutive run and we placed 4th.

The following test was conducted at a Pikes Peak International Raceway Time Attack event, the courses are about .9 miles, very technical and challenging, and relatively low speed maxing at about 70 mph. We increased stiffnes 5 clicks on compression but left rebound relatively the same and the car felt very planted on each of our runs. The car placed 1st under driver and instructor Mark Smith and 6th with Hamza at the wheel only 1.080 seconds behind. It was a tight battle all day.
The final test was performed at High Plains Raceway, our favorite track in Colorado, with plenty of elevation change and complicated corners, how could it not be? We increased stiffness over all to about 3 from hardest on the front, and full stiff on the rears. The Veloster rotated so perfectly, we don’t want to sound like we are barging, but we were out cornering much better cars. What a blast, we did 2 sessions and set our best lap time there at 2:03 with an average speed of 72mph.
We wanted to address the elephant in the room and talk about cost and benefit. This kit is definitely pricey, and we understand not many of us are tracking our KDM cars, but having used conventional coilover set ups on our Veloster Turbo on the street for years we can see the benefit these have in every day driving. They offer 800+ points of adjustability and can cover a very wide variety of driving styles and purposes. in addition it gives you the ability to lower your ride height without compromising ride comfort.
in conclusion we love this kit, it works great in many applications and the quality is unbeatable. K Sport allows you to customized spring and valving rates, which will come with shock dyno sheets. We have one little complaint and that is the rear dampener adjustment is located on the top of the shock which makes it difficult to get to, not impossible, it should have been placed on the bottom though.
We are very happy with the over all performance, and quality, of the kit and can’t wait to see how they hold up through next season!