HKS Hipermax III Sport

P

projectMS3

Member
I know there's not a lot of information on this suspension. We're building a 2009 MS3 to compete in the Redline Time Attack series.
HKS has decided to support our effort and given us a set of Hipermax III sport coil-overs. Here are various photos for people to check out. I'll update thoughts on the suspension once it is installed. The fit and finish and machining on these is top notch!
Check out my Flickr album for more photos.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35435203@N02/sets/72157613835046269/
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Rear Damper and Spring
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Top of the rear Damper
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Everything in the box
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We're running in the street class. Our goal is to build a car that we drive to the track and home. No trailers, no stripped out interior, etc.. Full interior, street tires and fully streetable.
 
We should get them on the car real soon so we can corner weight the car and test it out at Buttonwillow Raceway on the 28th. After which we'll be test fitting wheels to see what the largest front size is that fits. Since we're running street tires (non R-Compounds) we may need to go super wide since the car is so front heavy.


bykeryder4life- We'll see what we can do. Keep in mind we're really focused on maximum track grip and that's not always the lowest setting. You need some amount of travel, especially for bumpy tracks like Buttonwillow and Willow Springs, the 2 tracks at the start of the Redline Time Attack series.
 
For sure I understand the lowest doesnt mean performance. I have coils on my car and wanna see what other kits can do and how much adjustability they offer the user. If you guys are doing a track setup for buttonwillow you wont have the rears slammed most likely so no worries about getting pics posted up its a waste of time. Just let me know if it looks like they have the adjustment space to get the rear down low.
 
you get what you pay for....cobb's coils with 4 way adjustability ( i think) are going to be like 5k if you wanna really get serious. Go look at some KW variants (thats who makes mazdaspeed's coilovers)
 
madvillian said:
you can comfortably fit 18x9's with a 30 offset with 245's on the front, without doing any work to the fenders, although it is not the same case in the rear.

idk if you care or not, but if so:

http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123730078
Click to expand...
Good to know. Love the wheels. What are those?

I think we'll be sticking to 225s on the rear. They're not getting much hotter than 160 degrees F, they're barely being put to use.
 
theyre rota g-forces. im confident you could run a 18x9 with a 35 or maaaaybe 40 offset wrapped in 255's without rubbing.
 
We finally got a chance to drive on the street and at the track. The Hipermax come in three different versions. The Sport version is intended for track use and after having driven the car around town this last week I can say it's not a good street suspension if you live somewhere with bad roads like here in California it's not uncomfortable but it ain't pleasant.

On smooth asphalt it's actually quite good and could be used as a street suspension. At Buttonwillow it performed very well on the better paved sections. If you're not a California track junkie Buttonwillow has some of the worst paving of any track I've driven, maybe only surpassed by the Streets course at Willow Springs. Both those tracks are akin to poorly maintained streets.

On smoother tracks like Laguna Seca or Spring Mountain I think the suspension would do even better. HKS also offers re-valving for the Hipermax which might suit US tracks a bit better. We'll wait and see how more testing goes at Willow Springs before we think about re-valving these.

The adjustment range really makes a difference. We tested them in conjunction with a pre-production Tri-Point engineering rear sway bar. The combination worked great. Turn in was a little crisper but the real difference was from corner apex to corner exit. The car just tracked out in a more linear fashion with less understeer, the tires didn't feel like they were scrubbing as hard and our tire temps and wear showed this to be the case.

Here are some photos from the day.
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Last edited:
Thanks for the update!

The car looks great out on the track, BTW. (thumb)

It sounds like these might be the ticket for those that are looking for something even a bit more serious/track-oriented than the Mazdaspeed (KW) setup. :)
 
Nliiitend1 said:
It sounds like these might be the ticket for those that are looking for something even a bit more serious/track-oriented than the Mazdaspeed (KW) setup. :)
Click to expand...

I think so. The fact that you can have them rebuilt and also re-valved by HKS here in the US means you can really dial them in for the tracks you frequent.

For Redline we might not re-valve them but I know I usually run Buttonwillow and I would love to tailor these to that track.

The wheels are 18x8 TR Motorsport C2, +48 offset with 225/40 18 Yokohama AD07 tires. Not a bad wheel. For Redline we'll be running a Volk or Yokohama wheel to save some more weight. We just needed a basic track wheel to test different size tires and clearances.
 
Oh yeah one last thing. We desperately need some volunteers for March 28th and 29th Redline race days. If you live in California and want to make it out to Buttonwillow we would love the help! Just contact me. All we can offer is lunch and dinner and our eternal thanks and hopefully a ton of fun.
 
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