Rock hard or nicely compliant?
Discussion
In which camp do you lodge? Super hard suspension setup suited for track work or well damped standard set up for B-road blasting?
I am firmly in the latter, granted I haven't even taken mine on the track yet (although I intend to at some point), but the vast majority of its miles are driven on the UK's fine A & B-roads, and this is what I bought the car for, with the exception of the occasional continental jaunt. I tend to think that the Porsche engineers know best and am happy that they have set the car up with the benefit of hundreds of thousands of miles testing feedback. Saying that I'm thinking of possibly changing to factory sports set up when my dampers give up the ghost, but that is certainly as far as I would go.
Just wondering whether the numerous people who go further in lowering and stiffening the car with bilsteins (or whatever they are called) etc. see any trade-off on road driving? or whether their cars are reserved for smooth A-roads and track days?
The only experience I've had of these types of set up is with my brother's car, which was lowered etc when he bought it, and when he reverted back to factory sports set up, the improvement on anything but the most smooth of roads was marked. Just interested to know what you all think.
I am firmly in the latter, granted I haven't even taken mine on the track yet (although I intend to at some point), but the vast majority of its miles are driven on the UK's fine A & B-roads, and this is what I bought the car for, with the exception of the occasional continental jaunt. I tend to think that the Porsche engineers know best and am happy that they have set the car up with the benefit of hundreds of thousands of miles testing feedback. Saying that I'm thinking of possibly changing to factory sports set up when my dampers give up the ghost, but that is certainly as far as I would go.
Just wondering whether the numerous people who go further in lowering and stiffening the car with bilsteins (or whatever they are called) etc. see any trade-off on road driving? or whether their cars are reserved for smooth A-roads and track days?
The only experience I've had of these types of set up is with my brother's car, which was lowered etc when he bought it, and when he reverted back to factory sports set up, the improvement on anything but the most smooth of roads was marked. Just interested to know what you all think.
I'll be fitting my PSS9 kit this weekend, wife and sprogs permitting. But as I already have the M003 lowered suspension it shouldn't affect ride height - the kit has adjustable ride height anyway. I understand from the Rennlist forums that the guys in the states tend to set the shocks to 1 (max firmness) for the track, then back to 9 (min firmness) for the road.
Chose the PSS9 kit because of that - didn't want to buy the none adjustable set-up and then find that it shook bits of my anatomy off on bad road surfaces. Will report back once finished - hopefully with good news!
I think others on PH have already fitted this kit, i.e. Derestrictor, but have not heard feedback.
Chose the PSS9 kit because of that - didn't want to buy the none adjustable set-up and then find that it shook bits of my anatomy off on bad road surfaces. Will report back once finished - hopefully with good news!
I think others on PH have already fitted this kit, i.e. Derestrictor, but have not heard feedback.
A few words for the benefit of anyone searching the forum for advice on fitting the Bilstein PSS9 kit themselves.
The paperwork with the kit is complete crap and I was very glad to have the 993 technical manual (on EMule). For example, the range of possible spring plate height settings on the struts is not given relative to resultant ride height (using the Porsche reference points), so I couldn't preset the spring heights to give me the correct ride height before fitting them. Means you have to have the wheels off again to painstakingly adjust the height after a little drive to bed the system in. Bilstein website has sod all info and Gert couldn't help either.
For your info, the struts are delivered with the ride height set to a minimum, that is with the spring plate heights set at 120mm front and 195mm rear. This equates to a ride height of about 115 mm at the front, 100 mm at the back, i.e. about 10 mm lower than an RS. I found it very low, with touchdown on the front protection bar going out of the drive. Have now cranked it up to keep my slightly over M003 ride heights of 128mm front, 110 mm back, but could have saved myself some work had they correlated ride height versus spring plate height in the paperwork. Ultimately the sping plate heights might need a final tweak when the pro's set up the corner weights.
In general, fitting the fronts is a doddle, the rears a bit more of a pain as access to the tops of the suspension towers requires intercooler and air filter out. Despite the technical manual's advice to whip out the fan blower to access the top of the left hand rear strut, it can be done with the blower in place.
Note that to get the eccentric bolt out of the inboard pivot of the lower control arm I had to slacken off the anti-roll bar mountings to get sufficient clearance.
Don't bother fighting to get the caps off the adjustment knobs on the bottom of the front struts. When you turn the soft rubber caps you are actually turning the adjuster, and should be able to feel the extremes of the maximum and minimum firmness setting when the adjuster hits the stop.
Now will have to get the alignment done before I can go out to my favourite curves and roundabouts for a play...
The paperwork with the kit is complete crap and I was very glad to have the 993 technical manual (on EMule). For example, the range of possible spring plate height settings on the struts is not given relative to resultant ride height (using the Porsche reference points), so I couldn't preset the spring heights to give me the correct ride height before fitting them. Means you have to have the wheels off again to painstakingly adjust the height after a little drive to bed the system in. Bilstein website has sod all info and Gert couldn't help either.
For your info, the struts are delivered with the ride height set to a minimum, that is with the spring plate heights set at 120mm front and 195mm rear. This equates to a ride height of about 115 mm at the front, 100 mm at the back, i.e. about 10 mm lower than an RS. I found it very low, with touchdown on the front protection bar going out of the drive. Have now cranked it up to keep my slightly over M003 ride heights of 128mm front, 110 mm back, but could have saved myself some work had they correlated ride height versus spring plate height in the paperwork. Ultimately the sping plate heights might need a final tweak when the pro's set up the corner weights.
In general, fitting the fronts is a doddle, the rears a bit more of a pain as access to the tops of the suspension towers requires intercooler and air filter out. Despite the technical manual's advice to whip out the fan blower to access the top of the left hand rear strut, it can be done with the blower in place.
Note that to get the eccentric bolt out of the inboard pivot of the lower control arm I had to slacken off the anti-roll bar mountings to get sufficient clearance.
Don't bother fighting to get the caps off the adjustment knobs on the bottom of the front struts. When you turn the soft rubber caps you are actually turning the adjuster, and should be able to feel the extremes of the maximum and minimum firmness setting when the adjuster hits the stop.
Now will have to get the alignment done before I can go out to my favourite curves and roundabouts for a play...
Rock hard or nicely compliant, hmmm "bend with the wind, grasshopper". Sometimes you don't really have a choice though. The decision to go from factory set up to a Ruf - TechArt hybrid, found to work best by trial and error, was a forced situation. After getting the 911T to a satisfactory state of tune, emergency starts were proving annoying as the car was almost doing a wheelie. With the current arrangement it sits nicely, and handles beautifully, but you do have to be careful driving over leaves and discarded cigarette butts. It's Ruf at the back to stop the car sitting down, and progressive TA at the front to keep front end grip up at reasonable levels. Not too low.
>> Edited by turbobloke on Tuesday 28th September 07:18
>> Edited by turbobloke on Tuesday 28th September 07:18
Got my car back today after alignment and corner weights were sorted - talk about a porker - it weighed in at 1530 kg! Would love to try one with all the luxuries removed - you could probably pare off a couple of hundred kilos without needing too much imagination.
Took the long way home despite the traffic and the peeing rain and so far am dead happy. The porpoisey feeling has gone, there's now no crashing over road imperfections and the car is very posed. Can't really say more yet given the slippery conditions - the first time I floored her in second in a straight line the back stepped out and calmed my ardour.
Can't wait to go out to play on a dry day!
Took the long way home despite the traffic and the peeing rain and so far am dead happy. The porpoisey feeling has gone, there's now no crashing over road imperfections and the car is very posed. Can't really say more yet given the slippery conditions - the first time I floored her in second in a straight line the back stepped out and calmed my ardour.
Can't wait to go out to play on a dry day!
will_t said:
My wife is so disappointed with the content of this thread , given the title.
Will
Yep - it is all a bit dry and boring. Same kind of deception as the "shaved pussy" thread on GG!
Tell your wife she's looking at the wrong type of forum for advice on how to change your set up from a soft ride to rock hard...
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