RE: Changing suspension height on 997.1 GT3 ?

[pdj81]

Just wondering if anyone has had experience of tweaking their GT3 in terms of ride height ? Having recently acquired a lovely example am I right in thinking there are roughly 30mm below a standard 997 ? Wondered if raising it just a smidge (maybe 10mm) would help iron out some of our shoddy UK B roads without comprising that beautiful factory set up.

Any thoughts / experiences ?

[Magic919]

US cars are generally 10mm higher than ours, so should be fine.

[mrdemon]

its not the travel causing the issue imo, it's the ARB stiffness.

[Slippydiff]

mrdemon said:

its not the travel causing the issue imo, it's the ARB stiffness.

Another gem of "wisdom", and further proof (if it were needed) that you know little of what you speak of.

[ttdan]

Changing the ride height wont make any difference to the ride quality. It might get you over some speed humps without scraping...

[pdj81]

Thanks guys, so what else can be adjusted to help if not height - dampers, rebound rates ?

[mrdemon]

Slippydiff said:

Another gem of "wisdom", and further proof (if it were needed) that you know little of what you speak of.

you do show your self up these days, go have another drink on me :-)

like "ttdan" said changing the ride height will have zero effect.

[mrdemon]

pdj81 said:

Thanks guys, so what else can be adjusted to help if not height - dampers, rebound rates ?

you cannot change the rebound rates, you can try the front ARB on full soft, but the GT3 is not a UK B road car I am afraid.
nice car wrong road.

you can spend a few K on adjustable shocks and make the rebound full soft, have no toe out at the front and limit camber. but there is no getting past it, these cars need smoother roads, Slippy is happy as the mk1 GT3 is said to be more road bias :-)

I think Chris harris did a bit on changing the Sus on a 997.
but all solid bushing are going to make some cabin noise.

www.exe-tc.co.uk

Öhlins do a Road & Track range

I have said a GTS with Ohlins/Buckets could well be the perfect road car, but as these are still expensive, I am not about to try one and throw another 10k at one.

[pdj81]

Thanks chaps, very useful to know. Looks like she will be staying standard. couldn't be happier to be honest with the way it drives, sounds etc - as you say its not a perfect on your average UK B road car so will just have to seek out better tarmac further afield !

[Steve Rance]

If you fit adjustable dampers and run either bump or rebound on full soft they will probably not be effective at all and your springs will effectively be the damper as well. That will make things a lot worse.

The ride on GT3's is a subjective thing. I'm happy in one with an almost full race set up on the road but others prefer something with a lot more compliance. What I would say is that if you feel that you need more compliance from a PASM GT3, you may ultimately feel that a GTS may be a better alternative as softening up a GT3 - especially a non passive car - is not going to be easy at all.

[arcamalpha]

You can remove some of the harshness of the bumps by swapping away from Cup tyres (assuming you run them).

[mrdemon]

Steve Rance said:

If you fit adjustable dampers and run either bump or rebound on full soft they will probably not be effective at all and your springs will effectively be the damper as well. That will make things a lot worse.

The ride on GT3's is a subjective thing. I'm happy in one with an almost full race set up on the road but others prefer something with a lot more compliance. What I would say is that if you feel that you need more compliance from a PASM GT3, you may ultimately feel that a GTS may be a better alternative as softening up a GT3 - especially a non passive car - is not going to be easy at all.

I used to run full on 3 way Ohlins and after my track days would just soften the rebound a bit for road, worked wonders.

when home I would also take the bump down abit, but the key was just letting off loads of rebound to give a nice ride.

the other plus was, you could dial the car in for road, track, dry, wet, 100% perfect every time, I loved them.

[fioran0]

Much of what you say, while you clearly believe it, only furthers my view that you don't know what you are talking about.
In this case, the ability of your damper rebound control to change a spring rate but also your previous comments which are again alluded to here about the ease with which you worked your way around a 3 way shock in response to conditions to maintain maximum performance.

Can I ask. How wallowy would you say your Cayman R is on the road? What about on track?
What about understeer? None/some/lots?

[mrdemon]

rebound plays a big part in road comfort when going over a pot hole.
(don't want to teach you to suck eggs , but what happens when you hit a hole with your wheel) :-)
yes, it has to sink into it, if your rebound is hard you are going to rattle over that hole and then some as the wheel will NOT drop fast enough into it.

Cayman R is about perfect on the road, I run the max neg front camber I can (-1.2), and no toe in.

all road cars are poor on track out the box, we drive road cars, so not sure what you want me to say on track.
Just spent the weekend at Spa and had understeer issues at speed at Pouhon, but then you see race cars understeer off there also.

I am not about to run -3 camber on my roads cars, fit 800lbs springs with front toe out !!!

I learnt quite a lot owning a track driving with 3 ways, and every one likes a car to feel different.
As you cannot change spring rates for the drive home, what you getting at ;-)

I just think you forget we are not racers and we run road cars which have to work on road day to day.

Edited by mrdemon on Friday 27th June 19:39

[Steve Rance]

mrdemon said:

I used to run full on 3 way Ohlins and after my track days would just soften the rebound a bit for road, worked wonders.

when home I would also take the bump down abit, but the key was just letting off loads of rebound to give a nice ride.

the other plus was, you could dial the car in for road, track, dry, wet, 100% perfect every time, I loved them.

Depends on the spring rate and the Valving of the damper. If you wre in something softly spring like an Elise etc.. That would be fine but the GT3 is relatively stiffly sprung do unless the damper can over ride the spring on its softest setting it won't be effective.

Edited by Steve Rance on Friday 27th June 21:52

[Yellow491]

Pdj,raising the ride height will help on the comfort side a little,might be enough for you,it a cheap try,but you will need to check the set up,also softening the roll bars will allow the car to roll a bit more on the springs.