Who is running aftermarket Suspension?

[Pauly]

I know some of you are not on factory shocks and springs and running coilovers ect.

 

What are you running?

Do you like it?

 

Not worried about what car you have, The coilovers are all the same, just different mountings for different cars and different spring rates. But its the shock absorbers that give you the ride quality. 

[Carrera28]

I have Gemballa coilovers, which I think are rebranded H&R.

 

My only issue really is with clearance, otherwise ride quality and rebound is good and they are excellent when on a spirited drive or the track.

[Tit]

I run KW v1's on my other cars. Love them. They don't crash and bash or anything like that. Though they are more 'assertive' than OEM suspension. Will get a set for the p-train at some point.

Have driven an s3 on bilstein pss10s and they were great too.

[twood]

I know some of you are not on factory shocks and springs and running coilovers ect.

 

What are you running?

Do you like it?

 

Not worried about what car you have, The coilovers are all the same, just different mountings for different cars and different spring rates. But its the shock absorbers that give you the ride quality. 

I have Bilstein HD and running an aftermarket springs in my 964. I could be wrong but I was always under the impression that it was springs that gave you ride quality and not dampers (shock absorbers).

[firstone]

I'm on stock but thinking about kw v3. Want to lower it 20mm. I've heard very good things about them on the zclub.

[Pauly]

Gemballa coilovers are priced up H&R coilovers. I don't know much about the H&R units, but H&R have always been a quality brand. 

 

Tit - Never seen many people run the V1s. Good to hear they're worth running. 

 

 

twood - The shock absorber gives you the quality of the ride. The springs give you the stiffness. Obviously a very stiff spring like 1000lb springs are not for the street and will limit in suspension travel. But the shock valving determines your quality. 

 

Most shock have single valves that are pre set (the adjustable ones are the ones with the screws) that are pre set or set by user. the tighter the valve the more stiffer the ride will be, the more loose the valve is, the softer response you'll get. 

 

Some coilovers like the KW have a 2 stage valving (high speed and low speed) where the quick jolts in the road will be absorbed smoothly and the cornering will be flat. Where standard shocks will corner the same as it takes the jolts.

 

My mate ran bilstein HDs in his merc CLK. they gave a nice solid ride. 

 

I actually just bought KW v3s. Keen to get them and installed. Firestone, I'll report back on their quality. But i've done heaps of research on them and they are loved everywhere.

 

Here's a video on the KW 2 stage explained. Pretty interesting.

 

[twood]

twood - The shock absorber gives you the quality of the ride. The springs give you the stiffness. Obviously a very stiff spring like 1000lb springs are not for the street and will limit in suspension travel. But the shock valving determines your quality. 

 

 

Okay - I accept that

[firstone]

Gemballa coilovers are priced up H&R coilovers. I don't know much about the H&R units, but H&R have always been a quality brand. 

 

Tit - Never seen many people run the V1s. Good to hear they're worth running. 

 

 

twood - The shock absorber gives you the quality of the ride. The springs give you the stiffness. Obviously a very stiff spring like 1000lb springs are not for the street and will limit in suspension travel. But the shock valving determines your quality. 

 

Most shock have single valves that are pre set (the adjustable ones are the ones with the screws) that are pre set or set by user. the tighter the valve the more stiffer the ride will be, the more loose the valve is, the softer response you'll get. 

 

Some coilovers like the KW have a 2 stage valving (high speed and low speed) where the quick jolts in the road will be absorbed smoothly and the cornering will be flat. Where standard shocks will corner the same as it takes the jolts.

 

My mate ran bilstein HDs in his merc CLK. they gave a nice solid ride. 

 

I actually just bought KW v3s. Keen to get them and installed. Firestone, I'll report back on their quality. But i've done heaps of research on them and they are loved everywhere.

 

Here's a video on the KW 2 stage explained. Pretty interesting.

 

Cheers, I was under the impression the kw v3 have a separate control for damping compression and rebound.

[Pauly]

Cheers, I was under the impression the kw v3 have a separate control for damping compression and rebound.

 

Yep the V3 is a "2 way" compression and dampening control. But only for the "low speed" valves. The high speed valves are pre set. "3 ways" are able to adjust the high speed compression valve. 

[Tit]

Hi Pauly. I don't track the cars and assume that kW are better at suspension tuning then me. I love how they perform and suspect if I had v2/3 I'd either mess up the settings or set it once and never touch them again; money wasted.

I've only once just done springs on a car and it took a while to realise I'd negatively impacted the handling. The springs didn't match the shocks, basically.

I did find better (than spring & shocks) handling outcomes with suspension geometry (camber plates, sway bars) and good tires. The mini is running -2 deg camber and slight toe out on the front and it's a hoot!

[SteveT]

I think it was it rule number 3 that said something about never thinking you were smarter than the engineer that designed it in the first place. That's my motto. Sure I will replace something worn out with something better but never going to pretend to be a suspension engineer myself. It's like making a targa roof fit properly, a bit of a black art unless you know what you are doing.

[firstone]

The engineer that designed it in the first place had constraints placed upon him in various ways for plenty of reasons one of which would be final cost of the product. So while it's true the engineer may have known better he may not or may not have applied all of what he knew to that model. Even if he did apply all he knew. It was only what 'he' knew, and at that point in time which is now history.

We are all just monkey's in shoe's growing in knowledge and understanding.

[Pauly]

In some applications, yes leave it alone. Not everything from the factory is perfect though. There is coolant chamber in the 944 head that gets filled with steam and causes head gasket issues. The solution is drilling a hole and running a hose from it to the coolant tank. 

 

Suspension is something else though. That can always be improved IMO. 

 

I put an order for the KW v3's. 5 week wait!!! 

[T-Man]

Biltsein PSS10s here Pauly.

Very happy with them. Car handles exceptionally well.

Generally have them dialed right up to a fairly aggressive setting.

[cyberpunky]

I think when you are talking cars as old as ours that it is a bit unfair to say that you can improve on what the engineers did back then, as we(well most of us) just don't know what the cars were like out of the box. In 1984 Road and Track voted the 944 the best handling production car sold in the US, so that makes me sceptical that it could be improved much, if at all.

 

What I would personally be aiming for would be to get the suspension back to what it was like new. Clearly after all these years many of our old cars dont handle as intended due to ware and tear unless we get them back to what they once were. If you plan to track your car then that is different, as you are trying to make your handle better on the track, to go faster around that track, and that is not what Porsche designed them for. They are still street cars that mostly out handle most cars on the road period, and although they track well, tracking them is a specific task with very specific requirements.

 

These are not ordinary cars that you can chuck a bit of suspension work on and see great improvements IMO. Getting them back to handling, as they were designed, should be enough, and if you want more then it has to be for a specific task. A hill climb car or a super sprint car or an enduro would all require different set ups to be better at those tasks, and that is were you might improve on what the engineers did, but for a street car, aiming to get them back to being as designed, should be all most of us need or want. Well that is how it is for me anyway

peace

Cyberpunky

[Tit]

I wasn't saying the suspension can't be improved. I just went v1s because I didn't think I understood suspension tuning that well to get the value out of them. Plus I knew I wouldn't fiddle with the settings that much so it seemed like a redundant expense.

[Harvs11]

Bruce, comparing a 944 to it's US contemporaries isn't really a fair fight.  Pretty much every US car of that era was a floaty fwy cruiser.

That said, not many makes handle as well as our P cars.  

Factory suspension settings on any car are a compromise. They have to reliably deal with what most of us throw at them on the road.  Getting your car back to original condition and settings by replacing worn bushes etc and getting the alignments right will always yield improvements on a 20+ year old car.  That's usually the most cost effective solution and enough to have a great driving car.  It's when we want our cars to work better on track and more sporting drives that upgrades come into their own.  Horses for courses.  

[cyberpunky]

Harvs it wasn't comparing it to just US made cars, it was comparing it to all production cars sold in the US so that could include everything from Ferrari to Merc to who knows what. If it was sold in the US in 1984,, and it wasn't a 944, then it wasn't the best handling car that year according to Car and Driver.

 

Quote

"In August 1984, Car and Driver named the Porsche 944 the best-handling car in America, choosing it over a host of formidable rivals, including the Audi Quattro, the Lotus Esprit, and the new Chevrolet Corvette (C4)."

 

I guess my point was that pretty much every car I have owned before the Porsche was pretty easily improved by some suspension work, as how those cars left the factory, was a long way from how they could be in the handling dept, if a little attention was paid to the suspension but the Porsche engineers clearly did a fantastic job, and so thinking you can do better could be considered ambitious. My car has forged internals, Inconel exhaust(usualy associated with F1 racing), bilstien shocks and a whole host of no expense spared engineering/parts/materials, so is not like a commodore or toyota. Any car can of course be made better for a task or a drivers preference but few are so good overall, as a Porsche usually is from factory. Just changing the tyres on mine improved the handling a truck load due to the PO poor choice but that was an improvement for me, and may have been less suited to how the PO like his car set up.

 

Porsches are probably the most consistently tweaked cars ever sold, which is why is often hard to find an unmolested model but few would be considered poor handling compared to cars from the same period/era. I also think that a lot of the more powerful later ones, particulary, have handling that often exceeds the capability of many who are lucky enough to drive them.

 

 

[ArthurK]

Bilstein PSS9s when I had the 996. Loved them and would do it again if I had a 996 best upgrade I ever did next to the short shift kit.

[Pauly]

Seems as the Bilstein B16 (pss9/pss10) are very popular with the 911s 

 

We have Bilstein "escort cups" which i have no idea what they are.