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What’s disappointing is they didn’t reinforce the strut towers for the 718 they knew they had an issue with the 981 and 991s.
I guess they figured it’s not a warranty item, so why bother.
TRZ06 gets it. Something has to give. I thought about those top plates too, but they are mostly to keep the whole assembly from going through the hood on the race cars. Notice how nothing is adding support across the front of the strut tower which is where the cracks seem to originate and propogate from. But yes, something is better than nothing.
I think a really good strut tower brace like the one that Schnell Motorsports used to make for the 981 could help. The people thinking about this problem are usually running with their shock towers all the way in anyway. So adding this type of brace, which can be tightened up by putting a little of tension between to two towers, may have each one help share the load of the other. Sort of bonding them together with the bar. Kind of like a sway bar principle. This would put a bit of pressure on the towers preloading them inward and downward spreading some of the load to the opposite tower .... right. (engineers can chime in here)
This would be better than the one below. Very nice part. The company is unfortunately out of business, but maybe some may know who was making the parts for Schnell motorsports back in the day.
Location: The way to hell is paved by good intentions “Wenn ich Purist höre...entsichere ich meinen Browning” "Myths are fuel for marketing (and nowadays for flippers too,,,)" time to time is not sufficient to be a saint, you must be also an Hero
Tracked my 981 GT4 for 6 years, 718 GT4 for 2 years and now the GT4RS.....I hit the curbs and have never had a problem. Also added the top plates to all 3 cars.
I have seen 2 cars, 991.2 GT3RS, with this problem but the cause was one an accident and the other one huge pothole....both were fixed perfectly by an authorized Porsche body shop.
jmartpr - did you lower any of your cars? Were you running different springs or dampers? Just looking for patterns. I'm not worried too much as I think my risk is low but if all failures have common factors, it could save owners a lot of pain.
jmartpr - did you lower any of your cars? Were you running different springs or dampers? Just looking for patterns. I'm not worried too much as I think my risk is low but if all failures have common factors, it could save owners a lot of pain.
Nope....all cars were aligned for track and had the usual suspension upgrades. Stock dampers and springs but with DCS.
Most of the failures I have seen or heard of involved a heavy hit either street or track.
I think the real reason PAG went for the Carrera 4S front clip on the RS is because of the higher springs rates...the excuse of the lift system is very weak.
I remember people mentioning that the shock tower on the GT4RS appeared stronger than the regular GT4's, though interestingly they have the same part numbers with online parts vendors.
This is something that's been going on for like 8 years. It's not a GT4rs specific issue, but know the source.... 🙄. 991, 981, 718 all had the potential for this.
Very small number of vehicles end up having this failure. Seems like there's been just as many people reporting on the street impact with potholes, as on track. Definitely sucks if it happens to you. Knock on wood..... But it is repairable.
I have seen your solution, certainly intriguing. Does it affect ride height in any way, like limit max upper or lower ride height on stock shock?
Our Breakaway Camber Plate maintains OEM suspension travel and DOES NOT affect ride height at all, but also allows for INCREASED camber and caster like aftermarket camber plates.
Works on any variant with GT3/4 inverted struts that utilize the solid OEM GT camber plates, so that should include the 718 GTS 4.0
The root cause of this issue is the fact that there is zero elastic deflection or deformation of the stock camber plates upon impact…. So you can reinforce the shock towers all you want, it may help a little bit but mostly it will just transfer the failure point from one location to the other.