Ghosteh

Stock ride height on my '85 930 Euro.
It looks very similar:

MillenniumFalcon

Nice..

Peter Zimmermann

[QUOTE=MillenniumFalcon;9870564]Amber. my KYB front inserts aren't worn- they have about 400 miles on them now. The car floats and reacts badly to imperfections in the freeway surface, and mildly agressive lane changes at freeway speeds cause some uncomfortable undulations. It feels as though there is almost no rebound damping... I guess there is also the possibility that I have heavier than stock torsion bars in it, but I forgot to measure the rear ones when I had them out for my suspension lowering.

Pete, thanks for the picture- that helps. Tire size will affect the fender lip measurement as well, by as much as .50, right? Perhaps I am splitting hairs here, but I am trying to rule things out, one at a time- I really need to get the car setup safer/better.

I need to grab a book and read about suspensions.

I am wondering how rear toe-in affects handling, as opposed to setting it at zero- I don't understand why my alignment guy set it with toe-in.QUOTE]



My SC has stock size tires; 205/55 16(F), 225/50 16(R).

Toe-in at the rear is not acceptable. The spec is zero to +20' (+10' +/- 10') for each wheel.

From my experience, and this is my opinion, KYB shocks are junk. Bilstein HDs are the only way to go. Is it possible that your part supplier will take your KYBs back, maybe charge you a re-stocking fee, and ship you a set of Bilsteins?

Lastly, how difficult would it be for you to raise your front end 1/4", and re-check your camber? Are you absolutely sure that your alignment guy knows how to loosen the strut at the shock tower, and change the setting? I really doubt that you need new struts, to have both be bent/sagging by the same amount...well, let's say that would be highly unusual.

MillenniumFalcon

Pete,

Thanks again for your input on this.

I was there for the entire alignment process, and I saw him appear to loosen and use a pry bar to move the upper strut camber plates as far outboard as possible. The camber plates do appear to be as far outboard as they can go, but I haven't loosened them up to check for myself yet. They had plenty of 911's sitting at the shop, and the guy who did my alignment said he is the only one who does the Porsches and that he has done them for over 15 years... (but at this point, everything is now suspect)

I am going to order up Bilsteins (do most people go with the "Sport Bilstein" or the standard Bilsteins?)

Today I picked up a 12mm hex wrench. My plan is to install the Bilsteins, then loosen everything up and set my rear camber to 1.0 deg neg, zero toe.. then see if I can get any more positive camber in the front (wondering if a change in caster will allow me to move the plates a little more outboard?), and set front to zero toe. I am also going to inspect the upper strut bushings in the camber plates to see if there is any sagging in the inboard direction

I have put over 500 miles on my KYB's and I will certainly ask my supplier about an exhange, but my experience with them in regards to exchanges or returns has been less than pleasant. The best camber that could be achived Left and Right (I was told), was: 1.2 neg and 1.4 neg, so they were slightly different, but both quite a way off...

Interesting that you mention raising the car- I did just that a few days ago (first 0.5", then 0.75") to see if there was any noticeable difference in handling- none was noted. I did not attempt a camber measurement at that time.

I am going to measure everything, and attempt my own adjustment. If I make a mess of it, then I'll seek out another shop in SoCal to do it for me, but I want to give it my best try first...

So, for now, I guess I need to know which Bilsteins to get- Sport or regular? I hope I can dig into this project this weekend, as I finally got the engine sorted out and I really want to drive the car more.

Thanks again.

Peter Zimmermann

Bilstein HD, especially for a Targa.

For my liking, "Sport" Bilsteins are just too stiff, unless you track the car and have other mods like huge T-bars, adjustable sway bars, plastic bushings, etc.

pm sent your way...

MillenniumFalcon

Thanks Pete

MillenniumFalcon

Update:

Well, I went ahead and loosened the camber plates and once I got the bolts very, very loose I was able to move both of them outboard even more. I need to do the math now, but from a level plane, the top of each 17 inch rim lip is now 3/8 inch inboard of the bottom rim lip- about a 1/4 inch positive change on both sides (!).

I drove the car afterwards and was very surprised at how this affected handling, especially aggressive transitions from straight, such as 90 deg turns and fast lane changes... I'll get my protractor and level out this weekend to see where I am at now- I had to trade a little castor on one side in order to get more positive camber, and from what I can tell it was well worth it.

It looks as though if I were to pull both camber plates as far aft as they will go, that that is where I will find more positive camber adjustment, if needed.

I measured rear toe, and it was set at dead zero, using the tread blocks as a reference point. I need to spin the tires and mark them and measure again to be absolutely sure.

On a side note, the junky neatrix bushings that I put in the front end are going to come out whenever I feel up to doing it- I know I can feel those things moving around way too much..

Front Bilsteins on order. Rear Bilsteins maybe next month. I'll update here after I get the front Bilsteins in.

MillenniumFalcon

Update:

I installed the Bilstein HD front inserts, and was able to pull the camber back to 1.1-1.2 on the front end. The difference the Bilsteins made in the handling was dramatic- there is no wallowing after bumps on the freeway, when making an aggressive lane change at freeway speeds the car no longer rolls/sways in the horrible manner that it did with the KYB's in there.

I never would have guessed that better rebound damping could affect body roll so much during transitions... I can't wait to get Bilsteins installed in the rear as well. Straight line stability and stability in turns is like night and day- the KYB's truly are junk IMHO.

Thanks for all the input guys!

Steam Driver

I'm still learning about my "Barn Find." I just measured the ride height and it is 23.75 front, 24.25 rear. Obviously lowered by the PO in his autocross pursuits. Any thoughts on this.

One amusing thing; with this lowering the height of the car at the roof is practically identical to my stock '91 CRX Si Honda!

MillenniumFalcon

A 23.75 front end would drive me nuts with all the scraping I'd be doing on the concrete where I live... I had mine as low as 24.5 in the front, and it was too low for me...i guess it all depends whether you have the tow hooks on your front torsion bars, and then what size tire you are running.. post a pic!

Steam Driver

It will be interesting to see what happens with the driving and the scraping. Another issue I'm more immediately interested in is the jacking. I have a jack pad thing for the jackpoints (to use a floor jack) but on my old 914-6 (which was also lowered) I was able to jack the front end from a central location using a piece of 2X4 across the torsion bar points to jack on. I don't think I'll have room under the car for that on this car.

I'll try to post a picture; best I can do at the moment since the car's immobile. Sort of hard to discern at this angle. 15 inch wheels, BTW.

MillenniumFalcon

At 25.25 in the front, I have to pull the car upwards to get a floor jack under the front torsion bar mount...but I have one of those old Sears 2 ton models, not one of the slick aluminum ones with the tiny front wheels.

Unless there is some good reason to keep the tow hooks on the front of my torsion bar mount covers, I am going to cut mine off- they stick straight out and are the first thing to scrape.

BTW- nice car..

Steam Driver

Thanks, certainly will be when it runs. Right now - Yard (garage) Art!

Starting work on the brakes tonight.

Ed Hughes

Why on earth would you be looking for positive camber, when the specs will call for negative, and many guys who track want more than what the stock camber adjustments will give. These cars can tolerate a fair amount of caster variance, meaning it has the least importance, when compared to camber amd toe. I'm still scratching my head on why you are going for positive camber settings, unless I misread something.

I always viewed the tow hooks as a pretty safe skid plate-much better on the car than the more tender parts that would be exposed without them. My Targa was much lower than your car, and after many years of driving her, never found them to be a real issue.

MillenniumFalcon

Ed, many on here have told me that 1.4 negative camber up front is excessive for a street car. I wasn't looking for positive camber-I was looking for less negative camber (Perhaps I wasn't clear in my post-sorry). i managed to get it pulled back to 1.2 negative up front. It still seems excessive to me.

As far as the tow hooks go, I'm going to get a picture of these suckers that hang down from my car- They are quite large and were spears into concrete when I would go over those old intersections with the deep drainage dips at anything less than a crawl... I'm not having those problems anymore at this ride height though.