Michael Stephenson

During the last DE event I did, my instructor commented that I had one of the best balanced stock 944’s in which he had been an instructor. That made me feel pretty darn good about my car.

At the time I had a stock suspension with the exception of having installed a set of used rear Koni adjustable shocks, which are set at 1 turn from full soft.

This weekend I installed a set of used M030 front struts with the stock M030 springs (two white stripes and one yellow stripe) which I have for about a year. I currently have them set at 1 ½ turns from soft, based on information gleemed from <a href="http://www.davidsims.ukgateway.net/944t/suspension.htm" target="_blank">944 Suspensions</a>

Much to my amazement, the OEM struts were completely dead. They were shot to the point that where ever you pushed or pulled the piston, it would stay there. They would never return to the full extended position like a good shock or strut.

I am amazed that the car handled so well with bad front struts. There was no indication that they were as bad as they were – no “bouncy-ness” or anything of the sort. However, this would explain the cars severe tendency to oversteer in the rain.

I am not going to drive the car until I get it aligned in the next week or two (and maybe even get those M030 torsion bars installed), so I do not know how the car is going to feel, but I imagine that it would have to be better than before. It handled so nice before that having it handle better is a scary thought.

tifosiman

Michael,

I agree with you. I too thought my car handled great with the stock set-up. I too was amazed that my shocks and struts were DEAD when I upgraded my suspension. Now it handles GGGRRRREEEAATT!

Tifo

Paul C 944

Same here mine were compleatly gone and it still handled very well!I put on koni and larger sway bars and WOW!!! Even though it is a little stiffer(stock springs) bumps are not nearly as harsh!

keith

Michael - let me know if you need somme help with the T-bars!

Mark Parker

But guys,,unless you had gas shocks, then they WOULD stay where you put 'em. Only gas shocks have the energy within to push themselves out. A plain old fashioned damper just responds to input. Had your shocks/struts really been shot, believe me, you would have known your car wasn't right. If they didn't show signs of having lost their fluid, then they were probably doing what they were designed to. Chances are you've all upgraded to a firmer model, so it will feel different. BTW Michael, I'm glad to get your input about how you've setup your rear Konis, 'cause I've picked up a pair and they should be here tomorrow. Like you, I've gone with some used ones I scored off of eBay. <img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

jim968

Mark, all very true, but even non-gas shocks wear out. Sometimes it's just the piston seal, so there's no oil leakage. The ones that came off of my '88 na wouldn't even support their own weight... compress the strut, hold it by the top, and watch it slide open in about ten seconds... no sign of oil leakage... just a lot of fluid apparently bypassing the piston somehow.

Michael, congratulations! You can now tell folks that you own one of the best-driving cars in the world... if _any_ 944 doesn't fit this discription, there's something wrong with the suspension or tires or pressures or alignment. When they're right, _nothing_ is any better, and dam' few are as good!

Jim, can you tell I like these cars???

tifosiman

Shocks/struts do wear out without leakage. The internal dampening structures (seals, valves, holes, etc) fail and allow free movement of the liquid thru the system. At least that's the case in bicycle shocks that use fluid. Probably the same principal for cars, I'd guess.....

Tifo

Michael Stephenson

Mark,

If you read through the website I mentioned you will see that the writer preferred the following setup:

Front: 70% stiff
Rear: 50% stiff

That would make my rears slightly less than 50%, as I think that they have 2 1/2 turns (like the fronts). The main reason I set them at 1 turn is because I still had the OEM fronts and I did not want the car to become to tail happy.

Changing the rear shocks made a huge difference. The car went from being scary (the rear would become bouncy when I hit a bump during cornering), to being very fun.

Also, you might want to get new bump-rubber before installing the rears. Mine were completly missing when I got the shocks. I got a new set from Paragon.

Best of luck.

Mark Parker

Michael,,bump rubbers,,I'm going to Paragon's site as soon as I leave here. And to all who responded,I completely agree that shocks can be worn out without showing external signs, my point was that had yours in fact been all that bad, you'd have been out-cornered by lil' ol ladies in Gremlins, and would never have garnered praise about your cars handling from a person who's no doubt driven some exotic stuff. Just the same, I'm hoping for the kind of improvement that you all have described. When I bought my car the PO said only that "the front shocks have been done, but it needs rears". He couldn't tell me even what brand were used, but the front end has always been well behaved. But the rear seems to roll quite a bit, especially through slaloms. I hope to be able to dial in a little resistance to this.

Mark Parker

Michael; Now I AM confused. I went to Paragon, but found no bump rubbers for rear shocks, just the standard and competition grade for the fronts. But I see that the tech article specifically says that you may want to remove the bump rubbers to facilitate adjustment. Please tell me what you had to do. Mark. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

tifosiman

The "bump rubber" on a rear Koni Yellow is a polystyrene foam collar that is inside the top part of the shock. You really can't see it from the outside unless you look "up" in it from below. You have to remove them to fully compress the shock to adjust it.

As a side note, I think that it would be a great idea to make a tool that could fit in the adjuster and turn it while the shock is on the car without having to compress it....


Tifo

Michael Stephenson

Mark,

I am not real sure if Paragon has the bump rubber listed on thier site. I just looked and I did not see a picture of the bump rubber for the rear shocks.

Give them a call - they have it or can get it.

I have noticed that they have a lot of stuff that is not on thier site, so I always call when I have a question about the availability of a part.

tifosiman

The rear "bump rubber" comes with the new rear Koni's from Paragon.

Tifo <img src="graemlins/xyxwave.gif" border="0" alt="[bigbye]" />

Matt

Just a few words on adjusting these shocks -

Koni yellows are adjustable in rebound only, not in compression. This means that adjusting them has no effect on how stiff they are when you hit a bump, but only affects how quickly or slowly your car comes back up to normal ride height after you do hit a bump.

Koni Yellows can easily overpower stock springs/torsion bars in rebound. Setting them too stiff will degrade handling by making the suspension unresponsive, and by causing the car to jack down over successive bumps because of the excessive resistance to extending back up.

For instance on my car, 2780 lbs with 325 springs/29mm torsion bars, I set the rears no more than 1/2 turn from full soft for optimum responsiveness, and the fronts about 1 or 1-1/4 turns from soft.

With stock springs/torsion bars, I'd start at full soft and increase them only if rebound is clearly underdamped after driving the car for a while.

Matt