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Mrmerlin very recently replaced the Front and Rear shocks and almost all of the suspension rubber on my '95 GTS with 150K miles (Thank you Stan). I've owned 6 previous 928's, ranging from '87 to '94, and with 55K to 120K on the odo when I bought them. This is the first time I've ever driven a 928 with essentially new suspension rubber. There was a thread about such replacement about 6-8 months ago, which intrigued me enough to start saving bucks to buy all the needed components (Rob Edwards so nicely listed all the suspension components with part numbers). After 2 days of driving the car a total of about 100 miles, I am truly amazed at how effective the 'like new' Weissach rear suspension is in any kind of significant curves taken at moderate speeds. The car now actually feels like it has 4 wheel steering when driving onto a freeway entrance or exit ramp type curve..
Anyone who wants to improve their 928's handling should definitely seek to replace those two pieces at the rear axle (called Rocker bar or Weissach bushings), .Probably the best $500 'parts' investment you can make in upgrading the fun quotient of driving your car. At the present time, I think 928 International and 928sRus may be the only sources, as they are NLA at Porsche (so, they are classified as 'aftermarket'). Thank you Mark A. for initiating the production of these bushings.
Gary - this is timely as I'm considering my next project to take on. Can you share a link to the thread where @Rob Edwards listed all the parts? I did a search, but came up short. Thanks
Yeah, the rear suspension bushing R&R is a significant PITA, and that's with all the correct factory press tools. The new aftermarket rear camber and shock pin bushings are nicely done but they come as two pieces- rubber and the steel insert, separately. Still getting my head around the best order of operations to get them installed with the insert located properly.
That's a great service, one arm probably takes me 2-3 hours. (I've done about 5 cars' worth, maybe I'd get faster with more practice/ doing multiples at a sitting)
Of course, as well as the upper hats for the springs both F & R, etc., etc., etc., The ONLY suspension components that contain rubber which were not replaced were front upper A arms/ball joints as they were good (lowers replaced), rear outer control arm bushings (which are very difficult to install, and were in good condition), and the rear sway bar bushings (which again are nearly impossible to access/install).
Mrmerlin very recently replaced the Front and Rear shocks and almost all of the suspension rubber on my '95 GTS with 150K miles (Thank you Stan). I've owned 6 previous 928's, ranging from '87 to '94, and with 55K to 120K on the odo when I bought them. This is the first time I've ever driven a 928 with essentially new suspension rubber. There was a thread about such replacement about 6-8 months ago, which intrigued me enough to start saving bucks to buy all the needed components (Rob Edwards so nicely listed all the suspension components with part numbers). After 2 days of driving the car a total of about 100 miles, I am truly amazed at how effective the 'like new' Weissach rear suspension is in any kind of significant curves taken at moderate speeds. The car now actually feels like it has 4 wheel steering when driving onto a freeway entrance or exit ramp type curve..
Anyone who wants to improve their 928's handling should definitely seek to replace those two pieces at the rear axle (called Rocker bar or Weissach bushings), .Probably the best $500 'parts' investment you can make in upgrading the fun quotient of driving your car. At the present time, I think 928 International and 928sRus may be the only sources, as they are NLA at Porsche (so, they are classified as 'aftermarket'). Thank you Mark A. for initiating the production of these bushings.
Gary
As the rubber in the suspension ages, the cars just feel heavy and lazy.
They still drive and can be aligned (although the rear usually has too much negative camber.)
However, new rubber absolutely transforms these cars.
Clients are amazed at the improvement...even "non performance" clients.
Of course, as well as the upper hats for the springs both F & R, etc., etc., etc., The ONLY suspension components that contain rubber which were not replaced were front upper A arms/ball joints as they were good (lowers replaced), rear outer control arm bushings (which are very difficult to install, and were in good condition), and the rear sway bar bushings (which again are nearly impossible to access/install).
Gary
Perfect..glad you did those. People still, knowing absolutely they are broken, skip them...and try to resolve the problem with 3rd rate shock 'upgrades'.
The really insane thing is that we are a couple of suspension "generations" past just replacing the stock rubber pieces (although we do "freshen" the stock rubber pieces as a starting point.)
Our "test car" is a very fresh GT which belongs to Russ Tyler (of "Singer" fame.) He's the absolute best driver, in terms of being able to feel changes and provide feedback, that I've ever been associated with...including all of the drivers that I had during my 911 racing days.
He's nothing short of an amazing test driver. (Professionally trained in England, BTW.)
I can make a tiny little change and he will come back and tell me the change I made and what it did to the car.
Anyway, long story short, we did a complete "rubber suspension change" to this car....everything replaced.
To start with.
Big difference, as Gary has noted, above.
And then we started making changes to that stuff...this and that changes.
Figured out some really good stuff....and kept improving the car.
Whatever worked, we figured out why it helped and made sense of the result.
And moved forward to more changes.
The stuff we liked, we kept. The stuff that didn't work....we continued to play with.
And then we made a relatively big change, as a last step before we install all of the pieces we developed for the Extremely Extreme GTS. (Made three sets of these pieces, after the prototypes were installed and tested.)
And that was transformational....Like a completely different car.
Russ loves the changes so much, I think he might be reluctant to move to the next step.
He has parked all his other Porsches and only is driving his GT.
I'll see if I can get Russ to comment about what is so great about the GT, right now.
The really insane thing is that we are a couple of suspension "generations" past just replacing the stock rubber pieces (although we do "freshen" the stock rubber pieces as a starting point.)
Our "test car" is a very fresh GT which belongs to Russ Tyler (of "Singer" fame.) He's the absolute best driver, in terms of being able to feel changes and provide feedback, that I've ever been associated with...including all of the drivers that I had during my 911 racing days.
He's nothing short of an amazing test driver. (Professionally trained in England, BTW.)
I can make a tiny little change and he will come back and tell me the change I made and what it did to the car.
Anyway, long story short, we did a complete "rubber suspension change" to this car....everything replaced.
To start with.
Big difference, as Gary has noted, above.
And then we started making changes to that stuff...this and that changes.
Figured out some really good stuff....and kept improving the car.
Whatever worked, we figured out why it helped and made sense of the result.
And moved forward to more changes.
The stuff we liked, we kept. The stuff that didn't work....we continued to play with.
And then we made a relatively big change, as a last step before we install all of the pieces we developed for the Extremely Extreme GTS. (Made three sets of these pieces, after the prototypes were installed and tested.)
And that was transformational....Like a completely different car.
Russ loves the changes so much, I think he might be reluctant to move to the next step.
He has parked all his other Porsches and only is driving his GT.
I'll see if I can get Russ to comment about what is so great about the GT, right now.
07-31-2022, 02:57 PM
New suspension rubber - WOW
