TRACKIN951

I have 28mm Tbars and 275lb springs up front! I absolutely love the setup! The handling I have gotten many compliments on!

pole position

Alwin Springer is the head of Porsche Motorsport in the US and there shop was right across from Andial where they were drinking beer together. Is that enough of a connection to you that they have somehow of a clue what is going on ? Do you know what the al in Andial represents ? Have you ever heard of Vasek Polak ? He employed the founders of Andial and they were, guess what, his race mechanics for various 917's which he was campaigning. The same Vasek Polak who sat NEXT to Ferry Porsche at one of his lasts birthdays while the head of PCNA, Schwab , was a few tables down............still not convinced that they literally had a open door with Weisach ?

Owain

I have 250# springs on height adjustable coil-overs on the front and 28 mm tbars in the rear with 968 M030 swaybars both. With 225 tires on the front and 245 tires on the rear and the rear swaybar set at the middle position I get very neutral handling bordering on slight oversteer. Very good for autox. It's also not at all harsh on the street. A good compromise, in my opinion.

Another setup I'd like to try is with ~300# springs on the front and the same size tires all around. A bit more front-end grip and hopefully similarly neutral handling. I have no experience with that, though.

As was pointed out you might want some lighter wheels for autocrossing. You can probably pick up some 8x16" sewer lids pretty cheap and they're a good strong light forged wheel. They're not very expensive 'cause they're ugly and no one wants them . Unfortunately 8" is as wide as they come, but maybe you can find a couple of sets of club sports for a decent price which came with 9" wide rears and are essentially the same design of wheel. Set them aside until you can afford some r-compounds to put on them, then watch your times come down.

It might seem obvious, but sometimes it helps to put these things into words: a heavy wheel takes more energy to accelerate, and that's in all directions and states. More energy from the engine to speed it up and more force from your brakes to slow it down, but just as importantly more energy from your springs and shocks to arrest and deal with upward movement due to bumps in the road surface. All else being equal, the lighter the wheel (actually, the lighter the sum of the unsprung components) the suppler the ride and the more control over irregularities.

Good luck!

333pg333

It seems that many of us are forgetting the shocks and more importantly how they're valved. You can run high rate springs that will make life a lot of fun on the track but aren't teeth rattling on the road. It's just a matter of finding something that is more advanced than 20-30 year old Mo30 technology or similar to it. The days of stiffening up your suspension to go racing, but impossible to drive anywhere else are a thing of the past. Just do a bit of research and you'll find that some of us have their cake and they eat it too with lots of Ice cream!.. or should that be Gelato, Rob? lol

Porschefile

Very true. Too many people have the misconception that, with our cars, over 300# spring rates are way too stiff and only good for track based stuff. For a 2700-3100# car, wheel rates around 300-400# really aren't that stiff if you have the proper valving. The worst thing about Koni yellows is they have constant compression valving. Most more modern coilovers tend to have digressive (progressive) valving which can provide for a much more comfortable ride even with relatively stiff spring rates. Personally I found that with Koni yellows and 250# front springs, with the rebound set full soft, the front end still moved around a bit too much for my liking (as in nosedive). Either way, anything is better than blown shocks!

Porschefile

Front end lift on acceleration has more to do with the stiffness of the rear suspension as a result of weight transfer. There won't really be any difference in that regard between progressive or linear front springs. Where you would notice a difference would be compression due to braking or turning.

917's were well known for their handling, though not in a good way!

RKD in OKC

I did Andials recommendation on my 88 Turbo S. The main reason I called them was the recommendation I was getting from EVERYONE ELSE was basically the Bilstien cup car setup for the TRACK not street/autocross, and Andial was well know for suspension setups that worked well for 911 Turbos and their power ouputs. Something about being able to put down power on acceleration without getting loose on high speed turns. They did not tell me they were the 917 guys, someone else did. They recommended the setup I mentioned even though they had the cup car parts in stock and NONE of the parts they recommended. Their claim was that the cup car setup everyone else was using was too stiff. The cup car setup was the only other option at the time. The only difference I see today is more technical shock options.

Experience: I worked very closely with my mechanic, a successful race tuner explaining what the car did, making adjustments, then providing more feed back, and making more adjustments. Once setup and cornerbalanced it was the car to beat at local autocrosses. Even against very fast drivers in cars like a supercharged RSR. With the only engine mods a Lindsey Boost Enhancer, and Weltmeister Chips, dynoed 270rwhp, I was able to complete and trade fast laps at the local track with the fastest guy there in his RUF.

I sold the car to David Lindsey of Lindsey Racing and it is the White car they currently have. David has done a bunch of stuff to that car but has not changed the suspension setup on it yet. And he has gone to great lengths to copy the 180-410 progressive Porsche Motorsports front springs that are no longer available from Porsche Motorsports. He now has them available!

Front Lifting: The RATE the front lifts is not only a function of the weight transfer to the rear, but also the springs pushing the front up. If the springs go progressively softer as the front is lifted, the transfer has to work a little harder to continue to lift that end of the car. Measuring the 180-410 springs with the cars static weight they are compressed to the 400# range so the progressive part only comes into play as the suspension is lifted.

Adding only Weltmeister Fully Adjustable swaybars to my stock suspension 89 with lots of horsepower took 3 seconds off my 70 second autocross times. Only 2 more seconds to catch that FTD BMW.

I think the differences in what people use to make their car faster is why there are these things called races. I recommended this setup because it was in-line with the original posters question AND it worked well for me in the same situation ie., street/autocross.

ninefiveone

Are you alright? Lots of rage and anger. I know the history of the 917 very well. Actually I know the history of Porsche really well, too. I can talk all day about any of those guys if you like. Do some research on the 917 and it's development. It's a really interesting story and while Andial has a place in that story, there's a pretty specific scope to it. If you want, I'd be happy to talk about it but not if you're going to have that kind of attitude. It's also completely irrelevant to this thread.

I've been doing this for years. owain, 333pg333, and porschefile are on target.

Andial951

Andial951

RKD,

I remember reading a very similar post by you over on the 944turbo site that I was searching a month ago. It sounds like the set up you had was pretty sweet and I hope to be able to copy it soon. Glad to hear that LR has springs now that can match the 180 - 410 progressive.

Cory9584

I just got to wondering what the factory non s turbo tbs are?

SimonK

And i got to wondering what stock 951S springs are in lb?

RKD in OKC

Couldn't find any hard facts, but I seem to remember hearing 140 for Turbo, 180 for TurboS.

Techno Duck

I think stock torsion bars for the Turbo S are 25.5mm . Thats around 175 - 180lbs effective rate.

RKD in OKC

Actually the LR springs are better as they added a little length to them without effecting the rate. The Porsche Motorsport springs would fall out of the hat when you put the car on a iift so you had to be really careful letting it back down. LR fixed that annoyance in making their springs.

I understand they are also making the spring for the earlier cars that sets the ride height as low as it can go before the suspension binds.