bowmanm98

Well I have had my 2000 996 for a few weeks now. The only things I have changed are the tires. R-Compund and some clear corners. Well I love the way this car handles, much better than my old G35 sport coupe. Anyway like a lot of cars when pushed to the limit there is some understeer.

I am wondering what is the simplest easiest way to remedy this condition?

I think maybe a beefier rear adj sway bar would do the trick.

What is your experience and what do you recommend? Where can I get a rear sway bar anyway?

If there was one item less than 500 that would make you faster on the track what would it be?

Fred R. C4S

Suspension Tuning

Cheers,

leedav

I was wondering if simply increasing the amount of negative camber in the front (make it equal to the rear) would clear it up well enough for street driving...

stiles_s

I'd recommend either the rear, or front and rear, swaybars from the M030 sport suspension package. I did the rear bar first while I was waiting to have my ROW kit installed, and the difference in handling was really significant. It made the car much more balanced. Installing the front bar will bring back a touch more understeer, but it's "balanced" the way the factory wants it.

Re-animator

Every car has its suspension design flaws from the factory to err on the side of safe understeer. The rear is too soft on this car. My '01 996 Cab and current '02 Coupe have the same nasty habit of getting all bobbly when a high speed bump is contacted while turning. It is actually kind of scary and my ex-'01 996 TT did not have this issue, nor the factory standard suspension.

My solution was pretty simple and cost effective. The culprit is the standard rear shocks which are 26 and 36% softer in rebound than US M030 and RoW M030, respectively. Albeit, both springs are also 28% stiffer than stock; so technically the shocks are supposed to be well matched to too soft rear springs. M030 rear springs ($90), Bilstein Sports which are the same as X74 specs in rebound and compression (approx. $400), M030 rear bump stops which add progression into the rear linear spring rate at full compression (approx. $80), and lastly the M030 rear anti sway bar only which is 24% stiffer than stock. By leaving the front bar stock, it gives another 10% in stiffness biased to make the car oversteer to neutral. With stock 18"s, I lost under 10mm in rear ride height which means no need for engine safety pan while biasing the ride height towards a little more oversteer if you drop the front below stock. I threw on M030 fronts on the stock shocks to drop the front down almost an inch. The car is now perfect for my road only 996. With the rear weight bias of the vehicle's design, it begs for more dampening and increased spring stiffness in the rear. The bars should be used for fine tuning only, IMHO. I also left my stock alignment alone to add a hair more neg camber. Not bad for under $1K to fix the factory design with mostly factory upgrade parts. Hope this helps.

SRL

Is this going to be a track car? How much are you planning on tracking it vs. street driving?

jasoncuk

Instruction?

evolvedaz

Oversteer you need a front sway bar, understeer you need a rear sway bar. Your goal is to help change these. For a street car this will do fine. For a full race car you want it to be dialed with corner balancing using adj control arms for camber and toe as well as front camber plates.

I would go with our Sway links front and rear and then H&R sway bars like I run.... I can give you the best advice via phone as I daily drive and track mine...

bowmanm98

Well it's my daily driver, but I'd like to go to some DE events. Just trying to get an idea of what is the best and most economical way to get the car to handle even better. I am on a budget unlike most porsche guys so keep that in mind. So PSS9s are out of the question.

gota911

I am thinking of lowering my car but purely for cosmetic reasons, so I wan to do so at relatively low cost. I may track it twice a year (haven't yet) so not looking for more control/stability (yet). Do you have any pics of your car you could post so I could see the height difference? Before and after would be even better. Thanks

Sanjeevan

Fred C4S's "suspension tuning" implies that worn down front tires reduce understeer and worn rears increase understeer...now that sounds counter-intuitive, unless they are talking about R-cmpnds. shaven vs. unshaven. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS, it's really bugging me.

Fred R. C4S

Jeeva,

Why not call Steve Weiner at Rennsports, the site I listed, and ask him. He is always helpful when I have called. Or you could find one of his many posts on RL and PM him.

Cheers,

SRL

I'm going to guess that by worn down he means about 50% worn, not "worn out". I'm also going to guess that most tires give maximum grip as the tread blocks wear down, owing to the fact that the tread blocks at their lower height flex less and that results in less tire squirm. This doesn't take into account the effect heat cycling has on street tires, though.

This is why shaved street tires will perform better than new off-the-shelf street tires of the same brand and model.

My experience in World Challenge Touring, where we were racing on Toyo T1-S shaved street tires, was that the car was fastest on the first 2 or 3 runs, and pretty much heat cycled out before the tire was even close to being worn out. But street tires usually are not subjected to the stringent requirements of racing.

As far as the original poster is concerned, I'd echo the sentiment that track time and instruction are the cheapest way to go faster. But that won't reduce understeer, so for that go with GT3 adjustable sway bars, front AND rear, and then adjust them and tire pressures to dial out understeer. Worked great on my car!

Re-animator

I have a before and when i can get my digital camera back from a friend I will post an after.

Sanjeevan

SRL, thanks for that explanation...I was thinking in similar lines as well....Hey! but interested in your comments about the Toyo street tires heat cycling it self to waste before the tread wears down. Now, does it become rock solid then, and how do you tell, is there a tremendous loss in grip or by feel ???, and I would guess the initial heat cycling and rest cure for 24-48 hrs. on R-compounds would eliminate it.

Sorry for hijacking this thread...but, fo9r the initial question, to reduce understeer I am planning to install wider and taller tires in the front, and narrower and shorter tire in the back.