SANDOVAL

I have a few questions before I swap out the suspension. Do I need to depress the coils on the original springs with a spring clamp type tool? Another question I had does the front strut slide out easily? I have the car in the air on Jack stands wheels and calipers off so I thought this would be a great time to do the install. Also one of my front struts is missing a Boot (I bought the PSS9's off a member on 6 speed his shop misplaced the boot) Bilstein is on B/O until the end of Feb. Do I need the boots looking at PET it looks like the GT3 does not have boots as part of the front strut assembly can I get away without the boots for a while? Do I need them at all?

The install looks straight forward just by looking at the exposed parts. Is there a good DIY guide? Any words of Wisdom? Short Cuts etc. before I do the work this weekend?

Thanks in advance.

deputydog95

i just did mine with viper bob. actually i just watched and handed him tools

yes, you will need to compress the stock springs to remove the stock metal caps from the top of the assembly. you reuse those with the pss9's.

the front struts come out easy if you take the brake calipers off and hang them off to the side. just use a bungy or something to keep it out of the way and the stress off the lines themselves. then just drop the struts down and slide them out. careful with the paint on the bottom edge of your fender. it's pretty close.

i have no idea if you need the boot or not, but this is a fairly involved job. took viper bob the better part of the day and he has installed a million of these. unfortunatley we had to do it at his house instead of lift and that made it take quite a bit more time. you may be able to get some boots from an off road store. may not be the same color blue, but just replace all four. i can't imagine bilstein has special boots made for their shocks.

also, make sure you have some tiny little allen wrenches. you'll need one to calibrate and/or remove the damping dial.

keep me posted on your ride height. bilstein usa says not to go more than 35mm front and 25mm rear. i am at about 25.5ish front and 26.1ish for the rear. stock ride height is 27 front and rear. supposedly if you go any lower you may end up on the internal bump stops. my ride height is pretty good, but i would like it a bit lower. i'm just nervous about compromising the handling to get a little more drop out of it. not to mention it gets harder to align when you slam it.

SANDOVAL

Thanks Dog. Do you re-use the OEM bump stops? I have been doing searches for the past hour. I have replace the suspension on my 968 years ago so I think I am up to the task. I have a garage full of tools I think I will go over to Autozone and pick up the compression tool since I do not have one. The calipers are off the car so that is no biggie.

deputydog95

no, you get rid of the factory bump stops. the pss9's have internal bump stops. you're essentially ditching the entire strut assemly except for that metal cap that goes on top. as far as i can rememeber, besides bolts, etc... that is the only part you will reuse.

here's another tip. use the jack to lift the strut up into position. it is much easier than trying to hold it in you hand and getting it to line up with those three holes. the jack will let you gently guide it up into the holes.

one other tip, depending on how long this takes you, you may want to consider plugging you car into the porsche charger. you'll have your doors open and the trunk open for most of the install and you may kill your battery with the courtesy lights. viper bob actually has a cool trick where he uses a hood latch and just plugs it into the receptacle to kill the light in the trunk.


setting the ride height is a complete pain in the *** by the way. lower it. put the wheels on. take the car off jackstand. drive it around the block to settle the suspension. drive home. find out it's off. do it over again


on another topic, how abnoxious do you think the muffler bypass pipes would be in conjuction with headers and cat bypasses? is your car any louder now with the cat bypasses and headers and sport mufflers vs your stock headers and cats and muffler bypasses?

arenared

Using spring compressors on my Boxster S was not really a necessity (I have them). I found them more hassle than it was worth. The springs were only compressed maybe a 1/2" and most of that is undone in the threaded part part of the strut shaft. Even reinstalling springs, I did not bother with a spring compressor. If you just press on them while someone else turns the nut, you can get them started. The 996 is different, but probably not by much and the front is lighter. Good luck!

deputydog95

by the way, i'm not as much of loser as i appear to be posting a on friday night. i'm stuck in my car on surveillance. got to love the wireless air card

SANDOVAL

Not a loser at all... My girl is sick and this week has been a bitch... so me a keyboard, mouse and a bottle of GG and Cranberry juice... The posts may get good!


You do reuse this triangle peice on top of the strut right?


For the street No Cats no mufflers YES very loud to loud for my taste have you been to a Rolex/LeMans race a Cup car is how you will sound.

Eli K

Yes, reuse the top.

deputydog95

ditto on the "triangle piece". i guessing that's bilstein's technical name for that?

so as far as sound, is your car louder with headers, cat bpasses, and mufflers, or stock headers, cats, and muff bpasses?

SANDOVAL

No the Bypass pipes with stock Cat/headers is MUCH louder.

deputydog95

wow, i'm shocked. i didn't realize the muffler bypasses were that loud. i may have to try the cat bypasses first and see how i like that.

i was considering going with both the cat and muffler bypasses, but now i'm starting to think that may be too much. of course if i go that route, i'd have to do some dyno runs to make sure i'm not losing any HP with the backpressure losses.

SANDOVAL

Ok the first strut took me 2 almost 3 hours... The second strut about 20 minutes. I do use air tools so that helps. I did find using a Jack and a pair of spring clamps were very helpful. What took so long? Figuring out how to get the old stut out from under the wheel well. I ended up removing the triangle peice. Also it helps to remove the 10mm bolt that holds the brake wear sensor. It would have been nice to have anther set of hands but it is very doable by yourself.

Question I reused a few parts. the Triangle strut top mount, the ball bearing assemply, the coved washer (Said to reuse that part in the Blilstein doc. I have) and the top and bottom brass color disks (one goes under the large top strut nut. Theother goes over the coved washer.) Did I reuse the right parts? I had the strut, spring and bump stop left.

I highly recommend this as a DIY project. I can't see paying $600-1100 for this job it is not that hard. I still have the rear and sway bars tomorrow. I will give some feedback on the rear tomorrow.

deputydog95

nice work. i don't remember exactly what viperbob reused on mine other than the triangle piece. sounds about right though.

Fred R. C4S

I hope you didn't forget to reuse the front upper thrust washers. It's not clear from the Bilstein instructions just exactly what OEM parts are reused. If you forget this washer you will a get a popping sound as you slowly drive an turn, rotating the from struts without benefit of the thrust washers.

Been there, done that.

Cheers,

SANDOVAL

Is that the ball bearing ring and covers?

the parts I installed go like this top to bottom:

NUT
gold color washer/disk
Triangle plate (Anyone have a name?)
4 PC ball bearing set
Gold color washer disk
Coved washer
and then Bilsteins striut

I only had the Spring and Strut left over