Russ Murphy

How is the 10mm of ride height adjustment accomplished? I thought our strut and shock bodies had fixed spring seat heights.

Adrian

My sincere apologies. Too much time on the GT-3 and GT-2 which have adjustable height for the struts and shocks. I plain forgot the normal 996 have fixed seats.
Disregard my corner balancing comments for the 996. This is done at the factory and is a preset (with quite a tolerance) and forget system.
Ciao,
Adrian.

Adrian

Geert,
This is what Porsche write about this.
I do not go around surveying these things, but from what complaints I have heard and from what I have seen it is usually always front left side slightly down which is driver's side (LHD) and passenger's side (RHD). Noting I have never seen this on your American version cars with the higher ride heights because I have yet to play with these 996s.
My 996 experience is limited to what I have seen in my own park platz and from cars I know closer to home (Europe) including RHD 996s in the UK.

Other issues are going to be badly matched springs, incorrectly torqued springs and maybe incorrrectly seated springs. However I would suggest these issues may arise during modification or repairs to the suspension.

I need to learn more about how Porsche set this up at the factory.
Ciao,
Adrian.

okbarnett

If you just want to lower the car (forget about 1in, thats too much) order the row porsche springs for your car. Its the cheapest and most sensable solution.

Russ Murphy

Dude, 22 of the 33 replies to this topic are about the ROW suspension. Where ya been? Just doing the springs is probably not the best solution though. The spring rates are different (not proportionally increased rates front and rear) so it'd be nice to have shocks valved to work with the altered rates and the ROW shocks have a 10mm shorter shaft to avoid losing travel by bottoming out the shock after lowering the car.

jetskied

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I do think that there is a tolerance of +/- 10mm on the ride height of Porsche from the factory. Adrian you are very knowledegable and have study the Porsche very well, but I do think the tolerence set in by the factory can account for the difference some people are seeing with the kits. I do have the M030 with the correct part numbers cross referenced with the factory manual and the part number that the springs came with and I only got about a 15 and 8 mm lowering, but it was measured by the lip, but on the same spot on the car port. Remember the M030 is 20mm lower then the US cars and only 10mm lower then a std. ROW suspension.

Adrian

I would use the word Jein to describe what you are saying (Ja und Nein). When Porsche build a 996 they just measure the ride height (at the correct points) at the correct weight, supposedly at the correct wheel alignment and if it's within their set measurements (within tolerance which IMHO seriously suck) they let it go. If not, it's back to QC for rectification. How they actually fix this is another mystery.

However when you rip out the original US version suspension and replace it with the ROW M030 the 996 is no longer how the factory set it up for the US market and all bets are off so to speak.
In fact I would suspect that many people who do this are completely unaware of the plus or minus 10mm tolerance and other changes or differences such as wheel alignment between the ROW and US versions.
Are there other parts which affect ride height in some way or another which cannot be compensated for?
For the 964 and 993 the answer was "yes" because the US versions were physically heavier than the ROW versions. What about the 996? Needs to be checked.

One major issues is that Porsche owners (worldwide) do not measure the ride height at the correct measuring points, they use the fender to ground. Another common problem is that they fail to set the 996's weight before they make the measurements. You need a full tank of gas for a start.
Personally I feel some (not all) of the variations seen are caused by not setting the 996 up properly before the measurements are taken and possibly people not realising that the front wheel alignment is different for the ROW M030 as compared to the US standard and sports suspension, but there are many other unanswered issues as of yet to make hard statements.

What is also missing is a reference model. Inotherwords, take a USA version of a 996 and do a set of proper measurements at the correct points at the correct weight and with the ROW M030 wheel alignment setting and then measure the fender to ground to give a more accurate reference measurement. This will need to be done for all models due to the differences in weight between the versions.

I also suspect that some 996 owners are running around with the incorrect compensation plates fitted or even with a mix of plates. I do not know if tthe correct spring compensation plates are supplied with the kits.
Standard is the white spring compensation plate (3mm) front and (0.5mm) rear.
ROW M030 uses the green (6.5mm) front and (4mm) rear.

Other problems may include incorrect tensioning of the springs on assembly, incorrect assembly (it happens), wrong kit for the model owned supplied and so on and so on.

There is no black and white answer which fits all cases.

I would still like to see a colour pictures of these ROW M030 kits received by US based customers.

One tip I recommend to anyone doing this modification in the future is to use the workshop manual and if taking their 996 to a shop, to ask that they have the manual and make sure they actually use it. Did I mention wheel alignment differences.

This issue is not unique to the 996. Ever since Porsche introduced option M030 during the 964 series run this problem of fitting ROW parts to US versions has been around.
The 996 seems to be a tad more complicated so more facts and physical information is needed to come up with a reliable set of installation tips that people can rely upon.
Ciao,
Adrian.

PS: According to the TEquipment catalogue the standard lowering kit for the ROW market is only 10mm. A special ROW 30mm kit is offered for the 996 Coupes in 2002 and a ROW 20mm kit is offered from 2003 for the 996 Turbo and C4S Coupes.
TEquipment only show a 10mm lowering kit from 2002 for US market 996 Coupes which ride 10mm higher at the front than the ROW 996s.
I have some kit lists now, but this is getting awfully complicated because the 20 and 30mm lowering kits also require a change of the two rear engine mounts. More questions to be answered and more research needed.

Ranger

Compensation plates are not included in the ROW M030 kit, which is odd. I ordered the kit and the dealer said that the tolerance markings were white. They didn't have the right compensation plates for white, and seemed unfamiliar with the whole issue. This was from a Porsche dealer with a very large Internet parts business. They said that they'd "never ordered" compensation plates for green tolerance marks. So I called all over the country and finally found the right compensation plates.

When the ROW M030 kit showed up, it had white rear and with green front springs. The morale of this story is that if you buy the M030 kit, you have to ask the seller to open the box that they are planning on selling you, and tell you what the tolerance markings are. They can't just look at any ol' M030 box on their shelf. And you may have to do some educating on the issue.

When they said that they didn't think that compensation plates were an issue, I told them "Adrian Streather says it needs to be right, and that's good enough for me".