spiller

Well, perhaps the title is a tad misleading as I never fell out of love, but my love for her has certainly blossomed!

I had the Ohlins R&T fitted last week, along with a track alignment and took the car for its first back road drive yesterday. My gosh! This suspension has completely exceeded my expectations. The ride is so supple, yet far more nimble than before. The ugly rear squat and light front end on power out corners is completely gone also. The way this car now just eats up sharp undulations in the road is truly fantastic and the resulting composure that is now has has made it feel like a new car in terms of ride control, yet it retains all the “classic” attributes that we love in our 996 GT3s. Beyond pleased!

All of this has allowed me to reduce front rake meaning I no longer drag the nose all over the road, and I have also been able to back the sway bars off from full stiff (which was a compromise, especially on bumpy undulating surfaces).

Tyres are MPSC2 Connect
Strut tops are OEM front in the cup position and factory 996 cup rear
Geometry is -3.2 camber and zero toe front
-3 and +2mm toe per side rear.
The dampers are currently in their factory settings - 7 clicks from full hard.

My only “negative” is I can hear the rear dampers “swooshing” away in the cabin as I go over bumps. I wondered if this was perhaps from increased noise transfer into the cabin due the cup car rear strut tops which have no insulation as opposed to the factory rubber tops? Has anyone else experienced this noise with their Ohlins set up?

cgfen

You're killing me.
The ride quality is what finally pushed me over the edge to sell. It was either Ohlins or sell.
We know how that worked out!

Enjoy the new car.

brontosaurus

This is the exact same experience I had with my FD, although I find the OEM 996 GT3 suspension to be tolerable enough, for now. This is probably pushing my purchase up a bit Cheers

spiller

Never too late to buy another with the Ohlins ready to go in

spiller

OEM is certainly tolerable around town. The issue I had was to get the car to respond closer to how I like, the swaybars ended up on the stiffest setting. This made the ride even worse.

dave-C2

Am I correct that the recommended dual purpose shock by Ohlin has the DFV technology, not the TTX design?

https://www.ohlins.com/product/road-...1999-2005-996/

spiller

Correct Road & Track is DFV. Definitely not an out and out race shock like TTX

Godspeed !

Geesh.............. I so wanted to go this route. But the need to "service" them at their req'd interval reluctantly turned me away. But honestly, not all aluminum bodied shock mfg's tell you of this. OHLINS does. From a technical standpoint, I believe it is due to the aluminum internal tube wall wear which contaminates the oil.

So for me I did the H&R street coil overs on my 99 C2 with Tarret bars, Polyflex bushings everywhere including sub frames. With a somewhat aggressive street alignment, it handles quite well. Buuuuuuuut at the low cost to me ,(for now), of ride comfort. Wife has not ridden in it yet ! From what I have read, this set up is very close to the OE GT3 set up, even down to spring rates. H&R are progressive? Stayed with OE C2 strut mounts, new. BTW Full POLYFLEX really makes a difference without and added NV.

Ohlins is probably the best set up out there. Good tech support. Just be aware of the Service Interval. May not sway many users. Very much worth the effort I'm sure.

RyanH.

A 35k mile service interval on cars that most likely won't see more than 5k miles per year is quite a long time. Once every 7 years shouldn't be a reason to choose a lesser performing shock, in my opinion.

Also, the GT3 version is slightly firmer than the Carrera version. It's not an identical shock. The Carrera version is softer and more plush riding but the GT3 does a good job at being the goldilocks combo.

Marv

I agree. Ohlins is so much better than the OEM system that it is worth the extra cost. For that matter, I could have not bought a GT3, but has proven to be worth the extra cost.

Godspeed !

Just to clarify, OHLINS "Owners Manual" states service interval to be 30 000 KM for street use, aprox 18.5 K miles.

Good info, wasn't aware the GT3 set up was different, makes sense.....................

spiller

It’s 60,000 kms for street use and (15 hours for track, but not more than 30 hours). At the rate I drive my car these will need a rebuild because of age, not kms. OEM Bilsteins will likely be clapped out after the same usage, as would most other performance shocks.

993GT

they are great aren't they!
FWIW, I went quite a bit over on the service interval (75k on 1st round) and were still very good, despite having a lot demanded from them

Godspeed !

Good info.................

spiller

Anyone have any comments as to the swooshing noise I described from the rear dampers as they compress and rebound at road speeds? It’s a faint noise but it’s there.