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The beginning:
Its been over 7 years now since I have owned my turbo, and have been patiently waiting to go "all in" on my suspension. I kept getting sidetracked by coolant line welding engine drops and life in general, however this past month I was finally able to make it happen (thanks stock market)! I went back and fourth on a lot of different systems. I AutoX a lot (I chair for my PCA region), and do as many DE's as my schedule allows so I wanted something that would at least be adjustable enough for dual purpose use. I still drive my car on the street in a fun capacity. I'm not dailying the car, so I could put up with quite a bit more harshness if need be. NVH does not bother me much so I knew I wanted something to feel very "locked down" but not so harsh that if I hit an expansion joint in the street that the car would change lanes, or take hops on sweepers when hitting a bump. Dont take this to mean that I dont notice when things make noise, as I do. I currently have a lightweight flywheel in the car so anything above that noise level, I will note.
The Analysis:
I was reading a lot about the Ohlins DFV setup, which I almost purchased a few times. It had good reviews from a friend that purchased it for his C4S, and a lot of you on here. I still believe it to be a solid choice. The thing that stopped me was I would hear people talking about how soft the springs were stock on that system and that it was a good idea to re-valve it for more track performance. I figured if I was going to go that route then maybe I should have just started looking at something a little more custom like JRZ or MCS in the first place. By this point you can imagine, its almost paralysis by analysis because there were so may options! I came close to getting an MCS setup (1 way) but then figured out that they didnt make the top mounts for our cars and I had to order them from Tarett. I dont want to go to a ton of different manufactures if I dont need to. This brings me to the endgame, JRZ. I got in touch with John (Powdrhound) about the JRZ system and used his knowledge of these cars to figure out what I needed. A lot of the things he recommended were exactly what I had researched and pieced together (Control arms, drop links, sway bars etc). Great, those pieces fit with someones knowledge that has "been there, done that". I was good to go on those parts. Next was the damper discussion. We talked about how the single adjustable dampers could only go so far on these cars until you really had to step up the game and go to remotes with multi way adjustment. The thing that really made up my mind was his comments about how much better and controlled the ride would be with the remote reservoirs vs single adjustable. Not only that but the ability to tune the shocks between street/DE/AutoX. Ok great, I was sold on the shocks now came the spring rate discussion.... Now I have heard over and over on the forums that 600/800 is the "go to" for a lot of mixed track and street. Powdrhound swore up and down to me that I would be better suited by going to 1000/1100 lbs rates. This obviously sounded EXTREMELY stiff for something I was still going to use on the street, from what I had seen on the forum. He told me that he had used tons of different spring setups on both the JRZ single adjustable and 2way/3ways, and these were a great compromise for street and track use since they were valved to order specifically for those rates. This is where trust comes in. I figured I would take his advise, and was fully anticipating having to re-valve/re-spring my new JRZ suspension so that I could use it on the street at some point. I was dead wrong, and glad I listened to Powdrhound!
Side note: Powdrhound took care of everything on the purchasing end and was very communicative during the process. Its always difficult to trust someone with this kind of procurement and not to mention the large sum of money involved. He is an absolute class act as his reputation suggests. I would not hesitate to purchase something from him again!
The Parts List:
JRZ RS Pro 2 way dampers JRZ front and rear canister quick disconnects JRZ front AWD and rear upper monoball mounts Eibach ERS 1000 lb front springs Eibach ERS 1100 lb rear springs Eibach ERS 150 lb tenders Eibach ERS 250 lb tenders All spring seats, locking collars, and divider plates JRZ rear drop link mounts Tarett rear drop links Tarett front extended drop links w/ mounts
Tarett front 996 GT3 style sway bar w/ bushings
Tarett rear 996 GT3 style sway bar w/ bushings
Tarett locking plate toe kit for toe link
Tarett rod end boots (4x small)
Tarett rod end boots (4x large)
Tarett 996TT 10mm front axle spacer kit
Litronic bracket for GT3 arm (2x)
OEM 996GT3 LCA (1 pair)
OEM Porsche Motorsport 997RSR LCA (1 pair)
OEM Porsche Motorsport 997Cup rear toe arms (1 pair)
OEM Porsche Motorsport revised top nuts for RSR Rear Control Arms
RSR Thrush arm bushings (Caster Pucks) for Front GT3 control arms
JRZ Remote adjustment ***** 280mm - For Rear shock tops
The Install:
Procurement of all the parts took a hot minute (aka a month). Everything arrived bubble wrapped to hell (thanks Powdrhound) and in one piece. The JRZ suspension was beautifully packaged from the Netherlands and Powdrhound made sure everything was good before he shipped it to me so that there were no surprises. I am fortunate where I live to have a lot of great mechanics and race shops around to install this stuff. I'm pretty handy with a wrench, but this system required a good deal of setup and tuning so I left this one to a pro. My mechanic (Full Time Racing) works on a lot of Porsche Cup cars and has been on championship winning race teams in Pirelli World Challenge. The great part is that he is very chill with having me hang around and help out/learn so I got to see how everything was done to help me understand it a bit better. Overall the install went pretty well, everything bolted together pretty easily with the exception of the Tarett extended swaybar end link mounts on the front shocks. There was a specific wrench that we needed for the top of the JRZ shock body so that we could remove it and have the Tarett extended swaybar end link mount slide down over top it. From what I gather this is a revised design. No big deal. My shop also clearanced the pinch bolts on the front uprights so that we would not get any binding when turning lock to lock. It also took him a little bit to make sure the front swaybar end links were put in the proper positions to not have any rubbing or clearance issues. This took a while, and I cant say im a huge fan of how these go on. We took Powdrhounds advise and ran the remote reservoir hoses in a specific way making sure to cover them in some nice fuel hose at contact points to being extra cautious to prevent rubbing. The 997 RSR Porsche Motorsport Rear lower control arms are just a thing to behold. They are so smooth and nice compared to the GT3 control arms, you can really see the quality of these pieces. Another really nice piece that may not be talked about are the rear toe links. I went for the RSR rear toe links from Porsche Motorsport. These are SO EASY to adjust, and make alignments for toe a snap in the rear. Ultra high quality, just make sure to replace the pinch bolt screw with something that isn't a freaking allen head. It will make your life easier.
We mounted the front reservoirs to the left and right of the battery area, on the angled metal beams. Seems to be fine so far, but I do like Powdrhounds method of running them into the trunk to keep them out of the weather better. Unfortunately I need all the trunk space I can get, and wasn't able to sacrifice the trunk space. This is what it is for now, we will see how it turns out. The reservoirs in the rear are run through the ABS grommet and mounted to my roll bar for easy access. I have the Bose system in my car so the sub woofer was in the way to be able to easily change the rebound on the top of the shock. I purchased the custom made JRZ rebound extenders from Olsen Motorsport in 280mm (11.5 inches i believe). This allows you to use the Bose sub woofer, however I did not like the fact that we couldn't get a good feel for the clicks with the sub installed, so out that went! I am still using the rebound extenders to bring the rebound adjustments a little closer towards me so I don't have to reach very far through the rollbar. I like the way it turned out. The Bose system was/is garbage as far as sound quality anyway. It wasn't made much worse . I took the time to re-install my seatbelt connections for my Recaro Pole Positions. Hopefully after a quick trip to the dealer I can finally get the airbag light to disappear!
We did a string alignment and corner balance on the car. Man this is just art watching my mechanic do this. Very cool and I learned a lot. Its the first time I have seen a string alignment done from setup to teardown. I am running -3 degree camber in the front and -2 degree in the rear at Powdrhounds recommendation for a street/track car. This worked out very well. I think its a good balance of street and hopefully track performance. More on the setup sheet when its all put together (ride height etc all setup to Powdrhounds recommendations)
The Drive:
Believe me when I tell you, I was actually very nervous when my mechanic and I took this for a drive. When you spend this much money and time researching something that you want to go well, the last thing you want is to hate the result. The street ride quality was what I was fearing since I began the process. My mechanic didn't believe Powdrhounds claim that the suspension will ride ok on the street. Let me say that he was made a believer, the car rides BETTER (aka softer and less harsh) than it did stock . It absolutely blew our minds that my car on 1000/1100 spring rates could ride this good with the compression and rebound turned down on almost a full monoball setup (inner GT3 control arm piece isn't monoball)! It is down right cushy, takes bumps and pavement imperfections and just soaks them up without the chassis being out of sorts at all. There is ZERO noise from the monoballs in this car so far. Huzzah, all the toil over parts was worth it! I want to mess with compression/rebound a bit as I actually think I want it a bit stiffer for the street. I am currently at +3 Compression and I believe +6 rebound all around (JRZ street base recommendations). So to all the people that do not think these cars can handle 1k+ springs and not ride like garbage, you may need to address your shock valving or shock choice because it is possible to have your cake and eat it too. Next I will be figuring out a track setting for the dampers at Mid Ohio in Sept. I want to keep this tread open to discuss this suspension as it progresses in setup. Hopefully this can help someone like me when I was looking for a full suspension setup to understand the choices that they have out there, and to not be afraid of high spring rate if you have the shocks to match!
Thanks for reading this novel,
Special thanks to John (Powderhound) for all the support and procurement of this awesome setup
Cody at Full Time Racing for the Install Setup
-Ryan
RSR Rear Control arm Incoming! Good look at the rear Rear Rear Seat belt connection (driver) Seat belt connection (Passenger) Front GT3 LCA REAR Front Reservoir Mounting (yes the cabin filter needs replaced, I think something was using it for bedding at one point...) Finished product! Finished product!
Awesome write up. I'm in the same boat as you were and will probably want to replicate what you did next year. Please tell us about how things go when you take the car to the track. Thanks so much for sharing!
Awesome write up. I'm in the same boat as you were and will probably want to replicate what you did next year. Please tell us about how things go when you take the car to the track. Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for reading all that! Im excited to get it turned up. I have no doubt it will be great, just need to find the right clicks that suits my driving style. I was looking for some AutoX events to test it and everyone is about done for the year it seems. I should have plenty of time on Friday of the DE to mess with settings. I will report back.
Great write up, looking forward to hearing about your driving impressions at the track. I had the opportunity to drive a 981 Cayman with a JRZ setup like this at the track and it was eye opening to say the least...
I'm also glad to hear that the spring rates can be run up higher, I have thought for a while now that the Bilstein PSS 10 setup that I have in my car was too soft (especially in the rear) when at the track. This winter my plan is to upgrade my transmission and add a cooler but I can definitely see myself heading down this path in the future!
Great write up, maybe next year I'll take the plunge and upgrade my spring rates as well. I can't seem to get the current rates dialed in for street, maybe I'm just under Sprung shrug. Great to hear about your success!
Shawn
Great write up, looking forward to hearing about your driving impressions at the track. I had the opportunity to drive a 981 Cayman with a JRZ setup like this at the track and it was eye opening to say the least...
I'm also glad to hear that the spring rates can be run up higher, I have thought for a while now that the Bilstein PSS 10 setup that I have in my car was too soft (especially in the rear) when at the track. This winter my plan is to upgrade my transmission and add a cooler but I can definitely see myself heading down this path in the future!
While your trans is out you could send those PSS10s to have re-valved for higher spring rates. https://www.bilstein.com/us/en/techn...ledge/service/
Looks like about $500 all in on a re-valve, then you're looking at about $600 in springs/tenders, corner balance, align and done...$1,500 all in if you R&R.
Or, do like I did and find a "deal" on the JRZ's, then spend a bunch more on uprights, brakes, etc...and be slightly faster...$15k all in
Well I had the car at our MORPCA HPDE 3 Day event at Mid Ohio last weekend. Its been 2 years since I have run the club course with the Chicane, so I was very interested to see what the car would do.
The stock suspension had so much body roll that it was really upset by some of the sweeping corners at Mid Ohio. Transitions were always quite sloppy in stock form in the quick transition of the Esses under the Honda bridge, and going up into madness. Braking hard down the back straight was always controlled however exhibited HUGE amounts of dive in the front end. Moral of the story, it was a good GT car, that was a hot mess on the track. Fast forward to Friday morning. I clicked the JRZ adjuster ***** for the first time, and configured my new suspension for "track mode".
I wanted to run the suspension at the JRZ recommend "track setting" of 6 clicks compression and 10 clicks rebound all weekend to get a feel for the suspension. This helped me really create a baseline for what the car was capable of. It also helped me to get comfortable the car with before adding compression/rebound changes to the equation. I started out on Friday running a 1:47.6. It was under 1:50s since the stock suspension so I was already seeing some progress made! I started to really get a feel for the car over the vast amount of time I had on Friday with huge amounts of open track. Saturday, confidence grew even more once I started to figure out how high the limit had become, and how neutral the suspension was. Super confidence inspiring to go into a corner and TELL the car what to do, instead of it first being dictated by body roll. Sunday I was really starting to get on a roll with the car and reduced my lap time to.....1:40.5. Yes, thats 7.1 seconds from the start of the weekend! I was blown away. I am also currently on 200 treadwear Yokohama A052's in stock sizes, so there is plenty room for improvement in the tire department.
The car is not only stupid fast now, but the confidence it inspired escalated my lap times so dramatically I couldn't believe it. No doubt on the pro/club courses next season I will be running in the 1:30s with confidence. This is the best money (and most) I have ever put into a vehicle as a single mod. The results are absolutely stunning. I couldnt be more happy with the car. Thanks John (Powdrhound) for all the help. Cant wait to start playing even more with the settings next year and escalating my skills!
-Ryan
Last edited by Mtrboatvr6; 09-17-2019 at 09:33 PM.
Great to hear Ryan. Setting up a high end suspension on these cars is a bit of a black art but when done correctly it’s an amazing transformation. The problem is it’s rarely done right. Wait till you get some R-comps or slicks on the car. You will likely want to bump the springs to 1200/1300 at that point. A Guard LSD will be the next game changer. You won’t believe the car then in conjunction with your suspension. That will be a serious eye opener. Trust me. Looking forward to running Indy with you next year!
Last edited by powdrhound; 09-18-2019 at 12:15 AM.
Great to hear Ryan. Setting up a high end suspension on these cars is a bit of a black art but when done correctly its an amazing transformation. The problem is its rarely done right. Wait till you get some R-comps or slicks on the car. You will likely want to bump the springs to 1200/1300 at that point. A Guard LSD will be the next game changer. You wont believe the car then in conjunction with your suspension. That will be a serious eye opener. Trust me. Looking forward to running Indy with you next year!
Yes for sure to all of that. Glad I have Cody around to make sure it was setup right. Indy will be a blast next year for sure! Tires next year and maybe LSD and RWD in 2 years. Now the hard part...Ohio winter
I was able to fit one last AutoX in at the end of the season. I adjusted the suspension to 6 compression 10 rebound front/rear to start. I ended up with a little bit more oversteer than I liked coming out of mid AutoX speed corners, so I turned up the rebound in the rear two clicks to 12. The back settled down some and I was able to drop another .2 seconds. Out of 85 cars I placed 2nd overall. My buddy however cant stop laughing as he beat me in his Honda...Civic Type R running Hoosier A7s in 315 sizing by .3 seconds. Those cars setup right are MONSTERS on track. He currently holds lap records for Street stock FWD at every Gridlife Time Attack event he entered this season. Needless to say it was a fun day. Now for cold weather, and impatiently waiting for spring.
I was able to fit one last AutoX in at the end of the season. I adjusted the suspension to 6 compression 10 rebound front/rear to start. I ended up with a little bit more oversteer than I liked coming out of mid AutoX speed corners, so I turned up the rebound in the rear two clicks to 12. The back settled down some and I was able to drop another .2 seconds. Out of 85 cars I placed 2nd overall. My buddy however cant stop laughing as he beat me in his Honda...Civic Type R running Hoosier A7s in 315 sizing by .3 seconds. Those cars setup right are MONSTERS on track. He currently holds lap records for Street stock FWD at every Gridlife Time Attack event he entered this season. Needless to say it was a fun day. Now for cold weather, and impatiently waiting for spring.
08-25-2019, 11:42 AM
JRZ RS Pro 2 way Remote Install / Review
and in one piece. The JRZ suspension was beautifully packaged from the Netherlands and Powdrhound made sure everything was good before he shipped it to me so that there were no surprises. I am fortunate where I live to have a lot of great mechanics and race shops around to install this stuff. I'm pretty handy with a wrench, but this system required a good deal of setup and tuning so I left this one to a pro. My mechanic (Full Time Racing) works on a lot of Porsche Cup cars and has been on championship winning race teams in Pirelli World Challenge. The great part is that he is very chill with having me hang around and help out/learn so I got to see how everything was done to help me understand it a bit better. Overall the install went pretty well, everything bolted together pretty easily with the exception of the Tarett extended swaybar end link mounts on the front shocks. There was a specific wrench that we needed for the top of the JRZ shock body so that we could remove it and have the Tarett extended swaybar end link mount slide down over top it. From what I gather this is a revised design. No big deal. My shop also clearanced the pinch bolts on the front uprights so that we would not get any binding when turning lock to lock. It also took him a little bit to make sure the front swaybar end links were put in the proper positions to not have any rubbing or clearance issues. This took a while, and I cant say im a huge fan of how these go on. We took Powdrhounds advise and ran the remote reservoir hoses in a specific way making sure to cover them in some nice fuel hose at contact points to being extra cautious to prevent rubbing. The 997 RSR Porsche Motorsport Rear lower control arms are just a thing to behold. They are so smooth and nice compared to the GT3 control arms, you can really see the quality of these pieces. Another really nice piece that may not be talked about are the rear toe links. I went for the RSR rear toe links from Porsche Motorsport. These are SO EASY to adjust, and make alignments for toe a snap in the rear. Ultra high quality, just make sure to replace the pinch bolt screw with something that isn't a freaking allen head. It will make your life easier.
. It absolutely blew our minds that my car on 1000/1100 spring rates could ride this good with the compression and rebound turned down on almost a full monoball setup (inner GT3 control arm piece isn't monoball)! 
It is down right cushy, takes bumps and pavement imperfections and just soaks them up without the chassis being out of sorts at all. There is ZERO noise from the monoballs in this car so far. Huzzah, all the toil over parts was worth it! I want to mess with compression/rebound a bit as I actually think I want it a bit stiffer for the street. I am currently at +3 Compression and I believe +6 rebound all around (JRZ street base recommendations). So to all the people that do not think these cars can handle 1k+ springs and not ride like garbage, you may need to address your shock valving or shock choice because it is possible to have your cake and eat it too. Next I will be figuring out a track setting for the dampers at Mid Ohio in Sept. I want to keep this tread open to discuss this suspension as it progresses in setup. Hopefully this can help someone like me when I was looking for a full suspension setup to understand the choices that they have out there, and to not be afraid of high spring rate if you have the shocks to match!
