Mark P

I'm fed up with the suspension on my car. I'm here to share my story to hopefully help some others, and also to vent...

I have PSS9's and H&R Sway bars. I bought the car used with 19k miles and with this setup on it already. The car sat quite low. I had an alignment done along with the PPI when I bought the car from a private party. I don't track the car.

From day1, there had been an occasional clunking noise over smallish bumps in the rear. I pulled the wheels off as well as the rear interior carpeting to get to the suspension to inspect. All of the bolts were tight, as were coilover perch nuts and there were not any obvious issues.

The best I could suspect was that the helper spring wasn't doing it's full job and some slop was occurring in the spring/perch just enough to make a sound.

At this point, I decided to move the rear sway from Medium setting to Soft in hopes that may have an impact. It didn't.

Time goes by and it continues. It's annoying, but not horrible so it's just at the point where it's hard to justify spending a lot of time/$ on it, and thus it just lingers on. I also wanted new wheels and figured it would be good to wait until those were on. At about this, I tried to get in touch with a local shop that was supposed to be very good with suspensions, but they never returned my calls and are only there by appointment, so that never worked out.

Fast forward to last fall and I have an issue that turns out to be some boost hoses that came loose. While in the shop for that, I also get new tires and an alignment. As it turns out the rear alignment was far out from what it was when I bought the car.

Orig alignment:
http://ctny.audiworld.com/mark/996tt...gnment_cpt.jpg
Last fall:
http://ctny.audiworld.com/mark/996tt...ignment_ep.jpg

As you can see, the rear camber was notably off since the prior alignment.

I had planned to raise the car a bit, but as it turns out I needed to because the shop couldn't get it in alignment at the lowered stance it was at. They weren't exactly positive of the cause, but something was causing (as I recall it) the toe to be impacted in order to get the camber right, which was more pronounced at it's lowered height. We ended up raising it almost an inch. While discussing over the phone with the shop, at one point there was mention of control arm hitting sway bar, but then when I went to pick up the car the owner that had been working on it said that wasn't the case. So, I take it home, on new rubber, raised up, and with an alignment as best we can get it for a reasonable ride height.

Original ride height:


Here it is after raising up: (hard to tell the difference due to the shadows, but it is up quite a bit more - other pictures are more telling, but I tried to get two from the same angle. Ignore the PBR magnet - photo was a joke for a friend )


Now my mind is a little fuzzy here, but I recall that it continued to make the clunking noise, though I think not as often.

Fast forward now to this spring and I decide to investigate closer. Sure enough, I find the spot where the sway bars have made contact with the control arms. On flat ground, there's about 1/4" gap between the two, and evidence of them hitting - minor but still evident. I'm not sure how close it was when lowered, or in different stiffness settings (which alters the perpendicular/effective length of the droplinks). When jacking the car up from one side, that side then hits the control arm and the other side widens the gap.

Here it is at rest:


I then start asking some of my contacts and googling about this issue. Many people say it's neither the PSS9's nor the H&R sway as theirs works just fine. But it does seem that it's the combination of the two, and accentuated when the car is lowered. So there you have it. To address it, people have added adjustable(longer) drop links to provide more clearance. Here are two posts which talk about this problem:

https://rennlist.com/forums/996-turb...ay-issues.html
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/9...sues-help.html

So I then proceed to call up the shop that did the work here, a bit upset that they had apparently known about this issue and didn't formally tell me about it or address it. I'm particularly concerned that this may have been the cause of my alignment getting out of whack and that it may have done it again, hurting that and my new tires. I needed to get my emissions done anyway, so I go in for that and they'll review the suspension as well to see what can be done. They seem to suggest they'll make it right overall.

Well, today was the appt, and once they get it up and start looking it over, it turns out I (now) have a broken drop link. The link itself didn't break, but the bolt that connects to the PSS9 sheared off. Looking back, I know exactly when it happened as I was backing slowly up a driveway (that has a steep/curb lip to it) and was doing so at an angle so just the right rear was going up it first. There was a louder-than-normal bang and I wasn't able to see anything wrong - I had thought maybe the sway/control hit quickly somehow and that was the noise.

So here I am today, now with a broken droplink, the need to drill out the broken bolt from the PSS9 frame (oh, btw, I have to pull the PSS9 out first to get to it), and figure the next path to take overall. Originally this seemed like an appropriate opportunity to get those adjustable droplinks and make the other parts work out. however, the more thought I give it, the more I think it's best for me to stick with OEM droplinks and instead get an OEM swaybar (the guy I bought the car from didn't have/give me the original one, nor the coilover wrenches, nor some other stuff). Since I don't track the car, am not much of a sway bar guy in general, and haven't noticed the difference in the med/soft settings, I probably will be just fine with OEM. I also didn't particularly care to add an other aftermarket part just to address problem with other aftermarket parts. I'd rather leave them both as OEM.

So does, anyone have an OEM rear sway bar that's collecting dust - I know a good home for it and someone that would really appreciate it.

Thanks for listening,
Mark

raineycd

I have one I would be willing to part with. OEM rear swaybar from 02 996tt. I am out of town this week, so if you are not in a hurry...

Anyhow, PM me your zip (for shipping quote) and an offer if you want.

Beautiful car btw!

Thx,
Chad

doubleurx

I have heard that there is a very small margin in ride height with the PSS9's/10's The margin is only 5-10mm based on Bilstein's recommendations. From both pictures above, I think you have the ride height set too low. I would get a copy of the manual and set it per the manual after you fix everything.

Land Jet

I have a completely non-stock suspension on my car, everything has been upgraded and I don't have any of those noises. My car is also lowered more than the GT3 or GT2. From my point of view, this is a problem with your shop, not parts. I don't think they know what they are doing otherwise they would have adjusted everything from the beginning.

Mark P

Chad, thanks - I'll send you a PM. No Hurry.

doubleurx, I'd be interested to learn anything more about that. Link to any other posts? I assume you mean the manual for the PSS9s? Is there such a thing? I really don't feel that my car is too low anymore, but as mentioned, I don't think those pics show it well. I have some newer ones at home I'll have to upload. Here's another one of it's current height:

Mark P

Land Jet, Do you have PSS9s and H&R sway and OEM drop links? Because if not, I don't expect you to have the problem. This is a well documented problem and many others with the same issue with the same parts, as I linked. There is no adjustment with the oem drop link.

Land Jet

No offense meant by my post. I used to have PSS9's but not H&R sways. I do question your logic of wanting OEM sway bar and OEM drop links but not with OEM shocks. Simplest fix would be to buy adjustable drop links and use the parts already on the car.

I will say no more.

z99

Had same problem. Raised suspension slightly and went to adjustable drop links. No problems now.

Mark P

Thanks z99 - I appreciate your input/experience.

Mark P

I said I'd post this, so here's another photo showing the current ride height. It's about two fingers in the rear, and a snug two fingers up front:

doubleurx

Yes, Bilstein has a specific setting for height - I assume in the manual.

Refer to this thread:
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/9...dulations.html

I hope I didn't break any rules by linking 6 speed.

SSST

Looks great at that height. I wish I could do that, but I'd never get into my driveway.

I have to angle it just right as it is and only have about 3mm of clearance.

Mark P

Yeah, you should see the crazy S-maneuver I have to do getting down my driveway and into my garage. Before it was raised up, I was scraping the front if not just right. The day after I bought the car and drove 18 hours home, I backed down the driveway and scraped the front which was almost pristine before then - doh! I figure I'll get a black lower lip spoiler when the yellow gets chipped up too bad.

Mark P

thanks! great thread!

omega

the car looks great yellow was my second choice don't make your car higher scrap that driveway flater