Mr. Adair

Gent's

I have some suspension questions. I hope I can pull this off without causing a ruckus. Given that my car has 13K for miles and I'm guessing light-medium track use early in it's life here are my questions:

-At roughly what mileage does the stock suspension start to lose some of it's usefulness? I'm sure longer than 13K but give me an idea of when most of you replaced?

-When replacing how many of you replaced with stock components or switched to an aftermarket system (Tractive,Damptronic etc.) capable of continuing the use of Porsches electronic damping

-When replacing how many of you opted to move away from an electronically damped system to a manually damped system (Ohlins,JRZ,KW).

Car will still be a 70/30 split with 70% of the usage being road use. At this point I don't feel a whole lot of difference in my car now between sport and non sport. Any and all replies welcome and thanks in advance...

Rick-A-Shay

Well, I'm not a track/performance enthusiast and my '11RS just turned 12k on the meter. I do notice a difference between sport and non-suport in ride. Sorry to say but doubt I will track the car and will take heat for this as it was "dialed" for the track by the previous owner but never been on the track. Compared with the latest, it's now a bit of a slowpoke. I would suggest you track your car to become familiar with its (and your) limits before getting deep into suspension mods. Once you have done that, then report on how the car performed/handled. Then, you will get feedback from the experts on how to improve for better performance. OR, have a track enthusiast drive your car on the track with you as a ride along and get their opinion! BTW I DO dive my RS at every opportunity......... recently SF - LA and back.....what a blast!!

ilko

Under normal circumstances and on decent roads you should get at least 60K miles out of the dampers before starting to think about a rebuild. And when it's time to do mine, that's what I will do - have them rebuilt. The car finished 13th overall at the 24H of the Nurburging on the stock suspension. That's good enough for me.

Mr. Adair

I'm not the judging type! It's all good and your points are well taken. I tracked the car twice last year. I will never be a track rat. I simply want to improve as a driver and if I get 6 days in next year so be it. In regard to not being as good as the car and not needing a suspension upgrade? no kidding . That said, if the qualification for upgrading components on our RS's was only reserved for PCA instructors and track rats nothing in the RS aftermarket parts market would get sold I have money and I would like to spend it!

Mr. Adair

Thanks ilko. BTW, what happened to the 4.0 end plate and 4.0 dive plane project?

ilko

Not enough interest to make it financially feasible unfortunately. I had to pay out of pocket for an OEM set of 4.0 end plates in order to have the molds made. That's $3500. For two pieces of plastic, less than a foot long... So I decided to use that money toward the re-gearing of my 993 transmission instead.
Priorities...

Mr. Adair

Understood. Thanks for the info...

mooty

stock is great
if you must spend the $, go with ohlin TTX

bmwtye

I've changed all suspension bits to Porsche motorsport parts. Dampers I had switched to JRZ RS pro DA's, and they were nice. Not leaving good enough alone I sold them to go to Tractive DDA.

Mr. Adair

Spyerx

Stock should last, that said I had a damper go out after 20k miles, with minimal track time. It started leaking and PASM started failing.

If aftermarket, there are pros and cons to everything. Me, I like simple analog, so 2 way Ohlins TTX. The improvement on the street and on track, with much heavier spring rates is pretty substantial. The suspension is firm but super-supple. The .2 and 40 were much improved over the .1 cars however. But, you really can't or shouldn't do these changes w/o changing the rest of the suspension to be more solid. Its sort of an all or nothing or you're only getting part of the benefit of uprated dampers.

The way I think about it: keep it stock, or go all in. 1/2 way really is 1/2 way.

isv

Assuming you might be tempted by going the full hog, I believe Ohlins have an in car electronic control unit available for the TTX that one can use to switch damper modes (say sport to track) that you can configure to match what you want. If going aftermarket though, having a good shop that is well used to working with the dampers is probably more important than the brand of damper. At a high level, motorsport grade dampers all more or less cost similar amounts and the trick is in the skill of the person setting them up. When the OEM bits go on mine, I have to say I genuinely would be in a bit of a spot whether to go TTX or tractive as I have to admit I quite like the idea of the more 'active' units and the DSC unit has definitely improved the stock PASM ones so the improvement on much higher quality dampers should be even more obvious.

Mr. Adair

Agreed. Thanks Spyerx. I have read many of your threads on suspension I have raced both snowmobiles and motorcycles and it's what everybody wants, a vertically compliant ride quality with reduced roll etc. I have Ohlins products on my motorcycle. I have a custom shock setup on my sled, with triple rate springs and valving set up for my weight on the sled it's amazing how much better it is over stock when smashing through ditches. So I get it. The systems work as one. Knowing the set up and how to use/adjust is more important than anything. I am not unhappy with the stock setup. The only thing I have noticed so far is the front end wallows under load in hard corning. It sticks like glue but wallows a bit. I had the car re-aligned after I bought it and returned it to stock ride height. It had the craziest alignment spec ever, all cocked up with one side of the car aggressively setup more than the other. Do people align for a specific track? At this point I'm learning about what it takes to add more alignment and stabilizing the rear end etc. with the usual components people use. Not going to be stupid. I'm pretty pragmatic. Plus I'm bored as hell in the middle of a MN winter...

Mr. Adair

We are on the same page! It seems like people are in two camps these days. The simple high quality route with manual adjustment or if they are brave and open to active setups they go that route. The problem with these things is each tuner has a preference and an opinion right? So round and round we go. I have seen that new Ohlins control unit and am intrigued for sure..

Spyerx

I am sure the electronic systems out now are excellent. For me, I just like to know when an input is ME vs. THE CAR. For example, when I first drove a 991GT car on track, I swear I was going to spin it, the rear steer felt WEIRD, needed to get used to it. But that's the sort of inputs that I like to understand are going on. When you turn a ****, it's static. Until you turn another ****. My head has enough variables to think about already :-)

Most of us aren't professional drivers, so for me, what I want is a car that feels stable and predictable, because that lets me be faster.

Do you guys have a link to the Ohlins active thing?

Thanks