gorichville

Hello
Please give your opinion regarding Bilstein Damptronic Coilovers. I want to install it in my car because the roads where I live are rough and having a gt3 mk1 makes your body shake a lot and bones want to get out of its sockets. Do you think installing this will improve the car's handling in rough roads like the gt3 mk2. According to Bilstein the ride will improve and the handling more direct. Is it true?

CRex

OEM shocks are Bilstein PSS9's. Search and you'll find a ton on this very topic.

mooty

.2 isn't much more comfy than .1
damptronic is supposed to be the sportier version of the oem stuff. so i would only guess it's more painful?

CRex

I would consider the Bilsteins only for their plug-and-play compatibility with PASM (your sports suspension button will remain functional). Understand they share the same characteristics as OEM (tends to be on the soft side, non-adjustable valving, front shocks rattle over time as they develop a bit of play from road stress). Your alternatives are KW, JRZ and Moton. The latter two you probably won't want to do unless (i) your car is very track oriented and (ii) you're seriously looking to invest time and effort tuning the suspension (not to mention the dough)

As an O/T my .2 3RS sounds like it's got the Bilstein rattle bug in the making, at less than 200 miles on the clock... I swear I heard the front struts "clonk" the other day I was going over a minor bump on the way home...

IMGT3

The KWV1 & V3 seem to have a softer range than bilstein in my experience.

tcsracing1

PM sent.

Having two RS 997s, one with stock shocks and the other with Bilstein Damptronics, i can honestly say i notice the differences.

The stock RS suspension is fine for day to day use and track days FWIW.

I notice the stock front shocks sometime make "clicking" sounds on hard wheel crank from standstill. The Damptronics do not do this... pretty sweet...

The Damptronics are definitely more business then the stocks as it is apparent as soon as you drive the car. It feels more track oriented. It feels tighter, but not unpleasant like a full blown track set up on the street.

The benefit of the Damptronic is the stiffer front which eliminates the nose dive under hard braking on the track. It also allows you avoid the "soft" feeling of the stock suspension in the corners with sticky tires.

The Bilsteins are a great upgrade over stock when the time comes to replace the tired factory suspension even if not visiting the track.

GORICHVILLE: Typically, after market track oriented suspensions are not the way to go to improve the ride quality of rough roads. These suspension are designed to work on tracks where the suspension is in an environment of quick weight transfers and g force causing loads greater then that on the street in which stock suspensions begin to fail by feeling "soft" under full squat.

FWIW, a suspension can be had to deal with bumps and jumps on pot hole littered streets, however it is a custom set-up and has a price tag double that of the Bilstein. I will be using a set up like this in september for the Targa Newfoundland race as stock and track suspensions cant handle the range of motion required on the rough streets at dangerous speeds for this event.

Snowboarder54

For what its worth; I installed a set of the GT3 Bilstein Damtrinics part # F4-GA5-E548-H0 on my 07.1 Gt3 at about 46,000 miles. The OEM's were very tired at this point and were in desperate need of replacement. So far so good, the first thing I noticed is that the normal setting is somewhat stiffer then on the stock dampers and that the sport setting is very close to the stock sport setting maybe a tad stiffer. As it was a gradual process wearing out the OEM's it is difficult for me to give a accurate comparison between the two set ups, however I am very happy with the Bilsteins, turn in is crisp and they handle the backroad potholes very nicely, no bouncing off line on the uneven surfaces. The fronts are rather noisy, but other then that I am very pleased.If you want to keep your sport button active I would highly recommend the Bilsteins. One more thing; I drive mostly coastal backroads, very little Hwy driving, with the stock dampers I always drove in sport mode primarily to keep from bottoming out on certain portion of my favorite roads. Since installing the Bilsteins I no longer have to. My 2 cents!

TT Surgeon

They are crap, lots of issues in the 997tt world.

GT

Don't agree. Best system AM I ve tried if you need pasm. Clinking noise is from the spring mount. Can be easily fixed by a switched on mechanic.

Mark GT3

Has anyone tried the Damptronic set up developed by TPC Racing? They take the standard Bilstein units, machine hats and top plates, modifications are made to accommodate revised spring rates and the PASM control unit is reprogrammed. I'm considering either these or the standard Damptronic units for a car that sees a mix of street and track use.

silverboy

Markgt3 - I looked at them too but felt they were way too expensive relative to others so I decided to get Moton CS.

cparkin

We would not retrofit our Modded Bilstein Damptronics to a GT3... We make comparable changes to the standard shocks on the front of the GT3.

See the link below.

http://www.tpcracing.com/products/TP...Track-Package/

This will not make the car more comfortable... The rates we use in the front are more than what is in the car from the Factory.

Mark GT3

i was asking in reference to fitting these, either the Bilstein or TPC Damptronic, to a 2007 GT3 RS.

Moton's were fitted to my 996 GT3 stripper and I found the combination of these shocks with 600/800 springs were fantastic. However, the car was exclusively used on the track. Now I have the 996 Cup for track duty and racing.

Purchase of the RS is in process and amongst other upgrades I'm considering a suspension set up that delivers on both the street and track. So a Damptronic upgrade of some sort seems like a good option. I was interested in the comments regarding the Bilstein Damptronic in this post but would also like to hear from anyone that's used the TPC set up.

TPC Racing

We offer a number of different solutions for GT based cars...

Our standard setup on the GT3 involves the contents of this link:

http://tpcracing.com/products/TPC-Ra...Track-Package/

We take the system that is included w/your car, modify the front hats to fit 2.25"id springs, Change the front spring rate(after consult w/the owner of the car) and sub the factory bars for our race series bars.

For about 95% of GT3 Track drivers this really fits the bill and is a great move towards getting the car to work well w/o replacing the dampers.

We run a setup comparable to this on our 997 GT2. On that car we also change the rear spring rate as the car needs it to put the power down coming out of turns. Diff tuning normally follows.

We dont suggest replacing the factory "damptronic" with the B16 parts that are sold off of the shelf as they, other than spring rates are fairly comparable what comes on the car. If the parts on your car are shot this is a fine upgrade for your old pieces, however we recommend at least a better top plate.

We have a number of clients on 6speed, and a few on here, that run Turbos and C2S'/4S' with our Stage 3+ system.



http://tpcracing.com/products/997-St...us-Suspension/

It has rave reviews and was written up in our excellence article a bit ago.

http://www.excellence-mag.com/issues...s/the-700-club

What we do for a lot of GT3/RS clients is opt for a more "racey setup"

What you have here is JRZ RS Pros.

http://tpcracing.com/products/997996...-4-Suspension/

Through consulting w/the client to find their needs and driving styles, Our owner and GM work to put together the best package for the client... Choices of spring length and rate along w/chassis setup come at this stage.





When you buy a set of high end shocks you get shocks... When you buy a package from TPC, you get everything you need including a personal engineer while you own the shocks(for the first owner).