Magnus944

Hello to the wonderful people here on Rennlist, i hope you all are having a great day.
I'm soon to be under the car again replacing the front struts on my 2004 Cayenne S with air suspension. I've learned you can just buy and replace the internal struts, aside from the air bags. But I'm curious on if there's a difference between the S and base model shocks, since my S has the variable ride stiffness between comfort. normal, and sport. I'm looking at the Bilstein B4s on CariD ( https://www.carid.com/2004-porsche-c...305492927.html )
Does anyone happen to know if there's any specifics i should know before diving in?

Edit: will struts for a spring coil front shock work with air suspension shocks?

Petza914

I doubt they're the same. The springs to support the larger v8 S motor should be larger or stiffer to handle the heavier engine. I think the best place for air suspension components is Arnott where you can buy parts or complete shock assemblies.

slavie

Air spring give you height control. Compressor and air line going to each air spring.
Adjustable dampers that come with air suspension give you stiffness control (comfort-normal-sport). They have wires going to each shock for control and the control unit to orchestrate it all.
Steel springs come with non-adjustable dampers, so no height control, no stiffness control.
Base or S does not matter - air suspension was optional on both trims.
Hope this clarifies things for you.

Magnus944

Thank you both for your replies, I've done further research and learned that Pezda914 is correct, the V8 struts are larger than the base model. going to have to go budget friendly and buy some lightly used full shock w air assembly on ebay and pull the struts from those to inspect their condition

Petrolhead_007

why do you think you need to replace the shocks? Unless they start leaking and/or developed issues, or adjustment settings doesn't work anymore, I would leave them alone. They don't sell aftermarket shocks for your Cayenne, and price for a new one is 10x the cost compared non adjustable shocks.

In case you have to replace them, your best best is to have a look under there and find a part numbers on your shocks and find low mileage used ones.
Lookup diydan on youtube, he's got great videos on how to refresh air suspension components