That is not an X73 car. Nice car though. Love the color/wheel combo.

 

My car is stiff enough especially for the bay area roads. Anyone with a pic so I can see the difference. Must be very noticeable.

Anyways, Thx Archimedes, I'm very happy with this car as all you are with yours.

 

I agree, the base suspension is plenty stiff and also offers plenty of sporting performance. My car came stock as a base suspension and I retrofitted the X73 suspension after reading such glowing reviews about it. Didn't really feel the need to do it, as the car already handled really well, but the combination of the slight handling improvement and the drop convinced me to do it.

My review of the differences is as follows. The positives of the X73, aside from the bitchin drop, is that the car corners flatter obviously and bites on corner entry more. I also think the damping in normal driving is actually slightly better than the base suspension. The only negatives are a) on a really rough road it is a rougher ride than a base suspension and b) you lose a lot of clearance and need to be super careful about the nose.

I daily drive mine here in the South Bay, but I don't think I'd go with the X73 if I lived in SF or somewhere where a high percentage of the roads were seriously awful. I think the X73 is for someone looking for that additional cornering prowess and the dropped look, and is willing to put up with a rough ride on bad roads.

I don't have a good pic of my car post X73 at the moment, or I'd post it up.

 

I would do this for the lower stance alone, but only if I lived in areas like Oregon and Florida where they have great smooth roadways. Thanks for your input.

 

Hi Kaduku,
the 981 Spyder has also the X73 suspension installed. See two pictures of my one below...




And I can understand that you try to avoid SF roads...;-)

 

The drop's the same on the Spyder X73, but it's a softer more refined ride than the X73 on the Caymans/Boxsters. The X73 on my Caymans S is firmer and less forgiving than the one on my Spyder.

 

Wow, that is low and looks so awesome! Thanks for sharing! So many mods, but I really would consider doing this one.

 

If you decide to retrofit, two words of advice that might save you from some headaches.

First, make sure the dealer that does the work has an in house alignment rack and an in house alignment guru who is experienced with the sport suspension alignments. You'd be surprised to find that some big dealers don't. They just send your car out to Hank's Tow and Alignment to do a crappy alignment to the wrong specs, dinging your car for good measure, leaving you having to have it redone properly. So make sure they can do it in house AND make sure they agree to tweak it again after about 500 miles once the suspension settles.

Second, they have to drop the front subframe to install the components up front. When they do this, they have to disconnect the self leveling element of the front headlights. Make sure you remind them to reconnect it before reinstalling the subframe. If you get the car back and your headlights are pointed 5 feet up the garage wall, you'll know they didn't. Then the subframe needs to be dropped all over again.

Also, shop around for the best deal on install. The quotes dealer to dealer can be very different.

One other word of warning, the X73 uses a more aggressive alignment and it is more sensitive to road crown and less neutral. On crowned roads it will feel like it's pulling a bit, even though the alignment is dead on.

All that said, this the best mod I've ever done.

 

Wow, sounds like a lot of work. I saw the price for parts on Suncoast. How much was your labor cost?

 

The install is a big job. I'll have to go back through my paperwork, but IIRC I got quotes from $3-5k including the parts. I think I wound up paying a little over $3k all in, excluding having to pay to have the light thing fixed and the alignment redone at another dealer.

 

Mine was about $2100 labor. +Parts from Suncoast.

I used a local shop that does a lot of track alignments. They basically maxed out the available camber adjustment. Interestingly the car did settle a bit after some time. Did not affect the alignment though.

Definitely a good idea to shop around and get a written quote for the labor.

 

Plus all the other mods I'd like to do, I now need around $20,000 auuuugggghhhhhh

 

I think that the X73 setup is your best upgrade for the money.