Interesting suspension upgrade as stand alone or for PASM

[masraum]

I've been reading a bit about this lately.

DSC Sport

It's available for 996, 987 1 & 2, 997 1 & 2 and 981 or 991. The 9x7.1 cars need a separate 3 axis accelerometer because the factory unit is only 2 axis (except turbos and GT3, I think which came with 3 axis). It's also avialable for Vipers.

If your car has PASM, then it's a direct swap of controller (with 987.1 and 997.1 cars requiring the additional 3 axis accel that comes with it). It works with the Bilstein Damptronics too. If your car didn't come with PASM, but there is a stand alone option. They also have a version that comes with high end aftermarket shocks that are more advanced than the Bilsteins.

As I began reading, I wondered how this box could be an improvement over the Porsche setup. This box talks about stiffening the front upon braking, the back on acceleration and the outside on cornering. But then the stock PASM controller is supposed to do all of that. Eventually reading though a long thread on RL, I found their explanation about how/why their box offers improvement. Apparently, the stock PASM setup uses a very limited portion of the stock shocks range while the DSC box uses much more of the range.



Here's a quote from a post by DSC on the RL forums.

Tractive DDA shocks bring racing level performance to a street car only when the driver needs or wants this level of stiffness. For street, the supple and controlled ride is a result of maximizing shock stroke paired with more stable springs and superior electronic management that will soften the "nose" of road bumps and stabilize the vehicle against oscillations before it happens. The dynamic range between street comfort and race track performance is made even more flexible to the individual user preference with the tunable software that we will release later this year. The standard mapping is already very well developed but you can personalize it for your exact usage, preference, and your local roads. A way to depict the dynamic range of Tractive DDA is to think of the PASM modes as "3" for Normal and "8" for Sport. The "3" and "8" are pretty much fixed values. With DSC and OEM PASM shocks you have a dynamic range varying between "1" to "10" based on the speed and other inputs for the driving situation. Tractive DDA's range is "-5 to 15". In addition to the much wider range there is no "bump rubber effect" and the reaction time to command is 17x faster than OEM PASM to shape damping curve to stabilize vehicle oscillation; soften nose of the compression then ramp up as load increases and tailor rebound to smoothen vehicle weight transfer, which results in reduction of shocking to tire contact patch, which results in more grip.

Another video from this article on arstechnica



I have to say, I'm curious. Most of the postings that I've found on various forums on the 'Net are from folks that think this is a huge improvement over stock.

Apparently, as a customer, you also get access to the software that allows you to custom program the shocks if you want, and you can upload maps and share them with other users. I think the maps should to be shared among similar car layout vehicles, IE, 911<>911 and boxster<>cayman.

[stealthn]

Very happy with these as a replacement for stock PASM, yes there are only two settings in PASM, these offer a bit more manual setup, but hit the PASM button and it's go cart good.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by stealthn

Very happy with these as a replacement for stock PASM, yes there are only two settings in PASM, these offer a bit more manual setup, but hit the PASM button and it's go cart good.

This system would work with those two. I guess the deal is that in Sport mode, the shocks go very stiff, and the amount of variation in how stiff is pretty small and all at the top end of the spectrum. And in normal mode, the amount of variation between soft and hard is fairly small. This system will provide a greater dynamic range in both settings.

The Porsche setup says that it tightens things up when you are in normal mode, but driving more aggressively, but I can't tell that it changes. And per Porsche, if you hit a bumpy section but you're in Sport mode, the controller should soften the shocks to help with the bumps, but with the stock system, it doesn't seem to cope well with rough road in Sport mode.

The theory is that this aftermarket controller gives you a more dynamic setup in both normal mode and sport mode. All of the reviews that I've read on various forums have people singing nothing but praises for it. Most of them are 997, 997tt, 997 GT3, 991, and a few Cayman GT4s. I haven't seen much from the Coxster crowd.

You can get a kit that's just the controller. It will work with the stock shocks, your Bilstein Damptronic shocks and at least one other set of aftermarket coilover. You can also get a kit with the controller and a set of those aftermarket coilovers.

Plug-n-play controller with 3 axis accelerometer required for 997.1 and 987.1

[Jeff Alton]

I have one in my 997S. Was skeptical at first, but wanted to install one to test it to see if we would offer this product to our clients. It is flat out amazing. On a 997.1 you pick up an extra mode (3 total) and have access to all of the variables for tuning your own maps. Transformed the car in terms of feel and ride comfort, even on the stiffest "race" setting.

Cheers

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Jeff Alton

I have one in my 997S. Was skeptical at first, but wanted to install one to test it to see if we would offer this product to our clients. It is flat out amazing. On a 997.1 you pick up an extra mode (3 total) and have access to all of the variables for tuning your own maps. Transformed the car in terms of feel and ride comfort, even on the stiffest "race" setting.

Cheers

You have one of the old ones. They have since made them all 2 mode boxes again.

http://rennlist.com/forums/997-gt2-gt3-forum/856864-official-dsc-sport-discussion-forum-9.html#post12882865

Originally Posted by Tom-TPC Racing

The most recent update is going from 3 modes to 2 modes so that the mode switching is integrated to the factory instrument cluster display. It was a huge effort and breakthrough for us to establish this interface. We feel the effort was totally worth it to have factory level mode switch protocol. Not that there was anything wrong with the previous 3 modes(except for some who didn't care for the blinking LED) but looking at it now from where we are today it seem more "grassroots racing" like, which is where we started the company from. As our DSC company matures we feel that our products should evolve as well in refinement.

The difference- The 3 mode firmware started out as the engineers version which made the product development less time consuming to have an extra mode to test when track time is limited. At the time we didn't have the instrument interface capability so we could have actually made 4 modes, or 10 modes, or 20 modes if we had some way to indicate the modes besides watching the LED flash 10 or 20 times. The Engineers liked the 3 modes since they thought watching the LED flash 3x was manageable. We continued to offer the 3 modes until we established the instrument cluster display interface. As far as new DSC products go, the 3-mode version with blinking LED is outdated. The 2-mode version with factory mode switching protocol is current and is our proudly featured product. The new "Normal Mode"(softer mode) is same as the old mode 1. The new "Sport" is the old mode 2 and 3 merged. Keep in mind the modes are fully active and dynamic, which means the harder you brake, corner, and accelerate, the stiffer the car becomes.