Suspension upgrades - done!!!

[Jeroen]

Well, I finally completed my suspension upgrades on my '87 3.2 this weekend.

It's been quite an extensive job, but all I can say is W O W !!!
I really should have done this years earlier...

Here's a list of installed parts/upgrades:
22mm front t-bars
29mm rear t-bars
front a-arm polybronze bushings
rear springplate polybronze bushings
rear trailing arm monoball
front top strut monoball
(all from Chuck/Elephant racing)

22mm front and rear adjustable swaybars from Tarett

I'm nothing close to a real mechanic (this was actually the first time I dug this deep into my 911), but the installation of the parts was pretty straight forward and went without problems (it was a lot of work though).
The only minor setback was that I had to drop the engine/tranny to get to the trailing-arm mounts.
On the other hand, I got the rear torsionbars right on the first try (didn't need to re-index them) and I only needed to reindex the fronts once (which is easy).
The fact that I did this job at a friends Porsche shop didn't hurt either

Ok, so now the important stuff... the results!

I am absolutly amazed how smooth ride is after these mods. No bonk-adi-bonk or klunk-ati-klunk what so ever!

The bigger t-bars actually smoothed the ride instead of making it more harsh.
The car was already equiped with Bilstein Sports. These dampers gave a very harsh and stomping ride with the stock t-bars.
With the bigger bars this is completely gone!
I have to say that the 22/28 would have been a slightly better combo than the 22/29 I ordered (I figured the G50 could use the 29 rears, but the 28's would have been fine and left a bigger adjustment range for the rear swaybar)

Second, the full bearing suspension (no more rubber anywhere).
I was a bit scared this would add a lot of harshness to the car and would at a lot of noise as well.
Well, I can finish all those fairytales once and for all. The amount of noise coming into the interiour is VERY little (and I can tell, cause all interiour/sound deadning has been removed from my car).
And there is NO binding what so ever. Very nice!!!

Third the swaybars... Again, I'm stupified. I never expected them to have so much of an adjustment range.
I still need to fine tune the adjustments of the swaybars, but I'm sure I'm gonna have a lot of fun playing with them

So, all in all, I'm a very happy camper.
Chuch @ Elephant Racing and Ira @ Tarett deserve a big thumbs up for these high quality parts!!!
(and if you think this is a shameless plug, so be it. They deserve it!)

cheers,

Jeroen

[Victor]

Sounds good Jeroen. Out of interest, do you track your car? I would be interested to hear what improvement you get over stock suspension on laptimes.

[Jeroen]

Hey Victor,

The car is just for fun, DE and AX.
We've got a big AX coming up this sunday, so if I get my ass whooped, I can no longer blame it on the car

cheers,

Jeroen
(running out of excuses fast)

[RoninLB]

what tires are you using?

[Jeroen]

Bridgestone SO1
205/55/16 front, 245/45/16 rear on 7" 8" Fuchs

Looking into getting some R-rated tires (which are hard to get here)

cheers,

Jeroen

[Chuck Moreland]

Glad the setup is working well for you. Other board members have posted similar experience regarding ride quality and sound using the Polybronze bearings and monoballs. They really aren't harsh at all.

Everyone fixates on HP. But it is suspension improvements that make the biggest difference in performance and overall smiles-per-mile.

It's just that feeling of control and connectedness.....hard to describe.

[Victor]

Chuck / Jeroen - maybe we should start up the "Handling Junkies" group? Resore some balance to all this "HP Junkies" 1/4 mile trash talk.

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by Chuck Moreland

It's just that feeling of control and connectedness.....hard to describe.

I like to say that I want a cross country go-cart

[Jeroen]

Originally posted by Chuck Moreland
Everyone fixates on HP. But it is suspension improvements that make the biggest difference in performance and overall smiles-per-mile.

Anyone can drive fast in a straight line... where's the fun in that?

cheers,

Jeroen

[Ho Hum 74]

The bigger t-bars actually smoothed the ride instead of making it more harsh.

I did exactly the same thing and got exactly the same results - I guess that's not surprising BUT I really thought the ride would be harsher.

I have 22f 29R with Bilstein Sports. The car was very harsh on the stock torsion bars. Now it feels like it soaks up the bumps.

Can anyone explain this? I'm thinking that the shocks and springs are just better matched.

[Chuck Moreland]

Hohum

Yes springs and shock do need to be matched.

An example: rebound damping is too great for the spring. Rebound damping controls the speed at which the spring returns to steady state height after a compression stroke (hitting a bump).

Too much damping and the spring returns too slowly. A series of bumps progressively compresses the spring consuming the shock travel and causing a harsh ride.

Adding a stiffer spring matched to the shock in this scenario will actually soften the ride by allowing the ride height and available suspension travel to return to normal after each bump.

[gduke]

Originally posted by Jeroen
Well, I finally completed my suspension upgrades on my '87 3.2 this weekend.

It's been quite an extensive job, but all I can say is W O W !!!
I really should have done this years earlier...

Here's a list of installed parts/upgrades:
22mm front t-bars
29mm rear t-bars
front a-arm polybronze bushings
rear springplate polybronze bushings
rear trailing arm monoball
front top strut monoball
(all from Chuck/Elephant racing)

22mm front and rear adjustable swaybars from Tarett

I'm nothing close to a real mechanic (this was actually the first time I dug this deep into my 911), but the installation of the parts was pretty straight forward and went without problems (it was a lot of work though).
The only minor setback was that I had to drop the engine/tranny to get to the trailing-arm mounts.
On the other hand, I got the rear torsionbars right on the first try (didn't need to re-index them) and I only needed to reindex the fronts once (which is easy).
The fact that I did this job at a friends Porsche shop didn't hurt either

Ok, so now the important stuff... the results!

I am absolutly amazed how smooth ride is after these mods. No bonk-adi-bonk or klunk-ati-klunk what so ever!

The bigger t-bars actually smoothed the ride instead of making it more harsh.
The car was already equiped with Bilstein Sports. These dampers gave a very harsh and stomping ride with the stock t-bars.
With the bigger bars this is completely gone!
I have to say that the 22/28 would have been a slightly better combo than the 22/29 I ordered (I figured the G50 could use the 29 rears, but the 28's would have been fine and left a bigger adjustment range for the rear swaybar)

Second, the full bearing suspension (no more rubber anywhere).
I was a bit scared this would add a lot of harshness to the car and would at a lot of noise as well.
Well, I can finish all those fairytales once and for all. The amount of noise coming into the interiour is VERY little (and I can tell, cause all interiour/sound deadning has been removed from my car).
And there is NO binding what so ever. Very nice!!!

Third the swaybars... Again, I'm stupified. I never expected them to have so much of an adjustment range.
I still need to fine tune the adjustments of the swaybars, but I'm sure I'm gonna have a lot of fun playing with them

So, all in all, I'm a very happy camper.
Chuch @ Elephant Racing and Ira @ Tarett deserve a big thumbs up for these high quality parts!!!
(and if you think this is a shameless plug, so be it. They deserve it!)

cheers,

Jeroen

Also looking to upgrade my suspension along w/ a spoiler & cooler. Question, you said that you had to drop the engine & trany to get at the rear trailing arm mounts. Did you do the complete job in one weekend? I was wondering how much shop time was envolved since a local shop will be doing mine. Sure wish I could do the susp. upgrade myself. But, just to dang buisy.

[mm86911]

Chuck - I only wish you had developed the bronze bushings when I was upgrading my suspension in December of 2001 (went with poly/neatrix combo).

I'm having my rear shocks revalved this week and curious what you think about the following (22/29 bars on 2700 lb car):

Previously
Bilstein HD (194 / 150 nm - Rebound / Compression)

Custom (my choice)
Bilstein (360 / 140)

BTW - Bilstein Sports are (311 / 160)

[Jeroen]

Originally posted by gduke
Also looking to upgrade my suspension along w/ a spoiler & cooler. Question, you said that you had to drop the engine & trany to get at the rear trailing arm mounts. Did you do the complete job in one weekend? I was wondering how much shop time was envolved since a local shop will be doing mine. Sure wish I could do the susp. upgrade myself. But, just to dang buisy.

The complete job took me (on and off) about a week (5 or 6 days)
Then again, I'm nothing close to a mechanic, and this was the first time for me to do a job like this, so it also was a learning experience. I also took my time to testfit every thing several times (check, check and double check) and as usual, I wanna know how and why stuff works, so that adds some time too.

The rear trailing arms... If you have a 915 or 901 gearbox, you may just have enough space to do it without dropping the engine/tranny. But I have a G50... and these hadn't been loose in 16 years/140K miles, so they were very stuck. Needed an impact wrench to loosen those bolts.

For a experienced porsche mechanic, dropping the engine/tranny is easy and shouldn't take him too long.
All together, I think a mechanic should be able to do it in half my time.
If he has never fitted any of the "special" parts, make sure you are informed well so you can brief him on how the stuff is supposed to be installed and work.

cheers,

Jeroen

[Chuck Moreland]

Originally posted by mm86911
Chuck - I only wish you had developed the bronze bushings when I was upgrading my suspension in December of 2001 (went with poly/neatrix combo).

I'm having my rear shocks revalved this week and curious what you think about the following (22/29 bars on 2700 lb car):

Previously
Bilstein HD (194 / 150 nm - Rebound / Compression)

Custom (my choice)
Bilstein (360 / 140)

BTW - Bilstein Sports are (311 / 160)

I'm building my knowledge base on valving, though not an expert yet. Bilstein would recomend 380/150 for your setup.

How did you arrive at your numbers?

[mm86911]

Originally posted by Chuck Moreland
I'm building my knowledge base on valving, though not an expert yet. Bilstein would recomend 380/150 for your setup.

How did you arrive at your numbers?

Interesting . . . those numbers were suggested by Bilstein (they actually suggested 350 on rebound and I wanted it a bit stiffer). Think I'll notice any beneficial difference in 380/150 vs 360/140

[gduke]

Originally posted by Jeroen
The complete job took me (on and off) about a week (5 or 6 days)
Then again, I'm nothing close to a mechanic, and this was the first time for me to do a job like this, so it also was a learning experience. I also took my time to testfit every thing several times (check, check and double check) and as usual, I wanna know how and why stuff works, so that adds some time too.

The rear trailing arms... If you have a 915 or 901 gearbox, you may just have enough space to do it without dropping the engine/tranny. But I have a G50... and these hadn't been loose in 16 years/140K miles, so they were very stuck. Needed an impact wrench to loosen those bolts.

For a experienced porsche mechanic, dropping the engine/tranny is easy and shouldn't take him too long.
All together, I think a mechanic should be able to do it in half my time.
If he has never fitted any of the "special" parts, make sure you are informed well so you can brief him on how the stuff is supposed to be installed and work.

cheers,

Jeroen

Thanks Jeroen.