After 3 tries, I finally nailed down the front/rear spring combo on the JIC's. Ended going with 9/12 (f/r). Very sharp response on the softest setting, with plenty of room to crank 'em harder at the track. They are still probably too stiff for 80% of the people out there, and are noiser than stock due to slight binding of the helper springs. Perhaps some teflon spray will help. After 3 installs in as many months, I won't be doing coilovers for a long time.

Now... on to the good stuff. Once the springs settled, I finally had a chance to take the car over the Sol at Perfect Power. While they do work on street cars, there's no denying that it's a race shop throughout. Race rubber and wheels stacked to the ceiling, fab cars, engines, trannies, etc. My street car actually seemed out of place in such a dedicated shop setting.

For those of you shopping for a rollbar/cage, they had a sweet chomoly bolt-in cage setup being assembled on the floor. The design is way more substantial than what I've seen from TE, and yet, the cage's front half can be unbolted when not at the track.

John, PP's lead mechanic (other than Sol, of course), started by loosening the suspension bits, took care of couple of minor clearence issues with end links and ball mount, and then got the car on the scales. The car weighted about 3500lbs w/o me in it, with ~61% of the weight at the rear.

I had suspected a lot of toe-out at the front, as the car had very sensitive steering up front after I had lowered it. The rack reflected this, showing ~.5 deg of toe-out. The rear on the other hand always felt very planted, always following the fronts with its toe-in setting.

Sol and company set the new toe to slightly in at all 4 corners, with camber around .9 front and 1.8 rear. I don't remember what the caster is, but should be around 7 deg (they aren't adjustable). These figures are off the top of my head, but I will post hard numbers soon. Any one who has lowered their cars should definitely get at the very least an alignment job. The camber after lowering was way out of wack, as was the toe.

IMPRESSION:
With the new setup, the front-end tracks with higher stability, reducing its previous tendency of requiring frequent correction inputs when encountering even minor road irregularties.

I usually like a tiny bit of toe-out in my previous Japanese sports cars to aid in turn-in. (German cars in general seem to run way more caster than cars from other countries, which depending on suspension geometry, affects things such as turn-in and cross camber when turning). This being my first German sports car, I relied on PP for the specs. With slight toe-in, handling remains crisp while eliminating tendencies for the front-end to dart around.

The rear feels more dynamic than the previous alignment. Relative to before, the rear feels more inclined to rotate with the car, while still confidently taking a set right away after initial turn-in. I'll have to feel out the car more over the next couple of days, but all in all, the improvement is very evident.

I arrived at the shop at 9:10AM, and left at 5:10PM. And the mechanics only took a short lunch break. That's right... total time spent on my car was over 7 hours! Now, that's what I call dedication in chasing down the a proper alignment and cornerweight setup.

I also picked up a B&M from PP. When I got home, I snuck a peak under the shiftboot, and found that a Evo SwiftShift had already been previously installed! While I guess the Turbo will never shift as precisely as my S2000, I'll probably install a thin washer in the steel end bushing to shim the shifter for a tighter feel. I'll be returning the B&M back to PP, so if any of you need one, give Sol a buzz.

I will post hard numbers once I pick up my spec-sheet from Sol, hopefully today if I can clear a couple hours from my schedule. For those of you from Chicago, definitely go check out Perfect Power's facilities when you get a chance.

Stephen
'01 Turbo Ti Upsolute
455rwhp, 505rwtq - Dynojet

 

Stephan:

Thanks. I'm looking at his roll bar/cage. Tell me what you thought about it. He'll be doing my corner balance as well.

 

The roll cage impressive... that is, if your primary concern is safety for track events, then this will fit the bill. Additionally, the entire front half can easily unbolt, leaving just the rear rollbar portion so that you car can maintain complete streetability.

The one I saw was powdercoated red, which looked hot. It's made of strong chromoly tubing, which yields a smaller diameter tubing than some other designs using lessor tubing. The rollbar on my Miata was larger in comparison, which didn't help with vision. I believe PP's rollbar manufacturer fabricates professional cages for professional road racing, drag racing, and NASCAR (if you call that racing.

Your best bet is to give Sol a buzz and go check it out for yourself. Good luck. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions about the bar or alignment and balancing.

Stephen

 

Does it prevent the seat from going all the way back?

 

front camber -1.1 -0.8 caster 7.6 7.0 toe .04 .05 steer ahead -0.01

rear camber -1.6 -1.8 toe 0.16 0.20 thrust angle -0.02

how do these compare with Sol? My mech spent most of his day too on this. It was well worth it. I know there are parts just barely out of spec, but it is the best we could do after all day.