Yeah, I'm with you...

What I gathered from this thread is that not all solutions are for everyone so there is not a "here is what is always best" type answer.

Here is basically what I got:

Looks like everybody who have them just love Damptronics. A lot of folks seem to start with springs and end there anyway.

I saw a few reports of PASM dampers being blown up by putting aftermarket springs, but I think that has more to do with using the wrong spring rates than anything else. High end spring makers now have 997.2 specific PASM compatible springs so I would not worry too much. If you blow the PASM dampers, that will just give you a good reason to move to damptronics anyway .

Lower kit implies stiffer rates. That is essentially what you would get: the button still works but instead of medium/stiff, you get stiff/stiffer. Not everyone likes a stiff ride to begin with so caveat emptor.

On the spring side, looks like Techart are the favorites, they are made by Eibach but have some special sauce spring rates - they are more expensive than Eibach though. A couple of people report H&R sagging so I am not sure I would go that way.

Replacing the springs is about the same shop time as doing the coilovers so this is another thing to think about.

Everything I have read points in that direction. A good understanding of how the 911 suspension is designed (something I do not yet have) is required to understand all the implications. It is very easy to lower the car and make it useless, particularly on the track, i you do not know what you are doing. Talk to a specialist.

If it is just an installation thing it can be fixed by tightening, etc. But a lot of this reported additional noise is related to moving from street parts which have more compliant rubber bushings to motorsports parts that have solid monoball bushings. Again, this is a compromise. Just know what you are walking into. Any reputable shop will be able to tell you what the end result should be like.

Sloopy's link is a good staring point; also look at the RSS LCA's if you go that route (don't just change the thrust arm bushings, do the whole LCA's), Champion also seems to be doing some nice suspension work, maybe start with one of these guys depending on if you are East/West coast... Lots of people mention that a good suspension guy is key in the process - I strongly believe that suspension tuning is as much an art as it is engineering when it comes to actual settings since the number of possibilities with all these highly adjustable parts are just astronomical. Pure trial-error could take centuries in my case.

After a lot of research, here are the conclusions I came up with - they work for me but your mileage may vary. Also keep in mind that my first motivation was to get back to the "feel" of my previous 02C2 at the track:

(1) Most people seem to agree that the base PASM suspension on a C2S is not bad at all so I chose to stick with it a little longer to see if I could just adapt to it on the track. At my level, most of the times it is easier to fix the driver than to fix the car... although it is also a lot less fun of course...

But I digress...

(2) One thing became clear very quickly on the track: I needed more negative camber. To make that work, I got adjustable front lower control arms. And an alignment later, I was a happy camper.

(3) As an aside, I also got some track wheels (OZ Alleggerita) and track tires (Toyo RA1) since it doesn't make much sense to burn expensive PS2's on the track anyway. Might as well go 18" on those since there is more tire choices, 18 are cheaper than 19 and you will probably get a larger contact patch with 18 anyway - sidewalls are so stiff nowadays that there is not much diference between 18 and 19. A lot Cup cars run on 18, that is good enough for me.

(4) I would love to lower the car just for the looks, for some reason the current 911 has a Hummer look to it (maybe a marketing ploy to appeal to the SUV crowd?). Lower/stiffer may also be beneficial on the track but after mucho pondering I decided to stick with stock for now. That being said, if I was to lower the car I would either go with Techart springs or a full on coilover system (Billstein Damptonics) depending on budget (work is about the same for both options but coilover are about 3x-4x the price to just springs). The big problem with lowering the car is that if you track the car and want to keep the geometry together, things get complicated (and expensive) rather quickly - my understanding is that you need a bunch of new steer kits to adjust everything right . So that is partly why I decided to leave it alone for now...

I hope this helps _somewhat_,

T.

 

I am on track with everything you are saying. Being a novice on this, your thoughts have been a big help and I appreciate you taking the time to lay it all out.

I do need to find a good suspension guy and that is priority one for me right now. If I wouldn't have started reading this blog I would not have noticed how "SUV" ish my car looks. The car will be used for a few DE events but other than that, just a round the town toy and road trip touring vehicle.

One possible solution that I am wondering about is maybe the most obvious but not clear if it has been covered in any of the threads on the topic. And that is to "simply" convert the C2S PASM suspension to Sport PASM. What I have not been able to find out is whether the PASM dampers are different than the Sport PASM dampers? The springs are of course shorter but are the dampers also different. In addition are the LCAs, etc also different? Wouldn't one solution to accomplish this be just installing the bits that Porsche delivers for Sport PASM. Somehow I don't think this will be that straight forward either...

 

Sloopy, thanks for sending pics/info on your project car. Looks great! Lots to think about for the future.

 

Evolve,

I also looked into this a couple of months ago and did quite a bit of research on PET for the PASM/SPASM differences. The thing is that there are a LOT more differences than it seems. Dampers, springs, damper sensors, sway bars, and a bunch of other things are different on what Porsche calls the "stiffer chassis" - I am not sure which ones you would have to change if all you wanted to do was lower the car but suspension tend to be working as "systems" and I would be afraid to screw the handling. This was also validated by a bunch of members who chimed in at the time.

I think the best option if we want to keep the switch functionality is the damptronics. Pretty much everyone I've talked to that have them like them. They are made by the same company that does the OEM dampers so there is still an OEM flavor to it if it matters to you and the are fully adjustable. The only thing seems to be that, because of the adjustability, they can be a it tricky to set up for the track. They definitively are not cheap but as usual, you get what you pay for...

As far as the SUV'ish stance, right after I was looking into this and decided to defer my decision, the city decided to install the mother of all speed bumps in my subdivision. It it so monstrous that I swear you can feel the air s thinner when you get on top of the thing. There is very little choice for me, I can't go around it, so I am glad I did not do anything.

T.

 

tcouture,

I'm really surprised that there are that many differences especially given that the SPASM setup was a no charge option (I believe) given that I did order LSD. Your right that the Damptronics sure seems to be the best option if in fact I go that route. The point you made about the suspension being a "system" is very important and that is why I have been very leary of the quick and dirty solutions some have suggested. I supose that is why there are so many differences between SPASM and PASM.

The more I learn about this the less enthused I am to go forward with changes. Based on how I will use the car I'm not sure how wise it is to spend several thousand $$ for a half inch drop and a little better handling. Then again, I did buy a Porsche, didn't I

Bummer on the speed bumps. We're lucky up here; speed bumps don't last long with snow plows. If you can't go with a suspension upgrade, I'm sure you will find another mod to spend the money on

M.

 

I am by no means an expert on Porsche parts, you should talk to Ryan at Suncoast (a board sponsor). He could probably give you a list of all the differences. For me, just the fact that I needed an expert and a list to figure it out put me off...

As far as speed bumps, I am in Montreal, Canada. Here, they remove the bumps every fall here and rebuild them in the spring for the plows. A really crappy side effect is that the bumps never really get lower after 4-5 years of scraping - they are always brand new!

T.

 

I will follow up with Suncoast. I too am getting skidish about messing with a highly engineered system that has been optimized over decades. Thanks again for all you help and suggestions.