Arling, you forgot Moton in your "rant"!

 

Ive been on this board about 4 months.. just getting familiar with u guys.... and I'm particularly curious if anyone here, concerning the Pss9 issue, actually works for or is an owner of a Gt race team.
What I mean, is, can we get an engineer/mehanic from , for example, the racers Group, or orbit Racing, etc... to comment on these shocks.
I know that Roger, the owner of Orbit Racing did not have these issues withmy suspension. The factory drivers, Peter Baron even tested my car numerous times.... I know they used some motorsport parts from thier inventory.. but all in all, I do have Pss9's. they work great. there has been alot of talk about Bump steer... I do not have that. I do appreciate the wealth of knowledge, KPV... maybe I got lucky.
my suggestion, go to a reputable GT CUP race team and get your installation done... including corner balance.

 

Mark,

Cary Eisenlohr on this board is one of the foremost experts in Porsche suspension, period.

He supplies and advises to many race teams. Ask Roger about him.

Bob Linton is another guru, as he his company designs and supplies for Porsche Motorsports.

Plenty of resources on this board if you look past the sea of the HRE bling crowd.

 

Ken -

The information and research is outstanding and greatly appreciated. In your initial post, you mentioned that you had considered the RUF PSS9's. Was there anything specific that you found out that took this setup out of the running?

 

With all the dollars mots people wind up putting in Turbos to try to get them like GT2's they should just by a GT2 first unless fo course they

1) need AWD
2) need a backseat
3) are not very skilled drivers and need PSM, me myself on a wet day even the Boxster needs PSM as I got one to spin

 

Pippin,
The Bilstein PSS-9, Ruf PSS-9 and FVD PSS-9 are all physically the same systems. Each setup however has different spring rates and valving. I do not have direct experience with either the Ruf or FVD versions, only the Bilstein PSS-9 versions. At the time I bought the PSS-9's, cost was a factor and that precluded the Ruf PSS-9 suspension. Regardless, as I said, they are the same cartridges with the same physical dimensions. The Bilsteins have substantial reductions in travel when they are lowered, as I pointed out. There are two things that can be done to restore the travel with the car lowered, cutting and/or removing the internal bump stops (polymer sleeve inside the shock) and/or removing, shortening and re-installing the piston shaft. A very good friend of mine, Sean, has the Ruf suspension and hasn't complained of oddities in handling. His car is nearly as low as mine. It is conceivable, given Ruf's technical prowess, that they actually do shorten the piston shaft since they know the car will be lowered. I haven't been able to confirm this, but it is certainly possible since they are classified as a manufacturer in Germany.

You may be interested in my two other threads that will yield similar insight with your suspension choices.......

PSS-9 vs GT2 Rideheight

Moton Clubsport

 

Marc,
20/20 hindsight.......I should have bought a GT2.

 

Thank you Ken!

 

BTW the rideheight issue will affect the bumpsteer. A way to check this is to look at the tie rods sitting at static height and if you had a jack up and down their travel path. They should be parallel to the ground at static height. The problem is that when you lower it it throws this off. This creates the bumpsteer. A common solution is to shim the rack down with spacers and make it level again. On another note. I had my car corner balanced at XYZ shop and the idiots lowered the car while doing it instead of raising it. In any event they took all day, and the result? The car handled evenly but was so low that it was underdamped. It drove me nutz. I thought it was hitting the bumpstops or something right? So of course I increased the front dampening from 4 to 3 and that controlled it a bit, but it feathered and destroyed my front tires. Upon taking it to Lucent just last week, I discovered that it was set so improperly that there was only 3" of compression resulting in the spring binding during normal driving!!!! Lucent then set it back and I had 7" of travel afterwards. I believe this is THE issue you must note and what KPV was running into wihtout reading the entire post. I just wanted to share what I learned. And of course I did everything by raising up the car a lot and it resulted in of course helping the rack geometry and the car is a lot better in a corner- bump steer.

 

Another thread that I thought would be helpful for 6speeders.

Put on your thinking caps!

 

At least you were the one bringing this thread back!!

Does anyone know if the H&Rs have this problem, even though they arent regarded as high as the bilsteins?

-Keith

 

[quote=vipertestarossa].........Honestly though I believe that most of these guys that love this system either do not drive their cars hard enough to feel the instability or their cars arent as low as mine and KPV's. If I could do it all over again I would have spent the extra money and went with the Motons, nothing else.......

I run lots of time at the track and autoX and I like mine alot. I consitently run with an X50 996TT (with a great driver) that has JRZ's. If the PSS9's are set right I believe they are fine. The problem is, you really can't slam the PSS9's. If your looking for lowrider low you have to go with a shorter shock body that will compensate to allow for travel. If you have handling issues, raise your car up 8-10 mm and you experience a world of difference. My car sits like a GT3 and it rides and handles great. If money were no object I would have gone with JRZ's or Motons, however I prefer to keep several sets of fresh hoosiers and yokohama slicks in the pantry!

 

excellent reading, thanks! more thinking to go on for the next fw months of actually purchasing the car and then the suspension right afterwards.

THanks!

 

Thanks for bringing this back. I am looking at an 03 with PSS9 suspension and this was great background.

 

CSD952 et. al.,
I want to make something clear here. I have not said the PSS-9 suspension is a bad suspension. My conclusions were simply, they have to be used at or near stock ride height to perform well. If you slam the car down low with PSS-9's, your handling will suffer due to lack of travel.