Dose suspension = 1000,s

[stevespic]

Hi all, I want to make my 944 S2 ride height slightly lower with out spending thousands in the process... the car is used on the track but i have always thought the handling on the car with stock suspension to be very good, Now i know you don't get anything for nothing in this great world but what are my best and cheapest options i have thought of replacing the stock shocks with the same and then adding lowering springs to the front, would this make much difference and would i have to need to re-index the TB, im also worried that when i replace the shocks it will raise the ride height due to the old ones being more soft and relaxed ! or am i talking rubbish....you could say if its good why would i want to touch it ? Well i would just like to tighten things up a little. Any how all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Steve.

 

[Diver944]

The cheapest option would be shorter springs on to standard shocks at the front and then lowering the rear as far as possible with the eccentric adjuster.

To get the rear any lower will need the TB's re-indexed and that's where the money starts to add up

 

[sawood12]

First of all it is the springs that determine your ride height so fresh shocks wont alter ride height at all. You could lower the front only and in fact 944's apparently handle better with a slightly nose-down attitude. In fact after getting my KW's I need to alter my headlight alignment as it seems like it is pointing down to the ground and only illuminates the first 10feet or so in front of me. I have to drive with full beam on all the time and it doesn't dazzle on-coming traffic.

Anyway you could just lower the front slightly but if you stiffen up the front too much relative to the rear you might be upsetting the balance. I think a stiff front end relative to the rear will result in an increased tendancy to understeer. A stiff rear in relative to the front will result in an increased tendancy to oversteer. The beauty of buying a kit is that everything is better matched. But if you just want to improve the handling of your car then you can get uprated shock kits that will give you some adjustability and a stiffer feel. Koni definately do one.

The re-indexing of TB's is a labour intensive job and takes about 10mh labour which is where the cost comes from along with the inevitable need to replace a few bits and bobs that have seen better days once the rear axel is off so that is where a big chunk of the cost comes from. You can lower the rear a limited amount - a few mm, by adjusting the eccentrics, so if you do get lower springs up front say 20mm lower you might be able to drop the rear by between 5 and 10mm which might be enough.

Also you don't want to be lowering the front too much without some attention to your lower wishbone ball joint. As you lower the car and the wisbone flattens out it means the ball joint operating sweep is more outboard and under heavy braking or cornering it is possible for the ball joint to over-rotate therefore putting extra stress on the ball joint pin and the socket of the wishbone. I think lowering upto 20mm might be OK but any more than that and you want to be thinking about doing something to the ball joint.

Hope i've not put you off but this is what i've gleaned from my dabbling in suspension as I went through all the different options before going for KW, but as good as you think your car is handling now you will be very pleased with whatever upgrade you may go for.

 

[stevespic]

Thanks for that info, If i was going to do the complete suspension upgrade with springs and shocks and includeing the re-indexing of TB's any new and improved ball joints ect that i might need what sort of ball park figure would i be looking at ?

 

[sawood12]

Reindexing of the TB's is 10mh labour so at say £50 per man hour labour rate you're looking at £500 just for that. The rear axel is removed and sometimes the rubber axel mounts might need replacement. There are two pairs and they are £100 a pair. Mine didn't need replacing but you should buget a further £200 just in case.

The front wishbone geometry correcting ball joint kit was $125 from the US and cost £150 to have it installed which included the wishbone socket to be machined to re-establish it's shape that usually wears into an irregular shape.

That's just about it. I also took the liberty of upgrading my TB's to M030 25mm dia ones from teh 23.5mm dia S2/turbo ones. This cost £215 for the pair from OPC Exeter.

So basically you are looking between £700 and £900 just to have the kit installed, then you have the cost of the kit and the re-alignment on top of that.

Definately not cheap and probably not worth it if you don't track the car, but if you do track the car then it is a different story.

 

[stevespic]

I visit the ring around 3 times a year where i cover around 20 laps or so over a weekend on each visit, as i said earlier the car always seems well balanced on and off the track, i always push the car but would like to start making faster laps times...I can understand that the better the suspension upgrade the better the car will handle and if i was competing in the car then obviously it would be a must but for the use the car gets and the fact that i Havant got an open cheque book i cant justify spending the money...maybe i should replace the shocks with stock ones and go down the Toyo R800 track tyre route!

 

[Fen]

I think you'd just overload the stock suspension with track tyres.

The cheapest option is new springs and adjust on the rear spring plates - there is about 40mm total adjustment on the back but it depends where the factory set your specific ones as to how much of that you can lower it by. The other downside is that things might not be matched well. I put lowered springs designed for standard shocks all round on my 964 and it was oversprung afterwards (which made it bouncy). It's a tricky area really and I don't know if you can do anything useful apart from replacing with new standard stuff for much less than £700 or so unless you take a punt and it works out for you. Sorry that's not what you want to hear.

 

[Diver944]

Now that you have mentioned your goal of lapping quicker at the Ring then I would say the single biggest thing you can do is use R rated track tyres (like the Toyo R888's you suggest), so unless your suspension is very old and tired change the tyres first then the suspension. I switched from road tyres to full slicks on my S2 and it made an absolute world of difference. The shocks were replaced (with standard) a few years later and it freshened everything up again but nowhere near as much as tyres designed for track use.

 

[stevespic]

I think thats the way im going to go... Camskill have come up with a price of 148 per corner inc vat and delivery which sound reasonable to me, so i guess the question is which is the best R type tyre for the money ?

 

[Diver944]

Now that's a whole other can of worms and we all have our subjective viewpoints [8|]

I think the absolute best track tyre for dry grip are the Michelin Pilot Sport Cups but they are pricey (circa £180 each) and not stocked by many in the 16" sizes for standard S2 wheels

Toyo R888's seem to be a close second (I haven't used these) and I'm not sure if they are even available in 16"

Best budget choice is Hankook RS2's (I haven't used these) as used and rated by Neil Haughey on the forum but I'm not sure they are as super grippy as the others. Good prices though at around £70 a corner [] for 225/50 and 245/45

I recently started using Kumho V70A soft compound on 17" wheels (245 front, 275 rear) and they seem incredibly grippy and are midranged in price at about £120 a corner

Try http://www.ears.co.uk/motorsport/acatalog/ for good track tyre prices

 

[stevespic]

My tyre sizes are 225 40 18 front and 265 35 18 rear so i know this is going to jack the price up slightly...

Thanks for the advice, Steve

 

[Fen]

You might want to get a set of 17's to mount your sticky tyres on if you are more interested in handling than looks. 944s don't need 18's. That said I have a set of 18's for mine, but I also have 17" wheels with track tyres.

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: Diver944

Now that's a whole other can of worms and we all have our subjective viewpoints [8|]

I think the absolute best track tyre for dry grip are the Michelin Pilot Sport Cups but they are pricey (circa £180 each) and not stocked by many in the 16" sizes for standard S2 wheels

Toyo R888's seem to be a close second (I haven't used these) and I'm not sure if they are even available in 16"

Best budget choice is Hankook RS2's (I haven't used these) as used and rated by Neil Haughey on the forum but I'm not sure they are as super grippy as the others. Good prices though at around £70 a corner [] for 225/50 and 245/45

I recently started using Kumho V70A soft compound on 17" wheels (245 front, 275 rear) and they seem incredibly grippy and are midranged in price at about £120 a corner

Try http://www.ears.co.uk/motorsport/acatalog/ for good track tyre prices

That is a pretty good summary. Some ppl I have met really rate the Kuhmo very highly.

The Hankook's I have I do really rate compared to Toyo T1-S, but my thinking is now that the Hankook makes a great road tyre for cars that aren't used a lot and perhaps will only do the very occasional track day. Not sure about R888 or the other track tyres which will probably grip better.

I took my outside front wheel of today to check the stud threads, clean em up and fit new nuts (remember I broke 2 at haynes test track the other week), well the circumferential band between the middle band and the outside tread blocks is shredded about as well as I have seen on any tyre. I reckon the fact this tyre has big tread blocks is the only thing saving em from getting totally shredded!

Looks like they hold up fantastically well if driven just under the grip limit and shred to pieces if pushed onto and over the limit which is what we expect really. Driven like I did at Haynes I reckon these tyres would last about 45 minutes to an hour total before having nothing left to shred.

 

[sawood12]

Neil, have you gone for steel nuts?

 

[Peter Empson]

ORIGINAL: sawood12

Neil, have you gone for steel nuts?

That sounds like a rather personal question to me

 

[edh]

Is there anything specific you want to improve? - what would you change to help the car handle better? Does the car tend towards understeer or oversteer?

Are you planning to take 2 sets of rims to the Ring? - I wouldn't fancy R-spec tyres on wet laps on the Ring, or on the drive over.
If not, then T1-R's are a good choice IMO. If you do fit better rubber, make sure your pads are hard enough, and you have reasonable cooling.

other (cheap) things to look at
- geometry, particularly extra camber
- tyre pressures
- arb's (I would expect your car to roll a fair bit)
All of these might help you carry that extra bit of speed through corners

Have a read of this as well
http://www.924.org/techsection/SuspensionPreparation.htm

Even if you know your way round pretty well, it's probably worth getting some Ring based driver training. I bet there are still places where you can carry more speed through.

Failing all that - buy a Turbo []

 

[PJS917]

ORIGINAL: sawood12


The front wishbone geometry correcting ball joint kit was $125 from the US and cost £150 to have it installed which included the wishbone socket to be machined to re-establish it's shape that usually wears into an irregular shape.

Scott,

Do you have a link to the supplier of these, as I intend to fit them to my car over the winter.

Thanks

 

[stevespic]

I was thinking of my last trip to germany i made last month,and it was raining so hard that i swear the water was causing friction between the tyres and the rear wheel arches...i would hate to think what R888 would have been like even though my rears were about 2mil. your right about the ring in the wet, i have always treated like driving in wet plus - 0 conditions,it really does get slippery, i cant really carry a spare set of wheels so may its better the deveil you know...May be i should replace my rear tyres with the same Toyos as there near there end. Now i know this will make every one roll there's eyes but.. i have never bothered with checking tyre pressures [:'(] and i KNOW now that its very important after having a friend explain in detail what happens and why, and why my lap times are going stale ! (due to me driving round on just the middle of my tyres)... i will be checking them from now on...What pressures would everyone recomend....225 40 18 fronts and 265 35 18 rears ?[]

 

[edh]

I would try & aim for pressures when hot in the low 30's (check straight after each lap or 2 & keep letting air out until the pressures stabilise) - around or just below your usual street pressures. If you're driving on street pressures then I gues you will be at 40psi + when really hot.

If the tyres are squealing a lot, they are probably too high. Don't let them get too low otherwise they roll onto the sidewalls & will get damaged.

For me that's 32-34 on T1-R's (on 16's) or around 30 psi on P Zero C's. You can tune handling a bit by varying F&R pressures.

FWIW - our Ring Taxi driver said you need to exercise caution in the wet as soon as you can see your own tyre tracks (in the rear mirror) on the circuit.

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: Peter Empson

ORIGINAL: sawood12

Neil,  have you gone for steel nuts?

That sounds like a rather personal question to me

Lol, I decided to replace the 5 on that wheel with 5 ali nuts since this would seem fine for road driving. I will be looking into getting a set of steel nuts for future track use, especially given that I enjoyed Haynes track so much I want to see if I can get into some of those autoX type speed events that local car clubs run i.e. similarily tight and twisty track to Haynes.

I don't know of it is specific to my suspension set up or something to do with the power characteristics of the S2 but my car feels great on tracks like that whereas on a fast track with long straights I am sure it would feel underpowered.

In answer to the thrust of this thread IMHE after doing suspension bit by bit I feel lowering springs on their own are a waste of time in terms of performance. The balance of the front rear spring ratios is upset IMHO in a negative way. If it was my own money (again say) and I wanted to improve a S2 for minimal money I would fit in this order:
1) 968 caster blocks (you will be surprised how much this improves the car)
2) Koni front inserts and koni 944 M030 rear shocks
3) 968 M030 ARB's

Beyond that you could fit 200+ lb/inch lowering springs like I have and uprated rear torsion bars but as others have said dropping the rear suspension tends to open up a massive can of worms and can get very costly to the point that you probably don't save a great deal compared to going the whole hog and fitting KW v3. However one could argue that the cost of replacing correded fuel lines, brake lines and knackered suspension and gearbox bushings is inevitable either way.