[Chris Vais]

Over the past two months that I have been unemployed, my 968 has been the recipient of considerable attention. Since February it has received a strut tower brace and firewall brace, lower suspension brace, M030 sway bars. The car already had Koni adjustable shocks. I also did the intake mod and added a front splitter.



The car now drives like a very well sorted high performance car should drive. I've noticed that with the braces installed the turn in is very crisp, the front end absolutely does not washout on me any more. It goes precisely where I point it which means that you need to be cognizant of curbs, holes, soft shoulders, small animals and children when you apex a curve as the car will clip the apex perfectly.



While this may be slightly off topic, the two things that I noticed driving the car with the splitter installed is that the car doesn't wonder about when driven in the typical cross winds we sometimes get on the various bridges over the bay. The other thing I noticed is it really helps keep the engine temperature down. Engine temp never gets above 8 o'clock position, even with the warm weather we had last weekend and not using the air conditioning.



I suppose the only remaining thing to consider is a chassis brace. It does compromise the use of the rear seats, but it has been a very long time since anyone has ridden back there.



Kudos to Flash and D1 Racing for developing the braces and splitter. Worth the investment in my book.

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[flash]

it doesn't really compromise use of the back seats. I designed it specifically so it wouldn't do that. the cross-brace (harness bar) is removable.

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[Cloud9...68]

Interesting comment about the engine temperature impact of the splitter. Anybody else notice this?

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[flash]

yup. noted it and commented on it years ago.



the splitter creates a positive pressure zone and thereby catches and directs the air into the lower grille.

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[rxter]

Speaking of bracing, I have been driving the car a lot more recently and noticed a fair bit what I think is cowl shake. I've got all the braces installed. Anything else I should be doing (other than driving on pool table smooth roads below the posted speed limit)?

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[flash]

ring me up

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[94SilverCab]

Excellent use of spare time..the notion that you thnk you are done...priceless!



Welcome to the slipperiest slope...



Jay

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[Chris Vais]

Apart from a chassis brace, I don't think there is much more that I would do. Whatever job I end up with most likely entail a longer commute that the 7 mile commute I have enjoyed for many years. So the question becomes one of continuing to use the 968 as my DD or retire it to weekend use only and purchase something to use as a DD. If I continue to use it as the DD, the most likely scenario in the short run, the car needs to remain reliable and drivable in commute traffic.

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[flash]

did you get a corner balance and alignment?

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[Chris Vais]

Flash, I did get the car aligned with a fairly aggressive set up. My PM can do a corner balance, but with the stock suspension there isn't, in their opinion, an awful lot of adjustment that can be made. I don't know enough about what a corner balance entails to know whether it will work with my suspension set-up or not.

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[pure&simple]

If you have a height-adjustable suspension, corner balance can help balance the cross-weights (diagonal RF->LR) by raising or lowering individual corners of the car. All other things being equal, a car with equal cross-weights has better handling and balance. Given that you have a stock suspension, your mechanics are correct that there is no point in doing this. Even if you did have a height-adjustable suspension, in my opinion, there is no point in corner-balancing a car that never sees track time. It's unlikely you would notice the change on the street. A good alignment, however, makes a very obvious difference, even on a daily driver.

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[flash]

i suppose the "benefit" is relative to how sensitive you are to such things. it's one of those things that most people don't notice until they have it done, and then it's like they flipped on a switch, and they wonder why they didn't do it sooner. it was a HUGE difference for me on the blue car, and it is a street car.



the shop was probably leery about corner balancing because it meant a lot of fiddling with the rear eccentrics, and that is a HUGE pain in the butt.



i would throw it on the scales and see how off it is. if you have front ride height adjustability, and if it's much more than about 75lbs off at any corner, loaded as you normally drive it, with your weight in the driver seat, and a half tank of gas, then i would get it done. unfortunately it may well mean another alignment.

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[pure&simple]

Since a corner balance is almost always done in conjunction with an alignment, it could be difficult to determine which provided the benefit. Agree that a good alignment is like flipping on a switch, particularly if toe was out. These cars (well mine at least) really likes exactly zero front toe. Not sure moving 40lbs from one corner to another could be felt on a 3000lb street car with only 200-300lb springs during daily driving, commuting, etc. Maybe I'm wrong, but it wouldn't be on the top of my list of things to invest in. Could it be felt on a DE or race car with stiff springs while cornering at the limit and in fast transitions? Most likely. Or it would at least show up on the data.

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[flash]

i had an alignment prior to my corner balance, and then realigned it to exactly the same specs, thereby eliminating the alignment as the contributor.



granted, mine was WAY out of whack on weights, but it was astounding to see the difference. each bump in the road is now handled evenly at all 4 corners, whereas before each corner reacted differently to the same bump.



i agree that if it is only 40lbs, you probably won't notice that on a street car, as you move that much around going back and forth the grocery store. that being said, when you remove the 42lb weight out of the back of the cab, it handles very differently. when you start talking about 75lbs, it is pretty easy to tell. my car was off more than that.

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[bombfactory]

Things I noticed after my recent corner balance and alignment:

- Reduced steering effort (replaced my entire steering system, but bad alignment was the problem all along!)

- Reduced understeer (still want to dial out a bit more)

- Less tire noise (285's in the rear still put out quite a racket tho)

- Better suspension feel (front and rear work as a team rather than fighting each other)

- Better braking performance (was disappointed in my brakes before, now they feel fine!)



I had my car aligned three times (incompetently I now know) prior to having this done, and they said it was WAY out of whack. Highly recommended - if you can find a shop that really knows their stuff.

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[Chris Vais]

Well, today it was beastly hot, 109 degrees in Livermore at the winery. On my way home with the A/C going full blast and running at about 70-75 on I-580, the engine temp is sitting right at the 8:00 position. I continue to be amazed at how much cooler the car runs, especially on a stinking hot day, since installing the front splitter. It may turn out to be an engine savior.

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[Rap]

Chris, I drove down to the DC area last weekend which was pretty warm. Not the same temps you reported and in slow traffic I was watching the needle rise. It came down when I started moving again but I'm not sure I noticed the difference. I'm doing 2 DE''s the next two weekends at Pocono so perhaps this will be a good time to check out if the splitter makes a difference. Do you have the heat shield on?

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[Cloud9...68]

Yeah, I would say that at 70-75 mph, if your gauge isn't sitting at 8 oclock, you have a problem, splitter or no. It's stop-and-go traffic on a hot day that's the real test of your cooling system.

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