[anthonymaher]

Over the past vew months I have been working through maintenence and a few upgrades on my suspension. My goal was to supplement the sport suspension but still use as my daily driver. Oh, and not to break the bank



Front: new control arm bushings (the rubber version with Sport hardness from Paragon; derlin sway bar bushings and sway bar mount brace, 225 lb Hypercoil springs, stainless brake lines, wheel bearings. Dampers are original with new bump stop and covers. Added lower brace to supplement the tower brace and replaced the old rubber upper strut mount with solid aluminum replacement from KLA. This was more due to me not wanting to spend way too much on factory original rubber/metal. I was concerned that the solid strut mount would provide too much road feel



Rear: rebuilt Koni shocks from Truechoice, stock springs, new sway bar mounts, bushings and solid drop links along with stainless brake lines and new CV joint boots.



Lowered about .75 inch, the shiny like new rear shocks are half a turn above softest, I am still working through the firmness adjustment on the front. Im lucky that the car came with the M030 sport suspension, so the sway bars and brakes are already sturdy and stout.



Initial impressions: Very good! The concern about the solid upper strut mount is not an issue- there is some additional road feel, but not noticibly more than the sport suspension. I kept the control arm and sway bar end bushing rubber so there was some ability to dampen vibration. Generally feels more precise and handling is very responsive without being at all jittery or jumpy. Feels like I am driving a new 968 off the dealerships lot.

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[Cloud9...68]

Very nice. Glad to hear the solid upper strut mount isn't an issue - as you say, leaving some compliance in other parts of the suspension is probably helping here.

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[Scott Collins]

anthonymayer,



Sounds excellent! Been thinking about similar stuff.



Out of curiosity, what did this all set you back? Did you stay inside your budget?



-Scott

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[DaveN]

Worlds longest discussion is back <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/smile.png" class="smilie" alt="" /> Glad it is as I'm doing the suspension this winter and still can't decide - replace OEM dampers and change to 225 springs (Eibach, Hard and Rough or Hypercoil), KW 3, Lindsey Racing, Bilstein, Koni, Boge - argggg. Don't want to remove the torsion bars so that eases spring rate decisions in the rear.

There is plenty of dark and rain on the way allowing plenty of time to contemplate <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/sad.png" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[DaveN]

Is that spray undercoat in the foreground or just a flat black paint to neaten up the area?

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[bombfactory]

Agree that this topic will never be exhausted! I'm finding that my (freshly rebuilt in the front) Koni yellows seem overly harsh on small bumps. They're definitely not too stiff as they're set on the soft side, but they just don't seem to react to small hits and transfer a lot of harshness into the cabin. Granted, I'm on 18's, but still I feel the ride should be smoother than what I'm getting. I predict I'll be looking for alternative shocks in the future...

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[flash]

that's gas for you. it doesn't help that the compression is fixed on those either. i have the compression setting dialed almost all the way down on my hydraulic ones.

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[anthonymaher]

For me, the discussion is over. I think I spent more time sorting through various posts discussing suspensions than I did actually doing the work <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/smile.png" class="smilie" alt="" />



But if anyone needs some validation on a firm sport suspension that still works with a daily driver, this set up is exactly what I was looking for.



I did spray on a rubber undercoating in the rear wheelwells and adjacent area-I found the original undercoating fairly hard and added a little deadening-a tiny difference, but part of also getting 17 years of road crud off the suspension



My budget was to keep it under $1500. total cost, including a new alignment was $1335. There is no single big cost, the rebuilt rear shocks costing the most at $375.00 for two-which is a steal to get basically 2 new shocks. That also helped me become very comfortable with the limitations of the Koni's, as the cost of new/better shocks would immediately blow my budget.

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[DaveN]

Are those helper springs on the back as you still have the torsion bars? If so what is the rating - 50-100 lbs?

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[bombfactory]

Flash are there any hydraulic shock options for our cars that won't break the bank?

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[flash]

lol - depends on your bank i suppose, as well as what else you plan to do (springs, torsion delete, etc). i don't mean to be cryptic, but it's not a simple answer

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[Ryan]

Hey Dave...The M030 suspension has the springs in addition to the torsion bars.

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