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Recommend me some non-adjustable suspension

DavidL

DavidL

Active member
I know my suspension has seen better days - actually it had 100K ago I think!
Much though I would love to just give it to someone and say fit the nice KWs please I just don't think I will ever use the car to a level that I would appreciate the advantages. And to have it done properly is 2K plus which still seems quite alot.
I have adjustable AVOs on another car and have I adjusted them in 3years, have I bugger!
So for a road car what should I buy?
 
Considering the price of Bilstein and Koni now: Id definately be looking at GAZ kit. The Koni dampers used to be available for far more sensible money in America, but the p*ss-poor exchange rate has put paid to that...

Simon
 
ORIGINAL: Diver944

ORIGINAL: DavidL

So for a road car what should I buy?
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Replace with standard. It will be a night and day difference compared with old worn shocks.
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That had occured to me but I assumed that OPC parts would be mega money for what they are. Granted I haven't actually checked. Makes me wonder if I shouldn't have bought taht M474 kit that popped up on ebay a few weeks back even if it did need new springs to fit my car.

ETA The word I used in the first post had more than 4 letters!! It wasn't that bad, honest.
 
I'll second what Paul has said: new standard kit will also make a massive difference. Id expect the front struts particularly to be quite minty from an OPC, although if you buy OEM parts (probably Boge) from Bert Gear or even ECP, then the cost will be far more palatable.

Simon
 
Depends on the car, S2 stock struts are now something £250 each, I got my 968 ones for £170 each which was the cheapest I could find. Rears I got lucky and found a set of dampers in my mums loft that I bought 5 or 6 years ago, these where listed by Sachs as equivalent to 3 or 4 different Porsche numbers, ISTR S2/turbo/968. I believe many of these shocks you can't buy any more aftermarket and have to go through OPC or equally expensive Porsche parts supply channels, this is the case now with the 968 rear shocks for example.
 
From memory you have an S. A quick check on Eurocarparts.com shows that front Boge struts are £100 each and rear shocks are £70 each. I would allow circa £150 for a garage to fit and a bit more for an alignment.
 

ORIGINAL: Diver944

From memory you have an S. A quick check on Eurocarparts.com shows that front Boge struts are £100 each and rear shocks are £70 each. I would allow circa £150 for a garage to fit and a bit more for an alignment.
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Bargain I would snap those up while you can. It took my brother and I, 4.5 hours to do the fronts struts and rear shocks on the 968, so I guess the labour charge will depend on the rates used by your garage of choice. If one is careful with the camber adjusters you can avoid the need to re-align, certainly after fitting new struts on the 968 the tracking is spot on as it was before hand.
 
I did have an S but that morphed into a 250 T this time last year.
Haven't had chance to look yet.
 
Just out of interest - old parts that have covered nominal mileage, removed and stored should be ok to use or will there be an element of deterioration?
 
ORIGINAL: DavidL

I did have an S but that morphed into a 250 T this time last year.
Haven't had chance to look yet.
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Have you thought about the Koni inserts/rear shocks, I know you specified non adjustable but I don't think there's much price difference over stock shocks.
 
FWIW, when I looked into this about 18 months ago the koni inserts and adjustable rears were cheaper than the OE replacements from Bert et al.
ORIGINAL: Neil Haughey
Bargain I would snap those up while you can. It took my brother and I, 4.5 hours to do the fronts struts and rear shocks on the 968, so I guess the labour charge will depend on the rates used by your garage of choice. If one is careful with the camber adjusters you can avoid the need to re-align, certainly after fitting new struts on the 968 the tracking is spot on as it was before hand.
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I did all of mine (with the Koni's, including cutting and replacing the fronts, and replaced all the ARB bushes as well) in a leisurely day, so it's not a big job. It's also pretty easy if you have a jack and are handy with spanners.

However I would emphasise the need to have the geo done once you have swapped the hardware. How you could remove it all and manage not to change the settings is beyond me, and I would also venture to add that the settings are probably more important than new hardware. I would prefer a well set-up car with old dampers than a car with wheels doing satellite-tracking-dish impressions and new dampers. Just my $0.02's worth.


Oli.
 
Well in your case you where fitting a totally different damper, whereas I fitted essentially the same dampers just newer (the old ones not that bad really just very old). Camber gauge and careful marking and checking of the camber adjuster is required.
 
Neil,

True - and that will make a difference.

I'd still emphasise the need for geo ... they go out of setting over time ('enthusiasts' suggest it is re-geo'd every year), and to take a car with questionable geo and change the shocks (potentially knocking everything out of kilter) would, I suspect, leave you with something a long way away from where it should be.

When I changed the shocks on mine it drove slightly better for the 50 miles I did to the alignment place. When it was fully aligned it drove much, much, much better. In terms of improvement per £ spent, geo is much better value for money than shocks.


Oli.
 
Of course get it checked, even without new suspension every couple of years or so if possible. As long as the geometry is within Porsche stated tolerances you will be fine and these tolerances are fairly broad on our cars, front and rear toe of course need to be tight for the car to ride right. For camber you can get well within the factory tolerances with a flat garage floor and a 30 quid castor/camber gauge.
 
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