Upgraded Brakes / Suspension?

[TJW964]

Anyone upgraded their brake system on their 964?
If so, what with and what were the results?

What about suspension?

I am considering doing some laps of the Ring next year and want to know about costs and benefits. Otherwise I might just buy a track toy. What do you think?

Cheers, Trevor

 

[Paul Cheetham]

I am thinking of having KW's fitted but i don't know if i can justify the cost against how i use the car at the moment. And are they as good as people say??



Paul

 

[Steve Brookes]

I'm just in the process of upgrading my rear 2 pot calipers to 4 pots and will be changing the original brake hoses at the same time.

The approximate costs are:
Calipers from 928 S4 off ebay = £180
Set of new spring plates to refurb the calipers = £60
New bleed valves = £10
Uprated proportioning valve (I'm guessing at) = £50
2 litres of super dot 4 brake fluid = £20
Brake hoses = £50
Pagid blue pads = £115

Total = £485

This does not include the cost of my time to remove the corrosion behing the spring plates of the used calipers and getting them all nice and shiny to go on the car []

The cost vs benefit really comes down to avoiding brake fade that could lead to me ending up in the armco when on the track! The 2 pot rears are well known for overheating and boiling the fluid.

 

[sawood12]

I've done this on my 944 and the results are spectacular. I uprated the suspension to KW - yes it is expensive, though 50% of the cost was the installtion due to the rear torsion bar setup needing to be re-indexed.

On the brake front I uprated to the Big Blacks up front. These are the same as the 964 turbo (i believe) and also the same on the 928 GTS. They are actually the identical caliper to the 993TT big reds except they are black in colour and the bleed nipple is on the other end as they mount to the rear of the axel instead of in front of the axel. The big blacks are also much cheaper than the big reds as Porsche ran out of stocks of the big reds and had to do another production run whereas the big blacks are sourced from the original production run. I priced it up at the time and from the OPC they were less than £100 more expensive per caliper than my standard much smaller calipers. I ended up buying a kit from the states that was the same price in $ as in £ so all in all for the entire kit (calipers, discs, adaptor brakets and pads) I paid about £750.

The suspension is the bees knees and so far appears to be significantly better than any other off-the-shelf product. The brakes are similarly spectacular. Brake fade is simply not an issue.

If you can stretch to the budget my advice is go for it.

 

[sawood12]

By the way I havn't bothered replacing my brake proportioning valve as I read mixed reports about it so thought i'd suck it and see. Also after a bit of research I found that all 944's, 968's and later 928's inculding the GTS all shared the same proportioning valve irrespective of relative front to rear caliper sizes. So far so good - no probs with the rears locking up (or the ABS prematurly kicking in) so far. They are about £70 brand new from the OEM.

The biggest difference i've found is that there is a bit more brake travel as a result of the larger piston sizes. I've got used to this now and actually increases feel and modulation. Also the piston diameters between the big blacks/reds are the same as the 'medium' blacks off the 928 S2 and later 944 turbo's. The difference is the size of the pad, caliper and discs.

 

[Keith Calder]

hi paul im thinking of kw variant 3 £1334 here
http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/products/search.asp?keyword=&classCode=ROAD&brandCode=B261&x=34&y=9

know what you mean about price , but ive already spent a few hundred having cargraphic progressive springs fitted and should have gone the whole hog as the shocks on our age of cars will be pretty worn anyway. standard brakes ok but pads tend to melt and stick to the discs on the track and cause brake judder, clears on the way home though, im going to fit better pads or big discs for next year.

 

[Keith Calder]

wonder what these thick H&R antirollbars are like ?

http://www.design911.co.uk/index.htm?Region=UK £261 plus vat a pair

 

[Steve Brookes]

ORIGINAL: sawood12


On the brake front I uprated to the Big Blacks up front. These are the same as the 964 turbo (i believe) and also the same on the 928 GTS. They are actually the identical caliper to the 993TT big reds except they are black in colour and the bleed nipple is on the other end as they mount to the rear of the axel instead of in front of the axel. The big blacks are also much cheaper than the big reds as Porsche ran out of stocks of the big reds and had to do another production run whereas the big blacks are sourced from the original production run. I priced it up at the time and from the OPC they were less than £100 more expensive per caliper than my standard much smaller calipers. I ended up buying a kit from the states that was the same price in $ as in £ so all in all for the entire kit (calipers, discs, adaptor brakets and pads) I paid about £750.

I am totally with you there Scott about the big black option []. If I change my fronts later it will be for the big blacks. Regarding the bleed valve issue, you're right of course that they mount on the other side of the disc which messes up the bleed valve orientation but there is an easy fix for this. You just swap the bleed valves and feed pipe round. I was told this was a must because you can't bleed the calipers properly if the bleeds were on the bottom of the caliper. Be warned though because undoing the fittings after 15+ years of not being moved is no easy task! [&:]

 

[Paul Cheetham]

Hi, Keith who will you get to do the work ?.

thanks

Paul

 

[sawood12]

That's right Steve, wasn't an issue for me as the BB's mount in the same position on the 944 as they do on the 928GTS so was a straight no-fuss replacement (using the axial to radial mount adaptors). I assumed it is the same for a 964 as the 964 turbos had BB's as well I thought.

If i'd got BR's I would have had to swap the bleed nipple with the U-shaped pipe. Yes it's rather annoying that air tends to want to float on top of a more dense fluid. Most inconvenient sometimes.

Having just re-read my earlier thread I notice I didn't really say that much about the KW's apart from the fact they are pretty pricey. The fact is these beauties have transformed the feel and capability of my car. They give you a stiff setup that is somehow compliant on the road (due to he bypass valve in the damper). Not only has the body control and genearal handling improved into another league, but the car seems to grip much better under accellaration. Before I'd more often than not get the inside wheel spinning if I accellarated under boost on anything but a straight line, not now. Rarely do I get the inside wheel spinning, the car just grips like hell and the car drive out of bends and roundabouts like a bat out of hell. I cannot say a bad thing about the setup, it really does feel that much better than the standard setup.

Personally i'd prefer to uprate the ARB's as a last step and only if I feel I need them as they influence the main suspension and fight agaist it, so want to get away with as thin ARB's as possible. So far the car feels fine on the standard ARB, it corners much flatter than before and initial turn in is razor sharp and my plans to uprate my ARB's has been well and truly put on the back burners.

Personally I didn't think the KW's were that much more expensive than other coil-over kits on the market - and I mean true coil over kits and not simple shock absorber upgrades which many people compare the price to. So by the time you factor in the fact these things are simply superb that extra few hundred quid felt justified in the end.

 

[bernard tester]

With ref the big blacks is it not possable to swap sides with the calapers left to right to get the blead niple at the top? Allways better to use the word niple! rather than valve sounds so much better! Berny.

 

[Keith Calder]

probably do suspension with ninemeister again,

believe big blacks have gone up in price with the recent repricing by porsche , and ive read you need to buy C4 or turbo fluid reservoir to fill them

 

[Steve Brookes]

ORIGINAL: bernard tester

With ref the big blacks is it not possable to swap sides with the calapers left to right to get the blead niple at the top? Allways better to use the word niple! rather than valve sounds so much better! Berny.

Berny, it's not wise to do that because then you will have the smaller piston acting first on the direction of the wheel/disc rotation which will cause uneven pad wear at the very least.

Keith, indeed those bigger roll bars are very good value and it's nice that they are adjustable too. But like Scott I'd heard (from some of the suspension gurus on Rennlist) that under hard cornering really stiff bars are going to lead to the unweighted side of the car lifting the wheels off the track.

I've got my stock roll bars on at the moment (20 front, 21 rear) but have just fitted new poly bushes. These have made the car feel noticeably stiffer so I guess my standard ARBs are now working as they were meant to. []

 

[sawood12]

ORIGINAL: bernard tester

With ref the big blacks is it not possable to swap sides with the calapers left to right to get the blead niple at the top? Allways better to use the word niple! rather than valve sounds so much better! Berny.

Bernard - it is not a problem, the bleed nipples and the U-shaped pipe simply unscrew so you can swap them very easily. Would you need to do that with BB's on a 964 though? Aren't the calipers mounted behind the axel as they are on 944's and 928's?? If so you would only have to swap the nipples and pipe if you got BR's.

It's also worth noting that with BB's/BR's you need 17" rims. I've still not sussed out what to do with my spare wheel. If I got a puncture tomorrow i'd need to put a rear wheel on the front and the spare on the rear.

 

[Steve Brookes]

ORIGINAL: sawood12

By the way I havn't bothered replacing my brake proportioning valve as I read mixed reports about it so thought i'd suck it and see. Also after a bit of research I found that all 944's, 968's and later 928's inculding the GTS all shared the same proportioning valve irrespective of relative front to rear caliper sizes. So far so good - no probs with the rears locking up (or the ABS prematurly kicking in) so far. They are about £70 brand new from the OEM.

The biggest difference i've found is that there is a bit more brake travel as a result of the larger piston sizes. I've got used to this now and actually increases feel and modulation. Also the piston diameters between the big blacks/reds are the same as the 'medium' blacks off the 928 S2 and later 944 turbo's. The difference is the size of the pad, caliper and discs.

That's an interesting point Scott. I've also seen a post on Rennlist about taking the valve out, removing the insides and effectively running the system without any proportioning, apparently with no issues. However the majority recommend having the correct valve in the system. So at the moment I think I'll go with the majority as at least by doing everything at once, I'll only have to do one complete flush of the system.

 

[Keith Calder]

dont know where you live paul but rpm have an ad in feb 2008 porsche world for free fitting on KW3 kit in jan & feb may be worth ringing. 01296 661881 cheddington too far for me.
i just want to get rid of some body roll.

 

[Keith Calder]

they corner better with both tyres on the ground!
(same bend)

 

[Paul Cheetham]

Keith, I am from North Wales so that is too far for me also. Maybe 9m will do the same deal !!!!


Paul

 

[Keith Calder]

no tried that already,
demon tweeks said £154 plus vat to fit tho, maybe they dropped the calculator , handy for us both!
may just fit thick anti roll bars myself as im after a faster car later this year, and dont want to spend £1500 im not going to get back if i sell it