Lowering on a budget?

[9962997]

Well I've been patiently trying to find a used pss9 or h&r setup up for my 997 conversion project and I'm thinking I need to just settle for springs. I don't race it, nor will I ever. I only want to lower my car to match the look of the gt3 conversion I did on the front. Further compounding the problem is my conversion was fiberglass and thus lighter so I think the front is even higher because of it. I would love to do an adjustable coil over to get it just right but I can't afford the 2k kit. Is there any suggestions for springs or other ways to lower my 996 to 997 gt3 conversion? I already blew my $$$ on the conversion ($10k+) and need to find a cheap alternative to the coil over kits!

Edited April 10, 2008 by 9962997

[thewightstuff]

you could go old school and just cut a section out of your springs you have now for the moment.

its slightly heath robinson though but it will work just fine with the caveat that whether it will adversely effect performance at the limit and by how much for you in your particular application is anyones money.

when i was a lad i used to do this on loads of cars when i didnt have jobs or the money or while i saved for upgrades but still wanted a lower car (which was always) and all it brought and so long as i cut a complete section out, ie cut the end line exactly below the original, always from the top or "softer" end if progressive and never took out more than one link it never made any iota of a difference to ride quality or stability either at normal driving or at the limits and beyond in a negative way but did always give all the benefits of lowered cars.

i also never had an issue with dislocation of suspension components either when driving or upon jacking the car. ive done this on cars with much more performance and power than my C2 and that have been tracked hard (though i will add importantly without as much refinement or cost).

you cant get much more budget than that though clearly something such as coilovers is going to be far superior. ive found over the years that the average lowering spring kits are often seldom more than just a shorter spring anyways and offer no advantage over a cut spring other than relieving you of your cash. adjusting a manufacturers oem built and rated spring for height if this is all you want is often a far superior measure if a spring change was all that was being looked at. atleast you are only changing one variable, ride height

perhaps if you are looking patiently for PS9s or similar this will get you going in the meantime easily for a month or two rather than driving on stilts. if you have lightened the front with fiberglass over the original bumper and its sitting higher due to the lighter load you have already adjusted the suspension characteristics of the car anyways and deviated from norm or ideal

Edited April 11, 2008 by thewightstuff

[Tecra]

you could go old school and just cut a section out of your springs you have now for the moment.

its slightly heath robinson though but it will work just fine with the caveat that whether it will adversely effect performance at the limit and by how much for you in your particular application is anyones money.

when i was a lad i used to do this on loads of cars when i didnt have jobs or the money or while i saved for upgrades but still wanted a lower car (which was always) and all it brought and so long as i cut a complete section out, ie cut the end line exactly below the original, always from the top or "softer" end if progressive and never took out more than one link it never made any iota of a difference to ride quality or stability either at normal driving or at the limits and beyond in a negative way but did always give all the benefits of lowered cars.

i also never had an issue with dislocation of suspension components either when driving or upon jacking the car. ive done this on cars with much more performance and power than my C2 and that have been tracked hard (though i will add importantly without as much refinement or cost).

you cant get much more budget than that though clearly something such as coilovers is going to be far superior. ive found over the years that the average lowering spring kits are often seldom more than just a shorter spring anyways and offer no advantage over a cut spring other than relieving you of your cash. adjusting a manufacturers oem built and rated spring for height if this is all you want is often a far superior measure if a spring change was all that was being looked at. atleast you are only changing one variable, ride height

perhaps if you are looking patiently for PS9s or similar this will get you going in the meantime easily for a month or two rather than driving on stilts. if you have lightened the front with fiberglass over the original bumper and its sitting higher due to the lighter load you have already adjusted the suspension characteristics of the car anyways and deviated from norm or ideal

what up

and other dude, if you want to lower the car BUY a set of springs for less than 4 or 5 hundo

bobby d

Edited April 12, 2008 by Loren
Removed flaming and warned member

[dr7966]

Well I've been patiently trying to find a used pss9 or h&r setup up for my 997 conversion project and I'm thinking I need to just settle for springs. I don't race it, nor will I ever. I only want to lower my car to match the look of the gt3 conversion I did on the front. Further compounding the problem is my conversion was fiberglass and thus lighter so I think the front is even higher because of it. I would love to do an adjustable coil over to get it just right but I can't afford the 2k kit. Is there any suggestions for springs or other ways to lower my 996 to 997 gt3 conversion? I already blew my $$$ on the conversion ($10k+) and need to find a cheap alternative to the coil over kits!

I have seen springs on Ebay in the 200-300 dollar range and less. Go to Ebay motors > parts and accessories and search porsche 996. I like the GT3 treatment you are doing. Previous owner started the same thing with my 99. I would like to do the front end like yours. Do you have any problems scraping on driveways and speed bumps?

[achillies]

110242069253 is a number on ebay for a set of Eibach lowering springs. PM me if you are interested in a sale outside ebay. Thanks

[thewightstuff]

your a moron plain and simple. i read the first sentence (gotta be honest) and YOU DO NOT CUT YOUR SPRINGS ON A PORSCHE! :angry:

and other dude, if you want to lower the car BUY a set of springs for less than 4 or 5 hundo

bobby d

i suppose that is the problem with not reading all the posts before responding then.

if you had you would have seen that i wasnt suggesting it was the best solution let alone and good one but merely an adequate one based on the "budget" aspects and what i assumed to be temporary focus of the original post.

the most budget of all would be rocks in the trunk, not to disimilar to porsches solution to try and deal with front handling issues by adding lead to the bumper.

ive seen cut springs used as both temp fixes and longer term solutions when no others existed for that application without any negative impact at all on cars with serious performance being driven on limits.

infact i ran some tests with several friends in our university lab on springs over a wet weekend many years ago to gauge the effect of cutting oem vs average lowering kit versions. we found that removing only 1 link had negligable impact on the spring characteristics particularly dampening/load resistance infact effecting only installed height. in some cases more than this could be accomodated before creating changes but this varied with type.

as a result it seemed that doing this modification provided a much more sympathetic and more positive engineering solution than a lowering kit which all had varying rate changes compared to OEM and which the manufacturers could not provide us with calcs as to why their own rates were chosen save being firmer.

by going down the route of non oem lowering springs, without a good technical backup of spring rate and reasoning behind it would seem to be a lottery as to what else you get along with your height reduction. just because its firmer doesnt make it better. the spring doesnt work in isolation and so how it interacts becomes an unknown and a deviation.

each problem has many options and solutions available and obvious ones may not always be best or an improvement. just because a manufacturer sells something for your hard earned money doesnt mean its better than other alternatives. why this reasoning may not apply to porsche escapes me.

i would argue that changing both the aerodynamics of the car, front weight and overall balance as in this case is much more of engineering issue than whether a link is removed from the oem springs to facilitate height reduction or an aftermarket kit is used.

Edited April 12, 2008 by thewightstuff

[9962997]

dr7699...The kit was a lot of work! 100 hours of labor at the body shop, disassembly of the entire front end...and some alterations to the existing frame to accomadate the new body style (nothing major...just some extra beef that had to be cut off the front bumper support. $3k for the kit not including the gembella hood and oem gt3 bumper, needless to say a long expensive process that produced excellent results! Maybe I should have just bought a 997 but oh well live and learn:> I will not be cutting my springs just looking for somthing between lowering springs and coilover kits in the $1000 range but I don't want the m030 because I have heard the lowering is unpredictable. My best option is a used gt3 suspension off a 996 or a used pss9/h&r setup but they're hard to find!

[Izzy]

I have used Eibach springs to lower the car, inexpensive and not too difficult to do.