Installing ROW-M030 - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

jacabean · 07-19-2011, 07:08 AM

Holy crap ! I am waiting for those 3mm rings to get started, on my kit. Not as straight forward as you would think. was it difficult to separate the ball joints ! Did you need to replace any other parts or damage anything ?

brp987 · 07-19-2011, 08:27 AM

For my separator I needed to jack up the suspension although the car is already in the air. This I believe allows a little extra room to insert the tool. My T40 bit just flew off into space so I'll need another. But, you need a low profile one to fit under the control arm. Might need to hack off one and hold its shank with a small crecent wrench. My front joints popped off with a bang, but the rears came apart easily, probably cuz they had been removed before to install a lowering kit by previous owner. Lube the bottom of the separator fork before you whack the separator into position with a rubber mallet so that it won't tear the boot. If I had it to do again (and I don't think I would) I'd get new strut/chassis seals.

You'll be needing 10, 13, 15, 17, 18, 21mm wrenches and sockets, adaptors, extensions, torque wrench. 8mm and 10mm hex key sockets. Blue loctite. Hollow jack handle to use as cheater bar. Somehow the strut is not metric - need 1/4" hex key and 13/16 wrench. Thick wire to hang the caliper. Assorted chunks o' wood and boxes to support carrier/axle. My car is 2 feet in the air on a scissor lift - can't let the hub/axle hang by the emergency brake cable. I used a 1/2" electric impact wrench to undo the strut clamp cuz you sort of need 1 hand to counter hold a wrench, 1 to hold the impact and 1 or 2 more to handle the carrier/axle.

Good luck

jacabean · 07-19-2011, 07:42 PM

sounds like you got it under control . where you able to use the impact driver on a lot of the harder nuts and bolts ? i also picked up a pneumatic ratchet to help with disassembly. i figured 2.5 days to do it all . seems like you are right there. please let me know how you like the new set up once you get it all settled in . my parts will be here on friday but it's going to be 100 out this weekend so i'm planning for the following weekend.

brp987 · 07-20-2011, 06:47 AM

My impact driver is kinda big and is off or full on, probably unlike your pneumatic. So I didn't use it much. I took a couple hours last nite after work to assemble the remaining rear side. I found it easier to mount the strut to the chassis, then lift the carrier/axle onto the strut. The whole package is rather heavy.

I'll do a quickie alignment and should be able to a test drive Friday. Will report back then.

brp987 · 07-22-2011, 06:29 PM

Verdict: ROW m030 is not harsh. This is how I would expect a boxster to come from the factory. This isn't like how you might expect a race car to be at all - it is totally suitable for daily driving. It's nice not scraping on speed bumps like I was with the eibach/bilsteins. Hitting speed bumps isn't jarring now either.

If you have awful roads in your locale, possibly no sports car would be suitable. The m030 does not pertain to that. Granted, I haven't put on the m030 bars yet. I want to make a comparison between the two.

I actually can't tell much difference between the firmness of the m030 and the eibach/bils. In cornering at speed the m030 feels better than the eibach/bil; possibly due to bump steer due to the latters unnatural geometry imposed on the suspension. The eibach/bil kind of wallowed and shimmyed. I never drove a boxster with stock suspension, unfortunately.

jacabean · 07-22-2011, 07:49 PM

i am glad you like your set up i can't wait to get mine fitted i hope it gets rid of the loose feeling ride i have been having . i got started on mine even with the crazy heat we are having. got my kit from suncoast and the front springs were the wrong ones. so the front is all ready to be assembled . they shipped the correct ones today , lot's of drama getting that sorted out .
i started on the rear . lot's of disassembly and i did'nt break anything (yet) , i got one corner complete and most of the other side broken down. hope to finish the rears tomorrow. the air powered ratchet was worth its weight in gold .

brp987 · 07-22-2011, 08:12 PM

How do you know they were the wrong ones? My m030 front springs were orange top, red/ylw bottom. The rears were white top, silver/red bottom. How about yours?

How about those spacer things?