Lowering the Box...

[clubhead]

Originally Posted by RandallNeighbour

Morelli, on other threads you'll see that lowering the boxster is hell on your tires. It wears them out quickly. ...

When you lower the car without touching the toe/camber settings, you will be running more negative camber. Hence, the insides of the tires will wear faster than the outside. I experienced this with my M Coupe which did not have camber adjustments in the rear. I had to install (ie. weld on) camber and toe kits (toe vary with camber changes) to compensate for this.

For the Boxster, I'm sure the rear camber can be adjusted to suit the lowered ride. The concern is how much can it be adjusted. Same goes for the toe.

My personal opinion is if you're not going to track the car often, a set of aftermarket shocks and springs would suffice. I will only go for coilovers like PSS9 if I frequent the track every month. For my M Coupe, I made do with a set of Koni shocks and H&R springs since I track about twice a year only.

Having said that, I would not recommend just changing the springs alone and using it with the stock shocks. Read somewhere that aftermarket springs are best matched with similar shocks because of the need for increased damping effect.

[Perfectlap]

By the way if you do plan to Autocross with your new suspsension PSS9 will bump you up a whole class with most racing clubs and you'll be competing against much more powerful cars. So from a competitive stand point its not really suited for Autocross unless you are doing it just to improve as a driver and not so concerned with placing. But around here, the guys in the more powerful cars are also the much more experienced drivers.
By the way Coilvovers are not overkill for a road car that never sees a track. Its a far better method of fine tunning ride height. When you lower that car on your new H&R or Eibach springs you are effectively stuck with that height like it or not. And if down the line you start to grow weary of the new lower height and miss the old more comfortable height, with colivovers you can return it to stock height in an hour. Reinstalling your old springs will take much longer and more $$$.

The best thing to do is go to a Porsche Club event either Autocross or Rallye (now that the season is back) and find a Boxster owner with a lowered suspension and similar wheels and tires. Ask for a ride along and you'll have a far better idea than just ordering from a catalog and crossing your fingers.

[Morelli]

I don't auto-x, this is just my daily driver. I come from a loooooooooooong line of lowered cars...five Hondas, one Lexus...I just wanted some personal impressions because each car is slightly different. I really don't have any use for coilovers, as I will never even adjust them. I have too short of a fuse to even bother touching my car myself...the first thing that doesn't go absolutely correct, I'll ignite and break something. Hehe.

As for tire wear, the stock camber on the Boxster is horrible anyway...or...at least it is on mine. My inner tires are already worn and in need of change. Does anyone make a camber kit for these cars? That is what it needs...badly.

[Brucelee]

The car is designed to have negative camber in the back. Elaborate on what you have in mind regarding this camber kit you mentioned.

I am interested where you are going with this?

BTW-if all you want do is to make an appearance statement, why not wheels and tires vs. lowering.

Why look like every other honda out there?

[Morelli]

Originally Posted by Brucelee

The car is designed to have negative camber in the back. Elaborate on what you have in mind regarding this camber kit you mentioned.

I am interested where you are going with this?

BTW-if all you want do is to make an appearance statement, why not wheels and tires vs. lowering.

Why look like every other honda out there?

A camber kit to correct some of the camber. I don't know why the car would be designed to have negative camber in the ass end. Granted, I'm no suspension genius and if Porsche engineers designed it that way...obviously they're the authority...but I just don't understand it. In every other car I have had, camber is the devil. Less contact patch = less grip...at least that is how I understand it. I'd rather have the entire tire on the ground...???

[FUHRIUS]

1 inch via techart springs (I believe they're made by h&R).
I bought the car this way. I like the look and I believe it could only improve, not hurt, the handling. And I have no problems with it being too low to drive as my daily driver here in norther california. the set up is comparable to a factory-offered (r030?) suspension package, so I don't understand why some people here think it's tweaking the car so much.
My car does go through rear tires fast though...the car has gotten 9-10k miles per set on michelin pilot sports.

[Lux]

Negative camber is your friend for cornering. You get maximum contact patch in corners. But if you do a lot of straight line driving, then obviously you're gonna pay the price with the inside tires wearing more rapidly. This isn't entirely due to the negative camber though. The Boxster has a bit of weight over the rear tires and this will also affect tire wear. Go see how fast a 911 burns thru tires!

I believe there are camber kits out there. Usually it's to get more camber so I don't know if they allow a lowered car to get less. Keep in mind that the camber change is a trait of the Macpherson design.

Like I mentioned in another thread, I wasted my rear tires at 10K miles and I'm on stock height. What I should have done was rotate the tires at 5K to get more mileage. I will definitely be doing this from now on...but 15K miles on performance tires is about normal for me.

BTW, keep in mind that the Euro version of our cars (along with BMW's, etc). are all lower than the US counterpart. This is because of bumper height requirements. So lowering it 1" is more akin to the original design...in a sense.


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