Best suspension for Boxster S 2001?

[CrazyBoy]

Hi!


I bought a boxster S 2001 this april with 76000km, in good condition in general. Although Montreal streets are very bumpy,my mechanic told me my suspenions need to be replaced next year, I agree as the ride quality is very poor and I hear like knocking metal from the rear. I was wondering thats a good replacement suspensions system you guys can recommend and where I can buy it from on the web?

Thanks in advance,
Samy

[Topless]

Unfortunately "best" is completely subjective. Here are some good choices depending on your needs:

Porsche M030- $1000 + install (street & sport)

Bilstein PSS9- $2100 +install & corner balance (adjustable street & sport)

JRZ $4000 + install, corner balance, setup (fully adjustable motorsport)

Penske Motorsport struts ~$20,000 + install, corner balance, setup. (fully tuned, adjustable Grand Am racing)

[CrazyBoy]

Budget is 1000/2000tops since - wanna gets mags and a 2 Din DVD, i
Think the M030's will do, any source I should check out for pricing?

Also how do they compare to the original porsche?

Originally Posted by Topless

Unfortunately "best" is completely subjective. Here are some good choices depending on your needs:

Porsche M030- $1000 + install (street & sport)

Bilstein PSS9- $2100 +install & corner balance (adjustable street & sport)

JRZ $4000 + install, corner balance, setup (fully adjustable motorsport)

Penske Motorsport struts ~$20,000 + install, corner balance, setup. (fully tuned, adjustable Grand Am racing)

[Topless]

M030 is a nice setup for street & track. Sunset usually has the best price in the US:
http://www.****************************************************.com/parts/

[thstone]

The Porsche M030 is the upgraded factory "sport" suspension. This will increase the firmness and performance as as compared to the stock suspension. The front is lowered 10mm and the rear is lowered 20mm as compared to stock. The kit includes new shocks/springs at all four coners along with new front and rear sway bars and new bushings.

If you're happy with the performance of the stock suspension, another option is to just replace the worn shocks with aftermarket OEM-equivalent models, keep the springs and front/rear antisway bars that you have and ask the shop to replace any worn bushings. This would be cheaper than the M030 upgrade.

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by thstone

The front is lowered 10mm and the rear is lowered 20mm as compared to stock.

Other way around, the front is lowered more than the rear.

[blue2000s]

Think about just replacing your struts with new ones from Porsche or Bilstein HD's. Everything else will lower your car and be less comfortable on bad roads. I like harder suspensions, but they're not for everyone.

The mechanical clunking that you are hearing may be a worn suspension bushing. Very common.

[Perfectlap]

I was getting pretty competitve lap times at my local autocross on right out of box 986S suspension. When I added R-compound tires (RA-1) it got even better. So I have to wonder if paying a lot more is worth it considering it's just a daily driver. I would definitely NOT recommend going with coil overs (PSS9) on rough roads. The car will start to rattle a lot more and things will start to weaken or break. Assuming all of your mileage was done on those sketchy roads then your mileage is probably more like what you would see in a car with 100K miles on better terrain. I would go with replacing the OEM shocks and re-using your current springs. This runs about $2K with labor in this neck of the woods. Keeping your tires properly inflated also helps to keep the ride smooth. I keep an air-compressor in the trunk that plugs into the cigarette lighter. Finding a gas station with a working air-pump is becoming a chore around here.

[RandallNeighbour]

Do yourself a favor and listen to my advice: If you're not planning to turn your car into a track car and it will have a lot of street use on bad roads, just replace it with factory struts and upgrade the control arms to the vinyl bushing-based ones from Vertex.

I have coilovers on my car now and the ride is so harsh that the wife won't ride with me and just yesterday, I went 2 miles out of my way to avoid a pot-hole and heaved road I used to drive down without a concern in the world.

[jacabean]

after installing the row m030 kit this past summer . my car is to stiff for the crappy roads of the north shore area of Boston . the car handles great but the ride quality on these roads is terrible . it takes the fun out driving trying to avoid all the bad terrain.

[shlim8]

I've got ROW M030 suspension on my base boxster. And the car is Malaysian registered and is based in Kuala Lumpur. The roads here are probably as bad or even worse than in Montreal. But, the M030 does pretty ok on these roads, in fact it takes the bad roads better than my BMW E90 on standard suspension.

It's the lowered height that catches me out sometimes - I've got just enough clearance to go down my driveway and have to be careful on steep decents. Also with 2 on-board, I sometimes lightly catch the road hump. Not too bad, just need some caution.

[mts]

If you are concerned with bad roads and ride height I would stick with replacement stock supension parts. If you are on original shocks on a 2001 with 76k on the clock the original shocks haven't been doing much for you for quite a while now.