[Jazzbass]

Running adjustable Koni's are one thing I'm starting to seriously consider. Dial it up for the track, down for the street (as is my elementary understand of things ). It sounds like Jase is a Koni fan - anyone else running adjustable Konis? Comments plus or minus? How hard are they to adjust?

[Trak Ratt]

We have adjustable Koni’s on Linda’s 356. They are a royal PAIN to adjust because you have to remove them first. I know the newer “strut” mounted ones adjust at the top or side. Just be sure the rears also adjust without removal. Personally, unless you have been driving on the track most of you life I would recommend you replace ALL suspension bushings, maybe some slightly bigger torsion bars, stock sway bars, a good 4 wheel alignment, rebuild your brakes & invest heavily in DEs for a couple of years.

[Marc A]

Chris:

I redid my entire suspension, however, our cars do not wiegh the same, so my torsion bar size won't help you. Drive Ted's car for a good gauge of what will work for you. I would be willing to bet that Richard's car is a tad on the stiff side.

I do have new (old version) koni adjustables. Rember that you can only adjust the rebound, not the bounce. So the adjustment helps only insofar as making sure that the front of the car rebounds sooner than the rear. This makes for a proper transfer of weight to the rear coming off bumps and brakes.

The new koni adjust externally, much easier than mine.

[targa911man]

I'd think a 31 on the rear would be too stiff for a mostly street car.

[APKhaos]

Jason,
That article was a good one. I think it is Craig Watkins at Smart Racing Products that is developing these. Craig's products are superb, and his customer support is even better - as me how I know!

[jpinkert]

I have adjustable Konis on my '72. They are only adjustable for rebound, though. I have -needed- to adjust them -- had them set up too stiff originally, leaving the car squirrely under hard braking at summit point. The fronts are adjustable from the tops of the strut towers. The rears have to be removed, although its a pretty easy job on an early car (reaching to tops of the shocks is simple).

I'm planning on doing a suspension overhaul this winter. It should include:

bigger T-bars
adjustable sway bars
*adjustable spring plates
*aluminum banana arms
*later 911 aluminum front lower suspension brace?
new bushings (maybe the elephant racing bronze ones)
monoballs front and rear

Any idea where I should start when looking for used parts (marked with an *)? Is used even a safe route?

[Jim Richards]

Josh, I picked up used adjustable spring plates from a guy on the Pelican Parts BBS. I think you can find most of what you want there or on Rennlist. Someday I'll go for the AL banana arms and crossmember for Lu's car.

[APKhaos]

There are hundreds of opinions and formulas for 911 suspension upgrades, all of which have merit. Finding a formula that works for your intended application can be confusing and challenging - BTDT!

In the end, I took some good advice and contacted a guy who makes his living setting up 911 suspensions. The first thing he wanted to know was how I drove the car - track only/track & street/agressive street etc. Once he knew that the objective was a dual use street/track setup, he wanted my track experience - what times at what tracks. The critical point here is that this info on driver objectives and experience can make a real difference to the optimal setup, and to designing a setup that can be progressive as your experience grows.

The setup he specified for me was the top end of the torsion bar range - coil overs are the next step up. The formula included Sanden hollow T bars, sway bars, shocks revalved to match the springing, poly bushings, ride height & alignment specs to match. I got lucky when he had most of the components available from another client who was moving up to coilovers on his dedicated track car. Stole 'em

The great thing about this approach is that I can call him at any time for setup advice - we are working from a known baseline with predictable results [not that I've needed to do that after then first few track days where I learned how to adjust the sways to tune the car.

I love the way this setup works. More importantly, the few PCA race drivers instructors who have driven the car have come back with huge grins and been really impressed with the handling. So am I

So, the message here is that anyone thinking about suspension work should really consider working with a guy that can prescribe a 'known' formula that matches the driver and the application. The benefits are really worth it, IMHO, and you can still do most of the work yourself. You may want to buy some of the components from your guy, but the results are worth it and may even be cheaper than trial and error over time.

Sermon over. We will now return to our normal programing schedule.