[s-cars] Calling all suspension gurus

[Grant Lenahan]

Generally, looseness is either:

1. TREs (most common) or
2. Worn control arms, with integral bushings and ball joints ( as I 
recall)

Your springs are probably fine. They dont really wear much.

Your shocks, i cant speak on.  I find that audi "S" shocks tend to have 
little damping on crucial small stuff, yet crash on big stuff.

My discussions with various suspension manufacturers lead me to believe 
that matched coilover sets often provide the best ride/handling trade 
off.  They are often lower mass, and in the case of Bilstein, I know 
the factory engineers prefer the end result of the PSS9 over the 
HD/stock, at least on C5 applications.

The HDs are probably quite good. Many people seem to like Koni's FSD 
struts as well.

I'm also wading through this minefield with my C5 S6.  Mistakes are 
expensive and way too many success stories begin with "the new ride 
height looks bitchin". At whcih point I disregard the rest.

Grant

On Oct 10, 2007, at 8:27 AM, Robert Myers wrote:

>
> Hi Y'all,
>
> Miss Piggy is needing some suspension work.  She has developed some
> rather strange unidentified clunking and squeaking sounds from her
> rear end.  (OK, Paulie, that's entirely enough of that!  ;-))  She
> handles fairly well but can use a little tightening up.  (Paulie -
> quit that!)  Her local road  environment (southern
> West-by-God-Virginia) provides a large number of sharp angle of
> attack intersections and some major caverns loosely called potholes
> which severely threaten her FMIC.  For this reason lowering her
> suspension makes no sense at all.  The huge number of twisties in her
> environment definitely require decent handling.
>
> Ms. P. is a '95.5 urS and has: 113K miles, RS2 mods, FMIC, HRSB, and
> BIRA system 3 brakes, HID low beams, plus a number of other
> relatively minor mods.  She still as her OEM suspension and is shod
> with 245/50R16 tires/wheels which provide enough sidewall depth to
> help a bit with the potholes.  The current struts pass the push and
> rebound test OK.
>
> My other s-car has a set of Bilstein HD strut cartridges which have
> been reasonably satisfactory but could be improved upon.
>
> What do the suspension gurus recommend for Miss Piggy?  OEM ride
> height is probably best for conditions here so springs might not be
> required but cartridges, bushings, mounts, etc., are all fair
> game.  I wish I could say that money is no object but it is at least
> part of the consideration.  :-(
>
> Recommendations?
>
> Bob
>
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