Most comfortable street ONLY suspension setup?

[SQ13]

Your 997 GT3 is more tolerable than an E46 M3 with Ohlins R&T? Yeah as the owner of both, either you have defective dampers or the coilovers aren’t set up correctly.

[Obioban]

The Ohlins basically only work at one specific ride height. First step should be to check bump and droop travel.

[nuc1]

The Ohlins basically only work at one specific ride height. First step should be to check bump and droop travel.

Which height would that be? The standard 13.5/13 F/R?

Mike

[tnord]

that's the height I have mine set at and I'm happy so far.

[03A08M3]

I have KW V3 Clubsport. When the car was mostly standard weight it wasn't too bad, but definitely on the stiff side but not unbearable.

I then took about 150kg out of the car and it was stiffer again.

I replaced the front 120N/mm KW springs for Swift 9kg/mm springs and the progressive (about 115N/mm) KW springs for 10kg/mm BC racing beehive springs. I'd say it's perfect now.

In lbs that's:-

Front 685lb down to 500lb
Rear 656lb down to 560lb

Remember tyre side walls makes a big difference to how it rides.

[terra]

PSS9's or PSS10's.

I have had my TCK DA's for 15 years and I adore them but they aren't comfy even at the spring rates you're considering.

LOL KW

And contrary to popular belief, Ohlins on the E46 chassis is not great. It's much better on the E9X platform (I have both).

The last option that could work is the a shock and spring setup, but that's pretty nitty gritty for LA.

I went from PSS10s to Ohlins and generally found the latter to be more comfortable

[cobra]

From what I've seen, most harshness, poor ride quality, etc. is caused by people running too low and running out of travel, running spring rates that are too high, or actually having too little compression damping which makes the car very 'crashy' feeling.

You can have a good track setup that is also comfortable on the street!

[Obioban]

Which height would that be? The standard 13.5/13 F/R?

Mike

Depends on the camber plates, or lack thereof, and spacers at the bottom. Many setups with the Ohlins require you to be too low to be in the good geometry.

Easy check:
they have 92mm of total travel up front. If you have 30-40mm of droop when you jack the front end, you’re pretty well optimized for allowing the shocks to work. Ideally that would be >= 13.5 up front, but it often isn’t with the Ohlins. If you got them from 3DM, IIRC he’s now including spacers to address this issue.

… and the rear lets you set travel independent of height, so that’s no issue, properly set up.

[Nate047]

Bilstein shocks and Eibach springs was a good street setup. All stock rubber and stock sway bars. You could just get in the car and go fast or go slow and not hate either.

[01SG]

Bilstein with stock springs has been great to me. Handles the backroads as well as cross country trips. The only complaints I have are big bumps at low speed-like 30 and under-or that one time I hit a really bad pothole going somewhat north of interstate speeds and had a bit of a hair raising moment.

Typically very comfortable except in above situations.

[jvit27]

I would never suggest Ohlins R&T for a daily, or describe it as "comfortable". They have 400/635 linear rates. PSS10 have digressive valving, so they will feel a little firmer on low speed stuff to have better blowoff on high speed hits.. Bilstein offsets this by using progressive spring rates (340/565 if my old notes were correct). This approach is also why stock, or Eibach/Dinan/etc springs work well because softer rates with more travel can allow even something like a B8 damper or the OE Sachs to feel less aggressive than a coilover setup. But bear in mind even those dampers were relatively harsh for the E46 M chassis. That's what originally opened up this market two decades ago...

TCK's are happier the softer you spring them because while they use linear rates they still function as one of the better coilover options for a daily because they are low pressure. IMO anything over 400/500 and the twin tube stuff just doesn't keep up with bigger rates like a monotube can. That is where a monotube can control the platform better but that is also the crossroads of where you have to decide if you want more road or more track.

[Cubieman]

From what I've seen, most harshness, poor ride quality, etc. is caused by people running too low and running out of travel, running spring rates that are too high, or actually having too little compression damping which makes the car very 'crashy' feeling.

You can have a good track setup that is also comfortable on the street!

My new TCK SA/Vorshlag setup is definitely more harsh then I would like, but I am running about a 13.25" ride height all around.

More like 13.25R/13&3/8 front

400R/500F springs, its not terrible, but definitely not as complaint on shitty roads as I would have liked.

Maybe I need to raise the fronts to 13.5, but I can't imagine that small change would be too drastic.

[Halftim3]

Tck requires camber plates and some don't need them for a street only car. It's been mentioned e36 m3 strut mounts work. Is it just perch adapters and the e36 m3 mounts?

[0-60motorsports]

Spoke to TCK and they do not ship out of north america and im not going to bother too much to try and make it happen via my freight forwarder when the PSS10s are an easy ship to BAhrain. Oh well, i tried, maybe next time.