Geometry setup at Spires

Having inherited my car with Ohlins fitted by the previous owner. I had mixed feelings about whether this was a positive. I'd even been seriously considering putting everything back to standard, at significant cost, because I've personally always loved the way a standard 911 doesn't get upset by a very broken British b-road surface. With the car set up how it was it felt more like a imagined a DTM car might feel. Superbly tidy on a smooth surface but any bump, lump, crack or stone and the response was awful. Due to the global recall on the Ohlins front shock absorbers I had the opportunity to get the car looked at to see if the current setup could be improved and tuned more to my tastes and the driving I tend to do. I chose on recommendation of the recent Article by Adam Towler in EVO about his 996 and due to the recommendations of others to take my car to Spires. An outfit I had until recently heard nothing about. I confess a big factor in the car not going to Centre Gravity (who I've known about a lot longer) was also time as they were booking so far ahead. I just cannot praise Spires highly enough, I drove to Spires in a car that felt really nothing like a 911, plenty capable though it was. It had none of the character traits I associate with 911 road cars, if anything it felt like a less snappy Z4M. Very capable, but hard to describe as pleasant to drive fast on a bumpy road. Spires workshop is like the batcave, you drive into a pretty unassuming industrial park and into an equally unassuming apparently empty (but amazingly clean) unit. Then as Matt goes to work, more and more cutting edge-tech kit seemingly appears out of nowhere! By the end of the 9 hrs he and his colleague spent stripping and rebuilding all four corners of my car (more on this later), I had serious tool and ramp envy. Firstly, Matt identified that my car had virtually zero wheel wheel travel at the front. As you lifted the car of the ground, the wheels dropped barely a couple of millimetres from their sitting height in the arches. This, as he explained gives virtually zero rebound, and explained when my car would skip over a bumpy road surface like a stone skimming a lake, spending more time in the air than attached to the road. The next realisation was that the springs had been wound up to a preload of ~2500kg before even being compressed by the weight of the car. This meant the the amount of energy needed to compress them further was ludicrously high.. so effectively, I had practically no suspension in either compression or rebound! The last gotcha was that by diligently taking his time at all four corners of the car to ensure everything was right, rather than just swapping out the front shocks and doing a geo setup as I was expecting. He picked up that the rear dampers had previously been assembled wrongly. The bottom eyes of the shocks were not screwed fully into the damper and they were loose, meaning all the forces were taken on the threads and where the clamp for the ARB was fitted with only an empty sleeve supporting it, there was a risk of it buckling the sleeve. He was complementary about the design and quality of the Ohlins dampers, although quick to point out the benefits of the ones he designs in partnership with Nitron (I believe? I may have that wrong) and sells in house. He also didn't, for my car at least, recommend changing the spring rates. Finally having stripped down the old front shocks, built up the new and fitted all the necessary new bits: coffin arms, toe arms, tie rod end, top mounts and dampers the car was ready! With perhaps 200% more wheel travel and massively reduced pre-load on the springs. He put it back on it's wheels, set the height of the car, set the steering rack dead central, corner weighted it and finally adjusted all the geometry. He asked me questions about how I used the car, which tracks I took it to, what kind of road driving and decided on factory GT2 settings, with an extra -0.5deg camber on the front wheels (-1.2 total). My first impression was that awareness that the car now naturally moved when you slammed the door shut, or pushed the bonnet closed in a way I hadn't consciously noticed was absent previously. Driving home, if I'm honest, I found having body movement again, after so many hours of driving the car with none at all was initially unsettling! It took me a good 30-40 minutes before I started to get used to it again. The pay off however was that after 30-40 minutes I noticed I was still wincing totally unnecessary in preparation for bumps and manhole covers. I hadn't noticed how much of my driving focus had been on scanning the road surface ahead! No wonder I was always on edge in the car. I could almost feel the car sighing with relief as it's long war with the road surface was finally over. Now finally it was breathing naturally with it, moving in harmony. As I approached bends faster, I can feel in the initial milliseconds as load transfers, the front end I'd now digging in and getting a grip on the surface rather that skipping and sliding over it as the steering angle drags it around. As I threw it into tight, low speed bends with gusto I could feel even from the entry of the bend the grip being transferred back and the rear end getting involved. In higher speed bends that instinctive almost bike like feeling was back, the car willing to follow the lightest movement of the steering wheel. Slicing through the bend like it's in an invisible rail taking it around the bend. The absolute grip limit both at the front and the rear is noticably higher. After 1.5hrs retracing all my favourite roads I was leaning on the tyres in a way I know for certain I could not have got away with a day ago. :worship: Put simply, it was driving like a 911 again. The car I know and fell in love with. Of all the improvents, the one that pleased me most was my braking confidence. I genuinely never realised how strong the brakes were on this car. Previously I'd be hearing the tyres chirping and triggering the abs or backing off to stop them locking up at a firm level of braking, plenty of stopping.. but hardly awe inspiring levels of deceleration. I'd just got used to it. Now, once you've got some weight on the nose you can properly lean on the brakes and hang your torso from the seat belts. Ooh god it's good! Thank you Matt, thank you Spires (and thank christ I don't have to buy umpteen thousands of pounds of new suspension components)!

Great write up, thank you for sharing. Mark

Where are Spires located, is out Witney way? Did you have to pay for all this work, or was it all covered by the recall?

Excellent write up. What's Matt's background? Nitron have good rep, very popular in the Lotus circle.

They're based in Leamington Spa, this is his website. https://www.spires-st.com/ He still works in chassis development for Jaguar Land Rover. The website didn't sell it to me, it looks like a Jaguar tuning shop, but he looks after a number of track cars for people and seems to have a lot of understanding/experience about how to set Porsche/BMW's.. Well that's mainly what we discussed while I was there anyway. I've now done 400 miles in my car since yesterday afternoon, almost 2 full tanks of fuel. It's been a lot of fun and my comfort and confidence in the car has grown enormously too. One thing I hadn't finished setting (because I offered to clamber over the back seats and save him the trouble), was the damping stiffness at the rear. He recommended starting at half way between soft and hard. It was previously set to full soft, no doubt in an attempt to add softness to the previous setup. Having added a bit more damping, it's tightened that body control that was initially unsettling me. It's now just perfect. :thumbs: I can say, without hesitating, that I've never driven a car that handled better, or could pull more g-force than this (and this is my 55th car!)

Picture of the final setup and ride height

Thanks for the reply when I googled Spires I got a HiQ place in Witney 😀 Any idea of the rough cost of a geo at Spires as I will be needing it after fitting Koni Special Active's to my C2?

Better speak to him directly on that one but I'm no special case, just a customer that phoned up and I found his quote to be very reasonable for my car. I'd advise making sure everything moves freely before you take it in, undo the nuts on the tie rods and give them half a turn either way, rear toe arms love to seize etc. Nothing that needed adjusting on my car is more than 2 years old. It had a big midlife refresh, but the rear toe arms already took him a bit of working free from stop to stop to get them moving freely. He charged me very fairly for the time it took, but if it takes less time it's obviously better for you and him in the end.

Love Spires. Leamington Spa. Installed and set up the Bilstein gubbins on my race car. I believe Matt and Pooky did the chassis development on all the fast Jags up to and including Project 8.

Great write up OP, useful information for the Porsche community. I would love to know which muppet installed your original suspension, it sounds like a complete novice did the job. This assumes that the previous owner didn't adjust it after the actual installation. Your car will feel so much better now than it did. Enjoy the ride now that you have a car capable of delivering a proper driving experience!