Bilstein B16 PSS Damptronic on Cayman -> Not satisfied with the experience

I recently purchased a set of Bilstein B16 PSS Damptronic coilovers for my 987.1 CSS with PASM . I wanted a slightly lower ride, and local Porsche dealer told me my front dampers were shot after 30,000km. So the B16s came to my mind. I went online and tried reading up on B16s specifically, but very little information's available. I've also read other P-car forums as well. After I have ordered everything, turns out they weren't dead, just that my car had worn control arms causing issues. I struggled to see whether I should put these coilovers on. I've only been on cars with PSS9/PSS10s before, but never spent extensive time on the car. Up to this point, I have only spent relatively short amount of time on these coilovers (<500km). And here is my experience: Ride comfort: No offence to the very few who have done extended reviews on these, but the ride comfort is pretty bad and far from what I expected. I don't live in Detroit or Boston, but roads in Hong Kong are far from perfect. We get manholes on the side of the lanes, and some roads do have a bit of ripple pattern to them. That said, the car is almost unbearable for daily driving for me. On OEM PASM setup in Normal mode, the car is very comfortable with my 19" wheels. However, on the B16s even in Normal model, small ripples make the car feel like it's bouncing around (no, the dampers are not a defect). The ride quality has this very high quality stiff-feeling to it. However, the stiffness is just way beyond what normal streets could take, which ends up making the ride harsh in comparison. I have had an S2000 with pretty stiff suspension, but never felt harsh. This makes me wonder whether my tolerance for ride quality is just much lower than other B16 owners, when pretty much everyone said it's not too harsh (or some even said there is an improvement???). The car rides worse than a non-PASM car with lowering springs only. I'm not very savy with physics, but to me it felt as if the springs were just way too stiff, while the damping rates seemed okay. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with how these coilovers run on very small/narrow springs. You know how stock springs have very few coils, but are much fatter. Handling: The car handles great on perfect roads, or on roads with very few bumps -- there's definitely a noticeable improvement over stock PASM on Normal mode. However, once the road starts having more bumps and unevenness to it, I had less confidence in the car. In fact, on one of the curvy road I normally drive to, I had to drive the car slower to prevent the car from jumping or feeling the car's gonna fall apart. Yes, brake dives have been reduced, but that may have come at a cost of control on imperfect roads. Springs binding issues: My car's lowered by about 8mm from stock PASM height, so it's by no means a slammed setting. The coilovers have serious binding issues up to this point. I do drive the car a lot in tight parking lots and slow traffic, and I can hear the springs clunking almost once in every 3 to 4 times in tighter roads at low speeds/parking lot. I have installed the blue thrust sheets that came with the coilovers, but no additional thrust bearings (highly not recommended by my mechanic on street use). I'm not sure if that'll go away, or get even worse. I can definitely say this is annoying. Yes, putting grease will help, but that also collects a lot of crap into the spring/strut area. And for a 3000 USD system, I would expect to not have to put grease for these things. Sport vs Normal mode: The differentiation is almost gone. This part I'm not happy about. Or perhaps the dampers are just so stiff to begin with, so that the full-stiff mode in Sport makes no material difference. Scale of 1 to 10: If one could call OEM PASM suspension in Normal mode a zero, and sport mode a 10. The Normal mode with B16 coilovers are almost 8 or 9, however, bit less harsh than 10. B16 in sport mode is probably a 10, but feels nicer than stock sport mode. All in all, this is a very dissatisfying experience. I felt that I have destroyed the car with 3K+ USD of parts and labor. I do drive my car to work, I wish I haven't spent all that money on these coilovers and labor to put them on. These coilovers are not for daily drivers, and probably only suitable for very limited applications in my opinion. The drive is so jarring that I feel embarrassed to have a passenger in the car. Right now I am already thinking about taking a loss on the coilovers and sell them, and revert to Bilstein B6 HD dampers + Cayman R springs. For those who are thinking about these coilovers, have a serious look first. These are NOT the typical PSS9/PSS10 coilovers. Bilstein really could have let the Normal mode soften a tad bit to make the car more street road compliant. I'm hoping TPC's DSC/PASM module could help a bit, but I would imagine not the case as it could just be an inherit problem on these coilovers.

Your experience resembles mine: I had a 2001BS and put Bilstein adjustable coil overs on it. Never liked the result. Way too jittery, as if rear springs were too stiff. And less traction in the rear on curves. Tried adjusting them to no avail. The Bikstein heavy-duty shocks on the 914 are wonderful. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Did you use B6 or B8 for your car? Ya, it feels like the springs are just too much for street use. These coilovers would be better for those running on smoother roads + reasonably frequent usage on track (but not for super hardcore track rats)

I think the 986 had PSS9s, and the 914 has 'heavy duty' ones which are less aggressive than 'sport'. The 914 has both ride comfort and handling even better than either of my Boxsters. It has boxed trailing arms, uprated real springs and anti-roll bars. And it's a 914: low, light, wheels in the corners. But the 981 is more fun. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for sharing. IMO suspension decisions only can be done after looking at the spring rates. Dumpers' dyno is very much welcome - but i already gave up on this as big brands refuse to provide this. Do you have beefed up sway bars? or just stock ones?

Zinger did you adjust the dampers? Even though they are adjustable by the Pasm button they also have an adjustment knob on the dampers themselves. What you are describing is over-stiff damping.

I am running on stock sway bars. Control arms etc are all stock as well. One thing my friends did bring up. I have RE11 tires, and switching over to Michelin PSSs might help quite a bit. My tires are due for change next year. Will try out another car with B16 + PSS locally. Maybe that's the issue. Also I have a feeling the OEM PASM module isn't fast enough to deal with the increased stiffness. I wonder if TPC Racing's DSC module will help as well.

i don't believe switching tire can solve the too harsh ride problem. it helps a little but it's not a cure...

I see. I'm really hoping the TPC DSC module would help -- no real news on the additional accelerometers yet though. In some ways I feel the OEM PASM module isn't able to handle the faster damping and spring rates. Some of the rebound and compression feel a tad unnatural even with the Damptronics. I suppose that's always been a flaw of the earlier PASM systems on these 9x7.1 cars, and the Damptronics just exaggerates the issue even more.

wow, shot at 30K miles! I'm at 46K and my PASM seems fine. The dealer saw the car at 36K and didn't mention it. I have been wondering what I would do when they needed replacement, I'll follow this thread to see if you get it adjusted to where you like it.

Well, turns out they weren't shot. The OEM dampers were totally fine. My local Porsche dealer is just horrendously lousy. I'm seriously looking to revert to stock at this point. To be entirely fair, the Bilstein coilovers are made very well. The ride qualit is very good if one looks at I purely at how well they handle the road conditions. Just that they aren't very good for a daily driver. i would highly recommend these if your car is a weekend toy, and you usually drive at higher speeds. Slower speed traffic somehow just isn't that great. That said, I may look to sell these at some point. It's gonna hurt ...

I had ordered Bilstein pss10 ( B16 ) for my 981 Cayman 2.7 w/steel suspension because of my annoyance of stock ride comfort on daily basis. My aim is to get more comfortable ride with Bilsteins at its softest setting. The coilover set has arrived 2 days ago and I will drop the car for the install on thursday. But your post makes me worry about the result.

These are the damptronics, not your PSS10 actually

I contacted the manufacturer about these long ago as I was interested in the same ride type for Normal and harder only for Sport. I find Normal perfect, only Sport could be a bit harder for track use. Apparently thats "not the idea" of these and its just harder all round. You can find spring rates if you search on forums. Needless to say I skipped it.

Oddly enough, I couldn't find the spring rates. I literally spent 3 months reading many forums, and somehow I'm just not doing properly. It's funny how a some posts say " PASM in normal feels same as stock" from some places that I have seen before. Anyways, I'm done with these and would rather take a hit financially. At the end, what suspension setup did you get?

sorry to hear that it didn't work. bed brakes and suspension can be unbearable... what the stock spring rates on 987.2 with PASM ?

This is quite an interesting thread...I've thought about the Dampronics for my PASM -equipped car. I want to lower the car a bit, and would welcome a little more stiffness. The CS with PASM is a pussycat compared to my S2000 with PSS9s. And I LOVE the solid feel of my S2000 . But I happen to have plenty of nice smooth pavement to drive on. If you were in the states, I'd consider helping you out with that "financial hit", lol...

i'm not sure what you mean - PSS9 for S2000 are considered to be soft and compliant setup. are you saying that PASM is even softer? i had S2000 with KWv3 and my PASM at Normal feels stiffer.

Yes, with both at full soft, I think my Cayman (on 19s) is softer than my s2k(on 17s). They're fairly close at sport/stiff, but the cayman is still a bit more compliant. At least to my poorly calibrated butt dyno, lol...

I'm now suspecting that my PASM isn't working properly -- i.e. it's in full stiff all the time, just like in Sport. However, there is no PASM failure light on. The gauge cluster shows "Sport" and "Normal" when I press the toggle button. Except, I almost notice zero difference between the two settings. Is there any other way to check if the PASM is working properly? All the wires look like they are connected properly. Thanks P.S. I had CR suspension on my S2000 before. It was fairly stiff up front (7kg/mm springs up front i think?), but I found that to be quite nice!

s2k gang LOL spring rates to themselves don't say anything. it's specific to a car model. i mean for S2000 7k spring is not stiff at all but for Civic it's ultra stiff. what you say about no difference between Normal and Sport PASM sounds wrong. with stock PASM suspension there is a big difference (mainly rebound i think). i would try to call Bilsteins tech support (Germany/USA) and ask for their opinion on this.

Well. I don't know. From some of the forums I have went through, some say the Normal and Sport difference is extremely small once you slap on these Damptronics. So I don't know. Trying to find someone locally with the exact same setup + car to see whether my car's normal. I tried calling Bilstein guys, but not much help there. The local distributor is even worse. Ya, I do know what you mean. 7K will start breaking your back on a car like Civic! hahaha

right, maybe with Damptronics the difference between two mods is small... Bilstein 's tech support don't have info on this? anyway - i'm curious - did you find out spring rates fro stock and your B16 ?

They just told me to check all the connections, and only gave me the standard answer of "we have never heard of this problem" I highly doubt the coilovers themselves are defective as all four of them are behaving the same, and it's natural for PASM dampers to revert back to full stiff when you turn the car off. So that's the "resting state" per se Nah, never managed to find the info on the B16 springs. Even on the stock springs, only saw it on one post in this forum.

Looks like nothing is wrong. This setup just isn't for me I'm gonna look into B6 or even revert back to stock with R springs and sway bars These literally mint condition coilovers with fewer than 500km will be available for sale pretty soon. Lucky to next buyer who needs a set. Great for track, but really not for people like me looking to drive car to supermarkets and to work

Left it stock and only replaced the LCA and toe links.

Find the spring rate. It should be on the spring somewhere. Hypercoils are engraved on the end flat, Eibachs are labeled on the sides, etc.. Springs are relatively cheap, then tune the bump and rebound to match your road conditions. I had Koni dbl. adj. and at least 8 pairs of springs for my Daily/DE A4 for differing conditions but you need to determine your starting point.

Zinger -- Harris told me last week that the accelerometers were finally in. However, they are off at a race in Canada, and he probably won't be back in the office until next week. It sounds to me like the struts were not wired up properly. The B16s are supposed to be stiffer than the stock PASM struts, but you should still be able to tell the difference between "normal" and "sport" settings. Did they install the wiring extensions that came with the kit, and connect both ends? If the B16 springs are like the springs that came with the PSS9 kit I put on my old CS, the springs are stiffer than the factory springs, but not ridiculously so (only about 75-100 lbs/in or so more than stock). Your front spring binding noises sound like things are not installed properly up front. Did they reinstall the factory thrust bearing assembly on each front strut? They are supposed to be there. The blue plastic ring is only to prevent metal-to-metal rubbing between the bottom of the spring and the adjustable spring perch, not to act as a thrust bearing. Also, make sure the aluminum spring adapter is sitting on the bottom of the stock thrust bearing -- on three installations I've inspected, the adapters were slightly too short and bottomed out on the top strut mount internally, where it was hard to see.

Zinger what damping setting did you set the struts to when you installed them? Have you tried adjusting the knobs on the dampers?

Hi Bill, Thanks for the reply. 1. Binding Issue The binding issue is getting less and less so as I accumulate a little more mileage on them, but I'll double check again over the weekend when I get a chance to. I did see the stock thrust bearings in place during the install, and I did replace the strut mounts and other necessary bearings just in case. The binding noise is not as loud now, but happens more frequently. So if 0 means steering is in middle, while 10 is all the way to the right. Previously I would hear a loud clunk @ 8. Right now, I would hear three small clunks @ 3 6 and 9. Anyway, that I'm not worried as it's just a small noise and I'm pretty sure it can be resolved -- and likely to not affect ride quality in a straight line. 2. Normal vs Sport As for Sport vs Normal, I suppose I was just way too overwhelmed by the stiffness. I ran a back to back test, and noticed there is a slight difference between the two settings. Just that the difference is extremely small. We have also unplugged the wires just to make sure the error checks actually work, and the computer did come up with "PASM error" (which is good). I did a blind test on 3 passengers toggling between the two modes. They all noticed the Sport mode and identified it correctly. However, when I asked how much of a difference, they all claimed the difference was minimal. The 3 passengers were (my wife, a BMW owner with PSS10s, and a Cayman owner with stock suspension). 3. Tire pressure My car has RE11 tires, and I run them at 35-37psi. This is partly due to the fact that I drive quite a bit in slower speeds, and tires often times don't get to warm up to their optimal hot tempurature pressure. Pumping them to the door label pressures seemed to have done the trick previously for comfort + handling on OEM suspension. Lowering tire pressures down to 30psi-ish tends to help, but not a cure by any means either. I drove another Cayman with same set of coilovers with 5000km on them and running on Michelin PSS tires and new control arms. The harshness and bounciness have been reduced slightly, but the inherent characteristics are still there. 4. The annoying bounce (maybe worn control arm bushings) The car also bounces a little bit, which could be a result of worn bushings in the rear control arms; the bushings in rear showed signs of wear, but we initially decided to keep them as there were no rattles in the back like the front ones had. The front ones have been replaced very recently. I will schedule to have the rear ones replaced soon. Hopefully that'll help a bit with some of the bounciness. I'm surprised the spring rates are only some 75-100lbs more. It almost felt as if they were 200lbs+. OEM spring rates are like 170/270 lbs? +/- 20 I think. The way these things felt, almost feels like both damping and spring rates have been increased by 100 percent in both front and back. Anyway, I'm really hoping the increased processing power + more dynamic program + additional axis in calculations will help reduce the annoying bounce -- maybe hopefully make the dampers more road compliant in where I live. Hi SKrace, I have called up Bilstein US on this actually. Unfortunately the spring rates cannot be customized. Bilstein will only perform revalving jobs to reduce the damping rates on these coilovers, but that probably isn't a good idea given I don't know what I'm doing. I would have no idea how much to dial the rebound/compression rates given the current spring rates. Hi Postman, these are the Damptronics, so it doesn't have the dial at the bottom of the shock unfortunately. PASM adjusts the stiffness of the dampers on the fly. My initial intentions were to look for an OEM-plus solution to lower my car just a tad by 10mm to Cayman R height, while increasing the damping and spring rates without giving up so much of comfort level. These coilovers just took it to the other extreme end of the scale it seems. In some ways, I also felt that the shocks have a noticeably shorter travel. I feel like I'm hitting the bump stops quite a bit more frequently than I used to (but that probably isn't the case, maybe it's just too stiff). I find myself having to slow down below speed limit in quite a few places, when I would be able to cruise over the road pretty okay on stock setup or other cars with PSS9s. Anyways, here's a pic of the lowered car:

Ok, I thought they did still have that adjustment as well as the two modes. Sorry!

Sorry typo, I inflated my tires @ 32-37 for front and back. Turns out they are the manufacturer's recommended pressures with 19" wheels. Somehow I thought they were supposed to be 31-36psi. Thanks for helping

Alright ... I have to take back everything I said about these coilovers. I have to say now, these are amazing coilovers. my mechanic took apart the whole suspension, and realized that the strut mounts were causing issues. I purchased a new set of strut mounts thinking that's a small cost to pay for longevity. Unfortunately, I was given non-OEM ones when I paid for OEM ones. Little did I know these struts had minor Fitment issues that my mechanic and I weren't aware of during the install. my mechanic spent a day removing the whole suspension and realized these strut mounts were not holding on to the coilovers properly, causing the bearings to not rotate properly and binging issues. While we do not know for sure, I believe the springs binding were causing non linear spring rate behaviors ... Which ultimately lead to the bounciness of the car. Too bad we have been checking the wrong stuff before and assumed the strut mounts were okay. That said, I am extremely upset about the vendor as I paid for OEM ones and ended up with non OEM products. This has caused a lot of trouble and a lot of money as well. My pregnant wife also had to sit through the car and eventually fell sick. Anyway, thanks for all the input you guys have out in. Glad the whole system is working, and I have to say the car drives really well now. My mechanic did a band aid fix for now. The strut mounts were sanded down a bit so that the coilovers could sit better. Eventually I would need to get new strut mounts to ensure a proper fix.