The life of Ryan's 2003 ZHP

[johnrando]

Nice updates!!!

+1

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[ApexHitter]

Yes - I also want to hear how the MCS suspension turns out!

[rkneeshaw]

I am really impressed. I took a couple spirited drives around here on a good mix of smooth and rough roads, and I have to say, this is a great setup.

99% of the time it doesn't feel any more "harsh" than the stock ZHP suspension. But it is for sure more planted, has much less body roll, and you get really great road feel in the turns. It is very controlled over the road surfaces. The biggest thing I notice is how supple the transitions are between high-speed turns. The car no longer flops over from one loaded side to the other, it just.... shifts. It just gracefully transfers over. It's such a confident feeling. The car feels amazing in the turns.

My biggest concern was putting a system on the car that was too firm, that jarred your teeth over every bump. And that is NOT the case with this setup. The only negative experience I have with this setup is that if you traverse a bump or hole that I would say is 2" deep or more, then you'll get a hit that sounds harsh in the rear, but doesn't necessarily feel harsh, if you know what I mean. And I think this might be more likely due to the spherical rear shock mounts I installed with this kit since I dont get the same feeling from the front. The car stays controlled, it just sounds like a harsh thud, sounds harder than it would have when I had stock suspension.

But this is a small price to pay for all the upsides. With the dampers on their 8-click setting the car travels over normal road imperfections and pothole patchwork without a fuss. I don't encounter the larger hits often at all in my area. For example there's an occasional manhole cover that sits extra low in the road that I already avoided with the stock suspension that I still watch out for now. Now if you live in Detroit and have to hit those giant craters and grand canyon expansion joints every 100 yards every day, then this setup isn't for you, but then no performance setup is for you either, you need to stay stock and keep all the rubber bushings you can.

I'm super happy with this MCS suspension. I haven't even installed the Turner sways yet. I'll probably put a couple hundred more miles on before I install those, I'm really loving where the car is at right now. The sways will be more important for the HPDE on May 23/24 at Gingerman.

Dirty car pic (too busy suspensioning instead of cleaning):

Damn, I've been waiting on your review of the suspension lol At least it's on now. I guess once you put on the sways, it'll be a more comparable review since I have the same sways. I have the same camber plates as well, but I'm planning to sell that to go with turner's street plates. Making my car more street compliant I guess.

I honestly didn't notice the car ride any worse with the vorshlag camber plates. Some warned that I might, but I didnt notice it. But, like I said above, I think the vorshlag sphericals in the rear have a more noticeable impact on noise, at least for the harder hits. Smaller more common bumps, no issue at all, can't tell they are there.

I even told Vorshlag to send me the 600/750# springs, instead of refunding me for the 550/650's that were backordered (thanks again for the springs sillieidiot!)

[johnrando]

Good stuff

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[Will]

Awesome, thanks for updating with your initial impressions!

[sillieidiot]

I am really impressed. I took a couple spirited drives around here on a good mix of smooth and rough roads, and I have to say, this is a great setup.

99% of the time it doesn't feel any more "harsh" than the stock ZHP suspension. But it is for sure more planted, has much less body roll, and you get really great road feel in the turns. It is very controlled over the road surfaces. The biggest thing I notice is how supple the transitions are between high-speed turns. The car no longer flops over from one loaded side to the other, it just.... shifts. It just gracefully transfers over. It's such a confident feeling. The car feels amazing in the turns.

My biggest concern was putting a system on the car that was too firm, that jarred your teeth over every bump. And that is NOT the case with this setup. The only negative experience I have with this setup is that if you traverse a bump or hole that I would say is 2" deep or more, then you'll get a hit that sounds harsh in the rear, but doesn't necessarily feel harsh, if you know what I mean. And I think this might be more likely due to the spherical rear shock mounts I installed with this kit since I dont get the same feeling from the front. The car stays controlled, it just sounds like a harsh thud, sounds harder than it would have when I had stock suspension.

But this is a small price to pay for all the upsides. With the dampers on their 8-click setting the car travels over normal road imperfections and pothole patchwork without a fuss. I don't encounter the larger hits often at all in my area. For example there's an occasional manhole cover that sits extra low in the road that I already avoided with the stock suspension that I still watch out for now. Now if you live in Detroit and have to hit those giant craters and grand canyon expansion joints every 100 yards every day, then this setup isn't for you, but then no performance setup is for you either, you need to stay stock and keep all the rubber bushings you can.

I'm super happy with this MCS suspension. I haven't even installed the Turner sways yet. I'll probably put a couple hundred more miles on before I install those, I'm really loving where the car is at right now. The sways will be more important for the HPDE on May 23/24 at Gingerman.

Dirty car pic (too busy suspensioning instead of cleaning):




I honestly didn't notice the car ride any worse with the vorshlag camber plates. Some warned that I might, but I didnt notice it. But, like I said above, I think the vorshlag sphericals in the rear have a more noticeable impact on noise, at least for the harder hits. Smaller more common bumps, no issue at all, can't tell they are there.

I even told Vorshlag to send me the 600/750# springs, instead of refunding me for the 550/650's that were backordered (thanks again for the springs sillieidiot!)

Nice, it sounds like my ASTs when I first put them on from the review. Yeah the Vorshlag camber plates aren't that harsh, at least from what you feel in the car; however, my strut towers started to mushroom a little. I have since put the reinforcement plates in.

I would probably hold off on the sways a little longer though. After I added the sways, the ride got noticeably worst. It makes sense cause adding sways is adding like adding more spring rate. But it feels worst because it's connected to the other side, so when I hit one of those 2" bumps, it feels even worst than it did before. Pretty much why I decided to drop the spring rate. But it feels great on the track or any place where the roads are perfectly smooth.

But yeah, I don't think you can go any lower than 550/650 for HPDE. I think it would be too soft. My ASTs only have 12 clicks, and when I went w/o sways, I was max at like 11/12. With sways, I only dropped it 1-2 clicks. MCS has like 18, so I'm sure you have more adjustments.

[rkneeshaw]

Got the sway bars installed just in time for HPDE weekend at Gingerman raceway. Along with adjustable end links all around.













I installed both front and rear bars at the "middle" setting. Looks like middle on the 30mm front bar will be slightly stiffer than the 26mm M3 bar I had before. This still leaves me a little room for adjustment if I want to make either the front or rear a little stiffer.

I also finished trimming out the access holes I created in the trunk to adjust the rear damper rebound:









I used some edge trim to make it nice and neat:



I also made another change to my rear shock mounts. The Vorshlag spherical rear shock mounts just seemed a little too harsh (which I was warned about). On harder bumps I for sure noticed more harshness from the rear of the car. So I opted to install a set of the PowerFlex rear shock mounts and its helped a lot, the car now has more of a dull "thump" over some of these harder hits rather than more of a metallic thud.





Put on the racing shoes and got her ready for the track



The car is driving great, it is so much fun to drive. I've settled on 7-clicks as my street setting for these dampers. its the right amount of comfort and sport for me. The car LOVES turns, it just digs into the corners. The dampers springs and sways have got to be one of the best upgrades I've made to this car, second to the twin screw kit, I'm loving it

[rkneeshaw]

Attended the 11th annual memorial day track weekend at Gingerman Raceway this last weekend and had so much fun with the car





I didn't really test different damper settings though, I notched the dampers up to 10-clicks and it felt good so I left it. Gingerman is a smooth track anyway. The springs and sways really felt great, the car was so controlled through the turns and S's, and I found it to be super forgiving. I found that the car tended to push a little as I was trail braking into turns, but as I applied throttle it seemed to increase my cornering grip. It was awesome. The harder I pushed out of turns the more grip the car had, it just grabbed harder. I found it really easy to modulate steering and throttle inputs to fine tune the driving line too. I may try increasing the rear sway stiffness and see how that effects things next time only on the account that the rear seemed like it could rotate a slight bit more. Overall, a super fun time, and I'm super happy with this setup. I should have some action pics from the event once they get uploaded in the next couple days.

[johnrando]

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[sillieidiot]

Nice work. Damn you make me miss my car more. I thought you added a cupholder in the trunk for some reason LOL But yeah, that looks pretty good with the trim. I took a different approach. What I did was just cut on 3 sides of a rectangle. So I just pull it down to adjust, and push it back into place so you can't even tell I made cuts.