Upgrading the 360 Suspension

So after doing a few drives recently. I've noticed that the car just doesn't plant quite as fast as I'd like it to going into corners. Don't get me wrong. It's not bad but could use a little more firmness in turns. So I started doing a little research into springs and was tinkering with the idea of setting the car up with Stradale specs.

After reading some of 360Trev's post. It seemed like specking the car out close to a CS might help with the handling a bit. So, I started thinking about trying to find some CS springs.
As most people who have CS's or are fans of the car know that the springs are titanium and are quite costly. The other option would be going with a company like H&R or Novitec.
So browsing online one day, I came across Exotic Auto Wreckings' webpage. I saw that the recently had a CS come in and be parted out. So I called them up. I spoke to Ryan about the CS and asked if he had the suspension still off the car. He did If you need a used part, chances are this place has a lot of it. Their warehouse had motors and parts everywhere, very neatly organized. It was like being in Toys R Us for the first time as a kid. lol After we came to agreement on terms, I ended up with a full set of suspension off the CS. I was able to pick up the CS Front and Rears Struts as well as the Anti Roll Bar and the CS suspension computer. From my conversations with 360Trev, this makes a huge difference in a normal Modena.

The CS suspension computer just is a straight across swap. As do the shocks. The Anti Roll Bar looks like it might be a little more work to get on. Although I'll just let my mechanic put everything on so that done correctly. As much as I want to tinker with it.

I also got the MAF's off the CS as well. I was told this makes quite a bit of difference too. Though you have have your ECU mapped for the CS to take advantage of that and also not have to have the throttle bodies learn the parameters every time.

I'm going to wait till after this next weekend to start the project. I'll take some pics and update it as I go along.

 

elt360, I actually didn't have to pay for the front struts. I'm just swapping mine for the ones already on the springs. We figured it would just be easier to send mine back and just bold on the CS ones as they are now.

Kevin Rev'n, I have 55,000 miles on the car now. The car just was checked out recently when I did my annual. Everything checked out to specs.
The sport setting definitely works, but driving hard, it still has a little sway in the body and sag in the turns. Not much, but I know having a tad stiffer would help setting the car in the turn. The CS Suspension computer replaces normal with sport and sport now becomes race mode.

I did get an incredibly great deal on the whole setup. It was much less than what you probably would expect to pay for something like this.

I think this might address the slight wiggleness the car gets going into hard, tight turns.

 

No, they will only work with aftermarket carbon air boxes or If you want to pop for it, the factory CS air box lids. It's going in after this coming weekend. I can't wait to get it all set up.

 

I found that the Carbon air boxes with the rubber rubber tube slips over the larger CS AFM's
I originally purchased some R-Tuned ones. But I think I will go with Full Six or Carbonio. R-Tunes look really nice but the the quality of their work compared to Carbonio is a questionable. I can't understand how a company making carbon for supposedly 20 years now, send out stuff with cracks, not fully filling the fiber on the backside, so you can see light through the weave. I also noticed that the R-Tune inlet tubes point upward rather than straight across like the factory ones. This creates a bend in the system vs it just being in a smooth straight line. (Where it meets up with the AFM's) Needless to say I was hugely disappointed. I wrote R-Tuned but they never responded. Neither here or on their website. Carbonio is only a 100 more (R-Tuned $950 vs Carbonio $1050) and the difference is vast. I however have not seen the insides of the boxes on Carbonio. I know Fullsix has a smooth inner side, not like someone dropped glass sheet into resin and it being completely rough and porous. Fullsix, if shopped around might be the best bargin and looks to be the nicest. But once again, I have not had one in my hands. Now this is only from pictures and what I've seen at places like SCS and such. But the Carbonio seems to have a lower profile keeping the same line as the inlets of the motor. This is the same for pictures I've seen of the Fullsix. They are very low profile and in all of the pictures you'll notice the accordion boot is not kinked like that with R-Tuned.

 

That box is stunning. Quite pricey. But you get what you pay for.

 

That comes with a heat shield too? That is one gorgeous piece of carbon. Do you mind me asking the price range it was in? And did you notice an improvement over the stock set up?

 

That is awesome. What side drip panels do you have?

 

Whoa. Who makes the carbon heat shields on the sides?

 

So I finally got some time to start tinkering with my suspension. This is all pretty new to me so it's been taking me quite longer to do most of the jobs due to the slight learning curve.
I started with the front shocks. I was tacking this task after work, so I only planned to get through the fronts. I think the easiest part of the whole job was removing my center locks.
The top two 17mm bolts come off very easy. As does loosening the bottom 19mm nut. There is a 10mm bolt holding the electrical connector housing that is easy too. However, the 17mm nut in front of the 19mm nut on the bottom assembly posed to be a problem. There is very limited room trying to get wrenches in there. After a first attempt with some force to break the bond between the two, my wrench came off the nut, dragging the corner of my wrist across the brake rotor. After that little lesson, I tried spanner wrenches and various open ends hoping to break the bond. Finally after pushing the lower shock bolt out more and using my foot on one wrench, the bond broke.
At that point I put a little bottle jack under the arm to support it and use it for raising and lowering the arm so I could align the bolt when putting in the new shock.
So pulling out the shock is very easy out the top of the arm. I immediately noticed how much heavier it is than the CS shocks I'm replacing them with. They feel at least double the weight. If my digital parts scale wasn't missing, I would have weighed them.
Being the fronts are exactly the same shock body, they go right in with no problems.
Getting the drop link back on is pretty easy with the jack under the arm adjusting the level so it's alight with the drop link bolt. It seems like it took me forever to do. But I was being extra anal and making sure everything was torqued to factory specs.

Tonight hopefully, I'll attempt the rear shocks and anti roll bar. I'll upload some pics later this evening.

 

Well,
Last night I put the rear CS set of shocks and CS rear anti roll bar on. It was much easier than the front. Just a side not to anyone wanting to replace their rear anti roll. If you loosen the 2 back lower suspension arm bolts located in the diffuser area. It allows you to lift the arm high enough to pull out he roll bar with out having to drop the under panel.

The computer goes in today at some point. My TCU is heading out today to ERIC, can't wait to get that back too.