430 Penske Coilovers for Scuderia

One of my main complaints of the scud since I purchased it has been the dampers in terms of performance. The ride quality in bumpy road mode is acceptable during normal driving, but the body control during mountain drives in bumpy road mode or normal mode left a lot to be desired especially coming from my 997.2 gt3 and air cooled 911s. IMO the stock dampers feel very crashy and do not absorb bumps or undulations in the road when driving at speed. Any bumps mid corner or hard braking when driving at speed really unsettles the vehicle on my local roads which was not very confidence inspiring. On track with the smoother surface, the dampers were fine but I found the spring rate to be too soft especially on stickier tires.

Having already done HE ball joints, 430 challenge drop links, delrin flamblocs on all four corners, corner weighting, slight lowering (10mm from stock), and a performance oriented alignment, it was time to bite the bullet and upgrade the dampers. Fortunately one our own Fchatters is a former pro racer, suspension engineer for pro race teams, happens to have a 430 as his track day toy, and is a dealer for Penske, Ohlins and MCS.
The icing on the cake for me is he is local and could do the install on whatever dampers I chose. I will let him chime in if he wants, but for now I’ll refer to him as the “suspension engineer.”

I ended up selecting Penske 8300 dampers for the vehicle based on the pros/cons of each of Ohlin, Penske, and MCS. What swayed me to Penske is the fully custom nature of the dampers. Since Penske does not offer off the shelf kits for many cars especially the 430 street platform, the damper is fully custom spec by the suspension engineer based on what I was looking for out of the car. My priority is weekend driving in the mountains with 3-5 track days a year so performance was my main concern.

Typically, I’d be worried about getting the setup right due to the custom nature of Penske, but given the suspension engineer sets up vehicles at the professional level, has raced at the professional level himself, and tracks a 430 himself I figured I would go with his recommendation. We setup the shock using Penske’s velocity dependent linear piston which functions like a digressive piston but with a linear slope after the digressive knee based on the shim stack setup by the suspension engineer. Springs are 600 front and 900 rear given the car is primarily a weekend car for mountain drives, but the added rate over stock will provide the increased stiffness needed for track use with track tires. Alignment is aggressive -3.5/-2.5 degrees of camber with 0 toe up front and 4mm total toe in on the rear which is the same alignment I used pre coil over upgrade.

I was blown away during the first mountain drive in the car. The ride quality actually improved over the stock dampers by a considerable amount despite the stiffer spring rates. The ride quality is considerably better than the bumpy ride mode. Even in bumpy road mode, hitting bumps felt like a square wave but now it is more like a sine/cosine wave with the initial harshness smoothed out considerably. I used to cringe and brace myself when hitting expansion joints on the highway, not any longer. My wife also appreciates the added comfort which is always bonus points in my book

In terms of performance, the body control is so much better in that the car does not seem to be bouncing around so much at speed. Hitting bumps mid corner no longer unsettles the chassis. The car now just soaks up the bumps without any drama. Cornering is much flatter now with the stiffer spring rates as well whereas the car leaned quite a bit on the stock dampers. The car is so much more confidence inspiring which makes it much more fun to drive. I’m looking forward to bringing out the car to the track this year with the new suspension setup.

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glad to hear! Yes no suspension light on the Scud as well.

 

yea in that range installed although Penske just raised their prices by 15%.

 

I do not have the spec sheet as the suspension engineer wants to keep it proprietary.

 

thank you! Jealous of the lift system on the KW. That would definitely come in handy given how low the car is

 

check your DM

 

your experience mirrors mine. With sticky tires on the scud, the soft stock suspension really becomes apparent on track. I was getting some inner tire lift on stock suspension on some corners.

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