| Suspension, Steering & Brakes Part 2 - the dark art of adjustments |
| Dramatic improvements can be made on the 96 handling. With all mods, try and think about systems as opposed to individual components. It is simply not enough to lower the suspension or fit sports dampers if you want maximum performance, indeed, changes to the suspension, steering or brakes will require adjustments to other sub systems to compensate and compliment these changes. |
| Lowering The 96 has a narrow 48" track for its size. lowering the ride will give a dramatic and noticable increase in responsive handing...if other changes are made as well. Custom springs are readily available at a range of lengths, stiffnesses and progressive winds, from around �150 a set.. A simple enough option is to remove half, or a full, coil from each spring. lets see how. |
| Front spring removal You will need the best spring compressors you can find, ideally with two claws at each end of each compressor. A slipped claw can at the very least lead to spontanious bowel evacuation or at worst a very messy, pained and suffering death. Just be careful. Wheels off. Jack up. Using a pair of mole grip, reach inside the front spring and undo and detach the rubber bump stop. This operation done first will make removing the spring infinitely easier. I know. I didn't. Compress the springs 1cm a time on each side. Over compressing one side is what leads to that whole world of pain, misery and suffering I mentioned. With the springs off you will notice one end is ground flat and the other is an open coil, designed to sit in the lower spring perch. This is the end from which you can remove material. Take off both springs and stand them next to each other to check that one hasn't sagged with time more than the other. You want to remove the same height from each coil, not necessarily the same amount of coil. Removing half a coil, e.g. 180 dgrees from one end, lowers the car by around 1". Removing a whole coil lowers the car by around 2". Rememebr: YOU CAN TAKE MORE OFF LATER BUT YOU CANNOT PUT IT BACK ON IF YOU GO TOO FAR. I am plumping with half a coil. A reduced height spring will also reduce suspension compression range. To compensate, remove 5/8" to 3/4" of rubber from the bump stop. As you have dismantled most of your front end, wht not strip it down, wire brush it, repaint it and replace the bushes while you are at it? |
| Rear Spring removal No need for compressors here! Start with the car on the ground. measure the gap between the bottom of the rear axle and the limit strap. This will change once you remove height from your rear coils and that gap needs to be replicated after the process is complete. Undo the limit straps (you did measure the gap?) Undo the bottom damper mounts. Jack the rear of the car up, as the car lift the springs will decompress nicely until there is no comression left and they rattle about. They can then be removed. Chop off an eaqual amount to that taken off the front, scrub down, clean up and paint. Mmmmm....nice. Remove some material from the rear bump stops as you did on the front. Rebuild using nice new bushes and when the car is back on the ground, readjust the limit straps to the original measurements. |
| Castor, Cambor and Toe in. Lowering the front will affect toe-in quite significantly. If you are going to do a job, do the full job, either your self or professionally at a garage. A little bit of negative camber is good (-1 degree for starters), it will improve turning into corners and will increase resposniveness and make for crisper steering. It will have minimal increase on tyre wear but will increase required steering effort - already a problem for some with these cars. But you cannot have everything. Plenty of castor is good to. I don't know a huge amount about it and it is a very personal choice. Some people go to the trouple of redrilling the mount holes to increase castor to a range unacheivable with shims in the original position. I have fitted 10mm of shim at the front to give 4 degrees castor. This make the steering even heavier than before, especially at low speed manouvering but greatly imporves high speed road handling. |
| Original Specs Castor 2 degrees +/- 1/2 degree Camber 1/3 degree +/- 1/2 degree Toe-in 0 +/- 0.04" |
| Dampers You have gone this far, at the very least replace those standard Saab Dampers. Avo and Spax both make adjustable sports dampers for the 96 which are ideal. Avo are a little more expensive, I cannot comment if this equates to 'better'. Bilstein make 96 dampers but these are for Rally only - they are far too hard for road use. As far as I know, Koni do not make dampers for the 96. |
| Part Numbers Front Rear Avo AV-TC397 AV-TC391 Spax SPX-G322 SPX-G323 |
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