UNDER CONTROL
A return trip to PIE Performance sees Dan’s 997 Carrera 4S treated to a raft of new front-end suspension components...
At the start of the year, I reported on my 911’s visit to Suffolkbased independent Porsche specialist, PIE Performance, where the car was treated to a service and fresh brake fluid. During the pre-work inspection, PIE technician, Billy Mclean, confirmed the front lower control arm bushes were ready for renewal. A steadily worsening knocking noise led me to anticipate new bushes were on the cards before Billy’s diagnosis, though I failed to consider other tired suspension components might also be at fault.
I realise the following few sentences bear an uncanny resemblance to my scribblings in the January issue of
911 & Porsche World, but they’re worth revisiting for the benefit of our ‘floating readership’, who may not have seen my earlier 997 owner report. Long story short, few of us have hydraulic presses in our home garages or workshops, and though we might fancy our chances inserting new bushes into old control arms, getting the tired factory rubbers out can be a pig of job, often requiring unorthodox methods of not-so-gentle persuasion. Even then, if, like me, you’re keen on the idea of ‘fit and forget’ polyurethane bushes, getting the new components to sit where the old ones were living can prove challenging, chiefly due to polyurethane’s stiffness, which has the advantage of improving steering precision and braking stability.
Fortunately, there is a straightforward solution that should come as music to the ears of any home mechanic or workshop technician. Slashing the time taken to complete the job and requiring nothing more than a basic tool kit, the new Porsche track control arm and bush assembly kits from performance suspension component manufacturer, Powerflex, come complete with aluminium control arms featuring preinstalled premium polyurethane bushes and ball joints, with accompanying bolt sleeves and sachets of grease. A direct bolt-on upgrade in place of the factory control arm assembly, these kits are available for a growing number of modern Porsches, including the 996, 997 and 991-generation 911, as well as the 986, 987, 981 and 718 Boxster/cayman.
Two types of kit are available: adjustable (provided with two CNCmachined hard-anodized sleeves and spanners for on-car adjustment of both caster and camber) and nonadjustable. Armed with the latter, back to PIE I travelled, where a waiting Billy set to work dismissing the knackered
old control arms and fitting the new Powerflex parts in their place. As anticipated, the job didn’t take him long to complete, though we weren’t out of the woods just yet — in addition to compromised bushes, a look under the car prior to fitting revealed a split outer CV boot and, much to my surprise, a split top mount on the same side.
Looking back, the knocking noise over bumps in the road must have been caused by a combination of top mount failure and bush wear, rather than just the latter. Fortunately, the timing of this discovery couldn’t have been any better: I’d arranged to leave my Carrera 4S in the custody of the PIE team while I borrowed the firm’s recently developed 996 PPT (PIE Performance Tuning, the company’s newly launched signature line of tweaked Porsches) for a forthcoming 911 & Porsche World feature. Not having to worry about travelling home in my all-pawed 997 that day meant PIE boss, Chris Lansbury, could order replacement top mounts and boot kits to be fitted in advance of my return with the 996, a four-wheel drive model converted to rear drive and benefiting from an animated wave of PIE’S magic wand.
Sure enough, while I was enjoying seat time in the older 911, Billy was busying himself removing my car’s front dampers and installing the new top mounts. New inner and outer CV boot kits for both sides were installed at the same time.
As you can imagine, with all these new front-end steering and suspension components, the drive of the car has been transformed and the knocking noise is a thing of the past. The twisty B-roads surrounding PIE’S base in East Anglia provided the perfect playground to enjoy the immediately noticeable improvement in handling, but that’s
not to say there isn’t still work to do, including addressing a slight weep from the front water pipes and the renewal of corroded exhaust sleeve bolts. Neither job is urgent, but with the car now ticking past the 97k-mile mark and me not being afraid to use it as Porsche intended (911s don’t acquire dirt all by themselves!), it stands to reason age and wear are going to demand the renewal of certain items. The same is true of tyres, which is why I have a new set of Good Year Eagle F1 Supersport R black circles waiting in the wings. This particular rubber is N-rated for Porsche OEM fitment, though due to there being no current Porsche with 997 Carrera 4S tyre profiles, it doesn’t (yet) come stamped with that same letter when being manufactured in sizes outside current model specification, though it’s the same product with the same construction.
Before fannying around replacing tyres that don’t yet need to be changed, however, there was the not insignificant matter of getting the car through its MOT, which would have expired earlier, had it not been for the UK government’s six-month extension on the validity of MOTS due to run out during the first wave of national lockdown. Obviously, with the busted bushes, CV boot and top mount taken into consideration, there was no way the car would have gained a fresh ticket, but thanks to the sterling work of Billy and the boys at PIE, the car sailed through its test in mid-december without registering a single advisory. Now all I need to do is hope for a break in lockdown to get out there and drive! ●