Ian Harris Shoreham, UK
Another good month with the 964s and a tasty upgrade to my personal 3.8 964 C2. The car is fitted with Ohlins road and track coilover suspension and has a lot of other performance upgrades, including an Elephant Racing front end. I was happy with the way the car handled and it’s still one of the best driving 964s I’ve driven.
Later this year I’m planning a road trip covering over 2,000 miles across the French Alps into Italy. The last time I did the tour I was in a modified Carrera T. It was a great car, but I was jealous of the few brave ones in our group in 964s, so this time I think I’ll take the leap and drive the 964. This year we have five or six
964s doing the tour. They’re perfect for the narrow passes where you don’t need a huge amount of power. In a narrow body car that’s set up well, the 964 is the perfect weapon of choice.
I’d seen a suspension company on Instagram and also heard it mentioned on a few of my car Whatsapp groups called Tractive Suspension. It’s a Netherlandsbased company that makes the retro fit active suspension and I’ve recently had it installed on my car. I asked Steve Bennett from Tractive on some details on the system fitted to my car.
Steve said: “Your 1990 964 C2 is fitted with Tractive Suspension’s aftermarket standalone ACE system. Inside each ACE damper body is our Dynamic Damping Adjustment (DDA) valve. This DDA valve is controlled by a multi-axis G-sensor and advanced algorithms. A dynamic proportional valve operating as a bypass has capacity for a much larger range of damping adjustment and is the world’s fastest, able to react in just 6-10ms.
You decided to choose our Touring Line ACE damper system, which has been developed and engineered to re-use Porsche’s factory top mounts to ensure maximum road compliance and advanced control in all driving and road conditions.”
First impressions after the install are very good. I’ve noticed how fast the car can cover ground. It’s more compliant, and flows down bumpy roads a lot better. The car is also flat in the corners: you can feel the shocks loading up and the car is very composed. My biggest concern is that I would lose some of that analogue feel that we love on the earlier 911s. But this isn’t the case. I get plenty of feedback and the active suspension gives you so much confidence to push on. I can’t wait to play with the settings more and get some serious miles done.