Hey James, how are you?

Doing well, how about you?

I'm doing very well. Yes, I'm glad that we can work this out. I already got the camera running, so just... Yeah, I mean, I'm... This is just... I'm looking forward to your feedback. I wanted to capture it because what you sent me in text was so... Intriguing. So I want to hear you talk, and then I'll share whatever I can. Fantastic. Sure. Yep.

Get a little context.

Yep, yep.

And go from there.

So, yeah, my search ultimately started out where I had finally decided I needed to learn more about suspension as a whole and what I'm actually doing when I spend the money on changing things around the car. And I also got pretty tired of just going to random forums. It doesn't matter the car. You go to a forum and everyone's like, well, buy this brand or buy that brand or you need this adjustable. You need to do this spring rater. This is the right way to do it. And nobody can give me any reason other than just because. Right. Right. And then realizing I don't have the equipment. One thing led to another. And so we got together and started looking for a stage three solution for my car. And from then on, once we decided that that's what I was going to do is commission the stage three, I started paying much more attention to the car under everyday, normal circumstances. Because I daily... And I'm not... I think I'm over like 77k on the clock right now.

And it gets rid of it.

Not a collector's piece. So I paid very good attention to just normal everyday driving and then of course any of the fun driving that I wanted to do. And even since I first purchased the car, I already had complaints. Because the previous owner just put lowering springs on, they didn't do anything else. I think maybe some sway bar too after we started doing the swap out. I think the rear sway bar is upgraded but not the front. You know, typical lower the car, throw things at it to make it maybe do something. without really understanding the approach. So, you know, the car just wanted to wobble around, and I think your initial assessment of it bouncing around in the bump stops is fairly accurate. Now that I've also done a little bit of testing post-install where I've gotten the car to bottom out purposefully, you know, using a speed bump to my advantage, low speed, safe. You know, I understand the sensation much more accurately now. And before and after, I can tell you for sure that the overarching result of getting this set up on the car and driving it around, daily driving it, it has revealed to me problems I didn't know I had. configuration. And that's not to say necessarily that it was bad. I don't necessarily think that You know, it's something that anybody can irrefutably say, well, this just sucks. It's definitely better than other cars that I've been in. I've owned Mustangs. I've owned BMWs and Volvos. And I could say that there's definitely some attention to how Porsche set their system up. But comparatively to the FCM Stage 3 that I have now... Night and Day doesn't describe it, and that was the other thing, too, is I wanted to try to understand, you know, how to quantify what the changes that KBO or Ripple Reducer were actually, like, how do I explain that, or how do you explain that to me, other than just saying, well, you know, repeating the cycle, or it's better, or it's that way, because, you know, putting numbers to something and trying to validate the experience to a design decision is Anybody else could benefit from having an easier understanding or more accessible understanding to why or what is being changed. And so from before to after, I now realize the challenge that you have or have gained a whole new appreciation for.

How do you motivate people to want the change or to understand that the change that they would be receiving

is worth the time and the investment.

Whereas, you know, you can't try before you buy, right?

So it's kind of hard, really, to ask yourself, other than just doing it, how am I sure? And I can say without a doubt, the result is just apples and oranges. It's not even fair to really compare to the original setup. I mean, it just leaves different. For instance, the front is much more responsive at low speed, so if I'm turning around a parking lot, whereas before it would be kind of wobbly or Not necessarily an extreme roll moment on the roll bar, but you could tell the tire just kind of wants to wallow over. Whereas now, I put in a steering input at low speed around a parking lot or moderate speed, tight steering radius, and the car does not want to do that.

The front end stays held up, and I feel much more...

contact or feedback through the term beginning to end. And then it just goes from there. It extrapolates across the board. Austin, Texas has got some not great roads.

I'm not a fan of Texas DOT.

So that gives me the chance to experience good and bad roads and across the board you know there's definitely tracks of roads that I travel regularly that were like a great in my mind this is I'm going to test this out here I'm just going to react here and you've mentioned in videos in the past and you've talked before about you know kind of like the way rides get pitchy and you kind of your head gets hit by the back of the seat and I started to become aware of little nuances like that and so factory setup there's a lot of road that's got some very low amplitude, high frequency kind of bumps in the road. And the front just kind of wants to just jackhammer around and it's no fun. With the KBO or the FCM Stage 3 on now, I can still feel the road irregularity, right? And that's probably the goal. But it's no longer this pogo sticky jackhammer front end wobble around mess. And then through any kind of turn I take, if it's like a long sleeping turn, steady state, or even just kind of where the radius changes if I'm driving over expansion joints, you just think of a road feature that you would experience daily driving. And across the board, the feedback has been increased. And the best summary that I can give for the total ride quality beyond the performance improvement is that everything just versus a much more stiff, stiff is even almost the wrong word, but just a much more tight factory feeling where it's just, everything is just bam, bam, bam, whatever the reaction is. You're going over a small speed bump, front and the back whereas now it's more manageable and you don't get this peak reaction you just the suspension deals with the oscillation or deals with the bump and the car settles and it just wants it's so easy to just go or drive with it and I don't feel like Anything's kind of on the razor edge. I don't feel that it's like a knife-edge kind of scary thing. A lot of people talk about maintenance travel with a 911. A rear end wants to come around on you. I don't really feel any scary moments at all, even over an event through a turn. I cannot sing the praise well enough.

Start to finish.

Just being a customer, working with you, and getting hands-on, and then being able to reap the reward afterwards. So it's just been absolutely fantastic, and I can't really do any better, I don't think.

Well, thank you, James. I mean, you know, I know this is being recorded, but just, you know, the time you coming out, it was the first time I've ever had that experience, and you know that. And it really is because you are so interested, passionate, dedicated to research, and that I could tell that you really want to understand things as much as you can. And obviously, I completely align with you with that. And it's been and continues to be an amazing and wonderful experience. synergy that we've created. And I really treasure it. I mean, I hope to do more of it for people who want to come out. There may not be a lot of people, but with you having been that first person, and it couldn't have been more perfect in every way, really. um, because like, I've wanted to get more involved with Porsches. I've done a few, as you know, I told you, and people know if they've watched any videos, I did Carol's 997 base. Um, but she hasn't really, I don't think she's posting on forums. She's not really sharing her experiences that much. Um, and you've got the twin turbo, you know, you've got the car that everybody, at least I'm in my already mid forties, you know, that was the car I wanted and you got it. You know, you, you found your, your baby, you know, it's the current, the current one or whatever you may move to or not, but I'd like to tell people, when you have a suspension for me, when I've done, especially the Stage 3, you will think twice before wanting to sell your car, probably. No, absolutely. I agree with that.

I had

You know, improve it or throw some tunes on it, drive around, have fun, and then on to the next project. Because, you know, I kind of just pick up the car and kind of get into where I like to have it. And then, you know, then I start getting curious about something else. But this is definitely, I'm now learning how much more I can enjoy a car.

Mm-hmm.

to drive than i could previously it's it's really awesome yeah and and you had said something in your text about um kind of a comment about from the factory or like the the the ability to design something like this do you do you remember or do you want to comment on that oh yeah yeah so uh

Ever since stumbling upon the Why It Flat Right Matters video, which is kind of what sent me down this rabbit hole, and I know we talked when I was there, and I'll be completely honest, maybe this might be beneficial, just to let everybody else know, I'm a skeptic by nature. If it's suspension, if it's shake, or if it's anything else in life, I'm always going to question it. So I hear flat ride, and I'm like, no, no way. You've got a snake oil, right? But I still am going to Google. I'm still going to learn. I'm still going to do and ask the questions to make sure that I'm not just, you know, the whole judging a book by a cover kind of deal. And so I went down the rabbit hole. I found it's extremely valid. And as far as the suspension tuning strategy and just kind of a theory to how you want to approach ride quality in general in a vehicle. And so, yeah, for most of the question, even before seeing the benefit as I have, you know, there is the question, well, okay, so this is well-known. It's accepted. There's engineers out there. It's even mentioned in Milliken Milliken, which is kind of the... right set something up they talk about you know the the desire for utilizing flat right and so for all this understanding that's out there in in the industry why isn't it designs better or the passenger car that I buy and drive around. It just boggles my mind. And it's funny you mention that as far as a talking point, because earlier today I had been doing more reading and just, again, general understanding or furthering my understanding, and I ended up finding a quote from a Penske engineer, or at least an article, where they were talking about 15 years ago, 20 years ago, the approach would have been, because of suspension technology, throw different sets of shocks and springs on a car and see what sticks. And things have improved to the point and regulations have tightened to a point where now vehicle classification or race type starts to become a matter where you don't have this much suspension travel or you have this limit on aero or there's some limitation that stops you from being optimal in your design decisions. And so it becomes kind of an approach to timing. How do you want to, what sacrifice are you going to make and where?

And so

decision in the racing industry, especially dominated by aero, they look to pull the car into the road feature and the jacking down as you've gone over. And it just seems to be a trade-off that they're making based on the decision they make for how the damper is going to be valved or designed. And so it has nothing to do with the driver because they just want to go fast or the team just wants And so quality takes the back seat and lap time takes the center stage. And so you get all of the general understanding. You want flat ride. You want things to be designed well. And it seems like... manufacturers just take what they have done in the racing world and they just kind of toss it into the commercial world. And nobody's really given any context to why that was the result of the decision. decision so everyone just kind of gets what they get and why it's easy to find you know anomalous vehicles like in your spreadsheet where there's like volvos and some gm cars that that have to flat ride because maybe they have a little more awareness to well one of these is my law might be race inspired you know this is our strategy regardless and they don't let any crosstalk as far as strategy go from racing to commercial but they get the point across as far as right quality is concerned, whereas you don't get that anywhere else. I think that kind of helped me go, oh, maybe that's why the industry is where it is, and there's not many people championing the want for a change or better understanding.

Why is it that way?

Why can't we make it better?

People go nuts.

over the tunes for their cars, or how their car looks lowered, or the wheels that go on their car.

There's debates that go on to eternity, but nobody talks about anything to that degree about suspension.

It's a complete voodoo black box that either nobody wants to talk about or it just isn't, and there's no good reason why it's not talked about.

Yeah. Well, those are great discoveries, James. I know we hadn't spoken in a while, so you mentioning that is very interesting. And I think this is also where the idea of taking a race, what works in a racing environment with certain rule limitations, whether it's Formula One or NASCAR, especially things like NASCAR, where like rebound, rebound, more rebound, which ironically they're actually using a big front bar and soft springs to get the car to pull down to the bump stop so they're using elements I talk about but you know people are like oh well bump stops don't work on race cars well they work on NASCAR you know they use them actively you know and then like the idea of like a road suspension I mean ironically that the Porsches do come with flat ride most of them but the damper tuning and I have I have some graphs and I think what I'll do is I'll probably we can do some maybe some more technical conversation in the next video So this is like your feedback capturing that like I said I really really want to and I'm glad we're doing. I'm so glad we're doing. It's going to be great for your build thread and all of that too. And to be able to talk about what the factory was doing and how they're pulling you into the bump stop, the front bump stop with the Porsche. And BMW does this too, and Mercedes tends to do this, at least on the sportier models. And that's what makes it feel so tight, as you said. You know, it's very constrained. And if you hit a couple repeated bumps, that's when it gets harsh, because now you have no suspension compliance, and now the car's bouncing off the bump stop. You know, the factory suspension. It can take one or two, but once you get to the third one, it gets boom, boom. That's when it's really abusive. I think it's part of the experience that they want. There's also the whole changing from one generation to the next, a sense of if you're trading your older Porsche or your older BMW for a new one, how are you going to decide to get the new one? Well, it has to be faster. It has to smell newer, obviously, and it needs to probably feel sportier if you want a sport setup. And those are the things that the manufacturers typically do. Or they give you electronic suspension that can go from crazy stiff race mode, which may or may not be optimized, it probably isn't, to a softer street mode. And then you have your adjustable suspension, and that's sexier, and that's desirable. So you want to, again, it's marketing driven. Like you said, you take some of the race car engineering, and then you add the marketing component and mix it together, and you have this sort of Frankenstein monster, you know? Yes, yeah. Race-inspired, but marketing-driven, you know. Yes, yeah, and any industry will fall prey to that, where, you know, you just get a company, marketing just will, you give them an instill, run a mile.

Yeah.

And I think it's very clear and evident here, and my hope is...

Or maybe not figure, I mean, that's not a great way to phrase it, but more people want to try and realize the improvement the way they would like to see it. And learn what it means to actually experience what they experience. Given the different setups, like for putting different sized turbos on your car, you get the horsepower bug, you're like, oh, 500's fine, and then you want 700 horsepower, and then you want 1,000 horsepower, whatever. You go through those stages, and while you appreciate the change, you're never going to appreciate until you've moved on.

either problem area or the enjoyment.

You know, you've got a 700-horsepower car.

People debate that's plenty for the street, and other people are like, ah, it's not enough. And you're never really going to know until you step through that process.

But at least here, there can be, you know, in the form of feedback, there can be some encouragement to understand that that envelope or the room to push that envelope still exists. for suspension and ride quality. And I have not found anybody else who will offer it to the degree that you do.

So I still think that that's excellent. Thank you, James. Well, that's... You know, like you said, I'm working to educate people, and you, through your contrarian, skeptic nature, you were able to see that there's, again, I didn't invent flat ride, I just believe it really makes sense to consider it at first before dismissing it, and then you can see that, and then everything else comes from there. So I'm going to pause, I'll stop this video, and then we can start another one and kind of talk about some of the numbers, because I'd like to do that if you're interested in that as well. Okay. All right. So I'll stop this one right now. All right.