Electronic Ride Control

[naval-avi8or]

Just wanted to get a feel for what you GEN III guys/gals think about the Electronic Ride Control. Pro's, Con's or if anyone has ditched and replaced it with proformance shock (if so what ones). Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks
Curtis

 

[SHOZ123]

It is easy to disable but gives a very firm ride. This is what I like anyway. There are no other struts as good as OEM SARC struts unfortunately. There was a guy on TCCA who got Konis into the GEN 3 strut housings but had mixed feelings about it.

The VAPS is much improved over the GEN 2 version and if you just pull the SARC fuse you loose this too. I disable the ride height sensors to disable my SARC.

 

[Funmart6]

Ahaa, I guess by disabling the ride height sensors you retain the power steering? So how does one do this???

 

[SHOZ123]

In the trunk behind the passenger side back seat is the SARC controller. It has two identical plugs but one has a Grey wire on it. This is the sensor ground and if you cut it or switch it then the sensors won't work.

 

[SableOHC]

Konis in gen3

It is easy to disable but gives a very firm ride. This is what I like anyway. There are no other struts as good as OEM SARC struts unfortunately. There was a guy on TCCA who got Konis into the GEN 3 strut housings but had mixed feelings about it.

I'm the guy on TCCA The Koni inserts for the gen 2 will fit in the gen 3 strut housings, but the fully extended length of the gen 2 struts is longer than the gen 3. Combined with shorter Eibach springs w/o the weight of the car there is almost no compression at all on the springs. Since the springs were almost fully extended when I assembled everything, the final coil didn't lay down as flat as it would with another inch or two of compression. This made it a PITA to keep the front mount, bearing and seat all together.

The Koni/Eibach setup ends up being quite stiff, even with the Konis set on the softest setting. OTOH in combination with the 24/26 stabilizer bars from a gen 1, it now corners very flat indeed. It will go around highway cloverleafs at 50 MPH with the stock tires and even faster with the 18s. I scared the crap out of some coworkers when I took them to lunch

As Paul noted, my feelings are mixed. It's cool having the only gen 3 (AFAIK)rolling on Konis, but it would have been a lot less work and the same money to put in SARCs. (Note: the car is a gen 3 SLO).

 

[SASHO91]

wait let me get this straight....
with a simple cut of the wire, or pull of the fuse.... you can obtain a fimer ride quality w/ the GIII's???
does it improve handeling as well? cause you know it can be firm, and still not be a good handler.... know what i mean?

if that is the case....
*goes and buys GIII* there are a few here in town, but the guy wants too much for all of them.. he has like 4 GIII's and 2 GII's... he wants like 7-8k for the GIII's, and they are not worth that much, as far as condition...

 

[SHOZ123]

If you pull the fuse you loose the VAPS. Which BTW is vastly superior to the GEN2 bus steering.

If you cut the wire you just make the struts in hard mode all the time, or you can insert a switch so that it can be manually activated. Then you really have no trouble out handling the old SHOs.

 

[Glue Maker]

wait let me get this straight....
with a simple cut of the wire, or pull of the fuse.... you can obtain a fimer ride quality w/ the GIII's???
does it improve handeling as well? cause you know it can be firm, and still not be a good handler.... know what i mean?

if that is the case....
*goes and buys GIII* there are a few here in town, but the guy wants too much for all of them.. he has like 4 GIII's and 2 GII's... he wants like 7-8k for the GIII's, and they are not worth that much, as far as condition...

Yep. By pulling the fuse you lose most all assist and the suspension goes into wheel-to-frame mode. It goes into "Feel really fast!!" mode.