Is a little over alright?

How BILSTEIN DampTronic X technology provides unrivalled driving dynamics in the new Porsche 911

With every new generation of the Porsche 911, one could easily ask: How does the 911 manage to reinvent itself every time? Somehow the sports car icon always manages impressively to be clearly recognised as a 911 – despite new designs – on the one hand, and to reliably set the driving dynamics benchmark on the other. With the latest Porsche 911, the 992, the developers went one step further.

Since competition never sleeps and the own clientele never becomes less demanding, the brand new 911 generation should achieve two things: First, it should repeatedly show the entire competition top-level driving dynamics, and secondly, it should considerably increase the driving comfort.

For years, high agility and high ride comfort were criteria which practically excluded each other. But Porsche has been proving for years that it is possible. In the new Porsche 911 the developers took it to extremes. Especially with the suspension. And that’s where we came in.

With our shock absorber expertise, we closely supported Porsche in the development of the PASM shock absorber (Porsche Active Suspension Management) with new technology. “When Porsche first confronted us with the requirements of the new Porsche 992 in 2015, we already had plans in the drawer for a shock absorber in which the conflict of objectives between driving comfort and agility could be resolved,” reveals Dr. -Ing. Andreas Rohde, Head of Technology & Innovation.

“The customer wanted a much wider spread between agility and driving comfort in order to have more possibilities to characterise the car,” the expert says. This is made possible by our brand new DampTronic X damper, which is celebrating its premiere in the Porsche 992.

“The DampTronic X damper is equipped with a very fast switching adjustment valve,” explains Rohde. “Its high adjustment dynamics allow the required damping forces to be adjusted in a few milliseconds to the damping requirement determined by the central control unit. The control concept calculates and adjusts the damping several hundred times per second, depending on the driving situation and wheel-selectively”. As a result, both agility and driving comfort as well as safety can be increased.

Together with the Porsche engineers, we worked for about three years on the development of the system. “We were going in circles to meet customer requirements in terms of identification and robustness,” says Andreas Verhoven, Key Account Manager for Porsche. Testing was carried out on the high-speed circuit at Nardo and, of course, on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife.

The result is impressive: Compared to its predecessor, the Porsche 991, the damping force in the standard suspension of the Porsche 992 has up to 40 percent more spread.

This makes the new Porsche 911 even more comfortable to drive. But the new 911 generation has not lost its agility. Quite the contrary! Andreas Verhoven picks up a current car magazine and opens the comparative test between the new Porsche and a competitor’s model.

“If you push the Carrera S to the limit, it demonstrates all its perfection”, Verhoven begins to read with a satisfied smile. “It is faster at every braking point, decelerates more stable, takes more speed into the curve, follows the ideal line as if on rails and whips back onto the straight. And this despite the fact that Porsche has chosen an astonishingly safe set-up.”

More agility, more comfort and more driving safety – rarely has a sports car been as perfect as the new Porsche 911.