The P-Car Missing Link – Introducing CROSS
Your helmet is fastened, the car is fired up, and your gloves are on. You’re gripping the steering wheel with intensity as you stage for your first run in your Porsche car. As your palms start to sweat, you think to yourself the pros and cons of your actions in the next 30 minutes. Lap after lap you push your 996 harder through the turns not knowing when she will give out. One after another, cars pass you up as you exit the turns. You have a problem…we have a solution.
JIC Magic of Japan has many years of racing history with Japanese supercars. Silvia’s, Skyline’s, STI’s, EVO’s, and more. What most people don’t know is JIC’s influence and passion with the Porsche 911. That is where their brand CROSS comes into play. CROSS is directly targeted to the European car client. The JIC CROSS FLT-A2 Coilovers were developed off the same platform as their Japanese products, but with European vehicle dynamics in mind. The CROSS coilovers offer adjustable camber plates up front, pillowball mounts in the rear, 15 way adjustable dampening, monotube shock design, and a progressive spring rate. All of these features give you the capabilities to have an amazing track day car, with the reassurance of comfort and handling as a daily driver.
- Installing the coilovers is not a difficult task. You will need some standard tools to accomplish the job like: Socket wrench set, open end wrenches, flat head screw driver, and maybe an extra set of hands. The installation can be done with ramps, jack stands, or if you have access to one, a full lift.
- First step is to remove the under bonnet garnish trim. This is the trim that covers your battery and shock towers. From there you will have access to the strut top bolts.
- Next is removing the wheel from the car. From here you will be able to access the brake bracket, lower shock bolt, and brake line clip.
- To remove the coilover, you will have to remove the brake caliper. Do not disconnect the brake line. The factory Porsche brake is held on by two Allen bolts. Once these bolts are removed, you can set the brake caliper aside. The caliper can hang by the brake line or rest on the front control arm.
- With the brake now out of the way, you can remove the lower shock bolts which hold the factory strut in place. Remove the bolt that holds the brake line to the shock. Loosen the strut top nuts all the way off. You can now let the shock drop and rotate it out of its factory position.
- Once the factory strut is out, you will notice that the JIC CROSS FLT-A2 is much shorter. Slide the FLT-A2 into the fender well and secure the nuts from the top. Do not tighten all the way yet. You can now slide the bottom of the shock into the factory assembly. It may be easier to use a jack placed underneath the rotor and lift it into position.
- Fix the brake line back to the shock and re-attach the brake caliper to the brake bracket. Once everything on the bottom is tight you can torque the top strut nuts down. Do not over tighten or they will break. Repeat process for other side.
- The rear coilovers are very similar to the front. You can access the rear strut tops from the inside of the car. They are located behind the seats. Pull back the carpet and there they are!
- After you have removed the wheel to gain access to the strut assembly, you will need to remove the lower shock bolt. Loosen the three strut top nuts off completely. After the lower shock bolt is removed the shock can be lowered out. When dropping the factory shock, if you need more room to remove the strut assembly, disconnect the factory camber link.
- Slide the JIC FLT-A2 into the fender well and replace the strut top nuts to hold the shock into place. Fasten lower shock bolt and then replace suspension linkage as needed.
- Torque down the strut top nuts appropriately and repeat entire process for other side.
The JIC FLT-A2 comes preset from JIC Magic with camber and ride height settings. The factory camber settings are at zero degrees and the ride height lowers the front and rear about 1.5 inches. The dampening is controlled from the bottom of the shock in the front and the top of the shock in the rear. These may be set in the middle but some adjustment will be necessary. Also JIC offers three different spring rates. With our experience in JIC suspension, we choose the medium set-up. This spring rate combination was 8kg in the front and 12kg in the rear.
When setting up your coilovers, you will want to set your ride height first. For us, we wanted a more aggressive, lowered look with improved handling on the track. Using the supplied adjusting wrenches, we lowered the shock body down to give the front end a two-inch drop from factory. We kept the spring adjustments the same. By tightening the spring perch, you can change the spring travel which will give you a softer or bumpier ride. The rear end of the car we chose to lower about 1.8 inches from stock. Using the same supplied wrenches, we were able to make this adjustment easily. Once our ride height was set and all the wheels were on, we drove the car over to our local alignment shop to get a 4-wheel alignment.
Using the JIC camber plates, the front was set to -1.25 degrees of camber and the rear using the factory adjustments was set to about -.5 degrees. This is a great set-up for occasional track but mostly street use. Next we needed to dial our dampening in. With 15 way adjustability, several combinations needed to be tried. We set the front firm at about four clicks back from all the way stiff. The rear we left softer at about three clicks from all the way soft. This will allow the rear of the 996 to come out more and help in bringing the car around in turning. Your dampening settings will be determined by your driving style, sway bar settings, and type of road or track you usually drive on.
Our final test was a track day at the IRL and NASCAR track, Phoenix International Raceway. The progressive spring rate, in combination with helper springs, gave the car a good lean in turns. With the drop in the car height, the quick turns and banked oval were executed with the improved set up. Our dampening settings were good, but could have used a few adjustments. By having the rear end so soft, the back would tend to step out a bit too much. A harder dampening setting and different sway bar setting would help balance the over and under steer. As with all Vivid Racing cars, we build them to have many driving capabilities. The freeway ride was very smooth and the streets were a bit stiff, but hey, this is no Lexus. The best way to describe the overall impression of the JIC CROSS FLT-A2 is to quote one of the BMW race car drivers who drove our Porsche 996. His full race BMW M3 had Bilstein PSS9’s and other racing suspension components. “I can’t believe how good this car handled the turns, all you have is coilovers and sway bars?” Not bad for a coilover setup that retails for $2880.
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