If at first you don’t succeed… As a follow-up to our original story on the 981 Cayman S, seen here, read on below.

Think of chassis setup as a steak. Each steak has it’s sweet spot, yet every person prefers their steak cooked differently. As for what is correct, temperature, just like lap times, typically dictates the setup. However, with a street-driven car personal “taste” plays an equal role, just as it would during a steak dinner.

Our 981 Cayman S dev unit is outfitted with 311RS-spec JRZ RS2s. The setup is inherently track-focused and as such, runs a fairly stiff spring. Contrary to our previous 311RS Evo X units, some of us found the 981 Cayman platform does not need as stiff of a spring to achieve the balance we strive for, especially during street driving.

The 981 Cayman chassis is so nice and stiff that the springs seemed to overwhelm the platform on the especially bumpy Minnesota roads. Even with rebound and compression adjustability via the 311RS-spec JRZ RS2s, we couldn’t completely rid the chassis of it’s bouncy ride quality. So the call was made to move to a 50% softer spring package. And the results were immediate.

We took the car out the next morning to get a feel for the new setup. As mentioned, the results were immediate. The car rides really nice. It’s smooth and plush, but not without any platform at all.

The car is a pleasure to drive. After a few drives with the new springs setup, the car had settled from our previous chassis setup which means it’s time to refresh the chassis setup before PCA First Fling at BIR next month.