TL;DR - BMR's Watts link is AMAZING! It's not just for drag racing. Hella grip and steering response. Will pay dividends on highway pulls.
I finished up installing the BMR Watts link and upgraded pivot yesterday. I went for a test drive, and all I can say is, WOW. What a difference! I previously had their adjustable panhard bar and mount. I thought that was great, but the Watts link is some next level stuff. It genuinely changes the driving experience. From parking lot to city to freeway speeds, the rear (to me) literally feels like something is pulling it down into the pavement. A strange sensation. It's almost difficult to describe. And that's with it adjusted more toward steering response than grip! Setting it more for grip would probably be way too much for street driving.
I mean, words can't really describe my initial impressions. It's something you have to experience for yourself to really believe it's true. Funny thing is, I didn't even buy this thing to enhance grip. I bought it to keep the car's body centered over the rear axle so I wouldn't have that brief "oh shit!" moment that happens when you hook a left hand curve at speed in the S197. It was always disconcerting, and it took away from the driving fun. The car never let go (well, it did twice, but that was at low speed and on a cold road surface/tires), but every time, it would feel like the rear was going to snap around. I got sick of it. Then BMR had a Christmas sale! Time to upgrade to a Watts link.
To be honest, I only thought a Watts link was for body control. I really didn't know about the other benefits. It actually does affect grip and steering! The on-center mush in the steering wheel is significantly reduced. That's something I've been trying to get rid of for a few years now with various suspension bits and tires to varying degrees of success; each incrementally better. This is going to be SO much fun in the mountains this summer!
I also have BMR's adjustable sway bars. I have the rear bar set to maximum tightness, so that's probably contributing a lot to how planted the rear feels. I have the front bar set to the middle, and now it sort of feels like the rear is shoving the front around, but not in an understeer type of way. I'll probably add another notch of stiffness to the front bar to even it out and make the steering response even better. I want it setup where it's not prone to understeer or oversteer, just dead neutral; which will probably be pretty difficult to accomplish on a nose heavy car.
About that grip, though! Toward the end of the shakedown run, I hopped on the highway for a couple of miles. I was in 4th doing somewhere between 55 and 60 at the end of the on-ramp and gave it the spurs for a quick blast. I can honestly say that my GT500 has never buried the speedometer so fast! Maybe it was the cool, albeit humid, air. But I've driven it on days like that before and not gotten that kind of acceleration. Maybe all this time when I was thinking I had traction, I was still spinning the tires. :shrug: Hit a bridge expansion joint and it stayed planted. Crossed over the lane lines and it didn't even squiggle; definitely felt it, but no squiggle.
I opted for the spherical rod ends. If there is any increase in NVH, I can't detect it (yet). In fact, I'm more inclined to say there's slightly LESS NVH back there. The only noise is the gear whine that has been persistent ever since I upgraded the UCA and mount. I only heard one clunk over one bump. That was probably just the Watts "settling" in on the axle. Not one peep out of it over any other rougher bumps.
The install was, for the most part, straight forward. There were no unfortunate or unforeseen surprises, just a lot of loading and unloading the suspension to get at some fasteners and crawling out from under the car.
If you have the coin but were on the fence about getting a Watts link, just do it! It's worth it. It's not just for drag racing.
Oh! I almost forgot. Some of you might recall me mentioning having a real bad vibration around 120. Well, that vibration is non existent at that speed now and not much to speak of when the speedometer is below horizontal. The quick highway blast was smooth.
The bad part is I added 18 lbs back onto the car. The Watts link with all it's fasteners is right at 30 lbs. The BMR panhard bar and brace with its fasteners was 12 lbs. I guess I'll be buying BPS's lightweight engine mounts and VMP's tensioner to offset some of that 18 lbs at the front end. This hobby is sooooo expensive! :'(
I finished up installing the BMR Watts link and upgraded pivot yesterday. I went for a test drive, and all I can say is, WOW. What a difference! I previously had their adjustable panhard bar and mount. I thought that was great, but the Watts link is some next level stuff. It genuinely changes the driving experience. From parking lot to city to freeway speeds, the rear (to me) literally feels like something is pulling it down into the pavement. A strange sensation. It's almost difficult to describe. And that's with it adjusted more toward steering response than grip! Setting it more for grip would probably be way too much for street driving.
I mean, words can't really describe my initial impressions. It's something you have to experience for yourself to really believe it's true. Funny thing is, I didn't even buy this thing to enhance grip. I bought it to keep the car's body centered over the rear axle so I wouldn't have that brief "oh shit!" moment that happens when you hook a left hand curve at speed in the S197. It was always disconcerting, and it took away from the driving fun. The car never let go (well, it did twice, but that was at low speed and on a cold road surface/tires), but every time, it would feel like the rear was going to snap around. I got sick of it. Then BMR had a Christmas sale! Time to upgrade to a Watts link.
To be honest, I only thought a Watts link was for body control. I really didn't know about the other benefits. It actually does affect grip and steering! The on-center mush in the steering wheel is significantly reduced. That's something I've been trying to get rid of for a few years now with various suspension bits and tires to varying degrees of success; each incrementally better. This is going to be SO much fun in the mountains this summer!
I also have BMR's adjustable sway bars. I have the rear bar set to maximum tightness, so that's probably contributing a lot to how planted the rear feels. I have the front bar set to the middle, and now it sort of feels like the rear is shoving the front around, but not in an understeer type of way. I'll probably add another notch of stiffness to the front bar to even it out and make the steering response even better. I want it setup where it's not prone to understeer or oversteer, just dead neutral; which will probably be pretty difficult to accomplish on a nose heavy car.
About that grip, though! Toward the end of the shakedown run, I hopped on the highway for a couple of miles. I was in 4th doing somewhere between 55 and 60 at the end of the on-ramp and gave it the spurs for a quick blast. I can honestly say that my GT500 has never buried the speedometer so fast! Maybe it was the cool, albeit humid, air. But I've driven it on days like that before and not gotten that kind of acceleration. Maybe all this time when I was thinking I had traction, I was still spinning the tires. :shrug: Hit a bridge expansion joint and it stayed planted. Crossed over the lane lines and it didn't even squiggle; definitely felt it, but no squiggle.
I opted for the spherical rod ends. If there is any increase in NVH, I can't detect it (yet). In fact, I'm more inclined to say there's slightly LESS NVH back there. The only noise is the gear whine that has been persistent ever since I upgraded the UCA and mount. I only heard one clunk over one bump. That was probably just the Watts "settling" in on the axle. Not one peep out of it over any other rougher bumps.
The install was, for the most part, straight forward. There were no unfortunate or unforeseen surprises, just a lot of loading and unloading the suspension to get at some fasteners and crawling out from under the car.
If you have the coin but were on the fence about getting a Watts link, just do it! It's worth it. It's not just for drag racing.
Oh! I almost forgot. Some of you might recall me mentioning having a real bad vibration around 120. Well, that vibration is non existent at that speed now and not much to speak of when the speedometer is below horizontal. The quick highway blast was smooth.
The bad part is I added 18 lbs back onto the car. The Watts link with all it's fasteners is right at 30 lbs. The BMR panhard bar and brace with its fasteners was 12 lbs. I guess I'll be buying BPS's lightweight engine mounts and VMP's tensioner to offset some of that 18 lbs at the front end. This hobby is sooooo expensive! :'(
Wish I had known that before I bought the pivot! But no regrets yet. Maybe when people look under there, I can brag about how it's 6 oz. lighter than the standard pivot. 
