Adjustable suspensionmade to measure
Set the ride height and behaviour of your sports car to match how you drive it, on road or track, with a workshop located 700 metres from Paul Ricard.
- Workshop in Signes (83)
- 700 m from the Paul Ricard circuit
- Bespoke road and track settings
Adjustable suspension tailored to how you drive
Adjustable suspension lets you set the height, firmness and balance of your car to match how you actually use it.
- ▸ Adjustable height
- Lower or raise your car for more presence and grip, without making it impractical for everyday use.
- ▸ Controlled behaviour
- Find the balance between road comfort and track precision by tuning the firmness of the damping.
- ▸ Bespoke setup
- Every setting starts from your car and your usage, with the same made-to-measure logic as our engine mapping.
- ▸ Road and track
- Enjoy a pleasant road base that can be fine-tuned ahead of a day at the Paul Ricard circuit.
When adjustable suspension really makes the difference
Road use
A healthier stance and more precise behaviour on your journeys, without sacrificing everyday enjoyment.
Track use
A chassis fine-tuned before a session at Paul Ricard, to safely make the most of your sports car's potential.
Mixed use
A road and track compromise set to your programme, which you can adapt from one weekend to the next.
How we approach bespoke adjustable suspension
At Bernis Factory, adjustable suspension is never just about fitting dampers and picking a height at random. Our work always starts from your car, its weight, its engine and above all how you use it. A car driven mainly on the road is not set up like one meant for track days, and that difference guides every choice we make. Chassis preparation is one of our trades, just like engine preparation, and we approach it with the same made-to-measure standard.
In practice, we first discuss your expectations: comfort, road holding, the behaviour you are after and how you plan to use the car. From there, we define the height and damping settings that make the most sense for your car, then refine them. This approach avoids the most common pitfall of poorly used adjustable suspension: a car that is too stiff, impractical day to day and gains nothing in real effectiveness.
Which settings to favour between road and track
Adjustable suspension is not a single soft-to-firm slider. Four families of settings define how your sports car behaves, and the difference lies in how they are balanced between road use and track running. Here are the levers we work on and what each one actually changes.
- 01
- Ride height and stanceLowering the body drops the centre of gravity and limits weight transfer, but it also reduces the available suspension travel. On a car driven mainly on the road we keep enough ground clearance to absorb poor surfaces; for track use the stance can come down and the front-to-rear balance be adjusted to steer the behaviour.
- 02
- Damping: rebound and compressionCompression controls how the wheel absorbs a bump, rebound the speed at which it returns to the road. Damping that is too firm makes the car skip over broken surfaces and lose grip. This is the first setting we adjust when the same car has to alternate between road journeys and track days.
- 03
- Geometry: camber and toeAny change in ride height shifts the geometry: camber and toe must then be reset, otherwise the car wears its tyres abnormally and loses stability. Negative camber keeps the tyre flat on the road under load, while toe settings trade straight-line stability against turn-in response.
- 04
- Front-to-rear balanceAnti-roll bars, spring rates and the spread of the settings decide whether the car tends to understeer or oversteer. This is the final tuning lever: rather than stiffening everything, we shift the balance between the two axles until we reach the behaviour you are after, while keeping a sound and usable base.
Adjustable suspension and the Paul Ricard circuit
Our workshop is located 700 metres from the Paul Ricard circuit at Le Castelet, and that closeness changes a great deal when setting up adjustable suspension. We can prepare your car's chassis, then adjust the settings according to what you actually feel on track. This back-and-forth between the workshop and the circuit is part of our daily routine: we are an official BMW M France partner for track support and recommended by ORECA, and our team has a recovery truck to step in directly on site.
Chassis preparation and adjustable suspension in Signes
Bernis Factory is located at 26 Allée de Dublin in Signes, in the Var. Sports car enthusiasts from the region and visitors passing through Le Castelet find a workshop able to handle chassis preparation and adjustable suspension setup, alongside servicing, engine preparation and restoration. Working locally, just minutes from the circuit, lets us follow your car over time rather than deliver a setting fixed once and for all.
Go further in preparing your sports car
Frequently asked questions about adjustable suspension
- What is adjustable suspension?
- Adjustable suspension lets you tune certain parameters of your car, such as ride height and damping firmness. You can adapt your sports car's behaviour to your usage, instead of living with a factory setting designed for the average driver.
- Can adjustable suspension be used every day?
- Yes, provided it is set up intelligently. The whole point of a bespoke approach is to find a comfortable road base that can then be stiffened for the track. An overly extreme setting is rarely pleasant day to day, which is why we always start from how you actually use the car.
- Do you set up the suspension for road as well as track?
- Yes. We work on cars meant for the road as well as sports cars used on track, and often both. As our workshop is 700 metres from the Paul Ricard circuit, we can refine the settings to match your programme.
- Is adjustable suspension part of chassis preparation?
- Yes. Setting up adjustable suspension is part of our chassis preparation, one of our trades alongside engine preparation, servicing and the restoration of high-end sports cars.
- Which chassis settings should you favour for a car driven both on the road and on track?
- We start from a sound road-going base, then keep headroom on the reversible settings. In practice, ride height and geometry are set to stay liveable day to day, while damping, tyre pressures and the balance between the two axles are what we adjust before a track day. A chassis approached this way stays pleasant on the road without costing you performance at Paul Ricard.
- Does the geometry need to be reset after changing the ride height?
- Yes. Changing the height mechanically shifts camber and toe: without resetting the geometry, the car wears its tyres abnormally and loses stability. That is why we always treat height, geometry and damping as one whole, never as independent settings.
- Do you give a price for adjustable suspension?
- Every project is different depending on your car, your usage and the result you are after. The simplest step is to tell us about your vehicle and your expectations so we can work out the most suitable solution together.
Adjustable suspension designed for high-end sports cars
Finding adjustable suspension genuinely suited to a sports car takes more than a parts catalogue. The behaviour of a high-end sports car depends on a subtle balance between height, damping and usage, and a generic setting often misses what really makes the difference. Bernis Factory tackles this subject from its Signes workshop, with the eye of a team used to working on Ferrari, BMW M, Mercedes AMG, Porsche and Nissan GT-R, on road as well as track.
By linking chassis preparation, braking and engine preparation, we always look for overall coherence rather than the performance of a single component. Well-used adjustable suspension makes full sense when it works with the rest of the car, and it is this global vision, close to the Paul Ricard circuit, that we put at the service of your project.
Let's discuss your adjustable suspension project
Tell us about your car, your usage and the behaviour you are after: together we will work out the adjustable suspension best suited to your sports car.
A project,
a call.
Tell us about your car and how you use it. We'll figure out the right service together, maintenance, engine tuning, chassis, restoration.
83870 Signes
Across from the Paul Ricard circuit
Monday, Friday · 9:30-18:00
By appointment only