Where I'm at so far...
 

A few pics of the 1303 pan and stuff

Mo' pics...

looking good yeti :D


btw, what are those stabilizer bars that you welded on the the
lower control arms?

They're diagonal links with heim joints at the upper ends. They keep the horizontal control arms from having to rely on the sway bar to control caster, like a radius arm would.

They are only tacked on in the pics. I've made the pieces to box the whole arms in with, top and bottom. I'll weld them at work tomorrow.

Sure could have saved a bunch of time welding that 911 front end I have in place. :laugh:

Looks good Joe, gonna have to come and see it soon.

A pre-964 front end is less high tech than a Mc Pherson 1303 front end ;)

The extra control arms with heim joints look a lot like a set-up I saw many years ago on a german Kaefercup car.. :)

Looks very good!
Walter

PS: Jurgen, did you ever come to informing about shipping costs of the 912E tach we talked about?

What transmission is the crossmember for?
 

Yetibone,

That is a really sout crossmember you have there. What transmission is it for?

Randy

914/901. I made it from 6061 aluminum.

It looks great, I love that crossmember, looks more professinal than mine, 3 peices of flat bar, and a peice of square tubing. :rolleyes:

Great looking pictures too, I love to see projects in progress. :) Keep up the good work!

Dude got mad skills. :agree:

Looks verry verry nice...

I like what you made on the front of your car!!!!! I hope it support for the right task.

Greetings Wiebrand

p.s. I shall not copy it :D

If you copy it, I won't mind. No patents on anything. :) I just didn't want the caster changing as the suspension jounces, or if I hit the brakes hard and turn in. This way, the horizontal control arms track straight up and down, and not in an arch. Plus, with this geometry I can actually ADJUST caster wiff the heim joints. :D

The 2 piece shiftrod is the big thing. I wanted to make the 901 shift right in my Bug. I got two 1" OD universal joints, one 12" behind the shifter, and one at the selector shaft on the gearbag, to work with the mis-alignment of the selector shaft and the base of the shifter. Everything else is pre-72 911 stuff.

It shifts SO SMOOOOOTH!!!

Thanks for the kind words fellas, I'll keep yall updated and try not to be such a stranger 'round here anymore. :o

So let me get this straight, Yeti, your using 2 universal joints instead of welding on length and bending a Z into it. That sounds a lot like the what VW did with the steering linkage on the '71-'74 supers. I'll considering that for my setup.

Nick

Yep. That's what I did. Here's a link...

https://sdp-si.com/eStore/Direct.asp?CP=Index.htm

That's where I got the joints. P/N A5Q 8-D516.

Thats exactly what I am working on .. I've got the shift rod welded up with the U-Joints and used a Bug shift rod shortening kit on one end of the shift rod for adjustability. By the angles involved, I don't see how putting a Z bend in the rod would work, let alone shift smoothly ... the 2 u-joints are definately the way to go.

Project looks great !

Sandeep

We are very OT, but:
There is more than one way to achieve great shifting. I got my 915 trans to shift super smoothly and very direct. The so-called Z shape shift rod is a great eggageration (sp?). It only bends a very little and will therefore not make a noticeable difference whith the limited rotating of the rod when the shifter is move sideways.
The big difference lies in the same: the coupling. The porsche coupling is vastly superior, but has a build-in slack (as new!) to accommedate the moving of the trans/engine in a 911. In a well set-up bug with stiffer mounting of trans/engine, this won't happen that severely and engine torque will not pull the trans out of a gear. So, you can use a better coupling bushing without slack (as sold by Pelican). This makes a huge difference is my experience.

Greetings,
Walter

Will those support arms attached to the control arm arch at the same radius as the sway bar will? You might be creating some uneccasary forces on the control arms if the sway is traveling in a different direction. You could however leave the sway bar non bolted to the control arm so is would be free to move a little during suspension travel. I am talking nonsense or does this make sense? BTW that looks like a killer pan.

The swaybar attaches to the control arms by heim-jointed drop-links. It's no longer a structural member of the front suspension.

Pics of the finished control arms... :)

Looking realy good Yeti... I realy like what you did with your pedals. :agree:

Thanks BG. :) The holy pedals were kind of an afterthought, but I'm glad I did the drillin' :agree:


Here's some mo' front end parts...

Those struts look good man. What springs rates are you using? And where did you get the adjustable bottom perches from?

Sweet. I love the McColors. Now all you need is McSway-bars and McStut-brace and you will have a complete McFront-end combo,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,add a Super Size order McCalipers and McRotors. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Oh and hold the onions. :agree:

I got a Happy Meal

The springs are prolly somewhere between 75 and 80lbs or so, I don't know. I got them from AC.net, and they're for a Super. The perches are stock 1303, and the threaded sleeves, and jam-nuts I got from a local speed shop.

great looking set up you got there yeti! I like the red springs....they stand out against the yellow quite a bit. :agree:

Yeti,
This is really cool, I am enjoying the progress you are making, it is inspiring me to get in my own garage and get going, especially with 2 projects now...

Looks awesome! Just tell me the struts bottom out before the front of the control arm does?

Jason

Well, the IIRC, the ball joints are 6.5" off the ground with 205/40-17 tires, so with the frame head on the ground, and the ball joints 6.5" off the ground, I have about 1/4" clearance between the control arm and it's channel within the framehead. The bump-stops make contactwell before that.

That's what the angle is for in those diagonal links I added to the control arm. Eliminates an acclusion problem.

Looking good Yetiman.
Your front suspension setup looks quite the same that I´ve been thinking of. They have used similar "compression struts" or "radius arms" in RWD Ford Escorts for rallying. Take a look:
http://www.prepfab.co.uk/newsuspension.htm
And I remember seeing a setup like that in a Japanese racer featured article.
Very interesting upgrade to a super I think.
Justin

Yeah, the J-Sports Bug gave me the idea. It appears they used 1302 arms on that car, prolly class rules for racing :confused: . My 1303 came with the early cast steel arms too, but I nixed them 'cause of weight, unadaptability to Porsche spindles, and having to weld dissimilar metal together (cast steel to forged steel)

I really like this radius arm idea....I think i am going to head the same direction. I dont like the formed arms of my 1303, they seem weaker than the 1302 arms. I think i want to box mine in also and add the "radius" arm in the front.

How did you decide the length of the arm and the location of the hiems?

Ted

I kinda eyeballed it with two broomsticks where the added on strut-rods would be, then used two string lines to line up where the heim joints would go with the control arm pivot points. I wanted to make sure they were in line with each other, so the steering axis wouldn't change as the suspension compacts.

The angle of the pieces I welded on, in relation to the control arms, weren't on purpose. That's just how it came together. The critical part was the bend in the added on pieces. They attach to the control arms with about a 5 degree downward angle, and have about a 12 degree bend upwards, halfway to the end so I would have full travel all the way to some shortened 1303 bump stops without the add on pieces hitting the frame head first.

Unless you're going to add strut-rods on to the stock arms like this, I wouldn't recomend boxing them in for strength. The stock suspension relies on the "twist" that the stock control arms have to keep the sway-bar from binding the whole works up. Without that twist, you'd be replacing sway-bar bushings every month, and would have a hell of a time putting it together because of the binding-up.

Another thing to stress, take your time, measure three times, and don't try this unless you're sure you can do it right, and without compromise.

Yettibone... I read this topic on your front arms a time ago.
And now I'm at the fase of making the last changes on my chassis before painting and I see this topic again i'm maybe also make it someway like yours.

But I'm overlooking it now because I also want to go verry low with my super.

Wiebrand

I understand. :)

However, mine will bottom the struts out (without bump-stops) before the strut-rods hit the frame head, and the sway-bar mounts will drag the ground before the heim-joint channels do.

Pics of my strut tower brace, and Kafer Cup brace pieces. Still haven't finished the bars for the cup brace, and still waiting for some 6" M12 bolts from McMaster to finish the tops of the rear shock towers.

couple mo' pics...

yeti, what are you doing for bumpstops on the rear? i still have yet to do anything and need to. much more difficult with the body on though.

Since I got early alloy arms, I made some from the leftovers of my sawed-off shorter front bumpstops.

Drilled a 1/4 inch hole 1/2 inch deep, tapped it to M8 1.25, stuffed the leftover washers from some stock 944 inner rear control arm bushings into those little rubber acordians, and bolted 'em down.

I know you have later alloy arms on yours, so the pedistal isn't there. Is there some way you could adapt swingaxle bumpstops to work on yours?

Just to throw this out there

http://www.kartek.com/prod-windows/a...sac-601901.jpg

I was thinking of using the Saco shifter box. Cut a hole in the tunnel right behind the stock shifter big enough to fit the box through. That way you could slide the box forward bolt it up then have access to the uni joint. One behind the shifter and the other at the nose cone. The rod inside the box is support at both ends, and because the bushings are brass the shifting should be like ice even though the difference in angles.