View Single Post
  #4  
Old August 13th 2019, 16:31
H2OSB H2OSB is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Modesto, CA
Posts: 197
Your car is amazing similar to my '74 (though I'm insanely jealous of your R&P steering). My coil overs are VERY similar to yours. I have 944 housings with a Ground Control coil over kit(I'll try to add a pic from my phone in a bit), running 2.5 inch 120# springs. What are you doing for the rear? I have 26mm 924 upgrade torsion bars on the rear. I found them on the Auto Atlanta site on sale for $100 for the pair, brand new.

My other 1303('73) has 23.5mm 944 torsion bars, with a very similar front set up(but with Raceland coil overs from a VW Caddy...same 120#). I recently ran an autocross with the car (like you, stock 1600DP) and was astonished at how well it handled. It has Topline front and rear sway bars, and felt super neutral. Even in monsoon like rain, it was nearly impossible to break the rear loose. All that car needs is more power. Oh, it has CBPerformnce front and rear disc brakes. Nothing fancy, but perfectly effective. the suspension on that car, on the road, feels sporty but absolutely not punishing.

With the '74, my intent is to run stiffer springs and less sway. I already have the 26mm torsions like I said, but I've not gotten stiffer front springs. I plane to run the stock front sway bar with urethane bushings. On the rear, I have a 15mm 944 sway bar with brackets I made myself (for the torsion housings...I used created pieces and 944 pieces for the endlinks). My hypothesis is the light sways with still control lean but give a little more independence at each corner*.

The brakes on the '74 are stock 944 rear and a hybrid 944/914 set up on the front. Hybrid in that I'm using 944 spindles, hubs and rotors, with the rotors turned down enough to allow spaced out 914 front calipers to actually bolt to the 944 spindles. To space the calipers, I used the spacers from the REAR 911 M calipers, which are the exact same casting as the 914 fronts (but with a 35mm piston). It all seemed brilliant until I had to source bolts to hold it all together. 914 calipers use 7mm bolts to hold the halves together. Go ahead, see if you can find those online. I had to order them from Germany from a company called Tola Tool. They were the only company I could find with the right length AND hardness (12.9). They were EXPENSIVE, and shipping from Germany to California was nearly the same as the purchase price. At least they're socket head and not that silly Ribe style.

Ugh, sorry for the partial hyjack. I started my response with the intent to talking about an idea to deal with the camber issue.

First off, I tried Topline's extra eccentric inner control arm bolts. Then, I bought two sets of VW "crash bolts". Still I could only get about 0 degrees, and I was hoping for -2 to -2.5 degrees. Since you have the same strut housings as I do, you have a slotted top hole(incidentally, the Raceland coilovers I have on the other car have slotted top holes too). One day while staring at one strut any thinking about giving up on using 944 spindles, I realized the flange on the top crash bolts was big enough to limit the amount of camber I could get. I found a camber adjusting bolts made for 944s, by Whiteline(the were actually pretty cheap on Amazon). Suddenly, I had plenty of camber adjustment because the shaft of the bolts is 12mm, and, obviously, the camber bolts are made for the 944. So with the items I described and the Topline extra eccentric inner bolts, I'm able to get quite a bit of negative camber.

However, I have another idea to gain camber, and it goes along with your idea to have longer control arms. Since you have 944 spindles, I ASSume you have Kerscher ball joints. It has ALWAYS rankled me that Kerscher is the ONLY source for those ball joints. There's a company in Germany called Mike's Boxer Service. He got around the ball joint issue by using early Passat ball joints. You just have to remove the stock ball joint cup and do a small amount of side clearancing on the ball joint, then drill two holes. There's a whole thread about this on STFs but I'm too lazy to look it up and link it right now. Bottom line is, you can gain length for the control arm by changing where the holes are drilled (within reason).

That's all I got
H2OSB
__________________
johnL (aka H2OSB)
'74 1303, Outlaw sedan (with a GL flavor)
Reply With Quote