Time attack beetle

[Clatter]

Putting the FAT back in "Fat Chick"!

[Wally]

Looking good and functional there!
I do hope your ground clearence is enough; it does work better that low otot
Let us know how the difference feels with/without the air dam when you have finished it. I have an idea already tho

[Humble]

I'm not sure if the headlights will stay or not since this is a race car first and foremost. I may just put aluminum discs in place to eliminate a couple pounds of glass.

I will definitely need to raise her up in the front at least 1-1.5" because the down force from the air dam and splitter will pull it back down at least that much. Talking to a few US touring car teams, I might need to swap in heavier springs to compensate as well.

I've learned a few more aero tricks that I'm going to try and implement on the car before the race season kicks off next year. I've also got a friend who's willing to do some paint/body work for me so hopefully that happens in the next month or so.

[Fast65]

hi love the car


cheers andy

[Bug@5speed(US)]

Wow,

Never seen any of those Racer's Edge bolts break..

Looking good BTW..
VR
ALex

[Wally]

Cool report! Thanks!
Good pics, but they do show you need more sway bar and/or more spring for a racer imo. I agree, it must have bottomend out and hammering the bolt. Can't you get some snubbers mounted somehow (inside the shock or in the original location)?

What rear coil-overs did you use there in the rear again?
Tnx,
Walter

[Humble]

The biggest front bar I've found is a 7/8" I'm not sure if there is anything larger. I have an 18mm rear 944 bar to go in but I didn't want to add it until the springs were close to final. I honestly didn't expect the rears to bottom out because the general consensus was the rear springs were much to stiff. Looking at the pics I thought even the fronts were overkill but they're a bit too soft as well.

Right now the springs are 300# front and 550# rear and I think I might add 50% to that and run 450# front and slightly more 900# rear. I talked to a porsche racer at a track day and his car weighed in at 2200# and he was using 1000# front and 1350# rear! The same porsche was also on 17x11 front and 17x13 rear wheels w/ slicks.

The rear shocks are QA1 single adjustables, which I'll swap out for double adjustables, and put the singles on the street bug. I'll have to find some snubbers that fit in the shocks to hopefully prevent them from bottoming out.

[volkdent]

Originally Posted by Humble

The rear shocks are QA1 single adjustables, which I'll swap out for double adjustables, and put the singles on the street bug. I'll have to find some snubbers that fit in the shocks to hopefully prevent them from bottoming out.

As I recall QA1 actually sells snubbers that go onto the shaft. That's what I've got up front on mine.

Jason

[Wally]

I agree I haven't seen ever more then 7/8" front sway bar.
The spring upgrade steps you plan are very large! I think I have 300 front too and they could be more too, but I was more thinking of 350 as a first upgrade... you made me doubt, so very curious what your experience will be as I am not ready for that yet.
Maybe the porche guy had 1000 front for both springs together haha!

Tnx for the infos.

[evilC]

I can't believe that you need such high spring poundages!? The video and the pictures don't give the impression of a soft suspension. Have you checked the tyre temps? If so, are they fairly even across the tread? From the temps you should be able to see if the suspension s working correctly. How much stroke do you have on the QA1s? They should be set for approx 40% up and 60% down and the springs should be coil bound (without bumpstops) before you hit the top of the stroke.
You can get poly bumpstops in all configurations and I would invest in those because relying on coil binding is not to be encouraged.
The roll does not look exaggerated but are you losing traction anywhere?
As you go higher with the spring rates you will need to valve the dampers to match. I much prefer softer springs/stiffer dampers rather than the otherway around.

[judgie]

the understeer you are getting is it slow or high speed? is it happerning under power or on first turn in? mine suffered from understeer on the exit of slow corners under power and until i had some video of the car i could not work out why. under full power coming out of slow corners it was almost pulling wheelies and i have a lot less power than you, raising the rear helped this. In high speed corners i was getting turn in problems, some toe out on the rear helped a bit but putting the front spolier/splitter on cured most of it.
looking at your car it seems very low on the suspension although the ride hieght is not bad due to the wheel size. going up on ride hieght might help as it will let the suspension do its job, allowing more travel thus letting the tyre grip, when you go from a spring to solid [ethier on the bum,p stop or coil bind] the wheel rate goes through the roof and kills grip no matter what tyres you are running.
i see your running coil overs on the rear, is this with the torsion bars as well?
i would try and go up on the front anti roll bar, kercher do a 22mm one. once thats on get a 944 20mm rear bar, in fact get as many rear bars as you can get hold of and test test test. tyre temps will let know when your getting close and then it getting it right for your style of driving. if your just sticking it in to corners and planting the throttle i dont think any suspension set up is going to help as a light rear engined car with your sort of power is allways going to understeer.
dont take this the wrong way but take a look at how your driving the car, might be a case of tweeking your driving style to match the car rather than trying to set the car up to match your driving stlye.
Hhave fun.
cheers rob

[Humble]

Turn in was fantastic, trail braking into a corner planted the nose and she dove right in, but when the weight transferred back I'm pretty sure i was on the stops on the outside rear. I could just breathe on the throttle and she would plow coming out of high and low speed corners, but it was easier to see on the low speed. The ride height is actually too low, I knew that going in but I thought the springs had enough travel and poundage to cope, but that wasn't the case. The rear coilovers are the only rear spring, there's no torsion bars in this setup. I'll have to keep my eyes open for different rear bars. I want it to be slightly softer in the rear for grip and stability coming out of corners, so I'll probably try a few different rear bars like you said. I noticed the problem on my first run and had to drive around it the rest of the morning. I was anticipating problems though and didn't expect it to be perfect. The last few events this year are all test sessions to prepare for next years point race

As it was I placed 3rd in my target class, and 22nd of 105 in raw time with a shake down weekend. I'd say that's not a bad start

[judgie]

deffo sounds sound like going solid on the outside rear, increase in ride hieght and a rear anti roll bar will help. i would try not to go too hard on the spring rate, try and reduce the roll with anti roll bars. be carefull with going to hard on the anti roll bars as you can turn it in to a drift car all to esay.

[Humble]

Got a little work done on the car this weekend. Crawled under there and tried to get the bolt out but it's too hard for the bolt extractor. I've got another pair of trailing arms on order so I'll swap it out to get to the next race. That should make getting the bolt out a bit easier as well.

Since I was under the car I swapped out the rear springs for some longer (9" vs 7") 550# springs so I can dial in some more ride height. I had some tell tale o-rings on the shock shaft and sure enough both sides had bottomed out. When the new racer's edge bolts come in I'll probably replace the driver's side for good measure. I also noticed that the new inner cv boots on both axles are toast, cracked and torn all the way through. I'm half tempted to drop the car off at the shop to take care of the fiddly stuff. :P

[Humble]

We've had these inconvenient weather cycles lately, nice during the week but raining on the weekend. I finally got a break this weekend and got a chance to replace the trailing arm.

Old arm comes out easy enough


Close up of the shock bolt, I wasn't able to drill very far into in


the new set of aluminum arms came from a '90 944 S2. The casting is a bit different, no bump stop pads, lightly trimmed, the abs ports are drilled out, and it's 1-2 lbs lighter than the turbo trailing arm.


Abs stub axle is slightly different




Finally back together, waiting on new cv boots since the new set I just put on disintegrated


Lastly updated engine pics, I replaced the oil cap with a filter breather to relieve case pressure under boost, and rerouted the oil out line to get it away from the exhaust