Super Beetle single A arm front suspension.

[The Pirate]

Super Beetle single A arm front suspension.

Since I am putting on the 944 porsche brakes on my car I have decided that due to the heavier nature of the porsche set up that I would like a beefier controll arm. I had first considered fabricating one from scratch, but then thought some off the shelf technology would make finding replacement parts easier in the future. I found some Audi 4000 A arms that may work.

I may have some questions for the pros here as this is my first front suspension mod.

Here is what I know so far.

The frame head for a super looks like an Capital I just with larger lines on the top and bottom lol. The S beetle control arm attaches to the midded of the I shape in the middel of the I kind of like this I-. How ever to mount the A arm the arm will have to be mounted to the ends of the I like this I>. This puts the pivot points a good 4 to 5 inches farther from the center of the car than the original S bettle control arm. It will have the same amount of travel as the original S bettle control arm. How ever the A arm has no provisions for camber adjustment at the ends like the S bettle arm does. To get around this I will be either using the lower half of a porsche 944 strut assembly as the camber adjustment is built in there or adapting the S beetle strut to do the same.

Here is where the questions come in.

1- Will having the pivot points moved farther out from the center of the car cause problems I need to know about?

2- Has any one done this before? If so what parts did they use?

[The Pirate]

hello? Echo echo echo echo............

(puts beetle in gear and drives deeper into the freakish desolation of this thread)

[alt+f4]

I say for the benifits and strength v.s. the amount of time and work its not worth it. to change out the arms you would need to set it up to have proper roll centers, and a whole lot of other stuff. Now I am normally one of those guys that wants to convert or fab up stuff myself, but the super is a good design as it is. If you want to strengthen it just make some box ins like Racelook did.

[The Pirate]

What do you mean by "roll centers"? I will be able to better explain my idea and design when I get a chance to draw up a diagram and post it. Plus If the I shaped control arm was such a good design why didnt VW use it on the early rabbits? My main concern is that the A arms are shorter and have to be mounted farther from the center of the car. Yet once this is done they will have the same amount up and down travel as the original I arm and the same arc of travel as well. I guess the question I currently have now is.

Again what do you mean "roll centers"?

Will the same springs work on the struts or will I need some softer or harder springs?

Will having the pivot points farther from center cause the way the car rides or sits on the suspesion to affected in a negative way?

Thanks for any help .

[The Pirate]

Ok I know what roll centers are now. And my idea may work. The main thing is that the a arm has the same ball joint position and amount of travel as the original I arm. The length of the A arm and its mounting location are subodinate to the ball joint location and travel of the arm. I finaly found a nifty website for this conversion as well as a handy free program for working out suspension geometry. Thanks for the tip.

[yetibone]

I've modified my 1303's front end to include strut rods grafted into the original lower control arms. This seemed the lightest, easiest, and least compromising way to strengthen the front suspension, and turn the front swaybar into a non-structural component.

Still gotta finish the rest of the car to see how good it is...