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Old September 21st 2014, 20:38
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cookvw cookvw is offline
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rear suspension options

hi all. im looking for some good advice on what i should do for my rear suspension. i have a 75 super beetle. i track it from time to time. so when i built the car, i decided to get rid of the rear torsions and use the uniball setup and coilovers. the coilovers i had, the shock body was too long along with using a 2 inch spring also left no room between the irs arm and the cv boot. the coilovers i was using had 550lb. spring rate witch seemed to work good. but after a few miles the lower shock brackets where cracking cause the shock was just in an awkward angle/ more or less bottoming out a lot. so i cut everything out and i plan on redoing it. i would love to find a motorcycle rear shock size as that bacilly bolts up into a beetle with lots of clearance, but finding one with the proper spring rate is almost impossible (been searching for the last 2 days). i want a car thats adjustable. so for simplicity ive pondered just switching back to torsions and getting adjustable spring plates for now, then later get those really nice atom adjustable ones. was also thinking of getting a center torsion adjuster as well for even more adjustability. your thoughts? i guess im asking do it just keep what i got, fab up new shock brackets, and buy shorter shocks and call it a day or put it back to torsion setup?

heres a pic of my car just for viewing pleasure.



here was my old setup...
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Old September 22nd 2014, 00:28
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Very nice taste.
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Old September 22nd 2014, 04:07
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for me i like to keep it simple. On my 1303 race car i run 944 torsion bars with the 944 spring plates. stock bug arms and some kyb shocks. poly bushed arms and spring plates.
set the geo up right and i can keep with lotus Elise at the sprints and hill climbs.
suspension is not about bolting on the trickest parts you can afford but about making what you have work as well as it can do, set up is everything on suspension.
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Old September 27th 2014, 14:09
spannermanager spannermanager is offline
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^^^^^^. this, the stock factory stuff is all you really need! but in view of what's on the car now, Keep what you have but go down to a shorter smaller dia' 1.9" coil over to gain clearance on the lower mount and increase suspension travel, you will favourably soften the rear also because spring dia' affects the spring rate and the heaviest 1.9 " dia spring available is 400lb which should work well, You mentioned a 550lb spring which is massive, the heavyset spring I've raced with is 300lb, with a heavy 5sp trans. And Wasserboxer motor, turbo and coolers all at the back, heavy.
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Old October 7th 2014, 14:05
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Odd, I'd have to check my thread but I'm running 500's or 550's and they're damn-near perfect. While on my next build I will keep the Torsion bars, I'd say your best option (for the least amount of work) would be to simply weld in new lower shock mounts. Check my build thread for photos of mine.

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Old October 10th 2014, 10:57
spannermanager spannermanager is offline
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Working on my racer today flagged up an oversight on my part with the quoted spring rates I've mentioned, forgive me for that, but it dawned on me that my spring rate is softer by my shock location differences, being over slung and outboard on the diagonal arm, almost inside the wheel rim, it has therefore less leverage acting on the shock/spring/mountings than the stock set up, and all my builds were shock position is free have been so modified, Apologies again. Spanners.
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Old October 12th 2014, 14:19
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ya i FINALLY thought of a good way and im now gonna share what ive done and have come up with. here goes.... how you all like it and hoping some will find inspiration for what ive done to fit 2.5 dia. springs.
well i thought id post up my progress on the car. i was never happy with the way i originally made my lower shock brackets for my rear coilovers. so i decided that sine i have everything out of the car for a trans swap i figure it was time to make things right. i started off by making pockets in the irs arms to make more room for the 2.5 in springs. i then made lower shock mounts outta some tubing i got. big thanks to Pat Peet, Franz and John at kcw for the hook up on using the tubing bender. i made 2 45* bends then went from their. i now have lots of room so the springs wont bind up and im happy with this setup. on to the pics.





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Old October 12th 2014, 15:48
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Maybe its the camera angle but those look pretty low, how's the ground clearance?
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Old October 12th 2014, 21:07
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i measured off stock shock brackets. mine are actually a tad bit higher. i know it looks low but their really not. hoping to start getting things all back together over the next week. new trans, new fuel lines that im switching over from hard line, to all braided lines and a/n fittings.

i looked all over for coilover solutions for squeezing a 2.5 dia spring into the tight space that vw gave us to work with. i even contacted RLR for their sweet all tubular arms, but my pocket book didnt like the $1400 price tag. so i spent a few sleepless nights out in the garage cutting up templates after templates, then it dawned on me that going with a tubular lower mount will work. and so far it looks to have done just that. ill report back with some road time on them.

BTW humble, i would love to work out to meet up sometime next year at either a vw show or heck even a auto-x event since we are both into that sort of thing. id love to get as bunch of US germanlook guys together, but i know thats a shot in the dark. lol
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Old October 13th 2014, 09:06
spannermanager spannermanager is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cookvw View Post
i measured off stock shock brackets. mine are actually a tad bit higher. i know it looks low but their really not. hoping to start getting things all back together over the next week. new trans, new fuel lines that im switching over from hard line, to all braided lines and a/n fittings.

i looked all over for coilover solutions for squeezing a 2.5 dia spring into the tight space that vw gave us to work with. i even contacted RLR for their sweet all tubular arms, but my pocket book didnt like the $1400 price tag. so i spent a few sleepless nights out in the garage cutting up templates after templates, then it dawned on me that going with a tubular lower mount will work. and so far it looks to have done just that. ill report back with some road time on them.

BTW humble, i would love to work out to meet up sometime next year at either a vw show or heck even a auto-x event since we are both into that sort of thing. id love to get as bunch of US germanlook guys together, but i know thats a shot in the dark. lol
Hi mate, I've looked and looked in case there are gussets hidden in the pics, but Unless that's a positional mock up, it won't hold up, I can't be gentle with it, because it may kill you or worse, other road users, two weaknesses are shown there, the minimum you will need to do is to gusset the unsupported arch you have shown there to stop it flexing with the shock loads, then some buttresses to resist it twisting, now looking at the lower mounting bracket, it's weak both in attachment area and material gauge, it needs to mimic the stock design by extending up onto the a arm to spread the considerable loads, perhaps incorporate the lower mount into buttresses, minimum gauge steel for that would 3mm if designed well, 5 or 6mm is often quoted by many for saloon car coil over pickups. The best design is the stock one, you only have to look how thin the gauge is because the load paths are favourable and shear forces are spread so well, can you not replicate that to accommodate the bigger coil over? As you have it shown, the lower mount will tear off. Good luck with it all tho.
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Old October 14th 2014, 02:42
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these pics where when i just got things mocked up. now i have made the lower shock bracket extend and wrap around the tubular arm more. i like what ive got and their all weld up solid, and should work well. if you could, can you explain how i can better support the tubular part better?
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