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Just me ranting on, apologies if it seemed directed at anyone, not meant that way.
OP simply wanted some basic suspension upgrade advise for a daily driver that escalated to coilovers, high spring rates, geometry correction, all of which was confusing the issue and way beyond what the op asked for. I just wanted to bring everything back to earth and explain what was best for the question asked.
btw the work you are doing on your car is quite awesome!
Nah Probs, I just kept zooming in on the 2 words "Daily Driver" and thought this is not my car! It was originally built for HARD Street use and Not a road legal track car or a Fulltime Racecar ...Otherwise I would of built and specced it much differently....
So as far as a Street car I would like to soften the front coils from 190 to 163 Lbs and see how that feels.
If it's too rock and roll I'll go back up to 200-225 and then also change the elephant T bars up from 27mm (Hollow) to 29 or 30mm and then I should a decent set up with adjustable ride heights front and rear to corner weight again (with driver & Fuel) and compete in some Porsche Club GB Motorsport production sprint events driving to and back from the venue's.
While I have nothing add about lowering the suspension I just want to take a moment to comment on torsion bars in the case this little tidbit isn't known. Have you ever notice that torsion bars are painted with a thick, gooey paint? That to prevent rust. And the rust leads to torsion bar breakage. So when replacing the bars be careful not scratch the paint off. If you do (besides Santa not bringing you any gifts next year), coat the bar with grease.
Those bump steer kits look pretty cool. Being a heim joint I would check for wear very very often.
The corner balance debate may now continue.
Do you really think that after perfectly corner balancing the car, taking into account the weight of the driver and half a tank of gas, you are going to notice any difference using the car as a daily driver on a public road?
Yes. Panic stops, "moose avoidance maneuvers", snow and ice and oil and other grip limiting factors, all exist on public roads where the public is out to kill you. The weight balance of the car is still a thing that exists outside of a racing circuit. If nothing else, a corner balance is peace of mind that the car will be predictable in all of these situations.
What will happen is your control arms will not be parallel to the road like Porsche recommends in all their 944 technical manuals and this will cause undue stress to your control arm ball socket and they will fail.
So you fit longer control arm ball joint pins or different control arms to correct this, there are a few solutions out there. >
MAGK944, have you experienced or seen this solution to fit an extension to the stub / wishbone?
-If I lower the car 1.25"/31.75mm do I need to shorten the struts to prevent bottoming out? -that is the impression I get from Pasha's article.
-Is 250 lb coil front a good match for 27mm solid TBars?
-Are Torsion bars specific Left & Right? Pasha's article says if you buy used make sure they are marked. The used set of 27mm Tbars aren't marked... should I avoid?
-What main alignment concerns will I have after the car is lowered... (what should I expect from an alignment shop)?
-Are these spring rates a good match for my Bilstein or too much?
Thanks!
-Under normal sporty driving conditions you don't need to shorten the struts but if you do jumps with the car it might be a good idea.
-There is a formula to calculate effective spring rates for the rears and you can match the fronts but again it depends on what you want to do with the car and how you want it to handle, do you want a neutral behavior or do you want it under or oversteering?
-After you have lowered it you can expect that the rears will probably be impossible to bring to factory spec, the rears will have more negative camber and you will have to live with more negative camber on the rears.
My 931 is lowered by a considerable amount and its impossible to set a camber less than -2deg per wheel.
-You obviously must do a 4 wheel alignment after the lowering but what you can expect from any shop is that they have no idea how to adjust the rears, they don't have the tool needed to do that and most will just say they did it and leave it as it is only aligning the fronts, others will say the rear is fixed and cant be adjusted so be carefull because some shops will tell you they did a 4 wheel alignment but they only adjust the fronts.
-If you use factory spec or close to factory spec shocks with stiffer springs the car will handle great and still feel confortable...however when it comes to motorsport i'm sure that shocks choice depends on what type of surface you're going to be driving fast on.
+oh and if you have aluminium front arms with early spec I suggest getting 924 steel arms, boxing them in with some welds(knowledge also available on 924board) and carrying on with the rest of the build.
Yes. Panic stops, "moose avoidance maneuvers", snow and ice and oil and other grip limiting factors, all exist on public roads where the public is out to kill you. The weight balance of the car is still a thing that exists outside of a racing circuit. If nothing else, a corner balance is peace of mind that the car will be predictable in all of these situations.
MistaX, I understand your thought process here but in reality corner balancing is not a primary method to safely get you out of those situations.
There is absolutely no good justification I can think of for spending time and money to corner balance a car driven only on the public roads. At the (softer) spring rates you are using it really has a negligible effect on controlling a car. The stiffer your springs, and I mean stiff as in race car stiff, the more important corner balancing becomes and that is why track cars, with much higher spring rates, use this process.
924srr27l, not really keen on them as they bolt-on and therefore introduce another source of failure. I use these on my track car <Racers Edge>
Ok thanks $1595 ! I don't mind spending on this project but that's quite considerable and maybe the Golf Mk1 Weld on spindle or the boxing Steel arms with a longer ball joint Pin would be cheaper for sure.
I'm not 100% sure what your meaning they Bolt on?
I can see the difference length studs, do these screw in the ball joint and then get bolted to the hub / or ?
There is absolutely no good justification I can think of for spending time and money to corner balance a car driven only on the public roads. .
I can only think this is your thoughts because you live in location which is very busy with Jammed up freeways and general gridlock etc.. ?
Only For 27 years I've been driving to work and in many different locations, an also some over short and others longer distances.
The longest was 50 miles a day round trip, which i so looked forward to going to work, and at the end of the day it was also a great challenge because I had a Sports car and I wanted to Hoon it and play Racing!
For sure these days there is much more Trafic about however it's not too bad were I'm currently living and I would say 9 out of 10 days I'm on a my commute
I have duels and races with other road users!
I run a 2.0 16V Focus not super powerful for sure, but I can;t commute in some 1.0 Toyota Aygo Shoebox because it does 65mpg, it would drive me nuts so I spend more burning fuel and average 32mpg and thrash the knackers off the focus daily! practicing late braking and cornering HARD.
Maybe it's just me (But I doubt it very much) I was talking to somebody the other day about how I see any vehicle (car/Van/ Bike) as a great machine to have fun driving / riding with and not a mode of transport, every traffic lights I sit I practice getting away first! So much so my kids Goad me to do it anyway! and only last week I was chatting to my 11 year old son and talking him through the sequence on how many RPM to hold before releasing the clutch and when to react etc...!
So getting back to your thinking and feeling about you can't corner weight a car your driving to work in, or a daily you use to the shops because it's pointless it a total load of hash it depends if you're a driver or not??
There's loads of Members on here that own Porsche transaxel car's and I'm sure 99% of them who do also drive them daily (because they are so much more fun to drive than some new hatch / saloon) would if they changed the suspension on the front & rear also consider having the corner weights changed.
My car has been down to almost to a shell, when everything was fitted on it we had to take a calculated guess on where to index the T bars and where to lock in the lower strut threaded rings, once the Engine & Box & Exhaust was installed then we would and did set it all as the startline was all over the place.
So for my application and even anyone else changing both springs (T bars & Front Coils on adjustable platforms) it's makes perfect sense to not only get the Geo set up but also the ride heights & corner weights from 4 scale pads if possible.
I understand this is not something often found in some parts, I'm very lucky in the UK as there are so many Racing specialists about typically within an hour of most places there will be a company that has scales and does this job daily.
Sure if members change the front shock absorbers with direct replacements or
even Koni upgraded but with FIXED spring pans and also replace the rear telescopics then again I can understand there's no point or way to set the ride heights on both axles easily anyway, but for that for those that are changing and upgrading to height adjustable on both axles then I would recommend considering having the car on 4 scale pads not only see where the distribution is but also to set it accordingly to a 50/50 ratio.
Of course your not looking for 10/10th's as you circulate your local road racetrack but for sure you want 9 tenths! if your like me..
At the (softer) spring rates you are using it really has a negligible effect on controlling a car. The stiffer your springs, and I mean stiff as in race car stiff, the more important corner balancing becomes and that is why track cars, with much higher spring rates, use this process.
I run the same suspension setup as 944spec cars. 350lb coils/30mm torsions. Zero rubber in mounts or bushings, all solid in the rear. All poly in the front. I even run the same basic alignment those guys do. -3.0 Front camber -2.5 rear, 0 toe 2.7 castor.
And it's low enough to scrape the front bumper on speedbumps.
My car is as stiff as a race car because it is in fact a race car with a full interior that I drive on the street every single day. So yeah, I can justify a corner balance.
Edit: I just drove around in 4 inches of snow on public roads for 30 minutes just for fun, and I didn't hit anything. I'll blame it on the corner balance
We're pretty far off topic from OP's goals though.
I run the same suspension setup as 944spec cars. 350lb coils/30mm torsions. Zero rubber in mounts or bushings, all solid in the rear. All poly in the front. I even run the same basic alignment those guys do. -3.0 Front camber -2.5 rear, 0 toe 2.7 castor.
And it's low enough to scrape the front bumper on speedbumps.
My car is as stiff as a race car because it is in fact a race car with a full interior that I drive on the street every single day. So yeah, I can justify a corner balance.
Edit: I just drove around in 4 inches of snow on public roads for 30 minutes just for fun, and I didn't hit anything. I'll blame it on the corner balance
We're pretty far off topic from OP's goals though.
Have you also GC Top mounts? If so which ones, top or bottom mounted?
And are you wishbone angles parallel or close to just from the shortened GC damper legs?
01-06-2017, 03:12 PM
