Cyberbug

Need some ideas on Suspension and Brake upgrades. Preferably bolt ons, no welding.

I was thinking of doing Elephant racing 930 upgrade but that requires front struts to replaces so I was going to do coilovers and sways but the rear require some welding.

I am pretty hand if some know me from 991 or Mazda or BMW bike forums , but Welding is one thing I don’t want to get into

Any ideas?

Mark Salvetti

Personally, I think it is way overkill for a 911T with 125HP. Upgrade the torsion bars slightly in size, add a front through-the-body sway bar (I don't think T's came with one), new Elephant rubber bushings front and rear.

Not sure what size torsion bars are recommended as an upgrade for these early, light cars. Maybe 21mm/27mm F/R. New shocks, custom-valved for your car and the new torsion bar sizes. I think Elephant can help with that.

Also don't overlook wheel/tire upgrades. What are you running now?

This should keep you busy, give you a sweet upgrade in handling, and still be reversible for originality.

Let's see what Bill Verburg recommends when he weighs in.

Mark

Cyberbug

Thanks I will talk to elephant racing tomorrow

running 15" fusch 185v70Rs (Good Year)

I believe the car has been lowered

I really want to upgrade the brakes.

Mark Salvetti

Sweet! Was hoping you would post some photos.

Not sure what is recommended for brakes. If you could switch to SC brakes, you would probably gain a lot of stopping power. I'm just not sure how easy it is to adapt the struts for new calipers, or which master cylinder to use.

Mark

Igooz

Two places to consider that have been supporting air cooled Porsches for a long time and worth a call:

1) Brakes, I like PMB Performance in UT, Eric Shea is the owner and knows your car inside and out, see what he says. He may recommend just changing pads/rotors and refreshing existing system. If you end up wanting to swap brakes, advice would be to stay with Porsche calipers, such as S calipers instead of Wilwoods or Brembos, etc. I have been their customer multiple times over at least 25 years.

https://pmbperformance.com/pages/about-us

2) Suspension, a lot of people talk big and will have ideas or torsion bars, spring rates, etc. My advice would be to call Rebel Racing and talk to the owner Erik and describe what problem you are trying to solve and get a system solution instead of bits and pieces. I bought all the parts for my 72S HotRod from them this past year.

https://www.rsrproducts.com/

I have zero business relationship with either, just long time, multiple time customer.

TheTorch

I had SC brakes on my 69 with the stock 19mm master cylinder and it was quite good. I upgraded to Elephant 930s, and it's a lot of investment in rotors/hats, brake lines, calipers, larger master cylinder (22.5mm for me) and the car stops even better. But the squeal issues have been a bummer. I have tried stock Textar pads, Porterfield road pads, many several methods of bedding the pads. It's been a real PIA. You have to bed the brakes very, very aggressively to not have squealing. At least in my case. The Textar's threw off a crazy amount of brake dust, and I settled on Porterfield RS-4s (far less dust and squealing). I tried floating and non-floating hats to no avail.

The 930s also have very little clearance to the rim -- like 1-2mm on original Fuchs 6x15s. So your spare has to be a Fuchs 6x15 and not an SC spare nor a Maxilite Fuchs replica (6 nor 7s will fit) and you'll want 2-7mmm spacers in my opinion to make sure you clear the 930 fins,

In retrospect I should have kept the SCs. They could lock up the car anytime, more or less. On the longhood, it seems the limits of stopping are the tires/grip more than the SC brakes.

Remember that SC and 930 brakes are still unboosted brakes, so regardless you have to put some quad muscle into a hard stop. It's not going to feel like a modern car or even a later boosted Porsche brake.

There are loads of threads on this out there, hopefully @Bill Verburg can weigh in or point you to the better threads.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...rade-page.html
https://rennlist.com/forums/911-foru...l#post15383873
etc.

wildcat077

I would stick with the current brake setup ...
At worse , install some cooling ducts and use quality pads, but your brakes are more than enough for your car.
I installed some 996TT brakes on my 89 along with a Fabcar dual master and a Tilton bias valve when i was tracking my 911
but now that i race a 944 instead and returned my 911 to street duty it is way overkill and really hard on the left leg !

I'll be returning the brakes to a stock setup eventually as it sure is more driver friendly.You can spend 2-3K on a 930
brake setup if you can find one but unless you're on a race track it's pointless.

Cheers
Phil

Dr. 914

My 70 T coupe is great just the way it is. Why do you think that you need to change things? Is there something wrong with the brakes and the suspension currently?

Cyberbug

Thank you for all the great advice.

I will contact some more vendors as listed above to get advice.

- For Suspension, I could do coilovers at some point. I looked into the welding and its only for the rear sway-bar mounts and I can have a shop install just that.

- For Brakes, I am coming from 991.2 Ceramics so please forgive me
- I just discovered a company in UK that make 6-pots/4-pots which fitst stock setup, looking more into that.
- I don't think I need to replace the master cylinder but may be
- I would like to get SS lines in
- lighter rotors would be nice
- multi piston calipers that fit stock setup with more pad surface area would be nice
- will upgrade brake fluid

fun I part I can do any bolt on brake, suspension and chassis work.

The UK option seems to be the cheapest at this time and easiest.

wildcat077

Oh boy ... you need a good licking from Bill Verburg regarding brakes ... lol
You absolutely cannot install six pot and four pot calipers on your car without first screwing up the brake bias totally , then you would have to
go to 17 inch wheels and bigger calipers mean bigger heavier rotors !

Just sayin ...

Cheers
Phil

Cyberbug

Looks like there is a 15x6 wheel solution with custom built light weight calipers that are 6/4 pots (UK) for stock setup that will fit. but it requires 3.5" front bolt spacing strut.

But yeah going to drive it a bit

I only did one test drive and picking the car up on Sunday.

Appreciate the engagement from everyone - that is what makes this hobby and car fun is the people interation.

Bill Verburg

All 911s have a relatively soft suspension w/ a lot of travel and camber change in roll, the stickier the tires and the harder they are driven the more undesirable this is
Exhibit 1, the effects of different t-bars w/o any consideration for the additional effects of sways, tires and wheels, w/o at least Carrera flares the tire input and effects will be limited by the max wheel/tire set that can be fitted, staying only w/ factory Fuchs 7ET23.3 is the max wheel front and rear and ~ 205 tire, w/ a low power motor you will want to stick w/ 15s , stock S for the early years like yours was 4x 6x15 185/70 tires 4x 205/50(or 55) x15 on 7 ET23.3 can be fitted, a slight stagger of 195/205 can also be used to reduce o/s a little




brakes are limited by wheels w/ at least 7 you can use 930s but it's not really necessary or even usually desirable, as the limiting factor is the tires, the only real issue w/ A or S & M or even M & M brakes is the thermal capacity when tracked and even that only becomes an issue w/ 200 + hp & weights above ~2800# +/-
Exhibit 2 is the thermal stress index for most 911/9230 variants thru '89, Thermally A & M, S & M and M & M are all the same, brake torque is also the same for all 3 variations, the larger A & S calipers do have bigger pads which only lets them last longer

here the blue is street cars and the orange are track cars on the far left is some custom brakes used on My C3,



Here's a comparao of the various common brake setups wrt brake torque and bias

rmemebr that usable brake torque is limited by the tires and normal force on a given axle, best bias is the original 1.491 used thru 1983 or the 993RS 1.426

Cyberbug

Excellent information all around - I will drive it around a bit - hopefully I won't start dropping serious monry right away or may be do the interior as the the wife would like it. I do want to change the color to stock as well Signal Green so tons of expenses if one wants to do do.
Car was expensive - don't ask me openly I am ashamed I paid too much.

but it drives perfectly and everything works, nothing is broken.

Plan B: also a possiblity

Upgrade suspension with new bushings, hollow sways and torsion bars. Change rear shocks to slightly better ones and front struts to 3.5" spacing bolt (this only when I do brakes) - still expensive but I don't need to do coilovers or welding or dropping the engine etc. just bolt on upgrades.

when and if wanting to go brakes, I can replace front struts to 3.5" bolt spacing ones and do either a 930 from elephant or the calipers from UK, all would fit the 15x6 Fusch I am told. I was tool even 300mm rotors would fit with no spacing. but I think all this is in the future.

I need to slow down and try to enjoy the car first.

Once before I ended up working on the car more than I drove it - dont' want to do that. Sold that track car
Did same with motorcycle - Sold that
the 991.2 I just didn't drive enough- was worried too much about it - Sold that

and here I am

thank you all for teaching me I am getting old not necessarily wiser

Bill Verburg

I doubt that 930s will fit w/ 6s, even the 7s require the 930 calipers to be shaved a bit on the faces

again 930s w/ skinny tires, not a desirable combo

be careful of non factory calipers, they often lack dust seals and so are a maintenance nightmare in street use
also be wary of using large high torque calipers on stock small rotors

best money spent is
1)safety and reliability
2)wear items like bushes
3) wheels and tires that fit
4) t-bars

Spyerx

Suspension: 21F/26R Torsion bars, 18F/18R factory mounted sway bars, turbo tie rods, bump steer spacers, elephant racing rear spring plates, fresh elephant rubber all around, fresh rubber front top suspension mounts, custom valved shocks for weight (elephant sells these as von shocks). Don't do more than this. You can do a front strut with an adjusted spindle and the 3.5" brake mount if you want.

Brakes: if you have the 3" front strut: ensure its all working, you can put the elephant alpha/brembo brakes on it which gives you a bigger front caliper. I have this.

If you have 3.5" struts you can:
Do the S brakes, which is no better than above
Do later car brakes which runs into master cylinder issues
DO 930 brakes, which is really good, and expensive. And bill is right, they will fit under 15x6 wheels, they require some modification.
Stop Tech makes a kit that is also really good that will work with 15x6 fuchs

I plan to do the stop tech kit.