tyler

Hello,
I have a 1972 911 T, the struts and the whole car is covered with this thick undercoating, so i can't tell color of strut, is the named stamped on the strut anywhere, I don't want to scrape it everywhere if it is not on there. Any good upgrades for a track only strut for this year, I don't have sway bars and I can't put them on anytime soon, thicker t-bars and better struts is all I can do now.

Also is there and easy way to take the front dust shield off the rotors, will I be able to un bolt them once I have the steel caliper off? I can't see bolts for them anywhere.


Thanks for any advice.
Tyler

Steve, 914 guy

You'll have to clean part of thr strut to see what color it is, get some solvent or gas on a rag and wipe it some.
I think you have to pull the front rotors to remove the F dust shields.

Howard

Steve is right, you have to remove the rotor to get to the 3 bolts that hold the shields in place, you might as well replace the bearings while you're at it unless it's beeb done recently.
Upgrades: you could replace the front struts and rear shocks with Bilstein Sports and possibly larger torsion bars, but you'll experience a noticeable ride difference with this upgrade. I run 23mm t-bars front and 31mm rear, but it's a track only car.

good luck !

tyler

thanks for the replies, i will start scraping and looking for strut color...

my car has a 10 point cage in it with nascar style door bars so it won't be used for runs to the mall....i heard 23f/29 rear is a good set up....is 31 rear even better or will it be too stiff and cause me to bounce or skitter more...i heard something that too stiff can be bad

is replacing front bearings hard??...i figured the front dust shields would be as easy as removing the rears...oh well...a 2 hour job turns into a 48 hour job....always the case

thanks tyler

Howard

Tyler,

Replacing the bearings is no problem, the worst part is removing the rotors, which you are going to do anyway. The front bearing will most likely fall out, the rear ( the bearing closest to the spindle) will need to be tapped out, or may fall out as well. Re-assembly is easy, just make sure all parts are clean and re-pack with a high quality grease.
Suspension : I think as far as torsion bar size, with 31mm rears I have not determined that it's too stiff, as a matter of fact I may move up to 33mm, but I am running 315 35 ZR17's in the rear so I can get away with a stiff set-up.

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Hi Tyler:

Howard and the other fine folks offered some excellent advice here,........

I'd just chime in and offer a few things:

As a track-only car needs pretty stiff springs and even the biggest torsion bars are not that stiff in that usage, matching shock valving to a track-type torsion bar setup is very very important for proper handling. Identifying and replacing the struts/shocks should be a high priority. I would further advise you to upgrade to "S" struts, as these will accept any brake upgrade in the future. You may use an SC front caliper for a cheap and easy brake upgrade immediately.

So,....

Black struts would be Boge and will likely be "T", not "S" struts. Your mention of steel calipers bears this out.

Orange/Red struts would be Koni's and will the "S" struts.

Green or Yellow struts would be Bilstein's and also use the same caliper mounting spacing as above.

I'd recommend using Bilstein Sports, F&R, in your application for their excellent valving and the struts' ability to have the spindles raised, at some point in the future. This modification has several benefits:

1) Restoration of lost suspension travel when the cars are lowered.

2) Better bump steer curve.

3) Raises the front roll center back up where it belongs. After a 911 is lowered, this often falls below ground level which exacerbates the tendency for these cars to lift its inside front wheel and "fall over" entering a corner.

I would install a set of Sander Engineering tubular torsion bars in 22mm or 23mm front and 29mm to 31mm rear sizes on a narrow bodied track car car, especially if you will not upgrade to adjustable swaybars soon.

Last, the Swepco #101 Moly grease is very good in wheel bearings and is highly rcommended. Once you remove the calipers and rotors, the bolts that hold the splash/dust shields will be apparent.

Hope this helps,