Don't be sorry Chris, I will be finishing up the front suspension then looking to get everything done - height, corner, align.

So.. -1 deg F / -2 deg rear would be a decent compromise for almost all performance street (possibly a DE day or two now that the suspension's been done)?

 

Chris: Wow! Now I know who to recommend for trailing arm checks! Your '59 A project is one of my long term dreams, I have always wanted to put a 5-speed 901 into an early 356. Are you far enough along to know what size T-bars that you're going to use?

 

I can get over -1.6 in the rear without ludicrous amounts of toe-in. Perhaps I have a bent arm as well?

 

Pete, I am not sure of the exact torsion bar size to be honest, but I can find out. The big work is over: we have not had much time to work on it lately, too busy! The car started as an Ebay find, the owner knew it was not perfect. One of my contributions for the project was endlessly scraping away all the old undercoating, finding more and more rust as I went along. The longitudinals are OK but the whole floor had to be cut out and replaced, and many other areas patched as well. The 901 gearbox had a section cut away and an adaptor was welded in to accept the 356 transmission hoop. The rear end was of course cut up and provisions for the 911/912 trailing arms were welded in. Also had to relocate/reinforce the rear shock mounts.

So, the rear end is done, and about a year ago I played with the rear ride height and got it pretty close to right on, it looks great, and a few months ago we finally got it running, so I don't have to push it in and out of the shop every day like I did for 2 years before. It also now stops on its own, has disc brakes all around and a dual master cylinder, and no longer has to be held in place w/ a wheel chock since it has a parking brake setup w/ the handle between the seats like on a 911. It has a 912 engine, and we had to do a custom clutch cable setup of course to get the 356 pedals to work w/ the 901 clutch fork, and I know there was an issue with flywheel clearance and some modifications had to be done to get it all to work. Last I touched it I sprayed the new undercoating on it and we have not had time to do anything since . . . it still needs the rear window installed, side windows/regulators, the interior to be finished, a new headliner, the bumpers to be installed, lights/wiring to be buttoned up, and of course all the small details that a car needs to be finished. But, getting it running/moving/stopping on its own and getting most of the welding done means a huge corner was turned. Now we just need to finish it! We also need to finish Joe's stillborn '71 911 hot rod w/ twin plug 3.2, that will be an amazing car. We just have too many cars at all times, which isn't a bad thing at the end of the day, but I want to drive those project cars!!!

I've attached a pic, the only one I have on this computer of that car, it's the light blue 356 in the background, the pic is from almost 2 years ago before much of the work was done; our orange 911 project w/ 3.2 twin plug, Webera 46s, Electromotive crankfire igntion, etc etc is in the shop, and the Ruf CTR Yellow Bird is the car in front . . . crappy place to work what can I say. I'll post some detail shots of the rear end from underneath when I get the chance here, as the 356 board is pretty nonexistent and I know you guys will appreciate it!

---Chris A.

 

Sorry for a silly question. I hope I can become an expert afer reading this thread as 911 2 does.
My question is why do we use degree when we talk about caster and camber, but inches when we talk about toe? Why can't we use inches in all for easy understanding?

 

Talking in measurements (inches or cm) gets complicated as it differs to what wheel diameters you are using (toe & camber).
As for caster I can see no way of using inches or cm at all. Can you?

The correct way is to use angles (degrees & minutes). If you want to convert to measurements (inches or cm) after then you may do so.