Does anyone still make one? Apparently weltmeister stopped making their's. Anybody have a weltmeister they want to sell? Car has stock suspension otherwise, just want to get that rear to actually rotate a little at the track...

-dc

 

www.smartracingproducts.com

 

Try Tarret: http://www.tarett.com/index.htm

I don't personal knowledge of them, but they look good.

I have the weltmeister and wouldn't get them again.

 

There used to be more low cost alternatives but the prices have all been creeping up. At the current price point, you should go with the Smart Racing bars. They are an order of magnitude better than the others out there. And with current prices where they are, your might as well get the best.

I wish I had gone with them. I got the rest of my suspension from Smart Racing and I was trying to economize so I bought another brand simlar in design to those above. Instead the bars have broken 3 times one of which almost killed me when they fell apart and wedged against the front brake caliper locking my steering.

Never try to save money with a 930. You will never succeed...

 

I have also been very happy with the Koklen Bars from VisionMotorSports.com on my 89. The they look good, fit properly and do the job. The bars and a proper alignment really made a huge difference in driving confidence.

Mark

 

The Kokeln bars are the ones that fell apart. They look to be very high quality but the quality of the hardware was crap.

Their excuse was they had a summer student making up the kits and he substituted some hardware (using non-hardened washers and leaving out nylock hardware). This is pure negligence. I could have died.

The rod ends are crap too. One broke on me while going through corner 5 at Mosport. When a front drop link breaks, you car immediately turns into the corner violently. You can use $10 rod ends or $25 rod ends. Guess which one they used? I've since replaced them all.

Also their design will not allow the rear suspension to fully droop when on the hoist. To safely list the car you need to disconnect the rear bar. Otherwise the rear drop links bind against the control arm putting stress on parts that were not designed to be stressed in that way. This could lead to more failures. It may be related to my breaking the rear mounts.

For the nominal price difference, don't take the chance. Go with Smart Racing.

 

P.S. If you just want the car to rorate more, play with the tire pressures. Lower the front pressure or raise the rear pressure. Or try running 225s on the front. A 930 should have no trouble rotating...

 

I have the Smart Racing Products sway bars and think they are excellent. There were 2 major reasons I chose them, first was the hardware was all metric, having STD bolts in your car is a pain. The second reason was that all of the bar sizes are interchangable front/rear and between the sizes. If it is not stiff enough, you can buy just a new bar with significant savings. With that said, they are a maintenance item and I have had the arms come off because I DID NOT check the bolts prior to tracking the car. I now wrench them before every track event. Also, the earlier hardened bolts tended to rust which made changing end link position difficut if they siezed. I believe they have fixed them with the later bars. In any case, I lube them well now.

 

Man you must feel lucky. Just imagine if you had been in the middle of T2 or T4 .

 

And while you are at it, install the rear sway bar mount strengthening parts. I ripped my mount at the top of '2' at Watkins Glen...similar results. I bought the SRP complete sway bar mounts

 

I used to build bars for Kokeln until they decided to build their own cheap copies. We use very high quality components and have never had any failures in over eight years of building them, but I’d like more detail on the problems you had, just in case it indicates some areas that I need to improve my design. BTW, we use the good rod ends. The cheap ones wear out quickly. Even the cheap ones can handle relatively large loads. The failure was probably due to the binding. Please feel free to post or e-mail me with more detail.

Thanks,
Ira Ramin
Tarett Engineering
iraramin@tarett.com

 

Thank you all very much. I'll definitely checkout the Tarett products. They look very robust.

Peter,
I disagree about a 930 rotating. The late 80s cars were setup with a LOT of understeer. I've had two 930s previously (both on the track) and a stiffer rear bar made a huge difference in the how well the car responded to throttle steer. It's just an opinion, but 911s/930s should TURN! when you lift.

-dc

 

I would suggest that you change springs (or tbars) first. Swaybars are really best for fine tuning at specific tracks, not for inducing major handling changes.

 

Pesky,
I like the stock suspension. I just want it to rotate a little more off throttle. I've always had good luck with this fairly minor change in the past, why do I need to start changing Tbars? The great thing about swaybars is that they don't impact ride quality until the suspension is loaded in a turn. I just want to stiffen the relative roll resistance in the rear, so why is this not a good way to go?

That's a real question. I'm curious. I'm not challenging your advice (although I may later ).

-dc

 

With big sway bars you are in fact impacting ride quality. You are tying one side of the suspension to the other. When you go over a bump on one side, the other will be impacted as well. This is why they work fine at a track, where it is typically smooth, but cause a car to be twitchy and/or bone jarring on the street where conditions are less ideal. By changing the springs and getting the correct shock valving, you would actually improve ride quality. I run 800# and 900# springs on my 964T, and it ride is actually not that bad on the street. It's all about getting the whole system to work together.

Btw, I am not saying that you shouldn't use the SRP bars (they are very nice), I'm just saying that you might be putting a band-aid on the problem. I think you also need to analyze where the understeer is occurring (entry, mid corner, or exit) and then decide. Also, does it happen only on tight corners, or on high speed sweepers? Does it depend on how much throttle you are giving? Depending on these answers, you may end up adjusting different things. My main point is that sway bars are not a panacea to fix understeer.

If I were you I'd call someone who knows turbos well and tell them what your current setup is, and wht you'd like to accomplish. Dan Jacobs, Steven Kaspar, Rick Deman, or Steve Weiner are all great resources.