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Royale and V2.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for saying this.
Its fully welded now but before i did I got the opinion from another hd mechanic (after calling with the very concern you mention here). He didn't think it would be a buckle point.
No prob, we will adapt to the conditions... a product of my creativity and stupidity.
RESPECT to you my brothers.
Will get my 28" tires mounted in 2 days. This will be good for checking clearance.
Cut out the bushing setup from yesterday. Decided to make this a sealed strut like late oem. Test fit strut on car, found 3" too tall. Shortened the lower strut body (lower perch lowered right to the spindle mounting tabs), this lowered both spring & the shock body on the strut. But gives functional suspension not just height. When the unit is out of the car I will snap a pic of the new body.
Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I will do a preliminary test fit with weight on the front corner to check ride height.
My mission statement changed when I bought the Jeep lift kit.
I decided to go bigger, as FUNCTIONAL as possible for driving quickly over rough roads.
I no longer care about driving fast on tarmac with Wilson.
I thought if I play my cards right with the springs and shocks that I could make a suspension that performs like a 5,000-10,000 dollar suspension... but I only paid 500 dollars for the lift kit.
Still lots of work to do... lots and lots of figuring out to do... but I'm grateful
Thanks Brotha!
As you can see in the following photos, if I were to stay at this ride height body clearancing would be required.
The belly of the car sits 7 inches higher than US stock height. It measures 14" after I mod the front shocks, but I'm just so happy right now, I'm chillin'.
Wilson is now like a pickup truck, but less functional
These tires are soft and light. So pumped. FIN all weather all terrain. 21570r16 was the right choice (it truly measures 28" and doesn't rub the 5" front coil spring AND is bi-directional which is good because my thread will probably wear unevenly) . I felt the sidewall of another bigger truck tire version of the Nokian Rotiiva and was disappointed with its lack of stiffness but when popping these on Wilson I noticed "aramid" on the sidewall - it's like kevlar, so we will see!
Anyway, these tires were a great price & people seem to love it!
My favourite Renn 944 thread is Spencer's "where all the rally cars at" or whatever it's called. I was re-reading it & noticed Scott Harco and you talking about a trunk. That had me thinking about doing a bit of a pre-runner build with two tires at the back.
So the with the car on 3 big wheels and with an acceptable c.v angle at the rear, it's time to fab/mod the driver front suspension. My goal is to do the same as the pass front side but I will include more finishing touches (for example, build coil retainers in the perches and adapters to turn the top of the shock into a strut which fits in the Porsche bearing). Last night I chopped up the housing (note the Finished top section which I will weld, if you don't have something like this, that you can just finish the original strut tube to a similar length-the key is for everything to be perfectly square and level and for the top surface to be very smooth because the shock body will be pressing onto it.)
Modify the front control arm rear bushing/mount for additional anti-dive?
Early WRX's had soft springs but lots of anti-dive in the suspension geometry which was good for dirt. The modern ones have taken out most of the anti-dive but have stiffer springs and compression damping for tarmac. Very similar McPherson strut setup to the 944.
I found this comment online: "If you look for pictures of a current WRC car suspension you'll notice that the shock center line is offset from the axle centerline. The shock body passes in front of the axles so that there's more available stroke. That, plus suspension arms that are longer than the stock model the racer is based on ,gives them longer travel, typically 14 inches. As stated earlier, much of that travel is extension to keep the wheels on the ground more."
For those who are curious how much of the Jeep TJ front coils I am cutting off, here it is (above) per coil (Freelength changes from 21.5" to 21").
I also for the first time, unpacked & measured the rear Jeep shocks.
The front shocks are 9" travel the rear are 7.75" travel. I held the rear Jeep shocks in position and got the sense that these might literally be a near perfect bolt in next to the 28mm torsion bars at the currant ride height (heck yeah!).
What have I learnt? A stock TJ spring set would have been too short for my application and I got lucky with the shocks & springs I chose.
I will use washers to keep the shock insert pressed in the strut body. This will make it a "sealed strut".
Above: this is the "front shock mod", take time with sawzall & cool with water not to heat the shock. Then the shock sits on tube (below).
Above, taking time to level EVERYTHING as it stacks & gets assembled.
NOTE: Okay, I think I screwed this up... See the nice "finished" tube end. It occured to me that the shock should be lowered in the assembly. With car on ground, the shock is at half-way point (will allow 4.5" uptravel, but with bumpstops, reduce this to as low as 3" -depending on bump-stop). I thought that would be perfect but now I'm thinking I should make it like the rear end, designed to smash (more compression/less droop).
So here's what I calculated as being the new improved uptravel (after I cut the inner tube down 1 7/8" today): 4 5/8" uptravel. Much better than the 2 3/4" I had this morning.
05-19-2020, 03:33 PM
that is awesome !
