Hi all,

Just looking for some advice on suspension options for my early 944NA before I make a parts order.
The goal is fun/fast street driving and maintaining enough comfort for road trips; little or no track or autoX.
At the moment the front is stock Sachs strut inserts, stock springs, and stock anti roll bar (I assume 20mm; car doesn't have any suspension-related options on the sticker)
Rear is Koni yellow shocks (of unclear age) and no anti roll bar. Assume torsion bars stock.

Currently in fast driving the car definitely pushes near the limit and occasionally I get the slightly alarming feeling that the outside wheels are lifting. So the plan is to reduce roll and shift the cornering balance more towards neutral than understeer.

My inclination is to get all new suspension bushings (stock rubber), a rear sway bar, and Koni front strut inserts (probably on full soft or close to it for my application) and see how that goes to begin with. I don't really want to lower the car so would probably stick with stock springs, at least initially.

My questions are:
- Should I consider getting new rear shocks? I have no idea on the age of the current ones. They seem to perform well, don't leak, etc. If I get new ones I guess that would open up the option of going with Bilsteins or something else on all four corners. I don't think I want to mix Koni rears with Bilstein fronts, for instance.
- 14mm or 18mm rear sway bar or something else? I think 14mm was stock for the early cars.
- Is it foolish to keep stock springs while changing all the other things?

I get the feeling that going to coilovers would be overkill for my application. The purpose is driving faster for fun, not for lap times etc.

Thanks in advance!

 

Personally I'd go with softer shocks (Bilsteins) and stiffer rollbars 26.8mm / 18mm. Stock springs are fine.

If you keep the stock 20.5mm front rollbar then I think you'd want a 16mm rear. Info I've collected suggests 14mm is still going to give noticeable understeer, while 18mm might be a little lairy. But I haven't tried that combo yet. (I can say 26.8 / 18mm is fairly neutral, only taking a bit of throttle to move the back end out. I'd also like to try 26.8mm / 19mm, but haven't yet.)

 

Hmm... I do have a late suspension car. Others would know if that makes much difference or not....

 

You say you feel like the wheels are lifting. In general, the stiffer you make the suspension, the more likely it is that the unloaded side of the car will try and loose contact with the ground. I know it sounds boring but I am of the opinion that a lot of very smart people at Porsche put a lot of time and effort into tuning the suspension. I am skeptical that those of us in the peanut gallery can improve on that, without a lot of trial, error, and cash. I always vote to return your 35 year old suspension to good stock condition and then make a call as to whether you need mods. Of course, the cars were set up to understeer. No sense in killing your customers with oversteer. A sound business model and probably prudent for spirited street driving.

 

If you're going to rework the suspension, you should replace the spindles with a solid pair and ditch the hollow left spindle. Crack test all the hubs.

 

I have hard to get Sway-A-Way rear 31mm torsion bars matched with 450 lb/in front springs. Use a 25.5 mm front sway bar with 19 mm rear adjustable sway bar. This is the sweet spot and it will be a blast driving on the rroad.
​​​​​​PM for photos and pricing. Steel prices have doubled since I purchased the rear torsion bars so I can make you a good offer.
My car is a 1983