Robby

I have to throw a few comments in now- first, I added 100lb helpers for the rear & didn't have to mess w/the T-bars- the eccentric nuts had AT LEAST another 1/2" of room to adjust AFTER adjusting them for the 100lb helpers- but, I know that Skip has seen more of these cars than I've ever THOUGHT about, so, I was probably a lucky minorty in this case- of course, my UNLUCKY situations w/this car FAR outweigh not having to adjust the T-bars... Anyway, I'd have to measure my car, but, I hear of guy's lowering their cars 1" to 2" like it's nothing, but, I've never seeen any around that are really out of ~1" range total- track cars are different, I'm sure, but, on street, you really couldnt get away w/much more than ~1" from stock & be able to clear low speedbumps- I think I can get ~2 fingers b/'t the top of my tires & bottom of fender- I'd have to measure to make sure, but, 24" sounds pretty LOW for a street car...

Pointex- do you have any pics of your car from the side? It looks nice in your avatar w/those wheels- I'm just wondering, based on that small pic, how much you really WANT to lower it from there- would like to see it if you have any though...

Skip

Unfortunately, no - you will have to convert the struts to the 8641-1414S insert type before you can use the adjustable ride height kit. Or, you could just use Weltmeister lowering springs - cheaper, easier and good enough if you don't plan on too much autcross or track time.

Ball joints are what connects the control arms to the steering knuckle/spindle (strut/brake assembly). You can check them for play by prying around to locate movement.

Tie rods connect the steering rack to the steering knuckle/spindle. There are two tie rods ball joints per side - the out is visible just behind the wheel, the inner is under the dust boot connected to the steering rack.

Good Luck!

Skip

Tb311 - need to make a correction. The 8741-1136 will work with the adjustable ride height without modification. My apologies for the error above. A general rule of thumb with these struts is: if it has a crimped on cap then the adjustable ride height threaded sleeve will not fit over the strut casing. In these cases, the strut must be converted to 8641-1414S inserts (this has you cut off the crimped cap.) You can further measure the OD of the tube to be sure it is 54mm and that the cap is no more than 54mm.

poindex30

[

Pointex- do you have any pics of your car from the side? It looks nice in your avatar w/those wheels- I'm just wondering, based on that small pic, how much you really WANT to lower it from there- would like to see it if you have any though...[/QUOTE]

I am hoping that some pictures show up. In the front wheel close-up shot you can see the brake caliper I just painted. I think it worked very well. For some reason my wife said, "You've got to be kidding," when I got her out of bed to come see my paint job. Women, go figure.

Mickey

Tb311

Thanks Skip, I'll measure it just to make sure.

Robby

Poindex30 - thanks for the pics- car looks NICE! I DO agree w/you though, that it DOES need to be lowered a little bit- I usually tend to think that most people overrate the amount that their cars really do need to be lowered- hard to say for your pics though, but, from what it looks to me- .5" to 1" would be good- have you measured your wheel wells yet to compare w/what Skip mentioned? I need to go check mine again- I pretty much agree what he's saying- one to two finger widths b/t apex of fender & top of tire... get that done & your car will look GREAT w/those wheels & calipers...

poindex30

Thanks Robby for the compliments.

I did measure from the top of the wheel wells to the ground when my car was on the alignment machine and the distance was about 25 1/2 inches. I don't want to take my struts out again to cut off the spring perch but after seeing the pictures I'm afraid I'll have to do it. I'm going to take the car to the shop to have the rear end done. I tried to loosen the bolts but they were just too tight.

Mickey

Robby

Hey Poindex- sorry- forgot about this thread- been really busy, etc... meant to go down & measure my ride height- I'll try to do that tonight when it cools down a little... As for adjusting the rears- it's REALLY easy IF you still have a little range in those eccentric bolts, BUT, from what I understand, it IS VERY tight- anyway, I had over a FULL inch of range when I did mine, so, reindexing the T-bars would never be neccesarry w/out going to at least ~200lb helpers- I went w/100lb helpers & STILL have a little room left & I ALSO reduced my ride height by ~.25" total IIRC, so, it's not always neccessary to index those damn T-bars for helpers....

DanG

Mickey, I added your wheels, hope you don't mind.

poindex30

Now I feel kind of famous.

Your site is a tremendous resource. You don't know how many times I've searched for pictures of 944s with different rims.

Thanks,

Mickey

Robby

Dan- what is the site? does it have pics of any of the dif wheels ON the cars themselves? I just looked & found a page & layout, very similar to Wheel Enhancement- very nice- but, was hoping to find some of wheels on the car itself- BUT- I couldn't get very many pics to come up- most all of them were black boxes- might have been a prob on MY end(?)- anyway, have you considered going through, eventually, & adding more info on the various wheels? I've always thought that would make an ultimate wheel site- to have all the wheels, including many of the popular aftermarkets like Fikses, Kinesis, etc, &, have sample pics of each ON 944's, & possibly some info about each individual wheel- various sizes, weights, etc- I have weights for a bunch of factory wheels- like Club Sports 16x7 & 16x9 & Cup 2 17x7 & 17x9- I just mounted the Cup 2's on my car.

Something I DID notice- I've mentioned this to many before, but, your pics show it VERY CLEARLY- the 16" Cup 1 is much different than the 17" Cup 1- much thinner spokes, etc- I like look of the 17" much better myself- my favorite for hte 944 is the 993 hollow spoke- unfortunately, they did not make a 17" in these- a 17x8 front w/18x10 rear would be SOO COOL for these cars- they really need a larger rear than front to fix that ugly rear fender side view- possibly the ONLY ugly angle of our cars- also, something else that bothers me is that they are not directional, although I could overlook that- would STILL be nicer IMO....

Anyway, nice pics (the ones I could see)- I'll check back soon & see if it wasn't just a temporary prob- could be a # of things that casued it....

tifosiman

Hmm. I have yet to see a 944 series car that had rear coil-overs/helpers installed that didn't need to have the t-bars re-indexed to make it behave correctly. I don't think it has anything to do with the spring rate, it is a function of pre-load on the system. There isn't enough pre-load with the stock t-bar position to load 100lb springs and keep them from clanging about when they unload (like in a bumpy corner). Have you actually spent some time driving yours in that configuration?

DanG

Robby,

I'm not sure whats up with the site. It kindof crashes my work computer. Like I'll be browsing along, then go to my wheel site and now none of the pics will load. At other computers at work, it works fine, same with my home computer. I think it might be java related, or just require a newer/updated browser. It works fine on my work computer using Netscape, only bad in IE.

So first suggestion is to download one of those trendy "stick it to the man" browsers like Opera or Mozilla, if you don't already have them or Netscape.

And yes, the site has pictures of the wheels on our 944s. Glad you enjoyed what you could see!

Dan

Robby

Dan- thanks for the info- I'll get back on there & check it out, one way, or, another....

Tifo- helper coil-overs- not FULL coil-overs- I know that's what you meant, of course- removing the T-bars for FULL CO's wouldn't need reindexing anyway.... The prob is, that there is WAY WAY WAY too much misunderstanding of what is needed- well, pretty much w/every part of this car- I have yet to figure out WHY, as I've NEVER seen ANY OTHER car in the world that has so many probs, etc- I suspect it has at least SOMETHING to do w/the cost of getting work done & people TRYING to do it themselves, etc- with that said, UNFORTUNATELY, I can't give you a really intelligent answer to your question- what I CAN tell you is this:

when I bought my springs, shocks, & helpers, etc from Karl (Racer's Edge) he told me that it would COMPLETELY DEPEND upon where the T-bars were indexed, in relation to the concentric mounting nuts, as to whether or not I would have to REindex- he said that w/100lb helpers, I had a VERY GOOD chance of getting by w/out REindexing- I had another mechanic do the work, as Karl had hurt himself around Christmas (when I bought the stuff). He had my mech measure the TOTAL amount of range that the concentric nuts could be adjusted BEFORE adding the helpers- we had over 1 FULL inch- almost 1.25". He said that should be MORE than enough. NOW- I've heard ALL kinds of conflicting info on this but, bear w/me... SOME say that MORE PRELOAD will RAISE the height of the car & OTHERS say it will LOWER the height- OTHERS say that height is INDEPEDENT of the amount of preload- I've ALSO been told all the same variations of how preload affects stiffness- some say more stiffens the car, some say it softens, others say it's independant- I couldn't care less anymore- ALL I know is, when I did my work, we first tried about 1" of preload- Karl had said to not use much at ALL, &, based on my conversations w/him, it sounded like ~1/4" was about right- well, the car oversteered badly- I had my mechanic pull the preload down a bit & he said he brought it down to just barely over 1/2"- BTW- I had been told by SEVERAL that I had to use a good amount of PRELOAD to keep the helpers from clanging over bumps, etc- Kaarl said this was BS & it turns out, that at least in MY case, he was correct- I'll get back to this- anyway, the car STILL oversteered slightly (BTW- I had 225lb front springs)- it was NOT the preload at this point, however- I could TELL that it was more spring-rate matching- I needed slightly less rear OR slightly more front- I ended up w/275lb fronts as Karl exchanged them for me & did not have 250's- it is bettter, but, I really need 250's to make it perfect &, YES, I can DEFINATELY tell a 25lb dif w/out QUESTION- It is a VERY noticeable amount, in this range anyway....

Well, at this point, the ONLY REAL prob I was having was noises- these are normal & are NOT from springs sliding up & down- it is from RUBBING- the outer edge of the LEFT spring hat & PART of one of the coils of that helper spring rubbed the trailing arm(?) AND a mouting bolt/nut that stuck out- I could SEE where it rubbed when laying under the car- these cars are FAR FROM PERFECT- the right side had NO probs- SOME 944's wont have it on EITHER side & OTHERS will be right only, etc.... they are NOT perfect- I've had people tell me that they were hand-assembled & others say that is BS- I don't really care- I just know what happened- this took about one hour to fix- a little grinding, etc & I have had NO NOISES since- N0NE... I have lowered the car ~.25"- I meant to go down & take measurements to compare here but have not done so yet- I STILL have at LEAST 1/2" of adjustment on the concentric nuts should I want to bring it down a tiny bit more w/out reindexing- I hope this helps- sorry if I can't be more specific, but, this stuff has just frustrated me to no end & I've heard it so many dif ways that I've given up....

tifosiman

OK, well your car is an anomaly then. I have never seen a 944 series car that can get an extra 1.25 inches of height decrease out of the eccentric adjustment.