dnwong

Wanted to find out other folks opinion. Would you upgrade to larger torsion bars on an 86 951 or use coil over helper springs? My rear feels a little soft.

BeerBurner

Exercise.

Sorry... but you know some bonehead was gonna say it... might as well be me!

Anywho, for whatever it's worth, when I build my track flogger I might just go with the helper springs because I'm not sure I want to tackle a torsion bar replacement. That might change as I get closer to doing it.

Otherwise, I have nothing useful to offer to this thread.

BB.

Scootin159

you can put some mild springs in the rear without touching the t-bars, but as soon as you do anything even remotely serious you'll need to reindex the tbars anyways (so they're just as easy to replace at that point).

zoxx2004

I did both,went to 26mm torsion bars and bilistiens escort w/turbo cup progressive rate springs.19mm adjustable sway.

Serge944

Ask yourself if you will need to change your spring rates once everything is set. If not, just go with beefy torsion bars. One way or the other, you will have to reindex them.

Another option is to weld on some extra supports to the top shock mount, use REs bottom bolts, and go with a coilover setup by itself (ex: escort cup). This will allow you to go between a wide array of ride heights and spring rates without worrying about how much the torsion bars are being loaded.

If you use both simultaneously, you will still be limited to how much you can adjust the coilovers without having odd effects.

dnwong

My car is for street use only. It has fairly new boge shocking in the rear, but it still bounces too much. I plan to put 200 lbs progressive springs on the front. So, I thought maybe going to 25.5mm(m030 option) torsion in the rear vs the stock 23.5mm.

Will that be a noticable difference? I don't want track stiffness, just something along the lines of a m3 or m5 feel.

Serge944

At that point, you can either spend 100s on labor or 100s on a pair of coilovers in the rear. That is, unless youre capable of doing torsion bars on your own.

Do you want to lower the car in the rear (beyond the range of adj. of the trailing arms, which is about .75" total)? If you want to maintain relatively stock height, then it might make things simpler to just add the coilovers.

Porschefile

It's been my experience that ANY coil spring setup on the rear of a 944 will raise the rear and require reindexing, or at the least cranking the eccentric bolt as much as possible. At one point I had the Koni sport cup rear coilovers from Paragon. Even with just an 80# spring it raised the rear of my car over 1".

As others have said, if you constantly fiddle with your suspension and you see the possibility of trying out several spring rates, then coilovers are for you. If you just want to do it once and forget about it then just upgrade the TB's and be done with it. Coil springs minus the TB's can have an improved ride, though a well matched TB setup will still perform just as well.

250# front springs and 27mm or 28mm TB's is a pretty decent setup to begin with. Much of the body roll, nosedive, and "bounciness" inherent with these cars in stock form can be attributed to relatively low spring rates.

Serge944

If you are using a helper spring and your rear ride height increased, then you are using the wrong spring length. Ideally, you would want the spring to be unloaded when the car is neutral (with just the helper spring compressed).

arbeitm

If that's it...then I would do just that. You could even go a bit higher in the rear with 26mm torsion bars...but they are around $ 300 new. You can find 25.5mm torsion bars on ebay for relatively nothing. And the difference is like 14lbs. So you decide based on your budget.

Coilover setups for the rear are very expensive. Around $ 800 - $ 1,000.

I'm talking just parts...I don't know if you do your own work.

smlporsche

I agree with the above post.
If your car is for street only then larger torsion bars would be the best (i.e cheapest) way to go.
As you can see in my signature I removed the torsion bars and went with a fully adjustable Leda Coil Over setup. Much more adjustability and MUCH more expensive. Not worth it for the street but unbelievable on the track!

dnwong

Do torsion bars provide progressive response or are they linear? Since I am looking for progressive rate springs for the front, will there be a performance issue?

arbeitm

If you are going for the Weltmeister 200# springs...they are not progressive anyway. I think you'll be fine with that set up.

dnwong

Really, I was told they were. I really want to get a more modern feel like a M3 or M5. Should I consider a different setup?

M758

I would go with a fresh set of shocks (koni's) and 968 M030 sway bars. Simple enough to do and is probably one of the better stock plus set-ups.

Still very streetable, but sharper. If that does not do the trick for you then start looking at springs and t-bars. You can go high enough in t-bars to make the car very uncomfortable. 250lbs is probably the max for still comfortable street car ride. You can go up to 400lbs and still be streetable, but that is determine by how long the trip. Short trips ok, but probably not an all day drive. You probably can get away with 250lbs fronts and 27 or 28 mm t-bars in back and still have pleasant all day driving street car. It may be a bit harsh, but alot will depend on how you want the car to feel.

Remember that M3 and M5's have different suspension geometries and have always had very good balance between street and track. The 951 in general is softer and to get the same body control typically requires more spring rate and thus increased harshness.