toomanylemons

I'll start off by saying, this is for a racetrack setup for a race car. I'm going to start with driving events with the Porsche Owners Club and go from there. With that said, I would like to get the most out of the car without coil-overs.

The car is an 85 1/2 with a near stock ride height. I replaced the shocks with Bilstien HD's and the tires with race compounds. Then on the front suspension, I installed adjustable spring perches mounted on the stock strut housings with 400# springs. The rear torsion bars were replaced with the 31mm bars. I have the car sitting level with as much negative camber and I can get. So far, I have completed one track day and the balance of the car is AWESOME!

Finally to my question. How low can safely lower the front of the car without putting excessive pressure on the ball joints? I have read that 4" of rocker panel to ground clearance is a good track ride height. I lowered the front of the car to that height and found a few bad things.
1. The ball joints was angled very close to their full movement!
2. The tie rods were pointed way up in the air, not level at all!
3. The shocks only had 1" of travel left and were on their bump stops.

At first I thought about how to fix all three of those problems. Shorter shocks. That would allow the car to sit lower without changing geometry and still keep shock travel available. That would work great, but the only ones that will work are COILOVERS!

So, If I want to lower my car, I should replace my ball joints with the rennbay geometry correcting ones and install the elephant racing bump steer kit right? Even if I do those things, I still wont have any travel!

Basically I'm stuck. I feel like just driving it as is, but I know there's a little more in the car. I don't really feel like re-indexing the bars and I think I Should wait until I'm a seasoned driver before splurging on coilovers. I am welcome to opinions!!!

mikey_audiogeek

My $0.02: Don't lower the car unless you use the geometry correcting ball joints. Most people run way too low. Monkey see, monkey do.

Maybe look at VW Golf struts - might be shorter?

Like your combo of #400 springs and 31mm torsions!

Cheers,
Mike

M758

I run at 4inchs to the rocker. This is however with 225/50 R15 tires. These are shorter than stock and lower the car a bit more so it is not all suspension.

For a 944- spec we run this low and it works. We are also 2600lbs with driver with similar spring rates. Again it works. In our class If yuu run at 5 inches you will be beat bu the guys running a bit lower. I do cut my front bumpstops for more front travel.

83 944

True. Must get the ball joint kit. But if you have 31 mm t-bars then reindex them.

And if you don't I'll buy those t-bars I'm looking for a stiffer set. And you can go very low with a 944 ask me or drift a 944( Elliott) we have plety of pictures with our cars slammed. Haha

And I agree again with mike . Don't run to low the suspension needs to have some travel.being on bump stops isn't the way to go.

And mike you can use golfs stuts? I'm curious about that haha

Good luck and show us pics of the sweet ride.

Mike

odurandina

good posts.... you'll get even more responses and maybe even some parts cheap at the 944T forum.

toomanylemons

Mike, I have also read that VW struts may fit. That may be my only way out of this.

M758, I also am running the 225/50r15's. I was setting the car up to be close to 944 spec. With about 2" of shock travel left, I'm at 5 1/2" rocker panel height. The bump stops are internal in the Bilstein shocks I have, so I cant cut them off. Do you know what angle your control arms/tie rods with the car on the ground?

83 944, GET YOUR OWN TORSIONS! haha! Really, they make the car feel supreme. I will only re-index them if I can get the front down lower. I had a friend take some high quality pictures, just waiting for them to show up in my email.

Is there a way to move a post to a different section?

mikey_audiogeek

Level.

Cheers,
Mike

mikey_audiogeek

Joe P has your back. He's out there doing it, worth listening to.

I'm in the middle of a VW/Audi parts-bin Frankenstein plan. I'll let you know what I find...

Cheers,
Mike

83 944

Haha I will! I just have to suck it up and dish out 300 bucks. Which isn't bad but I've only seen up to 30mm t- bars. Where do you get stiffer bars?

Deffentley wanna see pics and want to know about this VW parts exchange.

fressssssh

Good thread. Inform me some more. Haha

M758

This is the right place to cover this stuff. I have never run the bilstiens so I don't know how they work. With Koni's I just use the external competitn bump stop and cut it in half. I probably have 1.5" of travel. Not much, but it seems to work just fine. If you used raised hat camber plates you can move the shock up a bit. That might be all you need. I run the paragon products/ground control flat camberplates and have for years. These proabably help if you have aluminum arms as while they limit travel they also limit how much the ball joint can bind. I run steel arms and this not a concern for me.

As for up angle. I was told years ago you could as much as 10 deg up angle. This came from an experienvced 944 Turbo racer in an open class so he could run as low as he wanted. Lots of trick stuff on that car so I know he did alot to optimize his chassis. I am not sure what I run, but it works. I don;t believe it is more than 10 deg. In the rear I also pull the bump stop out the rear shocks and cut it. Steel arms in the rear have large bumpstop on the arm. Remove this as you will get it closeing up on track makeing for dicey handling. Alumium rear arms don't have bumpstops, but going off track can cause the arm to hit the chassis as my ride height. Solution is to stay on track.

mikey_audiogeek

What works, works I guess! However personally I HATE HATE HATE cars with low front RC's. Must be a driver confidence thing...

Cheers,
Mike

toomanylemons

mikey, if you find struts that fit, it may easily solve all of my issues!!! I'm going to try and get my hands on some MK1 rabbit struts. I may give bilstein a call and ask if they can cross reference shorter struts for me. And BTW, I know your arms are level, but I want to go lower without sacrificing much of anything!

m758, From what I have read on Bilsteins' documentation was that there is no need to install bump stops as they are already located inside of the strut assembly. I don't know if I can disassemble them and shorten the bump stops or not. I downloaded a protractor on my android phone and measured the angle of the control arms and the tie rods compared to the ground. They are both angled upwards at 4.5degrees. I do like the idea of steel control arms, they are inexpensive and much stronger without much weight difference. I do also have the Kokeln camber plates installed allowing 20mm of lowering without shortening the strut travel. I think I have a good idea of what your suspension looks like, but I just cant get as low as you can with my Bilsteins and aluminum control arms.

Do you have anything to compensate for bump steer? Do you know what the other SPEC racers are doing for that, if anything?

83 944, my "used" torsions I installed came from vision motorsports ( along with a lot of the parts I have). They are the sway-a-way brand. I believe they may be the hollow type ( just to make you jealous). I googled the 31's and found Lindsey racing is selling 30's with the effective rate of 31's (or so they say) for $367.95 (ouch! but wellll worth it if your shocks can handle them!)

I hate to not have the knowledge but does anyone know if the POC would allow VW struts installed on my car? I'm hoping it would be more, don't ask, don't tell. They are just struts, just a little shorter.

mikey_audiogeek

This is probably the best (= easiest) option:
http://www.kokeln.com/raised_camber_plate_kit.php

Cheers,
Mike

dillon410021

here is my friends 944. he chopped the springs in the front. Also, the fender doesn't match because he hit a deer. He's waiting to paint the whole car. I also told him about pushing the front bumper in by drilling the bumper struts and it turned out great.