Dan Shea

Does anyone have experience with the "sport" hardness vs the regular hardness of the Elephant Racing 968 style caster blocks? Or any of their rubber alternatives for that matter?

I'm in search of a clunk that can be felt in the floor and steering wheel when driving slow, like under 15 mph, and hitting any pavement undulations. Most notably pulling into driveways, speed bumps, and any rough but not violently bumpy surfaces (read cold patch).

I'm running camber plates so that rules out the top shock mounts, I hope, so I'm leaning towards bad control arm bushings/ball joints.

Thanks.

odurandina

you need to get a floor jack. get under there and inspect the caster blocks and sway bar bushings... then the ball joints for play.

mhr

sounds like what I had when a ball joint was shot.

badcoupe

there were a lot of guys complaining of noises with the castor block over the 968 boards. I guess there was a bearing issue with them causing them to be noisy I believe they came out with a design change that fixes the issue. If thats for sure the noise (check everything else first) then give ER a call about it.

Dan Shea

I don't have the elephant racing ones on my car yet....

I may be banished for this but I'm still running the stock all rubber 85.5 n/a castor blocks. I was looking at the elephant racing "sport" rubber ones as a replacement for the OE 968 blocks that should be on the car.

I've been under the car every day for the last week but I can't get any of the pieces to move. The only way I can get any noise is if the weight of the car is on the tire and I really push hard on the top of the wheel quickly and repetitively. I'm going to try and take the ball joint out of the spindle and check it for play that way since the aforementioned method requires myself to be outside the car and not underneath it checking to see what is shaking.

The passenger side inner sway bar bushing is showing some signs of oil abuse, but the only thing that makes me not believe its the sway bar is I can't recreate the noise by loading and unloading the suspension via sharp cornering.

Anyway, my plan of attack is Caster blocks first because I know they need to be upgraded per the Porsche bulletin, and I was just wondering if the upgraded rubber on the ER ones was actually any better. Next will be delrin sway-bar bushings because they will withstand the oil abuse better and make the car tighter.

Seems like every time I "upgrade" I end up breaking something else... I think I'm a porscheholic

944CS

I have solid sphereical ones for sale, new in the box, $260 shipped

odurandina

i would love slightly firmer urethane caster blocks, front control arm & sway bar bushings.
that way with the P-car ps fluid slopfest, nothing spoils.

ritzblitz

Have you tightened/checked/loctited the upper strut mount nuts? Mine were loose, causing noises over road undulations. Mine wer only 1/4 turn loose but they made a lot of noise.

If you are considering the ER spherical caster blocks, I recommend the units 944CS has for sale. I have the same ones on my car and they are quality.

Dan Shea

^^ I got them as tight as I could and it didn't change the noise, but I'll try again.

I'm definitely interested in the spherical bearings, but that depends on whatever else needs to be replaced. I'm a poor fellow with rich dreams haha

So right now I have the sway bar off, and the ball joints separated from the spindle to check for play per Travis's suggestion, and the driver's side ball joint is easy to move around by hand but the passenger side ball joint won't move by hand. Is this common?

Dan Shea

So I was trying to tighten the strut mount and this is what I found. Does this clearance look right? Seems like there should be atleast a few mm of clearance between the camber plate and the spring perch.
Looking up (blue is spring perch, pink is camber plate)

Looking from the top

and the bottom again

xschop

If you have screw-cap struts, the various manufacturers don't machine their strut insert O.D.'s exactly the same as the housing I.D.'s
I've built 3 sets over the last 1 1/2 yr and had to O-ring each set because of the slop even when the cap is screwed all the way down.

Oddjob

That does not look right/good. There should be some standoff between the spring and camber plate. But hard to know for certain from the pictures if its actually hitting/binding.

Looks like Kokeln plates (purple) - what brand of spring hat is that and what springs are those (ID)?

xschop

I was going to add that it looks like you don't have any taper between the spring hat and the camber plate. You can fix it by adding a steel spacer between the spherical and spring hat.

Dan Shea

They're GURU racing plates. The company is no longer in bussiness, aparently they rarely delivered product, so I may have a very rare piece haha.

The spring hat came with the Gaz Gold coilovers, and you're right they're flat topped not tappered, that could be the issue. They are 2.5in springs in the front IIRC and 2.25 in the rear.

Any ideas where I could find a spacer that will fit between the sperical and the spring hat?

xschop

I never heard of them. Yours are the 3rd brand of camber plates that I've seen that aren't designed properly if they didn't include hardened steel spacers between the spherical and alloy spring hat. The spacer should be conical itself and be made from at least 4140 chromoly.