87 944 C

bmw control arms are thin, that's why they broke. people would buy them(and they still do this) and think that because it's an M car it's able to be hardcore tracked when really they need a little beefing up. only now it's brakes not suspension

i guess you could swap for steel arms, it really wouldn't make a huge difference in the cars handling.

or try these guys, the guy custom makes front control arms for 944's, stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum, they'll cost more, but they are very reliable

968ls1

I used to run reinforced steel arms on my 86 turbo track car and they work great, they are inexpensive if you can modify them yourself. You need to band the perimeter of the arm with 1" steel strap and reinforce the sway bar mounting location. You will also need early style caster adjusters. I used Racers edge caster blocks and home made delrin bushings at he crossmember but you can use stock ones. Marcus Blazack in Canada sell arms already modified.

Lemming

Like Tom, I run the steel arms on my race car (944s) and have added the reinforcements. I doubt that I would modify the arms for street purposes.

andys-944

So do most people tracking 44's with Al A arms change them for Steel?
I agree most of us wouldn't notice a difference, but I know Porsche thought saving un-sprung mass on the front was important enough to consider Carbon Fiber A arms, I know because I did some investigation for them while I was at Courtaulds in the late 80's as a young engineer.

MAGK944

IMO steel is better for a track car as you are running the car at extremes. Eliminating the chance of the alu ball joint housing cracking or the arm fracturing in an off is a big plus. The steel arm will just bend instead. I ran the modded steel arm without issue then went to the steel Racers Edge as I needed longer pins. Agree with the guys ^^ for the street stick to alu arms and never fit non-reinforced steel arms on the 944T, they are pressed steel and were not designed to handle the extra forces on the control arm from a 944T. Think higher braking, accelerating, cornering, spring and sway bar forces on sheet metal.

968ls1

I would not run the early steel arms even on the street without modifying them. I don't have any pictures but Lemming probably does, basically you just take 1" strips of steel and weld them around the perimeter of the arm. For the sway bar mount put a sleeve in the hole and weld a thick washer on the top and bottom sides. There is a picture on Marcus Blazaks (spelling?) site but it's hard to see what has been done. Another good option is the High Strung A-arms, I just put a set on my car and they are very nice about 1/2 the cost of Fabcar, Racers Edge or Charlie Arms. I got them with 19mm longer ball joint pins to correct for lowered car. The base units use the factory replaceable ball joints for the early steel arms and that keeps the cost down. The weight of the steel arm and the Aluminum is minimal.
If you want to stay with aluminum arms I have a set of 86' arms with good ball joints but torn boots I will take 75 for the pair plus frt from Birmingham.

V2Rocket

ive done some pretty crazy **** in my car with the steel arms, including driving off curbs, offroading, trying to "catch air", and even crashing the car, and my arms have never bent or anything...not reinforced either.

i doubt there is any weight difference between steel/Al arms, if anything i would bet the steel ones are lighter than the Al ones...Al ones are HUGE compared to the sheet steel

Grandpa#3

Here is the link for Blaszak's Control Arms.

http://www.blaszakprecision.com/Control_Arms.html

Cheers,
Larry

86 951 Driver

I looked into this. Paragon sells a kit to convert your arms. I would get the caster blocks separate.

I dont know how to modify for the swaybars on the Turbo

V2Rocket

just use the early style swaybar mounts..easy...

i have a turbo M030 sway on the front of my car, just needed to "tweak" the outer bushing a little...

86 951 Driver

How is the early style mount on the a arm? Does it lessen the effect of the swaybar?

Hollywood D

hahaha, this made me laugh


Mine's an early car but I recently replaced the control arms with new steel ones. They seemed pretty robust. It still had the original ones on there, so you figure those lasted 28 years. There was no damage to them.

MAGK944

All the comments for the steel arm seem plausible but you have to ask yourselves why Porsche changed them in favor of aluminum? They went from a cheap to produce pressed steel product to a complicated and definately more expensive aluminum product for what? If the steel weighs about the same and has the same strength there is something amist from that argument. I find it hard to believe that a manufacturer would go to all that trouble to fix something that doesn't exist and that would inevidently increase the cost of the car for absolutely no gain or reason.

Btw I agree the steel arms are very good, I use them on the track, but if there is no proof otherwise I have to assume the aluminum ones are better in some (yet to be determined) respect.

Lemming

The nice thing about the steel arms and ball joints are the price. For my track car, these are replaced annually (just in case). I have them on order at this moment and will weld the additional supports on this weekend. I'll try to remember to post pics.