Mrspencer

do I need the lower arms

James Bailey

If you are using S-4 upper arms (which are shorter) and the old early lowers you will have excessive negative camber like ......way more than is usable without shimming the upper away from the body mounts quite a lot....So most would agree that you need the S-4 lower arms.

Mark Anderson

to be clear you need everything from the S4. Upper and lower arms, spindles, ball joints

Mrmerlin

I am not clear on what parts your working with and what parts your adding.

Seems if you just want to add big calipers then adding the adapters is the easiest thing to do
that would also mean you dont need to put any other parts into your suspension.

From your first post its not exactly clear what parts from an 89 your using,
this information would be pertinent for the correct advice

Mrspencer

ok so I have spindles hubs rotors and calipers from 89,going onto my 85s3, spoke to Carl this am 928 Motorsport, explained what parts I have and the issue, he says I need the ball joints from that year of the donor car the lower,have them hanging on the CAR now nothing tight, and can't get the lower ball joints to pass through . So after reading all these post I'm even more confused. Nothing tight just mocked up .
Side view hope this helps.

Landseer

Some of the most experienced with this conversion have all told you to swap the entire suspension in order to execute the swap. Both upper and lower A Arms need to be upgraded. You've elected not to do so. Your swap fails.

Those are early control arms.
You need later ones from the donor car ( or newly rebuilt ones from Mark A.)
Later control arms, later spindle, later hub, later air scoops... everything.
Technically, the sway bar and links, though the S ones can be preloaded enough to fit.

You need donor car control arms. You need donor car spindle, hub, lower BJ.....

Read Mark Andersons post, probably the single best 928 parts interchange expert on the planet, if you don't count jim bailey, don't let the Santa suit fool you, he worked with Mark for years salvaging 928s exclusively.

Your other option is back to the early stuff, use a caliper spacer adapter kit that changes the mounting plane and allows new caliper and rotor to work with early parts. Clearance though is very close to interference with that option.

Mrspencer

ok this is starting to become aggravating, upper and lower arms ok,,
ps, I'll call Carl at 928 motorsports this morning to talk to him 928 Motorsport I thought were a good source Since they sell the entire kits

Carl Fausett

Mrspencer:

You told me also during our phone conversation that you had moved the entire front suspension from the '89 to your car. That's what made the "ball joint hits the rotor" problem you called me with so confusing.

Now I see that you have moved SOME of the parts from the one to the other, but not the upper and lower a-arms and spindles.

You gotta do what these guys are saying! They are right. Landseer's post here is exactly right:

Wisconsin Joe

To swap the brakes over, you need all the parts. That's what everyone told you.

Including Carl, once he had complete and accurate information.

granprixweiss928

So 81 up front spindles, S4 calipers, adapter brackets (from 928 intl) and 993 front rotors work?

BC

I am pretty sure it depends on the adapters.

James Bailey

Did you also get the rear calipers and discs ?? They update very easily with just a couple of spacer washers to align the caliper to the rotors. Without the rears you have radically changed the brake bias....

hlee96

I think Mark's adapters are for '78-79 where the spindles and hubs are similar/same. '80 to '86 (or only S-modeles before '85 and '85-86) needs different adapters from Ed or complete S4 suspension swaps.

Yes, 993 rotors are the ones to use on the front. Rears only needs S4 rotors with "spacers" for the calipers.

Blake (Forgotten) knows all about it and he helped me out quite a bit.
-Hoi

The Forgotten On

Sorry about the confusion, 81 and back non S spindles.

hacker-pschorr

Okey Dokey.....

How about we try this again?

I've cleared out any posts (edited a couple too) that are not on point to the question, problem, and solution(s).


So, just to recap, in order to do this conversion CORRECTLY you will need:

86.5 - 95 Upper Control Arms
86.5 - 95 Lower Control Arms
86.5 - 95 Spindles
86.5 - 95 Lower Ball Joints


Please keep this thread on point or my following reactions will not be as passive. If you have a problem with this, send me a PM, do NOT drag it out in this or any other thread.