Airflite40

I have read in the past that you can shave the torsion bars instead of removing them when installing rear coilvers.

How is this done? do I just slide the torsion bar out and grind the splines off??

The benefits I see would be it would save me the trouble of dropping the whole torsion bar tube assembly, and also I have read that with the torsion bars completely removed the bushings are supporting much more weight.

Any insight on this??? I searched and searched and "shave torsion bars" does not help....

MM951

Search a post about spring plates in the 951 forums and there is an excellent walk thru on how to remove the torsion bars one side at a time.

Removing the torsion bars sucked so bad (I only had my crappy jack and couldn't get the car that high) but once you get the first side off the other is easier. I'm so happy I will never have to deal with them again.

anders44

drop it, remove them, get elephant racing bushings while at it.

you will need to use the semi-large-magic-stick (sledgehammer) and a pry bar.

333pg333

Pretty sure you can buy 10mm t-bars from somewhere as in giving the appearance of t-bars but having no effect. Don't know why some would do this though....

xsboost90

some spec racer guys are required to have torsions- no matter what rate...

SamGrant951

Its not too bad, drop one side at a time. Search Chuck Moreland who did a 3 step how-to...

Airflite40

thanks guys, found the chuck moreland thread, he also has the same write up on the elephant racing page.

Damn those bushings are expensive.

rad_951

I just got through deleting the torsion bars.

My opinion is removing one end at a time is as much work as dropping the torsion tube. The work was tedious. The hardest part was getting off the rubber bushings on the spring plate. I heated the bushings with as torch and chiseled away as described in the Moreland write-up. When installing the the torsion tube, watch out for the parking brake cables hitting the aluminum cross brace.

Jeff N.

Re removing the rubber on the spring plates. It wasn't too bad, here's what I did.

- got a 'reciprocating saw' aka sawzall
- used a C-clamp and sawhorse, clamped down the springplate
- using the sawzall, carved away the excess rubber like carving a thanksgiving turkey
- then, with a propane torch, heated the springplace where the remaining rubber is
- with a stiff wire brush, brushed away the excess rubber as I heated it with the torch

Uh...do this outside, eh?

Took under 2 hours to do both springplates.

Have heard it's possible to heat the entire spring plate and just sort of pull off the rubber like a big donut but haven't seen that done.

Van

Do a search for something like "solid rear suspension bushings". I did a pretty full write-up on this 2 years ago.

WFIW, the Elaphant Racing bearings are worth the cost.

Also, if you really want to have the apearance of torsion bars (i.e. skinny diameter) the easiest way is to take out your torsion bars, cut off the splined ends with an abrasive chop saw, and then weld a little skinny piece of round stock (like 1/4") between the ends. It will take at least 4x as long to put them on a lathe and turn them down...

SamGrant951

Also its nice to buy a set of used spring plates before hand so there is no downtime while you take off the original rubber, etc... you can just have them ready to drop in.

disasterman

The only reason you would use the 10mm bars is to comply with Class rules for PCA racing. I just did it, took the original torsion bars to a local machine shop and they machined it down.

Rich Sandor

I think it's time everyone ganged up and petitioned a rule change to allow for complete removal of the torsion bars when replacing with a coilover.

People have already found a workaround, why not reduce the extra effort for everyone?

It's win win for everyone. Less work for racers, less BS for officials to have to enforce.

shiners780

How would anyone know whether or not there is a torsion bar installed?

Van

Drill a hole in the torsion bar tube? They do it in the roll cage.