facboy

hi all,

not sure if this has been covered before, but i've been vaguely wondering about it for a while - those 'sidemember and wheel-housing' reinforcement plates on the 951S...what are they for?

afaik those were the only mods to the 951S chassis compared to the non-S...were they meant to achieve the sort of thing a strut brace achieves? it just seemed an odd place to reinforce, especially as nobody seems to have had any issues with modified non-Ss without those plates.

i also heard a rumour that the chassis was seam-welded rather than stitch-welded. anybody like to confirm (by looking at their own car )?

M758

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by facboy:
<strong>hi all,

not sure if this has been covered before, but i've been vaguely wondering about it for a while - those 'sidemember and wheel-housing' reinforcement plates on the 951S...what are they for?
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Increased chassis stiffness alougth I have never seen a direct compairson of the two body shells.
I can only assume they work for 3 reasons.

1) Turbo S car were developed with lessons from the Turbo Cup Race cars.
2) They are put there on purpose and required changes to the coolant hoses to allow for them to be there (Not an Accident).
3) They are not there for "looks" since you car barely see them even with the engine open.

facboy

oops, i should have been more clear...what increased chassis stiffness? wat exactly is reinforced at that point? i guess the 'torsional' rigidity of the front sub-frame is strengthened?

Ahmet

Can somebody post a picture of the added "plates"? Would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
Ahmet

pikey7

Stoopid question, but is it maybe that the 'S' that you remember had the M030 kit? theres a lotta different bits on that, and I can't remember if they were just bolt-on?

Tech575

I'd be happy to post a pic of my 89....but what exactly do you want to see? Just the tops of the strut towers?

tazman

I have an 88 TurboS what are we looking for?

<img src="http://www.marsmann.com/tazman/Pics/Augengine.JPG" alt=" - " />

Ahmet

I would just like to see a picture of the "reinforcement" plates that the regular 944 turbos did not get. I know that some of the coolant hoses were changed, but it's implied above that this was related to the stiffenning, and I had no idea about that. Just looking at that picture I don't see anything different compared to my 86 turbo, or others I have seen, in weld patters, or anything additional around the shock towers, or the "upper frame rails"...
Ahmet

Steve Lavigne

I've suspected that these plates actually had something to do with the lost rigidity of the rolled fenders, and simply braced the outer fenders.

Dave E

They are down in front of and beside to tie the inner fender/strut tower"base" into the front portion of the frame rail. They are hard to see from above, but if you have a cone filter MAF setup you can see them on the driver side more easily, just little triangular pieces welded in. I haven't found any seam welded joints yet, but I've only partially disassembled the car this year.

facboy

hmm i had a really good picture once which showed them really clearly. i must try and dig it up.

in the above picture, you can see the tiniest bit of the left plate immediately under the power steering reservoir, to the left of the hose. at least, i think that's it, it's kinda hard to tell lol.

facboy

ah, i found it...it's from a rennlist member's gallery, lol:

<a href="http://gallery.rennlist.com/gallery/Gerald/engine1" target="_blank">'89 951 reinforcement plates</a>

you can clearly see the plate on the left, under the power-steering reservoir, and you can see part of the other plate, under the expansion tank hose.

sooooo...any ideas as to the major function they serve?

PS interestingly enough, the battery is in the engine compartment...i thought it was moved to the rear of the car in later models (it is in my '88).

adrial

facboy, the battery was moved to the rear for RHD cars I believe. Is your car RHD?

I can't really see what plates you're talking about facboy...perhaps a side by side comparo? Anybody have a pic of a non S turbo enginebay that shows the same area?

facboy

alrighty, see the power-steering reservoir? directly below it in the picture, to the left of the two hoses coming from the reservoir, and running roughly parallel to the headlight motor, you can see a strip of red-painted metal. that is the top of the reinforcement plate on the RHS of the car. there is an equivalent plate on the LHS, of which only the smallest part is visible in the picture, between the other 'headlight bar' mount and the hose running from the coolant expansion tank.

these plates do not appear on regular pre'89 951s (no, not 951S's).

Ahmet

Thanks for the pictures/clarifications. Looks somewhat trivial, but that's just an opinion.

I could've sworn I've seen a US car (LHD), believe it was a 1988 model (8v non turbo), with the battery in the trunk. I wasn't interested in the specific details of the 944 series back then, and assumed that it was just a late model thing... I've only seen one left hand drive car with the battery in the trunk. He might've relocated using factory parts, certainly didn't look "custom".
Ahmet