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Hello everone one. I thought you guys might like to come along as I attempt to build a nice lifted and trail-worthy Cayenne TT. Although a few of these have been built over the years, no has documented the hows and whys of what it takes to lift, run bigger tires, and make it perform better in harsh road conditions. My goal is to build a tasteful set-up that increases wheel travel and ride quality (handling will suffer at the expense of a/t tires). The first iteration will be to lift and upgrade all the bushings trying to clear 35" tires. Im building a set of custom coilovers to replace the air shocks soon. Im dedicating a little shop time each day to the build. The front is almost finished, the rear will be in the next week. Im having custom wheels made and those are a week or so out too. Pleae feel free to ask any questions. Cayenne stock w 210k miles. I lterally did a test drive, trailered it home (was the PO daily) and drove it 6 miles to my shop and has been on the lift since 35" test fit w machined Procomp wheels and 1.5" subframe drop
Custom upper a-arms were needed for the following reasons 1. The stock arms limit droop 2. the stock arms have horrible bushings 3. when adding spacers to lower the upper mount...the stock arms get pushed "out" and these shorter/adjustable arms solve all those issues and will not bind. Also, we build upper arms for other vehicles, when using proper bearings there is no extra noise. These arms will also work on a stock and lowered Cayenne...there is a lot of adjustment.
Last edited by prerunnergreg; 04-03-2019 at 08:04 PM.
more pics and progress Even with only 1.5" of subframe drop the steering shaft needs to be extended. The extension is pretty critical to get indexed properly to keep the steeing wheel/clock spring in check. also, the small bolts will be replaced wit hset screws There is a small tab of the front of the diff that will not allow more than 1.5" of subframe drop with out major clearancing....so 1.5" is where we are now
Lower a-arm stuff New Delrin LCA bushings. The stock bushings were not in horribleshape but needed to be replaced soon...So i made these. Now, there is a bit of concern as the pivot bolts are not co-axial and the delrin bushings do bind a lil bit at full droop and compression. We build lots of delrin pivot bushings, These are far better then the HD rubber and poly bushings though. They are a lot more $$ but way easier to install. Front LCA delrin bushings and 4130 crush sleeves. This is a part im happy about. I machined a press-in 3/4 teflon uniball into the factory lower shock mount....then machined steel spacers. These bushings have been an issue on many Cayennes that use full suspenion travel...since these are a spherical bearing, there is no torsional load. I wanted to get a 1" uniball in there, and i could have, but the aluminum housing was very thin and i have a feeling it would have smooshed over time making for a loose housing.
Last edited by prerunnergreg; 04-03-2019 at 08:07 PM.
Consider blueprinting the parts you fabricate, there might be a few people willing to buy the stuff you make - be it for the 955/957 crowd or treg / q7 guys.
Full disclosure, Im in the business of building suspension parts/race shocks for the truck indlustry. I am not a paid advertiser here, so I will not promote my wares, but my intent is to offer these components after much testing/development. But, I have no problem showing how this stuff gets developed and this may offer other garage builders a chance to make their own parts without having to build it 2 or 3 times and, ofcourse, answer any questions people may have about the hows and whys. I will also go into as much detail as possible about what doesnt work and the flops Ive made so far i trying to get height, alignement and ride quality.
more pics and progress There is a small tab of the front of the diff that will not allow more than 1.5" of subframe drop with out major clearancing....so 1.5" is where we are now
Gah thanks for the terrible reminder of the view I had all day Sunday trying to break loose the fill pug on that Diff lol!
Super cool project and I agree that the Cayenne is wayy under-bushed. I would love to have a set of those upper arms in stock length, especially if we can do it with a replaceable ball joint. Even more I would love a set of tubular lower arms that are significantly lighter than the super heavy stock cast iron pieces. Thanks for sharing! I think your on a gold mine of development and I would build a prerunner Cayenne right now if I didn't have to fab it all myself. Good thing is that the unibody on these are super strong and stiff. Are we getting all crazy with long travel and res. shocks?
Some more pics...sorrry these are not in really not in any particular order, i just decided to post about it and took a bunch of pics from the last few days So, finding a 17" wheel with 5 on 130mm bolt pattern with about 6" BS is about impossible..but Method makes a new Sprinter wheel...its a bit narrow at 8" and the ID of wheel where the caliper center bolt lands is tight the bolt needs a bit of massaging to make the clearance happy...this is also using a custom 3/4" wheel spacer...this has potential but im not a huge fan of this wheel and the shallow face and/or wheel spacers if not required...its also a tad narrow for a 12.5 tire...never mind the wacky bolts...its just for mock up Here you can see the lack of clearance. I could machine a thicker wheel spacer, but that is the issue with the other wheels...they simply stick out too far and move the scrub way out....looks cool but will make for a lot of feedback in the wheel and, mostly, makes the tires swing much farther forward and backwards when turning ...killing tire clearance These wheels are a set of Procomp something-or-others...w 4.75" bs and a 5 on 5 pattern, i offset machined the bolt holes to the proper pattern and will recess the taper deeper to make a clean seat...if i keep these and i dont think i will...so it looks like i have spare wheel as this wont fit anything but this car now. So, you may ask why i dont just machine a new pattern phased between the old pattern...here's why. Most wheels are scalluped, between the mounting pads...this allows for a lighter wheel and clearance for bolts when spacers are used that have protruding hardware. Method wheels use a solid center...and the 07+ tundra wheel on the right would almost be perfect (it is an 18" wheel though)...but, the center bore is too large (the tundra pattern is 5 on 150mm). back to the drawing board read in the text as there are too many words about this
referencing the bottom pic...this is where things didnt work as planned. I originally wanted to drop the subframe 2.5" and the upper a-arm/strut mount 3"...this would allow a little relief to the upper ball joint as its the first thing to bind...also allowing about 3/4" more lift by "lengthening" the strut and multipling the motion ratio. It would also not require any adjustment to the level sensors. Well, the lower subrame can only be dropped 1.5 inch before parts collide. I then built 2" upper spacers...and it all bolts together just fine...except the 3 degrees of camber gain do to the upper mount sitting at a 30 degree angle ie, for evey inch you go down, it pushes the arm out about 1/4"...yikes! So I machined these trick little spacers w .500" offset...but there is no room (even with the casting flash ground off) to move the upper mount inward enough to correct this...hence the new upper a-arms. The other issue is that the air shock will hit the unibody if the spacers are more than about 2" thick as the body of the shock touches the "frame" at full droop. Some guys are working on 1.5" spacers with no camber correction....its not gonna work not to mention the undriveable bumpsteer that will ensue. I am simply going back to a 1.5" drop for the subframe and 1.5" upper mount drop. The new upper arms correct camber and allow for much more droop/extension/down travel. I will be making top mout strut spacers (the air shocks requre an o-ring, as well as a lower strut extension to get max lift and travel. Coilovers are about 1.5-2 weeks out (although i might have some old bodies I can machine down for now as an ugly functonal option). The issue with a bolt in coilover for the front is that the shock is pretty short...and at that point it might be better to build a whole new upper mount that will allow the shock to be a full 2" inches longer to get most wheel travel.
The rear actually looks pretty easy...ill be going over that next week as spacers are simple on the back...but because the front guibo, we may need to drop the rear of the motor and the carrier bearing...im not building a 1 pc drive shaft yet. with the 4.75" bs wheel and 35" tire, the IC gets awefully close...and this is at close to full droop. ride height is about 3-4" "up" from here....i really dont want to move the IC. with a wheel that has about 5.75 " bs, this may not be an issue...we shall soon find out
A few more for today this is with the 2" upper mount spacers and no shock extension...it looks like more clarance than it actually is...but its not much and ive "pushed" the high spots on the unibody "in"...a coilover would have a lot of space though heres a better pic of these cool little offset spacers that didint work at all
last 2 for today..i promise This is a look at the bearing that is pressed into the billet housing that is pressed into the arm. Its a cool design as 2/3 of the housing presses in w the bearing in the housing, then the other 1/3 lpresses in and locks the bearing into the arm from the other direction without using snap rings. A full pic of the lower arms w the delrin bushings. note the front bushing locates the arm as it handles fore and aft thrust...the rear bushing "floats".
I'm going to buy a Cayenne and turn it into a fairly serious 4x4 rather than an SUV.
My main concern has been wheel travel.
I have been looking for a 957 with PDCC to get the sway bar disconnect which I believe gives an extra 2" travel. I'm in Australia and they are hard to find. There are 2 here at the moment both about 1200 miles away and in far to good condition to turn into a bush basher (read "too expensive")
I'm not sure the PDCC will give full sway bar disconnect as there is a different console selector with a different image for it.
Life would be much easier if I didn't need to look for the PDCC cars only.
Can you help with which car would be the best to start with.
with custom coilover setup and upper a-arms, i should be able to get 10.5" for the front and about 12" from the rear.(what i measured innitially)...of course this is verticle travel. I am working on a different front sway bar as the stock unit is very stiff and binds in the mounts. I will run mine without the rear bar but will offset that a bit with heavier spring rates. Im getting a set of coil sprung struts tomorrow and will report back with the spring rates.
04-03-2019, 03:13 PM
Cayenne Rally/Offroad Build
