Bill L Seifert

Al brought up a good point. PCA says you can change to steel or aftermarket. SCCA does not. As a matter of fact, SCCA says that you have to use stock. Ain't that great. If I go bouncing off into the tullies because a ball joint breaks, can I sue them. I emailed them specificly, and asked, and the head dude, said, only stock are allowed. He did say he would forward my concern to the comp board. Jim Pasha (Excellence writer) is coming to our Banquet in Feb, so I will ask him, I know he worked on a 951 in Calif, so maybe he can help. I know the steel are stock on early cars, but not on late cars. All I know is, I am going to do something, I just haven't figured it out yet. I guess I'll be at Memphis in March with the old car.

Bill Seifert

1983 944 Race Car
1987 944S Race Car under const.

Geo

That would be clearly illegal Bill. If you are going to run your car as a 944S, it must be configured as a 944S and that means late suspension and late offset ONLY.

RedlineMan

Hey;

Nothing to get all bent over boys... pardon the pun. You have to be going pretty damn hard to trash any of these items if they are in sound condition.

No, I wouldn't be converting everything on a 924S to early. Too much hassle. Just make sure those ball joints are services and you will be fine for street to moderate DE use.

Having said that, I would not have alloy arms on my car because I'm WAAAY too fast , and I'm LAZY and don't want to be checking them every minute. They are perhaps THE stupidest part of the Series II cars.

It is not necessary to replace the early ball joint any more often than on any other car. The are essentially bulletproof unless you over lower the car and bind them., or habitually hit things!

The early "Porsche" steel arm is from the parts bin by the way. VW Rabbit part. I have run un-reinforced steel arms with stock springs, bushings, and Weltmeister 28mm sway for years with no problems. I now have reinforced ones of my own making (still with OE bushings) with both stock springs, 400's and now 500lb springs. They are no-brainer-built rugged. All I do is check the pinch bolt occasionally and forget them.

If anyone is interested, I can convert your steel arms to reinforced for early, or lengthened for late offset without too much problem. I have not done it "commercially", but if you saw all the other stuff I'm doing it will be apparent that this will not be difficult! I guess I'm now taking orders!!!

Suffice to say that it will be far cheaper than any other solution!!! Al we need is those front and rear bushings! I'm too busy to do the leg work. Somebody figure this out for me!

Mike S.

Wes, Jon, and others,

For some info on failure modes, check out:

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

Mike

Al P.

The 1987 924S has steel A-arms with the early off-set. It uses the late off-set wheels to bring the wheels under the narrow fenders. The discussion here was related to cars that are being raced and staying within the limits of the GCRs.

GeoffD

Gents,

I know Markus pretty well and he is a stand up guy (we are from the same PCA region). I have a set of his early offset steel arms on my 924S race car which also has LEDA struts, 968 M030 (30 mm) front sway bar, Racer's Edge sphericals and 450 lb springs. One of the things that I like about these arms is that ball joints are so quickly replacable at the track. These control arms have worked well for me for three years and many race weekends.

BTW Markus does make a late offset steel control arm of his own design so there is no need to retro fit early offset parts to late cars if you want steel control arms. As I recall, he told me that PCA has approved these late model steel arms as a replacement for the OE alloy arms.

Bill L Seifert

The only problem with Markus arms, is that for SCCA they are illegal. I talked to the tech guy at SCCA, and he said you have to run stock 944 A arms. I requested a rule change similar to PCA's but you know how that goes. FAT CHANCE!!!!!

I took a look at the steel arms last night, and I think I can take 4 early arms and by cutting and welding, make 2 steel arms that will fit the 944S. The trailing part on the car will have to be changed to make them work, but I have the parts. They will have a 944 part number, but I guess someone could still protest. I can always change to PCA or NASA. But I can't imagine the SCCA making you run the alloy arms, when they obviously break. The steel will be heavier, and be no performance gain at all. Buttttt!!!!!!!

DEALING WITH THE SCCA IS LIKE DEALING WITH THE GOVERNMENT, ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS THE LETTER OF THE RULE, NOT THE POTENTIOAL CONSEQUESES.

Bill Seifert

1983 944 Race Car
1987 944 Race Car under const.

Geo

There is no precedent for this. It's part of the choice you make in choosing a car. There are always trade-offs and alternate parts are not allowed in IT. It's my personal opinion they should not. It just creates a mess and you wouldn't believe the arguments some people use for alternate parts.

As a member of the Improved Touring Advisory Committee, I'd like to respond to this.

Bill, we've talked via e-mail and via phone and I truly hope you see me as a reasonable guy.

Regarding the consequences, I submit that you have made a conscious decision to run a car that has a known safety issue. That is the choice you made, not the SCCA. As I said earlier, things like this are part of the trade-off.

Furthermore, there are consequences beyond the 944 if the SCCA allows this. Everybody and their brother has a good argument for alternative parts under the guise of safety or reliability. If the BoD opens this door it will be "the wild west" out there as all sorts of things are requested.

Does it make sense to allow the steel arms? In a very narrow frame of reference, yes. In the global picture? Probably not. One of the reasons PCA can do it easily is they have only one marque to deal with. That considerably narrows the focus and it has a readily available pool of experts to evaluate such a decision in from a global perspective within the PCA frame of reference. The SCCA has many marques and many many more models to keep track of. It's virtually impossible for officials of the SCCA to be experts regarding all the cars it classifies. The Improved Touring Category Specifications (ITCS) has over 300 lines of classifications! That's just in IT alone. Furthermore, within each line there are variances among these cars. Just for a discussion close to home, the early 8v 944 came with 143 hp. The late car came with 158 hp. They are on the same line of the ITCS and therefore run at the same weight. If we were to even consider reclassing the 944 (just for example), how do we set a weight considering the 15 hp difference between early and late? Now multiply that by over 300. Now you get a better picture. And that's only in IT. Now add Showroom Stock, Touring, Production, SPO and SPU.....

I don't mean this in any way to be confrontational. It's really mean to be educational. The SCCA has a very hard job in classifying vehicles and maintaining those classifications.

As for NASA, my experience both direct, and what I've read, is that NASA is basically a big run whatcha brung group. Yes, they have a variety of classes, but most of them are spec classes or other classes that are basically administered by others such as 944 Cup and SE-R Cup. That's a whole different animal as well.

For those who didn't understand what I was talking about when I mentioned "lines" of the ITCS: each car classified has its own "line" on the category specs. It specifies certain critical data about the car as well as any options or alternates made available by the rules. Any car model or year on the same line is considered one and assemblies may be interchanged between models and years on the same line. That is why you can run steel arms on a late 944 but not on a 944S. The early and late 944 are on the same line. The 944S only came with the aluminum control arms, so those are the only ones that are legal for this car. As for options/alternates specified on lines in the ITCS, most or related to factory options and/or wheel sizes.

Lastly, we are reviewing your letter this month Bill. I will reveal that I was asked if this was a true safety issue or a disguised attempt at a performance enhancement (since as I said, we get this all the time). I did respond that this was a known safety issue. In fact, I will probably refer people to this thread if they want to know more about it.

Hopefully you have a better perspective of the environment in which the SCCA operates and must make decisions and have a better appreciation of it. If I can answer any questions, please feel free to ask. I'll tell you what I know. I cannot discuss any specifics regarding ITAC discussions of letters or strategic plans, but rest assured, we do listen to our members.

Al P.

Geo thanks for the insight. It's sometimes tough to know what the rules committees were thinking when they made the rules in the first place. I also wasn't aware of the "line" thing. My understanding from your explanation is that any part found on any year of a model found on a "line" can be used on any other year of the same model. Is it correct to say that this only applies to the specifications of cars imported into the US and euro-spec cars are therefore illegal? I currently run with PCA and NASA (44Cup) but was considering a move into SCCA as well.

Geo

That is almost correct. Large assemblies must be used in whole. For instance, it's illegal to pick the best parts of all the engines produced from 83-87 unless the particular part is free, such as oil pans. I cannot remember all the differences, but Jon Milledge spells them out in his ITS Organizer. If you were to build an engine using all of the best parts he specifies, it would be illegal. So, you have to use a whole unit, i.e. if you want certain features of an 87 engine, you cannot use the forged rods of the 83. In practice, I'm sure many engines (and/or gearboxes or whatever, are built with the pick and choose method because many people don't understand it's illegal or don't care). But beyond large assemblies, yes, your assessment is correct.

You are correct - Euro parts that were not available on US market cars are illegal. If the parts were just obscure but were available, they are legal. So, a factory AC delete kit is legal on a 944 as is a manual steering rack and manual windows, etc.

M758

So just curious..
Would a complete 84 engine short block (block, oil pan, crank, rods, pistons) be legal to use with and 87 head, cam, valves, cam housing, and fuel injection system in an 84 chassis?

I did this in 944-spec car when my complete 87 924S motor installed in the 84 chassis blew up due to a rod bearing failure.

I don't run SCCA IT, but would like to know just in case.

Thanks

Jon Moeller

Mike S.,
Thanks for the link, but that only shows the ball joint mode of failure. I'm wondering how many of the arms have actually failed at the sway bar mounting point.

If this is a legitimate safety concern, I would like to get as much information as possible, before dropping $1600 on a suitable replacement.

Thanks for the informative thread.
-Jon

Geo

I must honestly say I don't know. I'm not a tech inspector so I could only guess, but I won't. I can see a case being made either way.

Geo

My question is, if the failure is due to the balljoint binding, how will the billet A arms fix the problem? Is there simply no fix and the only solution is to beef it up to the point it won't break? Or is the balljoint attached to the billet control arm at an angle so it becomes a non-issue?

Sam Lin

The billet arms use high offset spherical bearings with considerably more range of travel than the stock ball & pin.

Sam