dave968M3

Any advice on the advantages of the different types of replacement A arms available for track use on a 968 with a race suspension?

MJR911

doubt you can go wrong with either one. Karl at Racers Edge really has the 968 thing figured out, and I suspect they're a bit cheaper than fabcar

Mike Buck

The CA's are aluminum, the others steel. I wasn't interested in adding weight to the wrong places on my car when "upgrading".

APKhaos

Mitch is right. Karl has the hot setup for the 968, and his control arms are nice pieces.

Oddjob

The big difference in my mind is the balljoint pin/post diameter. FABCAR arms use the standard post diameter, the Charlie Arms and I believe the Racers Edge will also, require boring out the spindle pinch point by an additional 2mm for a larger diameter post.

Im not sure which is better, but I do have some concern about weakening the spindle. And I have not heard of a Fabcar balljoint/spherical bearing pin ever breaking. I have seen the steering knuckle pinch point break on a car that had it bored out for a charlie arm, but it was caused by a severe roll over and the suspension was ripped off the car, so that is not necessarily a fair assessment.

Has anyone ever seen or heard of any types of failures with these arms?

944Ecology

There was just a failure of a steering knuckle at Lime Rock on a car equipped with Charlie Arms. The break was in the area just above the drilled out hole for the larger spud on the balljoint. Whether or not the larger hole was contributory is not certain at this point.

gb

RedlineMan

And anyway...

The ball joint pin doesn't break because it is not up to the job. It either breaks because the car is over-lowered (ball joint bind), or the pinch hole in the spindle is either loose or no longer has a round bore (allows the pin to move axially).

Using a larger pin is an end-run around these issues. It may work, and is not a bad idea in and of itself, but I'd also have interest in actually solving the problem!

Bill L Seifert

I'm glad that this subject was brought up. I tried last year to get the SCCA to approve the aftermarket arms (FabCar, Charlie, etc) for use by 944's in ITS. They are still not approved. If those of you that run Turbos, 968's and 944S2's use them, I think they are legal in ITE. But they are still not approved in ITS, as a matter of fact they are NOT ALLOWED.

The SCCA, or at least Geo, has agreed to look further into the subject. I have been meaning to send a broken A-Arm and ball joint to Geo, but have been tied up with another huge problem (Not car related) for the last month or so.

I hope the SCCA will approve them later, and I plan to send the broken A-Arm and ball joint to Geo within the next week or so.

Geo, thank you for your patience.

Bill Seifert

1987 944S Race Car

ed devinney

How much do the steel arms weigh compared to the aluminum ones? IIRC, only 1/2 the weight should be unsprung, anyway?

Bill L Seifert

Ed

I have never weighed them, but they feel about the same, the steel may actually be a little lighter. Yoou can't use the steel on your 88 951 unless you changed to the early struts, and wheels, and the trailing arm mount, because the steel ones are a little shorter. I guess they could be extended but they are not that strong anyway. For a 951 the Charlie or FabCar are the way to go, and you won't have any legality problem, even with the SCCA. In the SCCA the 951 runs ITE, which is kind of a run what you brung class.The only time I saw anyone get disqualified from ITE, was when he was running slicks, instead of DOT tires.

Bill

M758

I have seen a Fabcar unit fail.

It was Chris Cervelli's GT1R 951 chassis. He sold the rolling chassis a couple years back. The new ower did a street car conversion to it and in short order busted a fabcar pin after some street driving. Failure was a fatigue crack that reached critical length and failed all the way through.

Do remember that Chris ran 450+ hp and maybe 10 wide slicks on front.

That is the only fabcar failure I heard of.

DER951

The Charlie arms seem to be unavailable, and I've been on the Racer's Edge waiting list for months. I bought Turbo S hubs, spindles, and brakes (difficult to find and expensive) to install, but will not have any machining done until the new parts are in my hands. I've seen drawings of the Racer's Edge arm on their website, but have not seen a picture of the ball joint and pin. They seem to be taking a different approach here. Has anyone seen a picture of the arrangement?