originalmotorhead

Wanting to convert my 844 (early offset) to coilovers for both front and rear. It's a track only car, with hopes of racing it after I get a comp license. I plan to run 550lb front springs(seems to be the norm) and not sure about what lb for the rears.

Curious if anyone has reccomeneded supplier & brand.

A friend of mine works at a Koni Authorized dealer and says he can take my oem strut tubes and add a threaded sleeve to them for the coil over.

Anyways, looking for suggestions.

sorry if this has already been discussed in an older thread(posted this from my phone so......)

Tom

Potomac-Greg

If you plan to race the 944, don't do anything you'll have to un-do later. Spec 944 does not allow coilovers (definitely on the rear, not sure about fronts). Try the 944 forum here for more info on early suspension. There's also a lot of banter on front-rear spring rates. With 550 front springs, you would either want to upgrade your rear torsion bar to 30mm; or delete the rear torsion bar and look into 600-650 lb rear coilovers. Paragon Products has a new set of coilovers that is a really good deal (cheaper than Bilstein Escort Cups). Not sure if they work for early 944s. PS: Get yourself the hardware necessary to run a rear sway bar. And then get a rear sway bar!

originalmotorhead

Agreed, I only want to spend / wrench it once !!

I'm looking at running in the 944 cup since it seems to have more of a following in the nasa great lakes region vs the spec.(least I thought that is how it was??)

I was thinking the coil overs on the rear would be ideal for easy ride height adjustment purposes.

I yanked the rear suspension this weekend and boy was it a bugger, don't care to do that again. i already have a sway bar in the rear but i believe it's the smallest diamater one(it's a factory option). I thought I read somewhere that the early offset suspension had an issue with rear coil overs, which may cause me to go to the 30mm torsion bars.(need to confirm that)

For the fronts, the shop told me about 600 per side for the conversion, ready to bolt into my car.(with adjustable inserts n all)

Tom

krystar

yea 944 spec doesn't allow rear coil conversion. front coilover is ok though.

although i'm thinking about just getting a spring made to get me to the right height, rather than having the whole adjustable sleeve. i had adjustable coilovers on my acura and i've only touched the height twice.


oh btw, if u get like 600 lb springs, the koni yellow's won't be properly valved for that. i believe i read that the yellows were only good up til about 350 or 400 lb springs.

Van

Tom, for 944 spec, do 31 or 32mm torsion bars and something like 350 front springs. I believe that for the 944 spec, you can only use the Koni single adjustable shocks - which are a reasonable price. I also believe that bushings are free, so you can replace everything with either Racer's Edge or Elephant Racing solid bushings.

Also, you can cut round holes in the rear quarters to make indexing the torsion bars easier - but once you have them set, I doubt you'll have to mess with them.

Sounds like a fun project! I sometimes think about building a 944 spec car.

aeshultz

Guys- he's not doing "Spec". Cup rules are much more open.
Tom- why not email Dave Decola directly and ask what most ppl are running? Then call the 44Cup sponsor, Apex or Jason at Paragon - either will set you up with whatever you need.

Potomac-Greg

I know that Cup has more of a following than Spec on the East Coast, and the opposite is true in the West. Not sure about Great Lakes. Cup allows more modification in general, including rear coilovers. The downside is that a more highly prepared series requires you to be more highly prepared in order to be on the podium (in general).

Last bit of advice. You can buy a turn-key 944 race car for $6-7,000. To build one from a street car (including the price of the street car) will cost $8-10,000. When I'm ready to race, I'll sell my car and buy a pre-prepped race car. (Although I'm just a roll cage, seats and an interior-delete away at this point).

924RACR

There's a 944-Cup prepped 924S up here in MI, think he's asking around 6-7k...

APKhaos

944Cup basically adopts PCA Stock class rules, but with some more liberal application in some areas. For suspension, its PCA rules which basically means free so long as stock suspension pickup points are used and camber plates are pinned [although this may change in 2010 rules].

Suggest you talk to Jason at Paragon. While you can go hog wild with multi adjustable reservoir shocks, I was beating cars with these setups using Koni double adjustables with very heavy springs. Jason will point you in the right direction.

rlm328

I am running a JIC system. They have a single dampener adjustment on the front shock only, ride height is easy to manipulate. Moton also makes a system but they are way proud of it ($4200). The JICs are about half that, but you also lose all of the adjustability you get with the Motons. For spring rates that is more of a personal choice.

chrisc

Amen, I've spent 3 times more than what I could buy someone else's car for and I still have more to spend to make it race ready. But, I know the complete history of the car so that has a little value to me.

rlm328

This true but it is not as much fun.

M758

You can run 944 cup, but 944 spec is growing by leaps and bounds in that area. I believe a number of the 944 cup cars started running GTS there at the end of the summer. GTS rules are wide open limited only by rear wheel hp an weight. Great series, but a potential money pit to run up front. You can however run up front in 944 spec at a National level with limited budget and some racing knowledge.

Plus a 100% national championship 944 spec car will be cheaper to build and run than a 100% to the rules national championship 944 cup. The reason is that at 550lbs you need proper racing shocks to handle that spring rate. That is more expensive that Koni yellows which work fine with 250-400lbs spring rates 944 spec cars run. Plus a spec tire (225/50 R15 RA-1) means longer life and better pricing than the tires you would need for 944 cup. Also if you want to run cup you can with a few mod to the 944 spec car build. So build it to spec and it cheaper and you could run both.

Now what 944 spec allows is coilovers infront and camber plates. Some guys do fine with 250lbs weltmeister springs, but for most I advise getting the Paragon coilover kit with camber plates. This is the same as a ground control coilover kit. Spring rates should be in the 300 to 400lbs range. I like 350, but others have done well with 400lbs also. In the rear put in 30 mm t-bars. This hs the max allowed by the rules and matchs well to the Koni's and front spring rate options.

As for ride height you lower the car once you put the new t-bars in place. After that any minor changes can be done with the spring plate. This gives you + or - 1/2 inch. This is enough to tune the car. Nobody changes the ride height more than that as all you need is to be able to corner balnce and 1/4 ride height changes start impacting balance. Lower the car to about 4 to 4.25 inchs at the rocker on 225/50 R15 tires. That will get you in the adjustment range you need.

Again Koni yellows in the back to go with Koni's in front. These need to be off the shelf units.

As for sway bars guys run either a combination of 944 Turbo or 968 M030 bars, Weltmeister adjustables or Tarret Engineering bars. What is best is mostly personal perference although which bars you run are determined by your spring rates and how much adjustment you want.

I run welt bars front and rear and find their adjusment a key to fine tuning the chassis balance. I am just starting to learn to use different sway bar settings for different tracks.

Remember when it comes to spring rates 350lbs front and 330lbs effective rear does not sound like much, but it is 3x stock rates and works well on a 2600lbs car with driver. Our goal in in 944 spec with our suspension was to create enough stiffness and performance to make the car fun to drive, but also limit costs and operating expenses. Our suspension is not a complete race set-up, but given the weight and price gets us 90% of the way there for 50% of the cost. The major difference between cup and spec is that in Cup you are allowed to go 100% for a suspension and that last 10% of performance can cost alot. 944 spec limits of 30 mm t-bars in the rear (max rate) and no coilovers combined with off the shelf Konis realy puts a lid on cost while the open sway bars, camber plates, and front coil overs allows for a very tuneable chassis that keeps drivers thinking about how best to optimize what they already have paid for.

M758

Not quite right.

Max rate for t-bars is 30 mm solid or 31 mm hollow (these have a 30 mm effetive rate).

You can replace rubber bushings, but metallic replacements are not allowed. They can be stiffer rubber, poly, or delrin. Elephant poly bronze are NOT legal since the replace some of the rubber with metal.

You may drill holes in the body to make it easier to adjust the t-bars, but you are right once set there is no reason to adjust them. The spring plate provides sufficent adjustment range for fine tuning.

aeshultz

Joe;
Once again, an eloquent explaination of Spec setup (one that worked very well for my car). BUT- the gentleman in question (OP) has already decided to run as a Cup car. Regardless of what we want to think, there are VERY few Spec cars running in the Midwest. Cup is the place to be.
Just ask Bill Comat what class his beautiful porpose-built Spec car is now running.