SUSPENSION UPGRADE: DIY Job or Not?!

[thefaculty]

Hi everyone,

I'm a little new here but I have enjoyed a great deal of support from Pelican members so far and am hoping I will receive the same now. My '79 SC needs a suspension overhaul, everything is stock, old and rattling around so time for a complete upgrade. I have been shopping around and hope to get most of the parts from our host but I have found the suspension builder over at Elephant Racing to be a really useful tool so I apologize for using it as a reference (see parts list below).

My question is: if I acquire all the parts I need is this work that I can do myself and then take to my mechanic for the proper alignment or is this something I really should leave to him entirely?

In the future the is going to rebuild the engine and tranny and for those highly specialized skills I of course leave it to the experts. It's not a $$ issue, its that I would very much like to have a hand in this car myself and, with little mechanical knowledge, I wanted to know if I am completely out of my depth in thinking I could undertake a full suspension overhaul myself. As you can see from the list below it would be a comprehensive upgrade and I am curious to know if I am crazy to try this alone?

I really appreciate any thoughts on this!!

Thanks
dK

[Bob Kontak]

I spent 4 years painting my 911. Probably in the early 2000's it would have cost me $10-15k to have the work done.

I had the dough then.

If you have a decent cash flow and a family that you want to keep, drop the coin.

Plus relatively fast vs many many months.

[Bob Kontak]

Just sayin'

[thefaculty]

lol - it does look beautiful though Bob and you did it yourself. There is a lot to be said for that that money can't buy I think and, for me, that's also the point. I'd like to stand back someday and look at a car I had a part in, not just one I paid another guy to do for me.

We also have nice long winters here in Canada which make for perfect "build" months and help to steer away the driving demons!! - I'm hoping it will help with the cabin fever that kicks in around February!!

[Ayles]

I did the suspension on mine over a couple weekends last summer. Could happen a lot faster depending your family situaution etc.

I did not find the work particularly hard, but there were some laborious days in the garage. I was fortunate and didn’t have much trouble taking things apart. No rusty fasteners or really stuck torsion bars. At the end of the process I had the alignment, ride height and corner balance completed by a professional.

Are you going racing? Definitely overkill on some of the parts you have chosen unless you are hitting the track on a regular basis.

[1979-930]

It depends on your ability, tools and free time. Working weekends only and probably not able to give both days it will take 4 to 8 weekends.

The time killers are the, while I'm in there, items like repainting or replating because you can't bring yourself to reassembly it dirty and rusty.

And you may dive into the brakes and bearings, again because you are in there.

So you could find it becomes a six month project due to personal time constraints and added items.


You take it to a shop, he puts on the parts, you pick it up, and drive away a week later.

[thefaculty]

Originally Posted by Ayles

I did the suspension on mine over a couple weekends last summer. Could happen a lot faster depending your family situaution etc.

I did not find the work particularly hard, but there were some laborious days in the garage. I was fortunate and didn’t have much trouble taking things apart. No rusty fasteners or really stuck torsion bars.

Are you going racing? Definitely overkill on some of the parts you have chosen unless you are hitting the track on a regular basis.

Thanks Ayles. To be honest the current suspension is what is preventing me from hitting the track. It's probably overkill for me right now but I would definitely enjoy tracking the car, it's something I'd very much like to get into. But your advice is taken well - perhaps the following would be better suited to a car that is primarily street with a few track days thrown in? What do you think?

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by thefaculty

We also have nice long winters here in Canada which make for perfect "build" months

I hear you.

Your set up will be critical. Bushings, blah, blah are mechanical work. (not discounting)

Put your study time into understanding how the splines work. Level car.

Perhaps multiple iterations.

[Ayles]

I had all the sexy racing bits in my cart at one point too I just had to be realistic with realities about where I will really driving the car and likely hood that it probably won’t ever see any serious track time in the foreseeable future.

I ended up going with Elephant racing rubber bushings front and rear. Elephant strut upper bushing, new shocks front and rear (sport rears), and sway bar bushings front and rear. I upgraded the torsion bars but ended up doing the solid bars. Also did turbo tie rods and new ball joints.

My car used to feel a little wobbly maybe jello like. Now it feels go kart precise and handles extremely well.

The other poster is right too, once you have broken the car down this far you should do the wheel bearings, get the breaks in order by replacing the rubber lines, maybe a caliper rebuild. I had already done all of this recently so it was done.

The job did require a couple tools I didn’t own. The first is a shallow socket to remove the rear calipers. The second was a special roll pin punch to remove the front shock inserts. The third was a ball joint tool. Though I did end up just cutting the old ball joint nuts off and having the shop I used torque them down.

[Mark Salvetti]

I would respectfully suggest that a refreshed stock suspension is plenty good for track use without compromising the street ride. If you haven't been on a track before you would likely be miles away from taking advantage of a lot of these upgrades.

You could upgrade the torsion bars a bit to make things a bit stiffer, maybe Carrera (thicker) sway bars, and then stick with rubber bushings everywhere else. I wouldn't bother with the low-friction control arm mounts, the monoball cartridges for the front struts or the trailing arm (go rubber for those).

I can appreciate making a leap and doing this once, but at the same time that's a bunch of money and I'm just not convinced it is worth it for the occasional track day.

Sorry, just wanted to throw a different perspective out there....

Mark

[old man neri]

It's hard to answer with out knowing exactly your skills, your tools, your experience, and your ability to learn/figure stuff out. That being said, do you have a hoist of some sort or are you just doing this on jack stands? Doing this for fun or to save money? Can you commit a decent amount of time to this or do you have a lot of 'life' going on?

You could always just do it in sections. Have a go at the front first and if you enjoyed doing it then order the parts for the rear.

FYI: usually the more 'track/performance' something is the less enjoyable it is on the street. I just did all this last winter and I stuck to stock rubber set up. Maybe I could have went with the polybronze....maybe.

[RSTarga]

I don't know what your roads are like in Canada, but those updates will be a rough ride on the street.

[Driven97]

If you're handy with a wrench at all, I'd recommend doing it yourself. These cars are well engineered and easy to work on. There's a certain satisfaction you get from doing work yourself, for me garage therapy is best therapy.

Nothing wrong with having it done, but if you're capable the job isn't hard.

[Knockdown]

I just redid my 77s suspension last Dec-Jan and my parts list was very similar to yours. It took about six weeks of 3-4days/week. I sent out the rear control arms to a shop to have the bearings replaced. I didn’t use rubber bushing anywhere and the ride is ok for me on the street but I like to AutoX as well. Getting some of the parts disassembled took some effort, an air hammer helped, main thing is when you run into something that is being difficult, research out some of the techniques others have shared on this forum. Alignment isn’t all that difficult either, make a good string setup, get a digital level, that way as you tune the suspension or ride heights, you can re-align quickly. I also purchased some corner scales to set the cross weights. If you think you’ll like tuning your suspension in the future, I would recommend a DIY install.

[304065]

13 years ago it was easy. Its probably easier today...

Lime Rock Thrash: The Disassembly

[HaroldMHedge]

Since you're appear to be doing both the bars and shocks. I would go ahead and have Elephant match the shock rates to the bars. Or, go with a set of Vons pair matched performance. The ride will be much better especially over bumpy roads.

[Alan L]

You can do this yourself. Just get a decent alignment after. I did all my upgrades on the 930 (track).
Nothing particularly hard - just a matter of understanding what you are doing before diving in.
Alan

[drauz]

“... if I am completely out of my depth in thinking I could undertake a full suspension overhaul myself.”
No, you aren’t. But you may be out of your depth in actually doing it. “It depends”.

It’s a pretty big job... not technically complex, just big. it’s “procedural” & reading instructions or watching videos is helpful. but the best way is to apprentice at the side of an expert - someone who’s done it many times.
I would ask myself; “do I want to gain the skill of 911 suspension overhaul, or do I want to drive my 911 w/ an ovehauled / upgraded susp. sooner rather than later?”

[Nathans_Dad]

Funny, my car is going in for this exact thing today. I wrestled with the same question the OP is. In the end, I got lucky. I have a VERY reputable Porsche shop nearby and know the main mechanic a little. It ended up costing me about $2k to have them do it and the guy is going to let me watch and (hopefully) help do some little things so I can learn something too.

Best of luck, I decided to go with having it done instead of possibly getting in over my head and having the car torn apart for a few months.

[Jesse16]

I did mine myself and would class my skills as mid-grade mechanically proficient with plenty of "of course I can do it confidence" thrown in. I seem to remember lots of comments on this forum that the need to replace those trailing arm mono-balls is questionable. Others mention that they looked great on removal and were a big pain to do so I did not do mine. The stock rear sway bar mounts apparently can crack over time (mine have not) and require a weld on replacement. You could maybe take the car to a shop first and consider having a decent welder do that first so its done, or not at all! The rest is just getting it done garage time! No real special tools required, you can borrow the ball joint tool any day of the week from various people here for the cost of shipping. Its a very decent satisfying job to do, I say give it a go if you aren't likely to quit on it. Oh yea, and if that's a through the body front sway bar you want, no idea on how that install goes. Could involve gas tank removal maybe.
I didn't do new sways.