Aggressive ride height

After about 2 months on jackstands, I finally finished my torsion bar and sway bars upgrades along with my brake system rebuild. I am looking for opinions and settings on ride height before I get it aligned and corner balanced. Right now the rear is 24 1/2 and front 25 at the center of the fender lip. I need to take the car out and drive to get the suspension to settle. My stiff shocks are also holding it up a bit. I already had my car lowered to euro specs prior, but with the stiffer bars, 22mm and 28mm, I could go a little lower. I also have Bilstein sports. I have adjustable spring plates on the back, so raising or lowering at least an inch is a snap. It looks good now, but little things like not being able to get a floor jack under it may make me want to raise a small amount.

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LOW IS GOOD, to a point. If your not scrapping gum off the pavement already, I would leave her down there and simply get two pieces of wood, (at least as wide and long as the tire and about an inch thick) to drive one side of the car on to, giving you the occasional needed boost without negating any benefits of your killer setup.

I am thinking of doing the same as you. Please tell us what brands you went with and what your impressions are of quality and job difficulity.

Right now my 78SC, with stock sway bars sits ar 24 3/4 at teh rear and 25 /1/4 in the front. This seems to be a perfect compromise for a daily driver, i.e. going in and out of driveways, and occational road construction. I did switch to the neatrix bushings, stock torsion bars and Bilstein Sport shocks. I only wish I wold have replaced the whole sway bar with an adjustable one. Let us know what you do and your impression of the increase in torsion bar diameter.

The torsion bars and spring plate are Sway A Way brand. The Adjustable sway bars are AJUSA 22mm both. The fronts are through the body and went in fairly easily. I did use a Weltmeister inner reinforcing plate. You have to either drill a hole through the control arm and them bolt the U tab through or better weld this on. Used a recipricating saw with a metal blade to cut the old sway bar mounting off. Saves much time over a hack saw. The back bolts into the adjusting bolt in the spring plate. This one was very easy. I had help with determining the initial settings for the spring plate angles which was 25 degrees. This is dependant on torsion bars size and year of car. If you can get this initial angle right, it will save you a bunch of swearing when you bolt everything back and the height is off. You can use your old settings if your not changing the torsion bars, but if you stiffer, you will be way to high. With the adjustment, you can raise, lower and corner balance. The front always could be easily adjusted.

Quality: The Sway A Way bars and plates are nice. I put on a new spring cover plate to clean the whole affair up. The AJUSA bars are OK. Some of the adjusting bolts seem like the could stand to be beefier. I wanted a heavier duty bar then the Weltmeister but did'nt need the racing bars like Charlie bars. Let me know if there are any questions. I would be glad to help out. As a note, I think I love working on my car just as much as driving it. If there was another 911 around here that needed things done on it that I could do, I would do it for free. I am sure others here feel that way.

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One other note, you have to do a rudimentary rear wheel alignment to get it to the shop. You can do these using a level and a long straight edge to determine toe in and camber. Details can be provided, it is a little lengthy. Failure to do this can shred tires in a few miles.

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If your car is too low to 'pick-up' with a floor jack using a 'jack plate' in the factory receiver, then it probably too low! If, on the other hand, you have been lifting the car by putting a floor jack directly under the pan ... you must have been very lucky that you haven't dented the floorpan previously! I suspect that you will have better luck using a 'jack plate' in the future.

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Warren Hall
1973 911S Targa