I thought my car was handling funny

[89911]

Got home from my latest track event to find this.

Looks like my winter will involve dropping the gas tank and welding reinforcement plates for my next set of sway bars. Here is the next set I am getting at a stiffer 27mm.



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[89911]

Someone asked to see the car in the Fikse FM5 with the Black anodized centers: There aren't Fuchs, but there close!



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[sweater914]

man, that sucks, looks like some major surgery to fix it, metal fatigue what a b!tch

nice car though

[This message has been edited by sweater914 (edited 11-01-2001).]

[89911]

Yeah, the metal there actually isn't very stiff. Has anyone else had to do this fix?
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[This message has been edited by 89911 (edited 11-01-2001).]

[Jack Olsen]

There's a lot of stress, there. But the sheet metal is pretty strong (present example excepted, of course).

I had the connecting arm on mine snap clean through on the track at Willow Springs.

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Jack Olsen
My Rennlist page • My Pelican Gallery page • My Porsche Owners Gallery page

[This message has been edited by JackOlsen (edited 11-01-2001).]

[old_skul]

You know, it actually looks like that area's been repaired before. Look at the metal where your brake line junction is mounted - that metal looks all ripply and almost like....ugh...body filler.

Enjoy welding? Let's hope so.

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Mark Szabo
1986 911 Targa 3.2
1987 Escort 5-speed 1.9 RIP
The Porsche Owners Gallery

[don911]

Yow! Bummer man....I've heard of the rear sway bar mounts breaking but I've never heard of this.
I was planning on putting on TRG sway bars...now I'm wondering if it's a good idea.

Don
87 coupe

[89911]

There is no repair there. In fact, they have only been installed for slightly more then a year. The previous bars were under the body. There is tons of rubbery undercoating on both sides of the fenderwall that may look like filler. Part of the reason why this failed is that the sliders were pushed back to increase stiffness. This reduced the rotational inertia and produced more translational (up and down) movement fatiguing the metal until failure. Solution is to go with a stiffer bar to begin with and keep the slider out to prevent binding. I also had 225 17" on the front with sticky track tires that added to the stress. Still it is unusual for this to happen.

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[Kahuna]

Love the K5s on Bill V and your car!!! What size/make tires are you running?

[IMONBOOST]

I assume you do looking at the car with roll bar and all, but do you have a tower brace in front? I would suspect that metal fatige in that area would be caused more from lateral torsion than anything else. Also, it looks like you have your drop links setup way too close to the pivot point, you are virtualy eliminating the torque arm from the bar so you are not allowing the bar to twist freely and putting the load on the mounting point. If you are in need of oversteer then try adjusting the rear sway bar or maybe you are off on the torsion bar setup? I am no expert, this is what I could come up with, but I do have the same setup on my car except the wheels and tires.

[Sportsman]

maybe these cars aren't as great as we think if they cannot even hold up to a track event.

i am suprised by the damage caused by normal intended use.

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Daryl Planter 91C2
Targa

[rvanderpyl]

That's a pretty common failure on cars that didn't come with the thru the body sway bar. The early cars had reinforcements welded to the sheet metal where the bar went thru the body. If similiar reinforecements aren't added when an aftermarket bar is put on a later car that's the result you may get. The small piece which is bolted on just doesn't distrubute the forces over a large enough area of what is basically just sheet metal.

Make sure you weld some extra reinforcement in when you repair the area.


Robert

[david c.]

Hey Michael,

Shoot me an email about what you have made up to reinforce this area. I'm going to have to cut to install my front sway bar this winter and I'd like to have a set made to avoid this problem you've experienced. If we can get a couple of sets made by a sheet metal guru in the north hills, perhaps we can save a little each. It'd be nice to have them professionally finished in some heavy gauge metal-perhaps powder coated afterwards?

Maybe the others on the board would be interested too. I haven't seen a similar product out "there" anywhere else.

Thanks

Dave Cardone
76 912E.

[89911]

Here is a suggested repair by Steve Alarcon. I called him up and he suggested using 14 gauge steel. Thats the easy part. The pain is you have to remove the tank to remove the undercoating from burning while welding. There is no additional support in later or older cars for through the body sway bars. Every car still has the factory embossment that is used by the turbos. They did suggest reinforcing the areas in early cars. I'll document the repairs upcoming. The sliders also where not in that position before the damage. I actually was off only a few seconds from my best lap times when the support broke. Go figure.


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[This message has been edited by 89911 (edited 11-02-2001).]