Later suspension on an 83 fit?
 

I'm heading out to the wrecking yard and found two later 944s with alloy suspension. One automatic and the other manual. Will the later suspension fit on my 83? I originally went out to get a rear splined hub. I had a bearing failure on the rear pass side and noticed it wobbling while on the smog machine. Figured that's what attributed to it. Will the later hubs fit? First thing I noticed was the lack of a castle nut and cotter pin on the later stuff so that's what got me thinking of just taking the whole swing arm assembly on both sides. I'm also thinking about grabbing the lower a arms up front as well.

While this post was written for early 924 guys wanting to change from 4- to 5-lug suspension, everything written here will apply equally as well to converting your early 5-lug setup to a late-offset alu-based suspension:
924Board.org :: View topic - Illustrated Guide to 5-lug Conversions

There are several gotchas to be aware of, I won't repeat them all here, so please read carefully. The following thread also has tons of useful information related to the subject:
http://www.924board.org/viewtopic.php?p=218957#218957

The offset is different between the early (83-85.5, 23mm offset) and the late (86-89, 52mm? offset) cars. You would need to change both the trailing arms and front A arms and use late wheels. If one of the cars in the junk yard is a 85.5 with the early 23mm offset then you can use those aluminum trailing arms.

There are a ton of early cars being parted out so you should have no trouble finding a replacement steel trailing arm with a good hub. Check on the the Pelican parts forum.