early/late offset front suspension components

[paluck]

hi everyone. My team and I have a 944 that we're buiding for LeMons and I'm

hoping to get some confirmation on a suspension design we've cobbled together.

First is is prudent to note that we have several cars of varying years that we are using to assemble 1 or 2 serviceable vehicles

The primary platform is a late offset 1987 944
for the front suspension, we have done the following and the geometry appears to work:
* struts from 1983 944, with the angled strut top taken from the 1987 strut (which seems to be necessary for the altered late offset geometry)
* spindle, rotor, caliper from the 1983 944
* flexible brake lines from the 1987 944 (which i assume may be longer due to offset)
* late offset alum a-arms, steering rack, and sway bar assembly from the 87

again we have pretty much a cornucopia of parts, but have been mixing and matching to get the best (e.g. the '83 brake system is new, '83 struts are new, the 87 were blown)

despite alum a-arm balljoint and the '83 spindle weakness concerns, is this
combo workable from a geometry standpoint? (it all bolts up)
if you had it all available, would you choose something different for your front suspension dream team?
-Mike

[ideola]

I would not use the early stuff on this project for two reasons, irrespective of the geometry issues:
1. the later spindles have bigger, beefier bearings
2. the later hubs are much easier to service the front brakes because the rotors fit over the hub, rather than behind as on the early models, which require hub removal in order to change the rotors

[hoorah]

I run a 944 in chumpcar so I will give you my experiences.

I like to have lots of spares on hand at the track, and that is much easier to do with the early offset steel control arms with replaceable ball joints. That said, we have a late offset car and I didn't want to change over the entire rear suspension to match early offset all around. I didn't know what the implications were of running early offset front with late offset rear, so we decided to just keep running the late offset aluminum arms in the front.

We swapped over to an early manual steering rack and I think it was for the better. We had to get special tie rod ends (I wasn't in charge of this so I can't tell you exactly what).

I also prefer to have the stronger late hubs/bearings with the rotors on the outside.

Also, Im not sure if you're running or plan to run camber plates, but it was on my list of things to add to our car. You may want to check to see if you can run the common ebay-type camber plates with early springs/spring seats. I know ebay camber plates have a somewhat poor reputation on the forums, but there are several chump/lemons teams running them that are thankful for the additional camber and camber adjustment.

If theres anything we learned racing a 944 in chump/lemons, its "do not show up to race day with a rubber centered clutch". If you don't know what kind of clutch you have in the car, change it now.

[paluck]

Thanks to you both
Ideola - I think we've crossed paths before and are running your machined shifter bushing for our 1979 924 snailshell! That car's on the out and this ones on the in.
I hear you on bearing, spindle. Brakes not too much of a concern, we take this thing apart so frequently we can do it in our sleep. Factor is just the cost. If we go late spindles, we need to buy rotors and strut inserts. Honestly it may be something we just prep for and do, should we have an early offset strut problem or our rotors need replaced. Its just that those components are relatively new and LeMons is geared for the ... ahem... budget conscious

hoorah - we're depowering the stock rack. We've been able to get some adequate neg camber before, but we may look for some cheap options if the new chassis doesn't allow.
We do have a rubber centered clutch, but its fairly new. They can be robust enough for track use if they're not rotted. I have one in my track S2 that has many thousands of track miles on it and still going strong.

[hoorah]

Originally Posted by paluck

Thanks to you both
Ideola - I think we've crossed paths before and are running your machined shifter bushing for our 1979 924 snailshell! That car's on the out and this ones on the in.
I hear you on bearing, spindle. Brakes not too much of a concern, we take this thing apart so frequently we can do it in our sleep. Factor is just the cost. If we go late spindles, we need to buy rotors and strut inserts. Honestly it may be something we just prep for and do, should we have an early offset strut problem or our rotors need replaced. Its just that those components are relatively new and LeMons is geared for the ... ahem... budget conscious

hoorah - we're depowering the stock rack. We've been able to get some adequate neg camber before, but we may look for some cheap options if the new chassis doesn't allow.
We do have a rubber centered clutch, but its fairly new. They can be robust enough for track use if they're not rotted. I have one in my track S2 that has many thousands of track miles on it and still going strong.

paluck - have you been running a 924 in lemons? If so then you probably already have more experience with it than I do. We bought our car from another chump team that told us the clutch was 'fairly new' and the measurement of the clutch fork showed good material. We threw chunks of rubber out of it at Sebring and the clutch completely failed 30 mins before the end. So, just saying - fairly new can still grenade on the race track. Of course, ours may not have been exactly as new as the PO led us to believe.

For the rack, I was okay with the depowered rack but with the other people on our team we felt it would be an improvement to go with a manual rack. Personal preference I guess but if de-powered works for you, roll with it.

I don't blame you for not wanting to switch everything over to the late spindles/struts/rotors, but if you ever do take the plunge, there are some Centric brake rotors on Amazon for $27/each including shipping. The price seems too good to be true but for a budget series like Lemons/Chump it might be a valuable option. I'm considering ordering a set to have as track spares.

[paluck]

hoorah - yes we've campaigned our 924 for the past .. 7 + years for LeMons and its just been outclassed in HP. My team was running some analysis - we came in 60th or so place last event, but had the 1500th fastest lap... or something ugly like that.
Most everyone is running newer vehicles or doing engine swaps. 100hp just not cutting it anymore (it was fine with the pack that used to run 7 years ago as everyone was running that crap).
Our chief mechanic just informed me that our parts stockpile includes a spring centered disk from a 1981 924 so if we can get the pressure plate to work - we may have that option available instead

We found instructions somewhere about properly depowering that involves opening up the rack and pulling out some restrictor donut, so I'm going to attempt that this weekend. We had a manual rack for a 944 years ago, but sold it - wish we'd kept it

[hoorah]

Yeah, even though we've only run one race and prepping for our second, we realize we are really outclassed. Speed creep is strong in the eastern region. We did manage to place 50th (of 100) at Sebring, while blowing a clutch, and not finishing the last half hour, on our first race out. I'm pretty proud of that. I also somehow turned my fastest lap at night, when I couldn't see s**t. I'm not sure what that means.

Anyway, the 944 as a race car is going to continue as long as its still fun for us. When we inevitably crash or blow an engine, we will re-evaluate (and probably pick something else).