What suspension for a mid engine 911?

[itsnotanova]

I can't stop thinking about doing a mid engine conversion on a junked out 911sc I have. I want to put in a transverse VR6 with a 6 speed in it but I can't figure out how to do the rear suspension. I'm wondering if the 914 trailing arms would work without too much hassle? Sure wish I could talk to this guy and see what he did
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COGEb0m4P7o

[333pg333]

If you were going to all that trouble why would you put trailing arm stuff back in? Put some recent multilink components in there. Cheap on Ebay.

[jadewombat]

You'll have to do a lot of cutting in the rear seat area. Not exactly the same animal as a 911, but just to give you an idea:

1.8t Mid-Engine 1960 UBRDUB - GermanLook Forums

Even after he completed that car (tremendous amount of time and effort) he still wasn't happy with it and started over with a boxster chassis and a bug body.

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

The 914's rear suspension was designed to fit around the engine and transaxle. You're talking about rotating the whole drivetrain by 90 degrees, so the compromises made for the 914 won't really apply very well. In fact, there's a good chance you wouldn't have room for the 914 bits around a transverse setup.

Since you will have to fabricate the suspension from scratch, why not go for the design with the best control over the camber (and toe, etc.) angles? Multi-link. You'll need to make compromises to deal with the width of the engine/transaxle package. You may be able to use wide wishbones (or A-arms) to go around the package, because it shouldn't take up a huge amount of fore-and-aft space, and much of that will be up high in the new engine bay.

With a multi-link setup, you can use upper and lower wishbones to locate the stock VR6 steering knuckle, and a tie-rod arm to set the toe. With some thought to the link lengths and the position of the tie-rod, you should have very nice camber and toe curves.

Of course, the front will still have MacPherson struts, so it won't work as well... But that can be changed, too--right?

BTW, one of the 914 guys (Britain Smith) transplanted a Lotus Elise suspension to his 914 dedicated autocross car (which already had a turbo Subaru engine). It came out pretty darned sweet, but it was a heck of a lot of work. He added rocker arms to the setup so the springs and shocks were all in-board and sprung weight, plus the spring rates changed with displacement. Very nice in a race car, but they probably take too much room in a street car. Still..........

--DD

[itsnotanova]

I've also been thinking about using parts from a boxster rear suspension. Build a cradle for the drive train and suspension, then bolt it up from underneath. Seems easy enough

[itsnotanova]

Well I'm about to pull the trigger on this project. I bought a wrecked 2004 GTI with the VR6 and the 02M 6 speed. I did some measuring and it looks like everything will fit within the back seat area. Next weekend i need to remove the back seat and all the rear suspension for some final measuring before the plasma torch comes out. Once I start cutting, there's no turning back.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.489832598439.270452.271545148439
I'm liking what this guy has going on but was wanting to use boxster rear hub assembly.

[itsnotanova]

Forgot to add, I'm open to ideas on what rear hub assembly to use. I'm leaning toward the boxster because of price, availability and bolt pattern. I'm thinking I could fabricate an upper mount on top of it that would fit inside where the strut was. That mount then would attach to two separate control arms that were also adjustable so I could adjust caster and camber.

[jadewombat]

I thought the hillclimb cars in Germany had low tolerance of suspension travel. Just looking at that Jetta makes my fillings want to fall out. Some serious chassis work on that car. Way more ambitious than anything I would take on, but hey if you have the means.

I honestly don't know why they took the front engine out of the Jetta to put it in the mid, might as well run a dual-engined car.

Do a search for the durocco

How To Drive A Dual-Engine Race Car - YouTube



http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=873053&mid=0&i=20

[itsnotanova]

2 engines sound even better!

Started to hack away at it. Still having conflicted ideas on what suspension to use. Now I'm tossing the idea of using the C5/C6 corvette rear knuckles with a similar A-arm design or trying to use the 993 rear suspension. My hang up on using the 993, is that I can't tell if there's enough room inside the suspension. My problem with the corvette, is the brakes. I like the looks and performance of the 993 fixed calipers.[/IMG]

[dlvandyke]

ck out this gti from 034 motorsports, guess it depends on ur budget too
personally,I'm using an '88 fiero rear cradle and suspension...'88 was the year the susoension was built correctly

[itsnotanova]

Are you building a mid engine car too? I have a build thread going on VWVortex if you want to see how mine is going. VWVortex.com - Mid engine VR6/02M Porsche 911 thread

[dlvandyke]

mine is an 03 svt focus, don't have pics avialable to post but will work on getting some

[dlvandyke]

pics of my insanity

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[itsnotanova]

Not seeing anything

[Cajundaddy]

Looks good so far. Once all is complete you will have a nice vintage Cayman.

[jadewombat]

Originally Posted by cajundaddy

looks good so far. Once all is complete you will have a nice vintage cayman.

[itsnotanova]

Still trying to figure out the rear suspension. I'm hoping to use the rear brakes from the boxster s ,but there is NO room for much back there. I tried using the front cradle from the box. Even if I sliced and diced it up, it still wouldn't fit. Looks like I'll have to use the GTI front cradle and lower control arms and hopefully use the box hubs/macpherson struts. I would like to go with a double wishbone, but there is no way it would fit.
On another note I've started to buy porsches to sell for parts or whole. I'm selling the black boxster S for $8000 and parting out the gray one
[/IMG]

[dlvandyke]

sorry,try this

Photo and image hosting, free photo galleries, photo editing

[drive-ability]

I'm using a 996 front and rear suspension in my 914 mid-engine car.

[itsnotanova]

Very cool! Any pics of the front?