Mongo

Hey Joseph did you reindex your torsion bars if you're running that stiff of a spring in the rear???

joseph mitro

yes, i had to do it twice. the first time i dropped 6 clicks both inner and outer torsion bars as per the paragon products tech article, but this was not enough. the springs kept coming unseated over large bumps, so i reindexed them 6 clicks again, for a total of 12 clicks inner and outer, or a drop of about 3". the coilover springs are now fully seated and make up the difference in ride height, so the actual drop (which is adjustable because of the coilover springs) is about 1.5" - 2"

it was a big job, but compared to rebuilding my engine it was fairly simple. i also had an air impact wrench and air ratchet which cut the time down considerably.

M758

Andy,
I have been racing my 944 since 2002 and I have never need to do any cosmetic repairs. Only exception was from a driving mistake I made at willow springs and went off track. I needed to source a replacement front spoiler. The only other cosmetic damage was from rock chips. 944-spec is no contact. It will never allowed not accepted. Car to car contact is quite rare in our racing. Our guys don't have budgets for crash damage.

M758

You can get that same spring rate from 29 or 30 mm t-bars as you do from 275lbs helpers.

I run 350's and 30 mm t-bars.

I do agree with Joe on the racing deal. don't worry about it now. Racing does not need to be crash bang affair, but there is no need to jump in too early. For the most part 944-spec guys are fun to hang with and helpful. You can have fun with your car and just do DE and autcross and still hang with spec guys. In 2-3 years you may be in position to start racing. Maybe not. All of us racers have friends that just DE, even some that have been doing DE for years and still love it.

If you really want to race one day 944-spec is a great entrty point. If you just want to have fun, low cost autocross/track car. A 944-spec type prepared car is great fun.

Mongo

God Spec is so tempting, but I don't want to strip the car out completely and having an interior would make me less competitive against other spec cars. I simply just want a stiffer and better mousestrap for my class in AX at the moment.

Danno

I'm with M758 on this one. Just put in big torsions, re-index to proper ride-height and be done with it. Will take 1 weekend day if you're fast, 2 if you're slow and need to reference the Clark's procedure often. Recently, I installed some 30mm bars in a 944-spec car with hard spring-plate bushings and it took me and Frank about 8 hours over two days. I guess we could've done it in one day if we wanted to get up early. Anyway, the most time-intensive ask was actually cutting off the old rubber bushings. Four of them ended up taking 2 hours to cut off and grind the remaining pieces. The actual torsion-bar part was easy, mark the stock position when you take it off, click new bar over by 1,2,3 splines so the arm sits higher than stock (body lower) to compensate for stiffer rate. Threw it all together and BAM! Proper ride-height on the 1st try!

Although 32mm torsions on a stripped out 2500lb 944-spec racer may seem to be overkill. But the hard bushings really made the suspension move smoothly.

BTW, from your photo, it really looks like you need to lower that rear-end and get some stiffer front springs.

Mongo

The price on 30mm torsions are cheaper than coil overs. If I do the upgrade I can have plenty of money to go with Koni Yellows. I'd have to take my car into the shop however to get the new bars installed since I don't have the proper tools to remove the rear suspension off the car. Anyone know just off the top of their head how long it'd exactly take to remove the suspension to swap out the Torsion bars?

shortyboy

im thinking of going the same route but with removing the torsion bars.i will be purchasing the front coilover kit from paragon and the rear kit from kla-industries,both without springs yet(i can source either 8" or 10" 2.5" ID springs locally).i just need a good spring rate for the street,might see some local DE events too.wouldnt adding helper springs eliminate the need to reindex the torsions?thanx

Mongo

Hey guys I've decided to upgrade my torsion bars instead of doing rear coilovers per responses to this thread. It's also the most cost-effective too. However, I am also going to upgrade the front springs to the coil over kit that's available at Paragon. Would a 300 lb spring be too high of an effective rate for the front if I go with 30mm torsion bars for the rear?

Geo

Andy, if you plan on lowering the car, 300lbs may not even be enough. You may or may not be aware of issues with the balljoints binding. This is an incredibly dangerous situation. Jim Pasha of Excellence blames it on excessive lowering, but he's actually wrong. The problem is more complex than that. We've had some discussions on the racing forum (I'll post a link tonight) about this.

I used to think it was a design flaw, but I cannot say that with confidence right now. I need to test some things on my car with stock struts to see if the balljoints bind with stock struts. If you run shorter struts than stock, it would be a contributing factor. Another is lowering with too low a spring rate. For the street that is a real issue. For racers it just means that we need to run stronger springs.

In a nutshell, be very careful about your spring rates, struts, and lowering. I think I'm on a roll with a much better answer than has been thrown around in the past, but I need some time in the shop and it's 100* here now so the shop is bloody hot when the sun is up.

Mongo

no no I"m not gonna lower ANYMORE than 3/4" in the front and 1/2" in the back. Nothing more. I'm well aware of the ball joint issue. I just want a stiffer spring than the 220's i have on there.

K-bit

I am also in the need of updating the rear suspensin. The PO put 300 pound springs on the Paragon kit with nothing to the rear. After a few DE's by myself and my wife the rear is in need of an upgrade. What would you use 28 or 29 mm bars? Any suggestions for shops in upstates NY.
Thanks,
Jack

Geo

Jack, if you are in or near Rochester, go to Phoenix Imports in East Rochester. It's owned by Randy Ames, a really good guy. And tell him I said hi.

Serge944

Andy - 350#/30mm torsion bars is IDEAL. This also happens to be the setup a lot of 944 spec racers run (and what I'm planning to do for my car in the future).

Also, this will not be a street friendly set-up. Honestly, anything more than double the stock spring rate is too much for a 944 that sees rough streets. Get a set of heavy swaybars for now and play around with camber and other alignment settings. The car won't react as quickly but will have the same amount of ultimate grip.

Serge944

23.5 - 126
24 - 137
24.5 - 149
25.5 - 175
26 - 189
27 - 220
28 - 254
29 - 292
30 - 335

I would go with 29mm. Even though 944s are biased with more rate up front (951s were biased to the rear because of the extra weight from the useless snail up front), I think around a 1:1 ratio would be great to eliminate some of the inherent understeer.