What say the 914 faithful (except CWs...we know your answers)...
Have you tried coil over fronts?
What spring rate did you use?
Which rear spring did you use to balance with?
What is the main use of your car (street, Ax, sunday driver, race, combo)?
Was this set up for a four or a six (or a subie, V8, rotary, etc)?
Did you have to re-enforce the chassis around the upper front strut mount?
What were your perceived benefits?
Were there any drawbacks/ill effects?
Could you tell the difference?
Okay...I'm sure this will spawn at least 11 more questions...if not I owe ya!
So...spill it...
What are you trying to improve?
The only reason I would go to Coil over fronts is to increase front spring rate and to install upper and lower A-arms.
Way too much trouble
Have you tried coil over fronts?
Yes
What spring rate did you use?
Ive used from #250 to #650 and settled on #450
Which rear spring did you use to balance with?
ended up with #350 rears
What is the main use of your car (street, Ax, sunday driver, race, combo)?
track/race
Was this set up for a four or a six (or a subie, V8, rotary, etc)?
modified 3.2/6 short gearbox
Did you have to re-enforce the chassis around the upper front strut mount?
No
What were your perceived benefits?
Large selection of spring rates, easy to change springs
Were there any drawbacks/ill effects?
a touch more sprung weight, not able to achieve as much neg camber because spring fouls with body, however my car didn't end up needing massive camber due to very little body roll. Tire temps and handling agree
Could you tell the difference?
Yes
eOkay...I'm sure this will spawn at least 11 more questions...if not I owe ya!
So...spill it...
Steve Timmins developed a chart of 911 torsion bar spring rates
http://instant-g.com/Data/911CoilConv.html
the front data is applicable to the 914, the rear data is not applicable
a 23mm torsion bar is the largest available for the fronts and gives a spring rate of #355. If you find you need heavier springs than that youll have to go coil overs.
450lbs on scotts car, if i recall correctly ...
don't recall the rate on rogers car ...
upper strut boxes for coilovers, this is an early pic of what is now Bill P. 's "Beast" ...
Andy
Couple of points...
Coilovers on a stock 914 limit the amount of negative camber you can dial in. As the springs & spring perches will contact the inner suspension tower metal. As the beast pic shows to gain negative camber you must install new suspension towers.
Coilovers will increase the position of weight in suspension system. Torsion bars can't really be any lower.
Adjustment for corner balancing is a moot point as both system ares easy to reconfigure.
Only benefit is coilover springs are cheap & come in huge variety of spring weights.
Side note: F1 cars use torsion bars. The technology isn't that antiquated its just a straight spring.
This discussion has been done over and over.
the only two reason for a front coil over are:
1) you need 400+ lbs of spring
2) you plan on changing springs every weekend to suit different tracks.
I would guess that 999 out of 1000 914 race cars out there don't change front spring rate from track to track
be honest... will you really run 2 or 3 or more different spring rates?
I doubt many will
thus it become bling factor if you don't meet one of the 2 reasons
brant
Wow, lots of great info out there!
Thanks TIMT for the conversion chart...now I have somthing to work with....
I would have guessed that 1mm increase in bar diameter would have been more than a 50lb change in spring rate...this would have left big gaps...but it's not the case according to the chart...
I suppose as I work on set up that once it is set, it is set. but getting there might involve borrowing a few bars to try out.
You guys have almost convinced me!
Great pics too!
Thanks Gents.
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