'71 911T strut assembly, "early" or "late" ? Options

[qa1142]

So as I look at 5 lug parts... Would a '71 911T strut bold directly into my '74?

My ball joints are new, do I have to replace them with something different?

What year do 911T move from "early" to "late" style struts?

Any guess on Boge, Koni, or Bils based on this picture. obviously needs 100% rebuild

Thanks

Will

[Eric_Shea]

Without seeing the tops of the calipers, that appears to be an early 911S front suspension from either a 1969 through 1971 vehicle.

I wouldn't worry about the ball joint rounding as it rarely becomes an issue. If you have the early struts it's a good idea to check before you get new ball joints and bolt everything back together but I wouldn't make that a deal breaker.

The early ball joint strut will have a fairly large M10 (19mm hex head??) bolt squeazing the base and a pinch style base with a gap in ot. The later style will have the pin which should sit flush on one end and have a 13mm self locking nut on the other end.

Those struts are not early Boge because ... those are definately S-Calipers bolted on to them; "THEY MIGHT BE" late model Boges from an SC. This could be because it appears there has been some work done regardless. The longer studs say to me, this came off a car that was raced. You can expect a patchwork of bits here and there to make this work. Say you had a T and you wanted lighter, larger S-Calipers... find some cheap 3.5" struts and you should be good to go. What's a cheap 3.5" strut? SC struts. When I say patchwork, that doesn't mean bad. All those parts bolt together just fine.

If it's all early, my guess is "Koni" on those struts "unless" you see a hint of green there that I can't see. Koni is most common for early 911S cars. It's hard to tell from the pictures but, they appear to taper just above the steering knuckle. Bilstein and Boge struts will be straight all the way down the tube. These appear to be smaller at the base. I'd say regardless, they've been refinished at one time or... they're the later SC Boge. If they're Koni's I would take the time to have them Soda blasted and refinished in Chevy engine block orange.

Moving on. Calipers, is it something you can do or...? Sure, you can do it but, I'd caution you that they should be done right. That involves complete disassembly and finding an anodizer willing to take the time to tape and seal off the steel bits pressed into the calipers (knockback pins). Most anodizers will not do this. They need to be de-anodized first, polished, etched and reanodized. Those are valuable and rare calipers. Basically... they are Porsche 908 calipers that were on real race cars. We have the bits (seal kits, SS pistons and SS, compensation lines) to make it all work for you. These are not CSOB calipers.

They will work fine on a narrow bodied car. The factory installed them on #11 which was a press car with a 906 based engine. The factory also used the appropriate "rear" caliper on that car. The 914-6/GT caliper. You can find a pair of Ferrari cores for around $500 but you will need $150.00 worth of bleeder mods. Google a good pair of "Crampons" for your size boot. You have now stepped foot firmly on the slippery slope. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

So, I'd say bottom line is; if the suspension follows the calipers it's probably a Koni system that has been refinished at some time. You'll be able to tell if there's a taper at the base of the strut. If it's a patchwork system to get 3.5" calipers on an early 911T... probably SC Boges. No loss there because, Boges allow all varieties of inserts to be run in them. Koni's only allow "Koni" inserts.

Good: Anthing under $650 - $700 is a decent deal for that suspension ($400 for the struts and various suspension bits and $250 - $300 for the calipers).

Bad: There is no such thing as a cheap S-Caliper. They will need new pistons, seals, anodizing and compensating lines. We regularly sell refinished pairs outright for $995.00. Re-finishing alone with new pistons can run over $500 bucks.

Hope that helps.