sooooo, long story short, i had the feeling that my front shock were toast for quite a while now, so last weekend, we took the dust covers off so i could run the schlicks without them rubbing on the covers.

while we were in there, brad suggested that we cut the rubber stops in half because the car is lowered quite a bit and that *should* give me some more useable shock movement ...

weeeeeellllll, here's what happened afterwards ...

after we put everything together, i didn't realize until the day after the AX that it seemed as the front of the car was even lower as before.
grabed my tape-measure, and low and behold, the car dropped 1/2" in the front!

soooo, i'm pretty sure the front was already sitting on the rubber stops before we cut them (thus adding to the "shocks are toast" feeling) and now that we cut the rubber stops in half, it dropped down even more!

million dollar question:
are my shocks simply toast and that's why it's sitting on the rubber stops or did i lower the car too much?
the shocks are the original boge that came with the 911 front end, meaning they're probably 20 years old ...

now what?
Andy

Undo the top nut and drop the strut out past the fender. If you can compress the shock by hand it's toast. With a shock out of the car completely, I have to lean on a shock to have it slowly slowly compress. If you haven't sorted it by the 18th, I'll show you some worn out ones at the grand opening.

QUOTE (McMark @ May 31 2005, 10:35 PM)

I'll show you some worn out ones at the grand opening.

i know how a "kaputt" shock feels, i think my question simply was, would worn out shocks make the car fall down all the way onto the rubber stops or is the car simply too low?

aren't the torsion bars supposed to hold the car up?

right now, i don't have *any* shock movement anymore, the car is sitting on the rubber stops. that can't be healthy ...

i was under the impression the shocks in the front are more for the "rebound" softening and the torsion bars is what keeps the front up in the air.
correct?

Andy

Yep, you probably have little or no preload on the torsion bars.
How tight do the adjuster screws feel ?

The torsion bars are supposed to hold the front up. You need to wind the front up a bit. My car had the same problem a while ago. The shock is supposed to keep the spring under control - without it - the front end will bounce around all over the place. Of course - on a 914 - the shock also provides the top suspension linkage. On a car with double wishbones, you could run springs without shocks to see what that feels like :-)

If you want to switch to bilsteins on the front - I'd be up for trading the boge casings for my bilstein casings & shocks - although I am not certain as to the condition of the shocks. I have a new set of 914 Konis that will supposedly fit in Boge casings with an adapter.

maybe your torsion bars arent carrying the car. put some load on them to pick up the front end then try to do the lean on the fender bounce test.

How did you lower the car Andy? If you've been sitting on the stops this whole time, then you should probably adjust your ride height up with the torsion bar adjustment until it's off the stops. Once you have some clearance there, then see if the shocks are working by pushing down on the front end of the car (or just take it for a drive). It sounds like you just lowered it too much using the torsion bar adjusters. You might need to change the position of the bars on the splines too depending on how much adjustment you have left using the adjuster.

Let us know what you find out!

Randy

ha! It looks like we all answered Andy's question at the same time.

At least our answers were consistent!

--
Randy

As I wrote my reply I figured I was misunderstanding. Yeah, yer ride height is set lower than the bump stops allow. Raise it up dood. When you're riding on your bump stops the car feels like it jumps after each bump and crack in the road.

You don't need no stinkin' bump rubbers!

Replace the rubbers with a few plastic shims (packers) to keep the shock from bottoming out internally and you can run it as close to the bottom as you want. Drop it down until the adjusters are loose and then raise it up one full turn. If you still don't like the way it feels raise it another turn.

Could be why your wheel was lifting so much at the AX.

I think you're on the right track. Shocks shouldn't determine ride heigth. Have a go at re-setting your ride heigth via the t-bars. If you're lucky, bouncing around the cones like Captain Kangaroo hasn't blown out an insert.

Riding on springs instead of bump stops will work wonders for your understeer conditions at the auto x.
With the front riding on the bump stops you sort of had infinite front sping rate, and we all know that too much front spring rate will make a car plow.
Good thing you found this before you started changing the rear suspension to compensate for the understeer!

George

BTW.....I just ordered a set of REAR Konis for Manfred.....they sent me FRONTS......maybe if ya call Paragon he might cut ya a deal on them instead of shipping them BACK to Texas.....ask for Jason the owner or Chuck the sales guy....

QUOTE ("*" @ Jun 1 2005, 04:47 PM)

I just ordered a set of REAR Konis for Manfred.....they sent me FRONTS......maybe if ya call Paragon he might cut ya a deal on them instead of shipping them BACK to Texas.....

thanks for the offer, but i don't have the scrilla for a set of konis right now ...

Andy

Offer him free computer consultancy/hosting for his website...geez, do I gotta think of everything?????

heh I think Eric nailed it... look at Andy's car... it's tap dancin' like Sammy Davis Jr.


M

just spent the coin for some new front konis myself, my boges were totally dead. installing them right now... SUUUUPER excited... andy, get some kyb's or something (i know some locals have some) until you have the $$ -- any dampening will be better than none..

QUOTE (Racer Chris @ Jun 1 2005, 12:30 AM)

You don't need no stinkin' bump rubbers! Replace the rubbers with a few plastic shims (packers) to keep the shock from bottoming out internally and you can run it as close to the bottom as you want.

Chris,

I hope you're kidding.

QUOTE (groot @ Jun 2 2005, 10:07 AM)

Chris, I hope you're kidding.

Well,
I'm serious that he doesn't need bump rubbers if he uses plastic packers to prevent damage to the shock valves. (OTOH, there are bump rubbers available that would raise the spring rate less dramatically.)
And as far as how low Andy wants to set up his suspension - I bet there are more "experts" within 20 miles of his house than there are within 100 miles of mine. He already had Brad helping him, and he apparently doesn't want to do it using common sense.
No offense intended Andy.