here are stock sway bar dimensions i think (?) you were after @Van B
or best as i can measure here in the garage.
sway bar is under fuel tank so i can't do that one but its easy for you to get off your own car if the tank is out.

you can see in photos how the end of the sway bar is forged (or however its done) into a squared section of bar that the lever bar bolts to.

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@wonkipop thanks. I’m actually looking for the arm length eye to eye from the drop link to where it attaches to the sway bar itself. And the overall sway bar length as near as you can approximate. I know that might be tough to measure when installed. I’m trying to use the calculator superhawk provided to see torsion differences between what I’m attempting and the OE bar configuration.

Thanks for the help!

the lever arm off the sway bar is 120mm eye to eye.
the eye at one end being the roll bar centre and the other end being the drop link centre.

i can only give you those dimensions above for the sway bar length itself.
it protrudes those dimensions either side of the wheel well. you need to be able to measure deeper down in the wheel well to get the interior length.
no can do with fuel tank installed. but you can and then add the 75mm each end.
i would call the square ends part of the sway bar. allow a small amount for inner wheel well thickness and you have the length of the sway bar.

i hope my photo above in post before makes sense. i am measuring the distance out from the wheel well to the cl of the lever arm. all in all the sway bar is 85mm long from the wheel well out. same other side. add interior dimension across the hole that swallows the fuel tank. but lower down than top. you can see where to make the measurement from my photo. can't access roll bar from below car even if i could get myself under it, which i can't. head is too big. bottom panel is in the way.
its fully interiorized man.

realising maybe you are doing some calcs off site.
so here is a very approx dimension on interior dimension of roll bar length measure from top of fuel tank looking at edge of the cavity.

860mm.
maybe add 10mm to account for wheel well walls.
then 2 x75mm each end.
= 1020mm overall length.

good as 1000mm long give or take. the good old metre.

@wonkipop thank you kind sir. I think I can use your outside the wheel well numbers to reconfirm your length estimate. And your lever arm numbers are exactly what I need.

@wonkipop @Superhawk996
Thank you both for your help, looks like I’m definitely in the window for stiffness! First screenshot is the OE 914 setup, second is the 996 bar.
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I think it’s likely the 914 is stiffer than predicted here. As Superhawk pointed out to me, the arms won’t flex like a single piece bar and are a clean 90 deg transition (no diff between x and z). For the 914 length, I measured the space under the tank, measured metal thickness at the pinch welds, and used wonkipop’s wheel well measurements.

Now I’ll continue working clearances and post up for further face shots from the tribe here lol!

I like it! Good attempt at a baseline understanding of what the new proposed bar is in comparison to the stock bar.

In the on-line calculator change the z dimension to something small like 0.1 and it bumps the stiffness to about 169 so not a huge change there.

Just as the online estimator will underestimate the stock bar, it will probably slightly overestimate your 996 bar which I think has a pretty substantial hump in the arm to clear the LCA.

Overall looks pretty reasonable as a starting point. Better than what my first gut instinct thought!

I may be at a dead end because of control arm clearance…
The pics here show a 20mm offset. But to clear the tie rod end at full droop and full lock requires 50mm! Which means the sway bar is the lowest thing on the car and couldn’t possibly be covered by a modified pan.

I’m trying to be pragmatic about this, but I’m also really bummed that it doesn’t seem like a reasonable mod at this point.

Raise spindles to move the tie rod end up in Z? Raised spindles are generally a good thing to help with bump steer and the lowered front ride height stance that so many like.

Just a thought

Alternatively there are the Elephant Racing bump steer spacer thing-a-Mabob - let me find the link.

Nope I’m a dope - that is moving the tie rod end down instead of the spindle going up which effectively brings the rack and tie rod down. Doh! Both are in wrong direction to improve clearance you need.
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Wait what’s wrong with me trying to get you to keep that 996 bar over the elegant stock bar package.

Lol! Because the challenge is what it's all about! I'll post some pics when I get it mocked up with clearance.

While I continue to waste money and time on this front sway bar idea, I thought I would make some progress in other areas.

Got my new fuel tank retrofitted and painted:
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Looking at the old tank, it faired very well for a 50yr old piece. It definitely spent some time sitting with a very low fuel level. And I think it’s interesting that the most aggressive corrosion is below the fuel line and not in the condensate region.

I’m thinking to borrow an idea from the marine (and aviation) world and add an anode to the new tank.

You could do that …. But you’ll be long gone before anyone can appreciate it. It made it 50 years without one. I’ve seen Model T’s that still had the original tank! Don’t see why a properly cared for 914 tank won’t make it to 100 too!

I know you’re right, but I can add it in for $20 and treat it as a 20yr experiment lol. $1/yr science sounds fun, right?

Nah - you need this - get ahold of OP for this post and I’m sure the two of you can quickly come to terms for about $20 now that’s the way you do a science experiment!

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fuel tank explains the over-all good state of preservation of your car.
further evidence of a good catch.
it very evidently spent a good period of time holed up in a garage someplace.
its a strange thing all these 1.8s that for whatever reason seemed to get put away,
and have recently resurfaced. who would have thought that 30 years ago!

to encourage your sway bar experiment further.
in between prepping the sh$tbox 84 thunderbird rear trunk lid and back window area for repaint today (sanding sanding and more sanding, then masking masking masking) i helped mike do a caliper rebuild and replace with brake bleed on the workshop owner's old 80s merc station wagon. a totally tasteful, anonymous vehicle (gutless to boot - 4 cylinder). i couldn't help but notice the wacko sway bar, with drop link that is a psuedo strut etc. the sway bar goes through about mid ht somewhere in the double firewall behind the engine. thanks to you i find myself suddenly paying attention to sway bars and all the different ways the germans squeezed them in.

i conclude your ideas are nothing if not german!!!


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Commitments have been made today. But, this also means I will need a new fuel tank if I ever decide to run the car on anhydrous methanol… that magnesium anode won’t like it one bit.
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BTW @Superhawk996 … I couldn’t even find that little device on Google anywhere… something tells me it never caught on lol!

@wonkipop , I’ve ordered a sway bar taken off an RS America… might be the closest I get to ever owning one if it works out lol!

964?
america specific model the RS America?
i don't know much about 964s.
other than they love to blow up their AFMs.
and they are quite heavy cars.
apparently there was going to be a 914/924 level model that the 4 wheel drive system and rear engine 4 cylinder was developed for during the 80s but it never happened.
but the 4 wheel drive system ended up in the 964 but beefed up. porsche were committed to going 4 wheel drive. an interesting bit of thinking back then.

Yeah, we didn’t get the carrera RS here so, they gave us the RS America. Lighter stripped down version with the M030 suspension setup. So, this will be a 22mm bar, but narrower at the hips than my 996 bar. The standard 964 bar is 20mm.

We’ll see how it goes next weekend.

given your fiddling around in the fuel tank region and you have the fuel pump up front already have you picked up that subtlety about the fuel pump having slightly higher flow rate in the 75s after they moved the fuel pumps to front of car.
its in the fuel injection section of the factory manual right up towards the end of the section. they list the fuel pump specs.

i'm thinking previous owner of your car moved fuel pump but left it as a standard 74 fuel pump? not sure what you have got up the front there.

makes sense that the 75s would have run a slightly more powerful pump to get the length of hose up to pressure faster.

i imagine you are going to do the tunnel fuel lines with all this work you are doing.
i wouldn't be leaving the old plastic lines in. although mine were in remarkable condition except for about the last 4 inches or so near where they exit out through the engine bay firewall. from there on they were plastic about to go snappo.

Affirm. Got some sweet tangerine racing 8mm lines and a two port Bosch. I’ve also modded a 996 fuel filter to use instead of the lawn mower filter the car would normally have.

Now I just have to figure out where to put it. No one seems to make the late model front cover + bracket, and I can’t find one used…

They never caught on because they don’t work. Snake oil. And I hate to say it but putting an anode on the tank isn’t going to work very well either. Not sure how to make the science story short. I guess the best I can say is that without an electrolyte between the cathode and the anode, Cathodic Protection doesn’t work. Gasoline doesn’t conduct electricity and won’t function as an electrolytic cell.

You know . . . A stock bar fits mighty nice.

No argument there. If it was, then a steel tank would never be an option. But electrons do move, water does get in the fuel, and now the atoms have a feed trough lol. It only needs to work a little bit.

And you act like front sway bars are all over the internet. Unless you are willing to buy seriously worn set up for $600 or a racing setup for $800, you may as well find another solution. Which suits me just fine for reasons previously discussed.

Duplicate

Don’t kid yourself on price. Used setups change hands regularly for $250-$350. One went recently with all new bushings included as part of the deal.

PMB has the full blown kit brand new at $725 with all new Dansk parts. What you really need is the Elephant Racing set up - I think that one is about $1500!

I fully get you’re in it for the challenge. Carry on.

yeah, you know he is going to do it @Superhawk996 .
and he will succeed.

i'm looking forward to the reports on improved handling.
momentary airborne characteristics.
controllability when the wheels hit the deck again etc.

you motorcycle guys! i've never had the guts to get on one and go fast.
but my business partner is one of you nutcases so i kind of get it.

about 30 years ago a former boss of mine also had a 914 he bought in from california and converted to rhd. i still see that car as another guy in the 356 register has it.
ex policeman now retired. he likes it very much and drives it hard.
as i recall my old boss made a fuel pump cover out of an "orange cake baking tin".
sure enough when i saw it recently, there it was, still there.
these used to be commonly available in australian supermarkets for all the old ladies to use to bake orange cake loaves. he drilled a hole in the panel that blanks off the fuel tank from the trunk for the fuel lines to come through, fixed the fuel pump to the face of the panel on the trunk side and then screwed the orange cake baking tin over that.
easy access to fuel pump from trunk interior.

i copied him in my buildings to do VW inspired door handle receiver recesses so i could position doors hard into corners and let the door close flat agains the wall.

if you can find these in america you could adapt it as a fuel pump access cover?
in australia they were made by a company called "willow".


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I’m about to be back on the underside front sway bar adventure, but I took a diversion from my fuel pump relocation diversion to fix the brittle cracked drain tubes on my airbox. Some roughed up copper fittings, a little reaming in the drain stubs, some epoxy, and presto! Deionizing drains lol!!!

Underbody front sway bar project is finally on a vector for success. I had to give up on the 996 bar. But an Addco bar proved to be a cost effective option and still allows me to use modern drop links. This one is a 19mm solid bar and specs out very close to what we calculated for the OE bar previously.

I’m going with the front mounted orientation as it is really the only way to avoid clearance issues… unless I want to develop a bar from scratch. But, I have talked with Addco and they are willing to make me a hollow bar if I want. So, I’m going to be thinking about it, of course.

The front trunk reinforcement turned out to be a good opportunity to deal with some rust spots too

noice, very noice.



------

guess who came into the workshop today?
the glasurit man. the one who gets the real stuff.
he was in to discuss paint strategy for a lancia fulvia.

interesting bloke. he is a pom. quite a character.

he reckons they have dropped manufacture of a whole lot of yellow tinters.
(not that yellow tinter is necessarily yellow paint in the end but......)
he reckons the ukraine war has upset things. apparently a number of the tints were sourced there. (eastern europe still is happy to deal in poisons which a lot of these old paint ingredients are). problems. dropping lines of colours left right and center.
he is relying on his own (now getting old) stock of tinters for some desperate folks. which he reckons are getting close to borderline to be able to mix up some classic colors.

it was an interesting conversation.
i did ask him about porsche 914 color - saturn yellow. told him it might be listed under VW and the year 1974. he said he would look into it and ring mike back if he could find out current info.

POM = Redcoat, right?

Anyone who prints the queen on their money is suspect in my opinion lol!

I may have actually found a place in Dallas, TX that still sells and stocks 22 line. My initial conversation is promising.

We'll see if I start to gather momentum soon, but maybe this summer I can undertake that challenge. I've been so pleased with the performance of my "Doney Kong" copper manifold that I decided to pull the trigger on a proper 3M spray gun setup for both paint and undercoating.

Once I get this sway bar setup complete, it will finally be time for suspension tear down.

affirmative to both.

though pom = all limeys and not restricted to 18th century military personnel.
the queen is dead, the punce is now on the lucre, even less trustworthy.

good news re 22 line potential in the former american colonies.
its definitely being turned off according to the p/l/rc.

Work has been brutal (my real job) and my progress on the car was rapidly approaching zero, but Ive managed to finalize my underbody front sway bar. I know a few of you will just wonder why I didn’t go with the OEM setup, but you’ll have to add that to your list of unanswered questions lol…

Inside the trunk, I did a base layer reinforcement of 16ga steel; hammered the edges enough to follow the curve. I wanted to distribute pressure over the widest area I could… and maybe even transfer some load into compression of the vertical sides.

Then I topped it with 1/4” plate to ensure I have no distortion or flex at the mounts. Stitch welding that much on a low heat setting took forever, and just couldn’t be made pretty like a single bead, but I did avoid warping.

After several dry fits, I was inspired the box wrench I strained to reach while I worked the ratchet underneath. Thus, I cut some sheet metal into a dog bone shape and welded the bolts into a handy removable single part. Made it low profile so it wouldn’t rub the spare tire.

And as a final touch, I got some CNC aluminum brackets. All in all, I’m pleased with the result. Modern drop links will ensure no binding and should give a long life. When I pull the control arms, I’ll finalize that mount and consider moving them out a bit more. I want to get at least 75% of the arm length to work the sway bar. If anyone knows the distance from centerline pivot, to the OE link mount, I would appreciate the reference.

175mm from c/l of torsion bar to c/l of drop link mount.

sway bar mounts look good.
be interesting to find out this works out when you are back on the road

As always, thanks @wonkipop . I’m looking forward to that day. I’m sure it will be better than no sway bar, but the real test will be comparing it with OE sway bars like you and @starbear

I had hoped to post up the results of my fuel pump and filter project, but while working on it all, I discovered the dreaded tunnel rust

That leaking master cylinder I replaced last year apparently had been leaking bad for a while (DAPO) and the fluid worked its way through the tunnel.

Obviously I wasn’t expecting this and had to come up with a plan for what must be the most difficult rust repair known to the 914 world.

I decided to go full send.

I bought a chemical resistant garden sprayer… thanks COVID for making such products enter the marketplace lol…

Anyway after about a gallon of evaporust and a dozen iterations of spraying a pressure washer through the tunnel and catching the flood with a shop vac, I got a pretty impressive result!
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I forgot to take a before photo… mostly because of the sheer trauma and panic lol, but you can see on the right side of this pic what the whole tunnel looked like, and worse.
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Finally I sprayed some phosphoric acid to convert what was left.
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After it all dries, I’ll spray some phenolic resin and from eastwood and then some epoxy sealer just to be sure…

well you might be suffering corrosion trauma (hey - it is a 914) but i am looking at above tunnel surfaces and observing a highly intact car. all those stuck on vinyl pieces on the floor just like they are supposed to be....are there. nice.

bonus - gorgeous green/yellow paint on the upper floor pan. original.

Thanks wonki. That's an important reminder.

What's frustrating with all these trouble areas is that they're all preventable with proper maintenance and repairs. Overall, I've managed to catch everything before it went real bad.

Soon, I should be back on track. I'm real close to starting the chassis/suspension rebuild.

if its any comfort i had to get stuck into mine a few years back during recommission when i had the tank out and suspension off. where we had done work on the firewall for RHD conversion 30 odd years ago was showing signs of corrosion initiation! nipped that in the bud.

i love por15 and seam sealer. (not).
its good stuff but jesus get any on your skin anywhere and you are wearing it, its not coming off.
luckily i did not have tunnel trauma syndrome. had a good look in there doing the fuel lines.

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ps. as an aside i ran into the guy who did the conversion mod work on the firewall and pedals etc all those years ago a couple of months back. he is a respected mgb guy a few years older than me.
he is still alive. he was at a hillclimb event the mg club run. he asked me about the car and was very surprised and delighted i still had it. he has a mgb he bought as a twenty year old in the 1970s. getting on to 60 years of ownership.
back in the early 90s he was converting a lot of mgbs shipped out of california and then onselling to japan. a lot easier to convert an mgb than a 914.

After dealing with the tunnel and some excursions looking at parts, charting the way ahead, I needed some results. A few weeks ago, I got fed up looking at the lumpy stitch mig welding on my underbody sway bar mounts, so I TIG’d it up with many many tiny welds. Then I steam pressure washed the old ziebart off. Today I did the acid phosphate etch and cracked open some of my fancy 3M underbody coating and pressurized spray gun.

This stuff is gonna be awesome, but I’m gonna need more. It’s a rubberized coating, but it dries pretty hard yet stays flexible… borderline plastic like.

For the one or two 914world friends I have still following my progress, here some more of what I’ve been up to.

3M seam sealer and rubberized coating on the back wall to seal it all up
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And a pretty hilarious late night find on Amazon… yes “Amazon Basics” butyl sound dampening mats.
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I bought it first because it was too funny to say that I have amazon sound dampening, but also because its crazy cheap. Lets face it, everything out there is private label manufacturers anyway. And this stuff specs out pretty well, right in the middle at 1.5mm butyl with .1mm foil. And it’s priced cheaper than the 1mm stuff
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Car-Sou...e/dp/B07XMF3KK5

Final top off is eastwood closed cell foam. All 3 layers together are lighter than the original back pad but far more effective, mostly due to the form factor and adhesion of the amazon butyl, but there is definitely a cumulative effect to cover more frequencies of vibration
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might have to save my pennies and get on a plane for 28 hours when you get it back on the road.

i fancy a trip to the smithsonian so i could do a combat drop in for a reco mission.
would put me close to @StarBear 's boot camp.

its looking good.
you got me wondering why i have 50 year old rust inducing sound junk still in the jaffa.

That would be really cool wonki!
I’ve got plenty of hilton honors points that I could contribute to that leg of the trip too!

Overall, I’m really pleased with the amazon stuff and I would recommend it. Get a roller though. 2mm butyl would be nice, but 1.5mm with the undercoat that will be on both sides is a superior solution IMO.

Butyl on foil doesn’t bridge well at all, obviously. So, I ended up doing a lot of cardboard templates.

If wonki’s trip happens, let me know! I’m not that far away (in NJ)!

I am following your build.

I'm a follower, too. Between @Cairo94507 Michael and me, you've got at least double what you thought you had. Now stop whining and get back on the project!