Not running huge tires but 2.7 rs engine and close gears- tires will likely be sticky 205's in the future but on 15x6's with 195's at the moment. Car weight- 970kg (2138lbs.)

Personally it looks a bit questionable but I'm new 914's. Could I use this for a while with plans to upgrade. Should I consider fully reinforcing both arms with this set up?

Pete

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

It is badly bent. You need a new trailing arm.

Somebody popped a curb with it. It is junk.

Clay

My concern would be if it bent the control arm making alingment impossible.

Its been compromised. At best its not aligned correctly in the bearing plane, worst case is a failure waiting to happen. These are reasonably easy to find and cheap to replace - find another one?

- Tony

That is strange damage.
Caught the curb on the inside of the wheel ?

Nice protection for the oil tank

Thanks for the responses. It was obviously like this before it was painted and it was aligned etc at Rothsport so I figured they must think is was ok- or didn't notice. I do push the car around a bit in the corners and don't want to worry about this folding in the middle of a drive so I'l replace it.

As long as its being replaced (insert slippery slope here...) I might consider reinforcements.

At what point are reinforced arms a good idea. The car may see some autocross but no full on track driving (must have a cage says the rules at my local track- Suzuka.) I do run sticky tires- probably Yokohama A050 or some Avons... But again- limited to 205's.


Pete

Pete.. IMHO, I consider trailing arm reinforcements to be a bad idea. Think about your current bent trailing arm. If it were stiffer and couldn't be bent, that would have torn the mounting ear from the chassis. It is much easier to change a trailing arm then to get the mounting ear on the chassis replaced.

The trailing arm is like a fuse in an electrical circuit. You want it to fail before the expensive stuff does.

Just my $.02.

Clay

@peteinjp

I have bare trailing arms in California if you dont find them in Japan.

Bruce

It may never fail, but why take the chance. It is compromised

Good point Clay. I took that approach tot he front trailing arms of my old BMW 2002 and was glad that when it did hit a curb the arm was not stronger.

So, is that to say that the rear arms are strong enough to hold keep the wheel alignment in spec under hard cornering?

Pete