I've been able to find four manufacturers/suppliers.
Give me some feedback about these. They are as follows:

These are made in Canada and are $195 CDN (US $??). They're inserts which use the stock housing. I've sent several emails to them with no replys.

These are from Elephant Racing and also inserts using stock housing. $220.00.

These are from Tarett and are too pretty to install. The housing is encluded and has 6 mouting bolts for camber adjustment. Stock housing has four holes.

Lastly are the Windward Products for $449.00.

So which is the best buy?
Do you need 6 mounting holes?

BTW the Tarett's are $450.00

Windward Product's also has 6 holes for camber adjustment.

the elephant man hangs out on pelican. chuck? it looks like a good price for a good product.

The top two offer NO additional provisions for adjusting the suspension alignment, all they do is replace the rubber with steel. They will help, but once you run out of range, you are SOL.

the other two allow you to have more agressive alignment settings.

JP has the Tarett Units.

TriadWestPerformance has some mono balls.

Geoff

Triad West has some too that look like stock:

http://www.triadwestperformance.com/Products.htm

Dunno the price.

which ones are Paragon selling - they all look pretty much the same to me.
one pair of these will probably end up on the 911 this winter, tho, so i'm interested in the outcome of this discussion...

I would think that, beside the fact that two of them have the addtional mounting holes for the camber adjustment, they would all give the same perfomance.

Right?

Paul

Here are the Paragon at $419.00

ride should be the same, they all should be using a spherical bearing that is teflon lined.

aurorabearing.com

Paul,
you didn't say how much the Tarett mono balls are?

Is that a factor for you? I'm guessing.... No.


"Lighter is Faster"

The Taretts are $450, but I only see three holes.

The Paragons have 6!! Doesn't look like anyone else has 6.

Sorry for the confusion

Paul

So replacing rubber with steel is a good thing?
On the street...not?

Just to make sure there is no confusion, the Tarett units have only three holes but they are offset to provide additional adjustment. The housing is also narrower and to boss for the bearing is smaller to allow more adjustment. They are also the purdiest IMO.

Hi Ira,

Your ears must have been burning or you have a filter looking out for you huh??

On the Tarett units, can the stock alignment be met with the offset threaded holes?

Thanks,

Now what old lady is going to install these and want stock camber?

Calling me an old woman now huh???? put em up !!!

Maybe, not completely stock setting, but not too out of range so that one can get semi-normal tire wear

As Mike said, I used the Tarrets.
I was able to get -2 deg camber with them...and they are purdy. My car was "camber challenged", so many may get more negative. I figure I got about 1.25 deg from the mounts. The rest came from lowering the car.

It looks to me as though you can set them to stock camber specs....may have to swap them side to side to do so. That featurette is not high on my list of "must do", tho.

Got some pics....somewhere on the net.
I'll do a search.

Ira makes nice stuff. Didn't even have to use

I tole ya I'd do a search. My first try at pic loading with the new puter.

I think ERP makes some of these as well.
Weltmeister makes a version, too (cast housing-not billet) similar price to those listed.

Here's a link to the whole thread.....prolly a classic. http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?act...t=526&hl=tarret

First pic you showed is from a guy that makes them around here and it's 195.00Cdn.

APF Villeneuve. It's vacation time around here and this guy is seriously into racing (yellow 935 look alike that goes like stink). That's maybe why you don't get any answers. Also, i'm not sure about his english.

If you ever decide to get his setup, PM me.

Marc-André

asdfawer (learned that from Brad)

So Ira is Tarett?

And Ira is a member of this very elite club?

SOLD.



Paul

or 140 US as of this second...
not a bad deal, not sure what shipping would be?

Is is expensive to ship something outside of Canada?

I have a Tarret sway bar. It rules. I will probably get the Tarett mounts because I like their product. And cause JP has them

lol!~


M

I installed the Tarret's in my car this spring. Cost wasn't a factor. They look trick.

I'm running -1.1 deg on both sides with the Tarrets without hacking up the tub. The car is not radically low like JP's.

By the way the limiting factor on adjustment isn't the screw holes it's the spherical bearing mount. You don't need 6 holes per side to max out the adjustment.

I too was concerned about removing ALL the rubber pivots and mount points from my front suspension. Frankly, I can't tell the difference in ride comfort. The car is sooo responsive now; it's addictive.

Have fun,
Kevin

I have a set of Ira's swaybars. Very cool stuff!
They'll be installed on the 911 in a week or 2
Same for the Elephant monoballs and some other cool goodies

cheers,

Jeroen

One important piece has been left out of this discussion...
may not matter to most, but for some reading along:

anything with extra holes, or modified offset can make the car illegal for some sanctioning bodies STOCK classes...

for example PCA club racing, would allow the replacement inserts (which still take the rubber out) but would not allow the tarretts or anything that moves a suspension point.

not important to some, but critical to others reading along.

brant

I question the value of any of these, so called, upgrades. What could be the trade off? I wonder what the heck the value of these parts are for anything other organized racing. Even then, I doubt weather any performance advantage could be convincingly demonstrated.

Now, steel bearing replacements for the stock front and rear rubber thingies are a substantial improvement to handling for performance and on the street, they operate almost constantly over a wide angle range. But top bearings in the front struts, they hardly move more than a degree or two and they have such a long mechanical advantage that any resistance to movement caused by the rubber bearings has got to be practically undetectable.

Strut top spherical bearings are almost as outrageous as the imfamous boxed trailing arms, far as I can tell, a lot of money for "trick parts", as they say, without value.

I am now fitting my flame proof pants.

philinjax

ok heres one reason for spherical bearings

If your car has very stiff shocks, you can push the rubber bushing out of the spring plate.

It happened to a friend of mine at Watkins Glen, Turn 1 is a diving hard right. The left front bushing popped out at about 100mph. He gathered the car up and drove slowly to the pits. No damage, but his weekend was over.

Another reason is zero compliance... the spherical bushings dont move at all. Not that any misalingment would happen with the upper strut mount moving.

I'm not drink'n the 914 upgrade cool-aid just yet (you know 5-bolt hubs, 320i brakes, front oil cooler, blah, blah, blah) so you can strip the flame-proof pants off for a minute.

But, I don't think the strut mounts quite fall into the boxed trailing arm catagory.

From what I could see you can't get the same degree of adjustment from the rubber bushing strut mounts without hacking the tub. I'm not quite ready to do that (hack the tub) since it would certainly bump me at least one class, maybe two.

But, yeah, they are trick and that's always part of it. It's a toy-car for me. Trick is important, parts made from unobtainium are even more important.

Good luck,
Kevin

What Tarret's mounts (and some of the others)give is more negative camber. For a street car, I don't see them as useful....thus an unnecessary expense.

The same camber can be aquired(?) using the stock mounts, but they need to have (per my calculations for my car) approx .40 removed from their sides. A like amount has to come off the inside of the mounting hole and bolt cutouts.

Negative camber (in large chunks) is not a gud thing for a street machine, but many Rspec or slick tires
work MUCh better with around -2 deg. They wear evenly when used as intended.

I have, however, seen tires that were street driven unable to stand upright
on their own due to uneven wear from negative camber.

The more rubber one takes out of the suspension, the more harsh the ride, but the responsiveness makes it worthwhile .......in a race car. The challenge when driving on the street is keeping the thing in one lane

It comes down to what one is going to do with the car, I guess.



BTW, I don't have boxed trailling arms OR a "chassis stiffinging kit" on the shitbox....IMO, you can add the CSK to the list on unneeded road hugging weight....I've got a gud cage, tho.

J. P.,
I did, btw, use your technique to expand the camber range of my autoxer so as to get 2 degrees negative. Worked great.

Tim,
With all due respect, I simply don't see how it would be possible to pop the rubber bearing out of a strut mount under any compression load in driving conditions. I installed spherical bearings in a pair of sturt mounts a year or two back and it took me hours to remove the stock rubber bonded to the mounts. Your friend must have had some modified or non-stock strut beariing mounts.

philinjax

The car bottomed .. the shock pushed the rubber out of the mount. It was a freak type failure. We found that the stock t-bars. with stiffly valved struts equaled potential disaster....

BTW the rubber isnt bonded to the mount its pressed in... some threaded rod and appropriately sized sockets and you can remove the stock rubber mounts and then install the monoballs..

Kinda wish I took pics of my friends car...

To remove rubber bushings you need to use something like this ( if you dont have a press) I know that not a pic of an upper strut mount, but the principles are the same.

dave ellison showed me a set of his today. his look stock. but you guys would NEVER think of sandbagging the tech inspect. "uh, the suspension is stock as far as i know".

kevin

Triad west makes the spherical strut bearing mounts that will fit the 914 and the 911 models. The price on the pair is $245.00 with a core charge of $40.00 refundable from Triad with return of rebuildable cores. I'll get a picture on tomarrow if anybody is interested.

In regards to the monoball arrangement, its benefits may be negligible to someone running stock front suspension. However, if one removes the dust covers on the struts, as I've seen done, one could very easily pop the rubber out of its perch. This is assuming that you don't run a big ass washer underneath the rubber.

For the most part, however, the monoball is necessary for coilover front suspension.

By the way, I'm not sure how much of a gimmick the boxed trailing arms are. I guess my only criticism would be that at least the weltmeister product doesn't reinforce the right areas. A boxed trailing arm that was on the shop's racecar broke where the box member meets the tube. I'll see if I can find it and take a picture.

Correct The OUTSIDE of the arm needs the bracing where the tube meets the boxed section.

Tarret all the way.... I have to say that.. I owe Ira money (found the invoice behind a file cabinet in the office on Friday)


B

Marc,
I agree, if you pull the dust cover off the strut, it may allow a sudden heavy bottom out, like a pot hole hit, to pop the rubber bearing out.
The teener stock trailing arms are about as flexable as a brick. You don't need no stinkin boxing to add weight. Sure, if you get a little loose around that corner and slam the outside wheel against that curb, something is going to bend or break. Would you rather it be a suspension console or a trailing arm?

Tim,
Did your friend's car have the shock dust covers removed?

philinjax

Welcome to the board, Dave! A few of us Washingtonians have been trying to answer all the "triad questions" for some time now - I'm glad you're here now to give the difinitive word on things. Be prepared for a bunch of muffler questions. (everbody wanted to hear one so I gave Brad this clip of Vern's car to post a while back)
-Ben M. (in Kennewick)

well look who showed up . you might need to rethink your employment sitiuation. or hire a part time lackey/ boxer upper. thanks for all your help dave.

kevin

Thanks for the warm welcome to the group. Yes, working two jobs adds an disavantage to the play time. I'll keep in touch with this site more often.
Thanks, Dave

Ben,
is that a -4 or -6 in the video?

That's that damned 2.8 RSR that made me all wobbly from seeing...

That engine won't last long enough for a trip around the world, BUT MAN IT ROCKS!

I wish I had that MFI in a 4.0


M

seanery> is that a -4 or -6 in the video?
A four? A f-o-u-r? The phrase "Dream on, stick-horse cowboy." comes to mind. No, that's 250rwhp by way of a twinpluged MFI aircooled flatsix.

redshift> That engine won't last long enough for a trip around the world, BUT MAN IT ROCKS!
Sure it will. The bottom end is SOLID. Updated oiling, shufflepinned, etc. etc. Nothing spared. It will last. Now the tranny on the other hand...