924Board.org

[trans924axle]

Want to put in 944 suspension front/ rear completely to swap from 4 lug to 5 lug primarily, but having trouble finding out if I can swap the 944 rear suspension etc in but keep my 924 4 speed trans? I know I have to redo brake lines etc, but can't seem a direct answer to if it's possible or not as a bolt in
77 924 na
And the donor car will be a 85 944 na

[ideola]

The early cars have a unique method of attaching the rear trailing arms, so in order to go to five lug, you MUST source from a 1982-1985 944.1 or from a 1980-onward 924/931 with five lug. For the rears, you'll need the caliper + hub carrier assembly from the steel trailing arms, and will need to transfer that from the donor to your 77. Front should be straight forward swap of the spindle + caliper + strut housing. You should also source the hard lines from the donor car.

See also: http://www.924board.org/viewtopic.php?t=27357
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erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made

[trans924axle]

Thanx for the reply! Helps a lot.

[MikeJinCO]

The unique part of 1977 is the method of mounting the torsion bar carrier, it is two bolts on each side with a solid mounting rather than the later aluminum wing with rubber mount. So you can't just take the entire setup out and move it over.

I bolted all the adjustable suspension parts onto my 4 lug/drum brake with no problems. The '77 also has different torsion bar inner bushings than the 944, if changing the TB's get some poly Super Beetle bushings.
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Mike


'67 MG Midget Dp
'71 Ocelot Dsr Kawasaki 1000(under rebuild)

[morghen]

Bottom line is that you cant swap the whole torsion bar carrier together with the arms, hubs and calipers...you have to keep the 77 torsion bar carrier and you can only replace the complete arms if you wish or keep the original arms and just replace the hub assembly (includes the caliper carrier, disks and calipers)

It will be more noisy as i remember reading that reason they changed from the up to 77 design to the later was to reduce vibrations...but other than that...i have actually seen a 77 with 951 late offset rear arms and 944NA calipers while running its original TB carrier.
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https://www.the924.com

[Rasta Monsta]

[trans924axle]

Have completed the front swap, now about to start on the rear, is there a difference between the 944 steel trailing arms compared to the stock 924 ones? Or should I just swap the hub carrier/ brakes etc,, swapping the solid spring plates for the adjustable 944 ones, do I need to mess with the torsion bars to do that or can I get the old ones off an new ones on without touching them, and if I have too is it worth swapping the 944 torsion bars for the 924 ones?

[nickthompson]

Most 944s have 23mm torsion bars. It wouldn't be worth the effort.

[MikeJinCO]

When I worked on my '77 I converted to the 23.5 T bar. But then I put on 944Turbo sway bars also 24mm hollow up front and 18mm rear. That way I could keep the spring and sway bar balance closer. Porsche did well with their coordinated suspension systems.

Indexing torsion bars in the '77 is time consuming because all the indexing examples use measurements to the aluminum banana arm for reference and the '77 does not have that. I used their data and converted that to angles and made a angle plate that would bolt to the torsion bar carrier to get the angle of the swing arm correct. There is a bolt plate that holds the torsion bar in. Remove that and use the bolts to hold an angle plate made of plywood or sheet metal

To make this work you need to make the angle plate and mark it for the location of the 22mm torsion bar before removing the torsion bar. It is the only reference mark you will have. Then calculate the new angle, it will be closer to horizontal due to the higher spring rate of the larger torsion bar and mark that on the index plate. You'' have to keep in mind the center of the torsion bar to get the angle or use a little trig.

It will take much more time for the research and figuring how how to do it than actually doing the indexing.

Find all the articles on TB indexing and read before starting. Clarks Garage has a good one.

I found a picture I'll work on getting it posted.
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Mike


'67 MG Midget Dp
'71 Ocelot Dsr Kawasaki 1000(under rebuild)

[MikeJinCO]

This photo is with the 23.5 bar and the original 22 bar mark.[img][/img]
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Mike


'67 MG Midget Dp
'71 Ocelot Dsr Kawasaki 1000(under rebuild)

[trans924axle]

So not gonna waste my time swapping the spring plates or torsion bars atm, I'll wait to do the adjustable spring plates till I get aftermarket torsion bars,dont wanna go threw all that haha but as far as swapping the rear 5 lug, are the rear trailing arms needed to obtain the wider track for the rear wheels, or is it just the wheels and hub/brakes that cause the wider stance,meaning that I can just swap the "hub and parts",,i want to run rear flares so I'm wanting the wheels to poke away from the stock body, similar to Carrera gt flares,

[gohim]

You can look at the two ways that Porsche increased the rear track.

944 rear track is the same as 924, and 931, when you take off the 20mm spacers and install the same 6" wheels.

Early 944 use a 20mm spacer and wider rear wheels to widen the track. Late 944 uses wider trailing arms, eliminating the 20mm spacers along with the wider tires to widen the rear track.

On 931 and early 944 with steel trailing arms a 20mm spacer is added on top of the rear rotors. These cars used the same cv axles as 924.

On later model 944 with the wider alloy trailing arms, the 20mm spacers were eliminated. The wheel hubs are different too (longer neck/slined section to mate with the modified cv axles. These cars used longer cv axles.

If you are not changing the trailing arms, you don't need to replace the cv axles.

To add rear disk brakes, all you need is the rear rotors (buy new ones because there is less than 2mm of wear thickness on new rear rotors), the rear wheel hubs, brake backing plates with bearing caps and caliper mounts, rear calipers with brake pads, brake hoses, and parking brake cables.

I highly recommend using the integrated alloy brake backing plates from a late 944 or 924S, which include the bearing caps, and mounts for the brake calipers (spate plates are alloy). 931, and early 944 use separate cast iron bearing caps and steel parking brake backing plates and splash plates with cast iron caliper mounting brackets welded to the backing plates. The old 931 and early 944 parts rust like crazy and fall apart.

Genuine caliper rebuild kits don't cost that much, so I reseal all used calipers that I buy before installation.

The alloy 924S and late 944 parts are much more corrosion resistant and much lighter that the earlier parts, and still just bolt right on.

[Rasta Monsta]