I bought a set of used b-steins a wile back one of them has a bent shaft... Probably not repairable, haven't even started in on my suspension yet.. Looks like a real hairball.
Nice finds and thank you for sharing. I take our 88 Porsche (and all the other cars) to Johnsons Alignment in Torrance, CA. They understand suspension geometry and can set up car/trucks for street, dirt, track, autocross... what ever. They don't even use the "modern day" alignment machines. Old school stuff. They've lowered and corner balanced my 88. I'm always impressed with the end results.
Hey man, I notice something on your rear shock. I think you should have a large washer (larger than the diameter of the bushing) between the bolt head and the bottom shock mount where it attaches to the trailing arm. Unless I'm not seeing correctly in the video, but if you don't have that washer then you run the risk of the bushing pushing out of the bottom of the shock and then all of a sudden your shock is no longer connected to the trailing arm.
Go back to the fundamentals…. Really great advice, and a bit of a head smacker. Caused a rewind in my mind on so many projects over the years where I chased a tail that had never been attached right in the first place. Thanks for a great reminder. 👍👍
I had a similar problem with a 1965 912 last year It was clunky when you hit a bump. This car is a time capsule only 65,000 miles on it. It had bilsteins on it which I believe aren’t original. So I bought new ones. They came with spacer’s. So seeing there wasn’t anything in the tube I decided to put the spacers in it but I couldn’t screw the cap on. So I left them out and the problem didn’t go away. So I thought I had a different issue knowing I just dumped good money. But something told me to machine spacers that are a bit smaller so I can screw the cap down and bottom out. I installed them and the problem went away. Not sure if it was the right thing to do but it rides really nice now with no knocking anymore. By the way I like that little lift in your garage. I gotta get one of those. I m working out of my garage now also and I really miss my lift that I had in my hanger
Glad you found and fixed your clunk. I recently got new Bilsteins too, but the version I got was way too stiff. I'm happier with the Konis now. I'd recommend the Max Jax to anyone although the prices have gone way up. Pun?
The builder, (Chuck Moreland of Elephant Racing) put my custom length double adjustable bilstien rear shocks, with nitrogen canisters, on his shock Dyno to make sure they performed equally. On my early 911 hot rod I found two different trailing arms were on the car. We found this when switching over to aluminum arms. We also found a bent torsion bar tube, which is pretty common on the early cars. Thanks for saving that early car. What year is it?. Did you know that those front struts are supposed to be filled with oil between the insert and the strut housing to aid in keeping the shock inserts cool? On our car, we went with Fox Racing Shocks, which are a complete strut with adjustable height spindles. We could then lower the car properly, and lower the roll center. You have to keep shocks in there operating range and make sure they don’t bottom out, and this is what these front shocks allow for. I’m actually running cambers around 2 degrees, caster as much as possible, slight toe out in the front, and slight toe in at the rear. The car is a little darty, but turns into the corners really well. I change the camber for the type of tires I am using at the time.
Love to hear that you are experimenting with alignment, ride height, shock travel etc. This is fun for me to try new things. I switched from Bilstein strut housings to Boges and I can't remember which one holds oil and which one doesn't. I think the Bilstein is inverted and doesn't need oil anyway. Good tip to add oil for extra cooling though. Thanks again for your experience and feedback. I bet we could talk for hours, ha ha.
Seems i spoke to soon, now seeing how the fronts are a strut type system. Nothing like a vw front end. I can see the front struts are critical for alignment.
Great to see you've found a couple of issues, and that's going to be most of the battle of getting it right, I don't have any 911 experience on 4WA but having a mk1 Golf/rabbit built for track I spent lots of time altering various camber/caster settings sometimes with strange results. after spending a lot with adjustable top mounts found OEM points felt the best driving on road & track with only little more caster after everything!! Keep up the great work 👍
Hey, great videos! I have an '87 911 Carrera that's a dedicated track car. I set my ride heights and corner balance my car then take it to a local race shop for final alignment. Right now I'm targeting -3.5 degrees of camber in the front, -3 in the rear, up from -3 front and -2.5 rear -- hope to find out this week if we can get the back there on the alignment rack. I have MCS 911 struts with another -1.5 built into the pinion, raised 35 mm and Tarrett Monoball strut bearings that net me another -.75. I used to run offset monoballs from Elephant racing, but it's now too much with the MCS struts. I run 24 mm torsion bars up front. At the rear, I had the chassis shock mounts reinforced with welded gussets and run coilovers and 953 spring plates from Rebel Racing, who also custom valved my Bilstein rear shocks. I think I'm running 550 lbs coils in the rear ... might be 500. I should get 600 lbs springs in there, but I have to check on the shock valving Clint gave me ... one of these days I'll get around to doing a string system and do it all myself. But the rear is a bear. I like to run 0 toe up front and about 1/16th or 1/8th toe in at rear for high speed stability. Here's a fund instructor run video -- note my clutch master cylinder was going out, so some of my shifts were wonky. ua-cam.com/video/ZHbBo8Hz1bU/v-deo.html
That guy at the end with the large pry bar is doing a common technique. On some newer ( non performance ) cars there is no camber or caster adjustment, only toe. He has loosened the subframe and is shifting it to one side to correct the " off center ". Its fairly common for new cars to come with the subframe shifted to one side..
Tom- sometimes people would add a large washer to the bottom of shock housing to prevent a knocking noise. I can’t remember exactly when that would be applicable- I think it had to do with different kinds of shocks. Sorry for the nebulous information- it’s been a long time since I’ve heard it.
Interesting, it doesn't seem that the previous guy installed it correct because it was standing up before I took the strut out. If it was lying flat it would so nearly as much damage. Crazy!!
Right. We found it because the suspension felt like it wasn't moving freely. Now we know why. Couldn't believe it, so odd to bend a shock and find extra parts inside a strut tube.
The area between the insert and the housing is supposed to be filled with oil to help with shock cooling. I only discovered this when I changed out my struts for Fox Racing Shocks. I thought the oil had leaked out of a defective shock.
I was in a race shop, I was watching the tech's replace the front shock cartridges. The guys poured anti-freeze in the tubes, pushed the cartridges in the tubes and displaced the majority of the antifreeze. I didn't ask but assume this was done to transfer heat out of the shock.
Even a shot gas/oil shock gives alignment problems, due to the fact that the compressed gas acts like a auxiliary progressive spring. If one (or both) shock(s) lost their gas, the car will sit lower than intended. Oh, and next time? Just take the complete strut off the car. I felt sorry for the brake lines... Oh, when you reassemble it: you should lubricate the inside of the strut with a certain amount of oil in order to prevent the collar from wearing out in no-time. And of course, that means also a new Porsche bumpstop that can handle that oil. The more static camber you put into it, the more (excessive) camber you'll get at bump. Remember that. That means, at full brake pressure, the front will gain more camber, resulting in a decrease of contact patch between tire and road surface. Rear the same, but under acceleration. Keep it stock and add some camber only when needed (relative loss of traction midway through a corner at a constant speed) Caster though, that's another thing. Get it at the max tolerable value. Caster means free camber on turn-in (mainly at short radius bends) and gives a better self-alignment, without any real downside. If I were you, I would put in some toe. It takes away the vagueness at center of high(er) speeds. Just think; the engineers at Porsche were not stupid while setting the initial alignment. Don't listen too much to the 'aftermarket' who want to sell you stuff and the internet who never came close to a car, but are just passing on back-shed knowledge from a friend of a friend, who claimed to know everything better. Stance is for show. Look at race cars. Even Porsche Cup cars. There's no excessive camber there. And the extra camber that's actually dialed in, is because they have virtually no suspension travel and thus no camber changes under load.
Thanks Paul for the great information. I do plan to experiment with all kinds of settings. I understand what you are saying about braking and camber versus cornering and camber. It's always a compromise at some point and there is no best setup. All depends on conditions, car and driver. I usually don't copy setups, but I decided to start with something I liked with Ian's car Doesn't mean I won't keep experimenting though. That's actually why I'm spending so much time getting this alignment setup to a point where I can repeat it over and over again.
Im not all that familiar with the porsche rear it looks like a swing axle like the beetle or bus. My background is all IRS bus and there is a ton of toe, camber and caster adjustment on those rear ends. Doesn’t look like that can be said for this rear end. Shocks show wear in tire hop typically. They really dont effect much on an alignment unlike struts on newer vehicles.
Similar trailing arm IRS torsion bar suspension. A bent shock that doesn't compress well can cause ride height issues, which is what I was experiencing. The rear and front is fully adjustable from an alignment point of view.
@@GarageTimeAutoResto Like if you have a customer coming in that wants an alignment and they have a 1997 F150 and the only way to adjust the camber is to buy eccentric bolts and they don't want to buy the extra bolts and you can't do the camber then all you can do is toe. Or if they have a 1996 F250 and have the death wobble the lower control arm is adjustable if you remove the insert spin it and insert it back in most people don't want to pay extra for anything like that and most mechanics won't do that kind of alignment which is a shame.
Hi Tom, I'm not quite ready for alignment, but I had a question anyway. I am using through the body front torsion bar, 15mm. Is Ian using that type of set up on Kermit and if so, I will that impact you trying to match his set up? Great advice on starting from zero, I would not be surprised if everyone's shock housings have a bunch of junk in them!
Hi, Kermit has the under the body sway bar. Not sure what size it is but stock for an SC. I will install or make an adjustable sway bar for the front. Since it will have an adjustment range, I should be able to get pretty close to Kermit.
Thanks for watching,👍. Comment about your alignment experiences and settings 😀
I bought a set of used b-steins a wile back one of them has a bent shaft... Probably not repairable, haven't even started in on my suspension yet.. Looks like a real hairball.
A rear? If so you are welcome to my good one left over
@@GarageTimeAutoResto its a front, I haven't procured rears yet.
Nice finds and thank you for sharing. I take our 88 Porsche (and all the other cars) to Johnsons Alignment in Torrance, CA. They understand suspension geometry and can set up car/trucks for street, dirt, track, autocross... what ever. They don't even use the "modern day" alignment machines. Old school stuff. They've lowered and corner balanced my 88. I'm always impressed with the end results.
Cool, I've heard of them. Thanks for sharing,👍
Hey man, I notice something on your rear shock. I think you should have a large washer (larger than the diameter of the bushing) between the bolt head and the bottom shock mount where it attaches to the trailing arm. Unless I'm not seeing correctly in the video, but if you don't have that washer then you run the risk of the bushing pushing out of the bottom of the shock and then all of a sudden your shock is no longer connected to the trailing arm.
You are correct, I don't have a washer. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll have a look at the parts diagram too.
Go back to the fundamentals…. Really great advice, and a bit of a head smacker. Caused a rewind in my mind on so many projects over the years where I chased a tail that had never been attached right in the first place. Thanks for a great reminder. 👍👍
Loose tails can drive you nuts😀
Real good info. You and Ian are the car whispers. Saludos al (jefe)
Thanks, we had so much fun we forgot about the camera. Maybe next time.
I had a similar problem with a 1965 912 last year It was clunky when you hit a bump. This car is a time capsule only 65,000 miles on it. It had bilsteins on it which I believe aren’t original. So I bought new ones. They came with spacer’s. So seeing there wasn’t anything in the tube I decided to put the spacers in it but I couldn’t screw the cap on. So I left them out and the problem didn’t go away. So I thought I had a different issue knowing I just dumped good money. But something told me to machine spacers that are a bit smaller so I can screw the cap down and bottom out. I installed them and the problem went away. Not sure if it was the right thing to do but it rides really nice now with no knocking anymore. By the way I like that little lift in your garage. I gotta get one of those. I m working out of my garage now also and I really miss my lift that I had in my hanger
Glad you found and fixed your clunk. I recently got new Bilsteins too, but the version I got was way too stiff. I'm happier with the Konis now.
I'd recommend the Max Jax to anyone although the prices have gone way up. Pun?
Absolutely would replace all bushings and parts on suspension.
Here's a video on bushings I replaced.
ua-cam.com/video/2MEVqLu_FqU/v-deo.html
The builder, (Chuck Moreland of Elephant Racing) put my custom length double adjustable bilstien rear shocks, with nitrogen canisters, on his shock Dyno to make sure they performed equally. On my early 911 hot rod I found two different trailing arms were on the car. We found this when switching over to aluminum arms. We also found a bent torsion bar tube, which is pretty common on the early cars. Thanks for saving that early car. What year is it?. Did you know that those front struts are supposed to be filled with oil between the insert and the strut housing to aid in keeping the shock inserts cool? On our car, we went with Fox Racing Shocks, which are a complete strut with adjustable height spindles. We could then lower the car properly, and lower the roll center. You have to keep shocks in there operating range and make sure they don’t bottom out, and this is what these front shocks allow for. I’m actually running cambers around 2 degrees, caster as much as possible, slight toe out in the front, and slight toe in at the rear. The car is a little darty, but turns into the corners really well. I change the camber for the type of tires I am using at the time.
Love to hear that you are experimenting with alignment, ride height, shock travel etc.
This is fun for me to try new things.
I switched from Bilstein strut housings to Boges and I can't remember which one holds oil and which one doesn't. I think the Bilstein is inverted and doesn't need oil anyway.
Good tip to add oil for extra cooling though.
Thanks again for your experience and feedback. I bet we could talk for hours, ha ha.
Seems i spoke to soon, now seeing how the fronts are a strut type system. Nothing like a vw front end. I can see the front struts are critical for alignment.
Probably more like the super beetle.
Great to see you've found a couple of issues, and that's going to be most of the battle of getting it right, I don't have any 911 experience on 4WA but having a mk1 Golf/rabbit built for track I spent lots of time altering various camber/caster settings sometimes with strange results. after spending a lot with adjustable top mounts found OEM points felt the best driving on road & track with only little more caster after everything!!
Keep up the great work 👍
Thanks, it's a fun process of discovering and testing!
Great information. Never assume, always check. Looking forward to more. Really need to get a lift! LoL. Have a great 4th!
Thanks! Happy 4th. And yes get a lift
Hey, great videos! I have an '87 911 Carrera that's a dedicated track car. I set my ride heights and corner balance my car then take it to a local race shop for final alignment. Right now I'm targeting -3.5 degrees of camber in the front, -3 in the rear, up from -3 front and -2.5 rear -- hope to find out this week if we can get the back there on the alignment rack. I have MCS 911 struts with another -1.5 built into the pinion, raised 35 mm and Tarrett Monoball strut bearings that net me another -.75. I used to run offset monoballs from Elephant racing, but it's now too much with the MCS struts. I run 24 mm torsion bars up front. At the rear, I had the chassis shock mounts reinforced with welded gussets and run coilovers and 953 spring plates from Rebel Racing, who also custom valved my Bilstein rear shocks. I think I'm running 550 lbs coils in the rear ... might be 500. I should get 600 lbs springs in there, but I have to check on the shock valving Clint gave me ... one of these days I'll get around to doing a string system and do it all myself. But the rear is a bear. I like to run 0 toe up front and about 1/16th or 1/8th toe in at rear for high speed stability. Here's a fund instructor run video -- note my clutch master cylinder was going out, so some of my shifts were wonky. ua-cam.com/video/ZHbBo8Hz1bU/v-deo.html
Awesome. That's a lot of neg camber! Have fun racing!
That guy at the end with the large pry bar is doing a common technique. On some newer ( non performance ) cars there is no camber or caster adjustment, only toe. He has loosened the subframe and is shifting it to one side to correct the " off center ". Its fairly common for new cars to come with the subframe shifted to one side..
Seems brutal, but that is what the guy was saying too.
@@GarageTimeAutoResto It is brutal. Even with all bolts loose the subframe is very difficult to budge..
Tom- sometimes people would add a large washer to the bottom of shock housing to prevent a knocking noise. I can’t remember exactly when that would be applicable- I think it had to do with different kinds of shocks. Sorry for the nebulous information- it’s been a long time since I’ve heard it.
Interesting, it doesn't seem that the previous guy installed it correct because it was standing up before I took the strut out.
If it was lying flat it would so nearly as much damage. Crazy!!
Who would think to check inside the tubes? Are the tubes supposed to have oil or grease in them? Amazing you guys found that. Nice job.
Right. We found it because the suspension felt like it wasn't moving freely. Now we know why. Couldn't believe it, so odd to bend a shock and find extra parts inside a strut tube.
The area between the insert and the housing is supposed to be filled with oil to help with shock cooling. I only discovered this when I changed out my struts for Fox Racing Shocks. I thought the oil had leaked out of a defective shock.
I was in a race shop, I was watching the tech's replace the front shock cartridges. The guys poured anti-freeze in the tubes, pushed the cartridges in the tubes and displaced the majority of the antifreeze.
I didn't ask but assume this was done to transfer heat out of the shock.
Wow, that's interesting. I agree that would help transfer heat. Neat idea.
Mine had oil instead of anti freeze
Even a shot gas/oil shock gives alignment problems, due to the fact that the compressed gas acts like a auxiliary progressive spring.
If one (or both) shock(s) lost their gas, the car will sit lower than intended.
Oh, and next time?
Just take the complete strut off the car.
I felt sorry for the brake lines...
Oh, when you reassemble it: you should lubricate the inside of the strut with a certain amount of oil in order to prevent the collar from wearing out in no-time.
And of course, that means also a new Porsche bumpstop that can handle that oil.
The more static camber you put into it, the more (excessive) camber you'll get at bump.
Remember that.
That means, at full brake pressure, the front will gain more camber, resulting in a decrease of contact patch between tire and road surface.
Rear the same, but under acceleration.
Keep it stock and add some camber only when needed (relative loss of traction midway through a corner at a constant speed)
Caster though, that's another thing.
Get it at the max tolerable value.
Caster means free camber on turn-in (mainly at short radius bends) and gives a better self-alignment, without any real downside.
If I were you, I would put in some toe.
It takes away the vagueness at center of high(er) speeds.
Just think; the engineers at Porsche were not stupid while setting the initial alignment.
Don't listen too much to the 'aftermarket' who want to sell you stuff and the internet who never came close to a car, but are just passing on back-shed knowledge from a friend of a friend, who claimed to know everything better.
Stance is for show.
Look at race cars.
Even Porsche Cup cars.
There's no excessive camber there.
And the extra camber that's actually dialed in, is because they have virtually no suspension travel and thus no camber changes under load.
Thanks Paul for the great information. I do plan to experiment with all kinds of settings.
I understand what you are saying about braking and camber versus cornering and camber. It's always a compromise at some point and there is no best setup. All depends on conditions, car and driver.
I usually don't copy setups, but I decided to start with something I liked with Ian's car
Doesn't mean I won't keep experimenting though.
That's actually why I'm spending so much time getting this alignment setup to a point where I can repeat it over and over again.
Im not all that familiar with the porsche rear it looks like a swing axle like the beetle or bus. My background is all IRS bus and there is a ton of toe, camber and caster adjustment on those rear ends. Doesn’t look like that can be said for this rear end. Shocks show wear in tire hop typically. They really dont effect much on an alignment unlike struts on newer vehicles.
Similar trailing arm IRS torsion bar suspension.
A bent shock that doesn't compress well can cause ride height issues, which is what I was experiencing.
The rear and front is fully adjustable from an alignment point of view.
Most alignment shops wont touch modified suspensions because of liability
Agree it's a sensitive topic😀
That’s the reason we do our own.
Yes!
I've always had a shop do mine to factory specs.
Cool
If its rusted out, and wont pay extra for caster camber kit, thats how it goes
Not sure what caster camber kit you are referring to. Please explain
@@GarageTimeAutoResto Like if you have a customer coming in that wants an alignment and they have a 1997 F150 and the only way to adjust the camber is to buy eccentric bolts and they don't want to buy the extra bolts and you can't do the camber then all you can do is toe. Or if they have a 1996 F250 and have the death wobble the lower control arm is adjustable if you remove the insert spin it and insert it back in most people don't want to pay extra for anything like that and most mechanics won't do that kind of alignment which is a shame.
Hey Tom... Can the shaft be straightened or will it require a new insert?
That the rear shock, so it just went in the trash
Is that the infamous US ride height spacer?
Must be. It's useless!
Hi Tom, I'm not quite ready for alignment, but I had a question anyway. I am using through the body front torsion bar, 15mm. Is Ian using that type of set up on Kermit and if so, I will that impact you trying to match his set up? Great advice on starting from zero, I would not be surprised if everyone's shock housings have a bunch of junk in them!
Hi, Kermit has the under the body sway bar. Not sure what size it is but stock for an SC.
I will install or make an adjustable sway bar for the front. Since it will have an adjustment range, I should be able to get pretty close to Kermit.
Would that have affected braking on the track also?
It affects the brakes on the street. When I hit the brakes hard the car turns.
This is due to unequal travel and corner weights, not the brakes.