Super Beetle single A arm front suspension.

[alt+f4]

Since you have the same spindle mounting area but are moving the main pivot out wards that will effect you roll center. With the pivot being that much closer to where the strut is centered you might not get enough neg camber gain under compressiion durring high g cornering.


with your software you have try to set it up to get your roll center as close as or below the ground as possible. and just as a guid line try to get the virtual pivot to the opposite wheel on the outside of the center of the wheel.

[The Pirate]

Ok thanks for the tip.

[volkdent]

What sort of steering rack changes have you made to compensate for the change in lower pivot point for the control arms?

Jason

[The Pirate]

So far I have made none. As it stands the free program I got refuses to unzip so I trashed it. Going to purchase some new software.

I have been working it out on paper for now. Took a ton of measurements ect ect.

The pivot points aren't so much lower as they are farther out. From what I am seeing so far the roll centes will not move to much out of their original planes. The spindle and ball joint are still in the same locations and thus far see no conflict with the rack at all. Everthing looks like it will clear at full drop and at full compression along with all increments in between.

Will have some pics of the drawings up soon.

[volkdent]

The inner pivots on the tie rods will have to be moved out accordingly then. You will have bump steer issues otherwise.

Jason

[The Pirate]

Hmmm. A conflict has come up. I built the suspension in mock up with all the parts and the tie rods bump at one point. going to have to redesign a little. I will have revised plans up later this week or early next week. Plus I have found a way to make it a bolt on mod with just a little welding of reforcement plates and capture nuts ecet...

[The Pirate]

Still working on this should have a solution soon. Just need to finish the rebuild on my rack and wainting for a fresh set of tie rods to come in. If this works out I may want to market this sucker.

[volkdent]

Originally Posted by The Pirate

Still working on this should have a solution soon. Just need to finish the rebuild on my rack and wainting for a fresh set of tie rods to come in. If this works out I may want to market this sucker.

You're going to have to have custom arms built if you want this thing to work out right. Because the lower pivot points have been moved outward so far, the pivots on the end of the steering rack have to be moved out accordingly. As your new lower control arms travels through its new, smaller than original arc, the longer arc of the original tie rod will cause toe-in as compression occurs. That is assuming the Super is rear steer, I've never looked at one. If it is front steer, you'll have toe-out.

Jason

[volkdent]

Is it going to look like this when you are done?





Found these on this site, linked from http://www.beetspeedengines.nl/hoofd_frameset_1.htm posted by Jeza


Jason

[The Pirate]

Sort of but not exactly. I do like the soloution for the sway bar though. Iwill try to get a diagram up at some point. Thanks for the input!

[The Pirate]

So my current question is refering to the picture posted above: What is the part used to attatch the sway bar to the A arm? What is it called and where can one be obtained? Plus what type of ball joint is being used? Where can one get a ball joint like that? I am currently looking into refining a few things in my basic design and I want to explore some more options.

[ricola]

Alex has put 944 A arms on his strut converted ghia (the white French oe on here that is being converted to G50 and 993 flat 6). Maybe he can share some info on here too? I saw some pics on his build thread on german-spirit.
Rich

[Jeza]

Thats essentially the same setup S1fter (Mark) is using on his. I posted a couple of pics on the first page. Look him up here or check him out at http://themetricnut.co.nz/

[The Pirate]

Ok so I now know that the part between the sway bar and the A arm is a drop link. What I need to know now is where to get some. Next question that needs to be aswered is: What is the type of ball joints these A arms are using? I have not seen them before and do not know where to obtain them. Next is: What are these threaded A arm piviots these supensions are using and where to get them? Are these performance parts? This is my first BIG all out complete custom suspension rebuild so some of these parts are unknown to me but I want to learn and rapidly. My main idea here is to make a series of low cost high quality, modded super beetle suspension options that use common off the shelf bushings, ball joints and other parts for easy low cost rebuild.