Joy... of Building and Driving

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I wad a bit of a work stoppage for a while because the motor on the air compressor died. We got it used many years ago, and it gets regular use at the house. Once I got a new one from amazon, it was clear how bad the old one sounded.



First job for the revitalized air compressor? Clearancing the new coilover sleeves, to fit over the new strut housings from topline parts. Actually, I think most of the suspension parts came from topline, good guys and fast shipping. Anyhow, not much material needed to be removed and I only removed enough to slide the sleeves over the strut bodies.





The new lowering struts use rabbit inserts so I got koni 8641-1048SPORT adjustable struts (same ones in the race bug). They do need a little prep before dropping them in the tubes.

I cut the nub off the end thinking that the struts would center in the bottom of the tubes with the topline centering ring but that was not the case. If I did it again I would leave the nub on the bottom of the strut.


Since the centering ring didn't work, I did it the old school way by wrapping the tube in vinyl tape and test fitting until it was tight. The koni comes with a top collar/centering ring which goes on next on the top of the strut body before you slip it into the tube.





Once I dropped the strut down I realized it was sitting too low. When I spun the retaining nut on it dipped to low and it was hard to tighten. I took the topline centering ring, and dropped it on top as a spacer which was just about perfect.





Here's the finished results, not too shabby!

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Still more updates, Joy has been busy!

Now it was finally time to toss the new coilovers on and get the ride height set initially. Which I forgot to take any pics of :P I then started on the back of the car again to swap out all the bushings.

I remembered it being easy doing the last set of rear bushings and now I know why. When you do the first side it's a pain in the ass, it takes forever, and nothing wants to go your way. Then you do the other side, it goes fast because now you know all the tricks to popping the bushings in/out, the order in which parts need to go off/on, and you spend less time wrestling with stuff. That's the part you always remember.





I just wish I had remembered to grab the camera while I was doing the rear bushings. The rear got new urethane pivot and spring plate bushings, as well as new kyb shocks. I also swapped out the torsion bars for 944 23.5mm bars and set the unloaded angle at 14 degrees. That seemed like a good ride height, but I'll have to do some driving to see if that's okay.


So here she is now with the new setup, this was taken before the rear settled so it's a little high. I grabbed some pics of the wheel clearance to show how tight it is.





There's a fair amount of poke and I ordered new 2" wider fenders all around. After these photos were taken I tried pulling the fenders and rolling the lips but its still not even close.





Finally, I swapped steering wheels a while ago but never updated with pics, so here's the new nardi wheel wrapped in suede.

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Took the bug in a while ago to get the suspension aligned, and now it drives much, much better. Even with the stock 165/85-15 it stuck to the road surprisingly well. I took some time to start blacking out the trim, starting with the bumpers and the mirror. I also shot the kamei spoiler I had squirreled away with some white to match the car. I thought it was looking pretty good and I was waiting to get some wider fenders for the 16x8's I got....




Until I found these.


I just happened to stumble on these on craigslist, and I had to have them. I've always wanted a set of ATS wheels on a germanlooker but they are impossible to find in the states. They have 175/55-15 and 175/65-15 rubber on them which is a bit small for my liking, and I plan to put some sticky 195/55-15 on them.