ShopTalk Forums | Aircooled VW Tech & Restoration Help

I've always preferred to upgrade the shocks, add a camber compensator, "traction bar" (engine support bar), upgrade the spring plates & bushings, decamber the rear a couple of degrees and drift around the sharp turns. I am by no means a road racer, but I like that "holy **** that was fun" type of drive

The original poster didn't ask which was better! He asked what he could do to his SA. I also agree that you can make a SA handle fine, I continually turn quicker times in my SA61 than higher classed and even open class cars at our events

teeroy, if you are so fast with SA it's probably because most of the people you are competing against are not as brave or capable as you. My hat goes off to you.

The simple...and probably cheapest...thing he can do is buy a junk 70s semiauto bug with balljoint/IRS and swap floorpans and gearboxes. THat way he can 86 the K\L front beam at same time...coz K/L SUCKS too.

Every dollar he spends on SA suspension is a dollar that he could be spending on real suspension, ie IRS.

And please no more of this "SA is the best" garbage. The only people who use it seriously are drag racers or those who's cars are forced to keep SA for historic racing. Every car company in the world has dumped it coz it is dangerous and unpredictable...even when highly tuned.

BTW, Renault alpines were about half the weight of 911s with roughly the same power. The alpines were pretty much hand built racing prototypes while the 911s were production cars...so it's no comparison. The other comment worth mentioning re rallying and SA is that broken surfaces allow back of an SA car to slide. This means half the nasty problems of SA are less noticable. You just end up with less traction...IRS only slides until the road gets a little smoother and you can get the power down. I know this coz I've driven both types of cars on dirt. Some good friends of my built a new buggy to race dirt autokhanas with. The last one was SA, the new one is IRS and is much better even using the same old motor. They are the reigning champ of autokhana in my car club. Get the hint...Get IRS

comment from the moderator:

(1) SA has a number of deep handling disadvantages compared to IRS. IRS is certainly the preferred platform to begin building a car that handles.

(2) there are a number of mods that can improve the handling of a SA car, and this is a perfectly good place to discuss them.

[ personally, i'd rather start with IRS and make it better, than start with SA and have a huge debt to compensate for... but if you already have and SA car, it's worth knowing what mods are available, and what the compromises are. ]

petew, I was never stating SA is best, only saying it can be made to work well (look what Dan Gurney did with the original INCH Pincher back in the day), and the original poster wanted info to improve his SA not convert to IRS. And in extreme competition I would agree that he would be better off with IRS, but from what he posted he wants to do with the car I don't think it worth the effort, thats just my opinion. My D mod car will be IRS rear with A-arm front, but I want to go from the top 10-15 now to FTD, so I need to get a little more serious than my street car.

BTW do you guys run regular Solo SCCA type autocross or tarmac/rallycross?

i'm with you Teeroy, swinger can handle just fine

my set up is very close to yours....with 4 koni adjustables set to 3/4 hard, front and rear whiteline sway bars. i'm also running four wheels discs and 6 and 7 X 15 inch porsche wheels, with 195 and 205 60 series tyres

renew all bushes,pins, tie rod ends, steering box

castor shimms

suspension rake is not good for cornering! this would be first on my "costs nothing" to do list

new suspension rubbers rear too

limit rear suspension down travel

Teeroy wrote:petew, I was never stating SA is best, only saying it can be made to work well (look what Dan Gurney did with the original INCH Pincher back in the day), and the original poster wanted info to improve his SA not convert to IRS. And in extreme competition I would agree that he would be better off with IRS, but from what he posted he wants to do with the car I don't think it worth the effort, thats just my opinion. My D mod car will be IRS rear with A-arm front, but I want to go from the top 10-15 now to FTD, so I need to get a little more serious than my street car.

BTW do you guys run regular Solo SCCA type autocross or tarmac/rallycross?

I know you weren't saying SA is best. I was answering the guy on the previous pages rabbiting on about dubious magazine tests and G-forces. I was serious when I said you must be very capable.

We run solo in khanacross and motorkhanas.

What car is your a-arm front end coming off?

BTW, the thing I forgot to mention re SA and rallies before is what Daimo mentioned above. You miss out the snap-back if you tune it up and tighten it up, but you also loose valuable suspension movement. Alpines are very low slung in the back. I'm guessing they went through skid pans very quickly.

Daimo, if I were to go any farther with my street car I would switch to the adjustable Konis, if the KYB's wear out I might try them anyway.

petew, A freind of mine will be building the front arm set up, using a set of coilovers. He runs a mid VW engine A-Mod car that he built from scratch that has arms on all four corners. And thankyou for the compliments! I try real hard.

Teeroy wrote:He runs a mid VW engine A-Mod car that he built from scratch that has arms on all four corners.

Fascinating. Any details, links, or picts?

Teeroy wrote:petew, A freind of mine will be building the front arm set up, using a set of coilovers. He runs a mid VW engine A-Mod car that he built from scratch that has arms on all four corners. And thankyou for the compliments! I try real hard.

i'm looking at going down this road...wishbone front I mean...and I was looking at 97-01 honda integras on the web last night. I just need to have a good look at one. I'd love a fully fabbed set up but getting it aproved for the street over here would be a bit of a night mare. a known factory setup is much easier.

This will be a dedicated autox/track day car so that isn't an isssue, allthough we don't have to have anything approved first to run here(if a failure causes an accident, the DOT might have something to say)

I think that the swing axle could have it's place in a road race bug if you want to make something extreme.

The swing axle frees up so much weight (not only in the suspension/gearbox, but the whole car) by creating a completely different concept than many other designs.

people say a picture says a thousand words, well then what about a whole bunch of film? i think this 70s vintage clip from the the N'ring says it all...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... plindex=13

If I'm not mistaken EVERY car that rolls in these clips is swing axle.

...just imagine what would have happened if the cabrio with THREE passengers had gone over.

Sorry to be so negative, but I think this clip illustrates why people are arguing so strongly against SA. Let's not entertain the idea that SA is a good starting place when changing to IRS is so easy and so much SAFER.

Can a camber compensator be used in conjunction with a rear swaybar on a S/A?

Derrick from NC wrote:Can a camber compensator be used in conjunction with a rear swaybar on a S/A?

Yes you can, but using a rear swaybar on SA is something I advise against. I've talked to a couple people who have even tested this and they said their cars became dangerous to drive.

The SA geometry generates so much "jacking" (=geometric roll stiffness) that you don't want more roll stiffness at the rear. An example is to look at what some fvee guys do, they have zero roll rear suspensions with zero sprung roll resistance. Their monoshock rear suspension does close to nothing when the car rolls.

petew wrote:Sorry to be so negative, but I think this clip illustrates why people are arguing so strongly against SA. Let's not entertain the idea that SA is a good starting place when changing to IRS is so easy and so much SAFER.

I understand your point, and I see the limitations in SA suspension. I should probably point out that the cars on the film were not properly modified to racing, but even the SA cars I've driven have felt scary compared to a IRS even with serious modifications done to them.

Last weekend I drove a super on track. Leaping over the curbs felt safe with a suspension that would be dangerously soft for a SA bug.

But there are positive points also that you need to take into account, if you would make a bug into unrestricted RACING class (not very strict weight rules) and started from scratch and even when taking safety into account, I would seriously consider building one with SA.