VW Strut mount ?

Quote
DG_Rally
I'm going the subaru mount direction and getting the spacer and bilstein's JVAB'ed as we speak. I grabbed some strut tops off a car at the junk yard, it might have been a forester? Like John said, it looks like all the subaru tops are the same after '88. The junk yard bearings are like new compared to my vr6 bearings that have seen about 5 events. The junkyard tops themselves look like they came from well... a junkyard but that's cool with me.

I haven't drilled the holes yet but I don't think cutting the top off will be necessary. It looks like the suby top should fit right in. The picture shows my high-tech template. The holes that are shown are from my old strut bar, which doesn't fit since I did a ABA swap. I plan to fill those in. If it turns out that the tops will need to be cut, I'll try to remember to post on here again.

Dave, as for fitting the Sub-a-rat mounts, I swear I recall we've just banged 'em in , the raised part fitting into the stamped 'volcano" on the VW tower...
I know on some fiddle we we're doing once the OD of the strut mount was like 2-3mm larger and it hit the sides of the tower...soooooooo
4 1'2 angle grinder with a 60grit disc zip zappp took off the offending bit, banged 'em in.

Did you do like I said and just spin off the center nut while hiding in the engine compartment?

Aren't they nice?

I started think about this after watching nice all round guy Chris Havas, brother of RX7 madman Andrew Havas kill some brand new ones to total ratshit less than 1/2 thru Baie de Chaleurs, Quebec, and he had no spares... he was rescued by some helpful Canajians, but hell 60 miles and they were roasted.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
john vanlandingham
Did you do like I said and just spin off the center nut while hiding in the engine compartment?

Yep, I almost forgot about that tip until I heard the spring unloading while I was loosening it... So I sat on motor while I took the center nuts all the way off. The rest of the removal was pretty easy.

---

Dave Grenwis - DG Rally - www.dgrally.com

The Subaru mounts will fit with or without modified towers. With stock towers, you lose about 1/2" of overall shock length OR end up 1/2" higher for a given amount of droop travel compared to stock VW mounts. So, you will be limited to about 170mm of stroke before you reach the limits of the control-arm/CV axle/ etc geometry..

We did the towers to get more travel and can now run 200-210mm stroke units and use 100mm for droop travel...

---

____________________________________________________________-

One. Class -- 2WD

www.quantumrallysport.com

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Quantum-Rally-Sport/281129179600?ref=nf

Careful with you estimations Josh, a lot depends on exactly what body length of the insert, how the top is machined, what upper spring seat, all kinds of dumb stuff.
Our goal is always as much travel as we can without stressing CVs from over angulation and installed length is something I keep a close eye on..
Example:
the "normal VW" inserts are longer bodies and very wasteful (regarding length) on the pin machiningg at the top.

The inserts i use are shorter body, and the 909 Ford things, those old 41s way back they have the most travel for the given over all length..

If fact the "normal VW" things have short travel--160mm---but unusually long bottom tube/slider length to make up the OAL needed..

Kerns BMW things are even worse---rediculous lower slider length, and not even 140mm travel for a rather ordinary OAL, which means I can give him good travel for the same length of real good, like 210mm travel, for just a little longer OAL

In practice, with new stuff 190 travel has been the Golf norm, and with re-doing guys existing stuff i re-do the top to save very nearly 20mm length--so guys get 190 for the same OAL they had before.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Aye. I have some of the original JVAB 41mm thangs with 170mm as well as some more fancier thangs with 205mm

---

____________________________________________________________-

One. Class -- 2WD

www.quantumrallysport.com

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Quantum-Rally-Sport/281129179600?ref=nf

I went with the Burmeister top plates in my Mk2 Golf. The Subaru setup also works, heck the Subaru Canada cars used them.

Whichever you go with, I would plate the strut tops or so as the Wimpeys did -- plate and extend them.

Kind of related question, a friend is looking to Lift a MK3 a bit, the question came to the outer CV joint stress etc, any thoughts on machining a spacer to fit between the inner joint and the output flanges from the gearbox? or would that make the angles worse?

Extending the flanges would make the angles worse.

Since the engine is mounted to the subframe, you could add spacers on top of the front subframe and lower the assembly that way. That would also help the roll center by lowering the LCA pivots.

But it also lowers the engine, which may defeat the purpose of raising the car in the first place.

You might be able to do something with a custom plate/mounting between the engine and trans to try to rotate the FD/Diff housing lower on the transmission to fix the angles...but that would probably screw up the oiling in the transmission.

Quote
fliz
Extending the flanges would make the angles worse.

Since the engine is mounted to the subframe, you could add spacers on top of the front subframe and lower the assembly that way. That would also help the roll center by lowering the LCA pivots.

But it also lowers the engine, which may defeat the purpose of raising the car in the first place.

You might be able to do something with a custom plate/mounting between the engine and trans to try to rotate the FD/Diff housing lower on the transmission to fix the angles...but that would probably screw up the oiling in the transmission.

Yep... Boys you gotta learn to visualize everything moving in arcs....Long arcs are easier to live with, long parts give long arcs..Next thing to visulize is the effective length or what I call "the plumb bobbed length"...

Think of a half shaft say 15" when its horisontal....15" radius is what that describes OK? swing the thing up to say 8" UP--which is xxx? around the imaginary circle.

Now plumb bob the thing again (you boys do know what a plumb bob is dontcha?)

The outer end plumb bobbed down to the ground is gonna be closer to the pivot that when it was horisontal...see?

See there's really 2 serious problems with CVs : over angulation is one and this "effective length" thing is t'other.
Over angulate them and you pooooor bastids blow up the center spider...

Swing them tooo far in the arc and you simply jerk the center out.....

And since nobody looks at this systematically with these Golves there is no definitive answer on either question of a) what's the max safe angulation (in turning? or b) whats the max safe travel to not jerk the centers out?

Now you see why even though I have only ever rallied an excellent FWD car, I lurv rwd cars: in the front, no problems at all except height, in the rear with solid axle no problems, with IRS with a nice slim diff we have much longer arcs and much less to worry about..we don't even hafta think about this---and it obviously is and has been a decades long problem...(And odd that nobody has sat down and established what is max safe in all the years these cars have been around)

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

chad rememer your old car had burmeisters, the subaru mounts fit right in.....coincidence? not sure but it worked. why not repeat?

Quote
riverwestauto
chad rememer your old car had burmeisters, the subaru mounts fit right in.....coincidence? not sure but it worked. why not repeat?

Yeah, it had the tops cut off and it was plated, I believe. I thought the tops had to be cut off. New car has them cut off and I'll be using Burmeister plates again (if I ever get it finished)

Will some of you guys try and convince Burmeister to make the bearing fit a COM14 or 7/8" ID bearing..

22mm is the "industry standard in real rally cars...22mm is .866
7/8" is .875, and inch stuff costs fractions of metric, so why no go up to correct size----and so the pacers and lengths I make the strut top PIN can be universal?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

FWIW, I have burmeister's in my MK2 but the subie top mount fits right in there (ie same bolt circle, just 3 less studs on the subie mount).

---

Runamuck Rally