Adjusting rear ride height

[Paul Fraser]

The car (1984 944 Lux) has 30mm lowered springs in the front and the rear seems to be at the original ride height, which looks a bit daft IMHO. I believe you alter the torsion bars to lower the back end. Where are they (pics if poss please) and what do you do? Thanks.

 

[Peter Empson]

Hi Paul,
This doesn't answer your question I'm afraid, but it'd be worth checking to see where your eccentrics are set to first, you might be able to drop the rear a bit by them, which is an awful lot easier than getting involved with the torsion bars.
Best regards,
Peter

 

[Diver944]

Here's an excerpt from the factory manual showing the eccentric and locking bolts for rear ride height

 

[sawood12]

I think you might be struggling to adjust your rear ride height by as much as 30mm on the eccentrics alone. I can't reacall the total adjustment the eccentrics are capable of but it is not as much as 30mm, and bear in mind their current setting will already have eaten up some of their adjustment range so are unlikely to be on the tallest setting.

Torsion bar adjustment is a pretty simple job in principle however it is one of those very time consuming and tricky jobs. It takes an experienced independant a good 10 - 12hrs labour with a ramp. My car is currently in the shop having the rear ride height lowered for rear coilovers, I did consider tackling the job myself but after reading the procedure I very quickly decided that I didn't want to be stuck under the car for days on end, battling with siezed as stuck bolts that havn't been disturbed for 20yrs. There are a couple of guys on this forum who race 944's who have alot of experience with messing around with TB's. If you use the search function you might pick up some useful tips.

 

[Paul Fraser]

Thanks again for the advice Scott (and everyone else). Think it would probably be easier to reinstate a set of original coils in the front....

 

[sawood12]

Paul, that might not be such a bad idea after all given all the discussions recently about failing front control arms on lowered cars. 30mm is a significant amount of lowering and puts the ball joints right in the danger zone. It's not necessarily a problem on road cars but on track where the ball joints do see the full range of their travel it looks like there might be some risk.

 

[Paul Fraser]

Further to the above, if you use Koni adjustable shocks does that change the ride height or is the adjustable part only the rebound strength of the shock...?
Dumb question probably but (a) I've never seen/fitted them (b) I have no ego to bruise

 

[Diver944]

The M030 Konis are adjustable for height at the front with adjustable spring perches and rebound with a knob that turns a screw on top of the strut.

The rears are rebound adjustable only

The M474 Konis are rebound adjustable only and you have to remove them from the car to adjust

 

[Paul Fraser]

Thanks for that.

 

[sawood12]

Also I believe that the M030 equipped cars had different lower wishbones (different part number in the PET). There is a general assumption that's been discussed on this forum that the reason for the different wishbones are that the front suspension is height adjustable so the wishbones are different to accommodate the full range of adjustablility. No-one is 100% sure about this but is sounds feasible.

 

[Paul Fraser]

Just changed the front and rear shocks today. Forgot what a pig of a job it is, especially when they haven't been changed for ages. The two front were completely shot and so was the rear nearside. The rear offside was changed a year ago but I replaced it anyway -- the rebound time of the new was about 6 seconds, the year old about 8 so probably worth doing. I'll go for a drive tomorrow and see if the horrible vibration through the steering wheel has vanished.