Narrowing T1 L&P beam--how to guide...

not sure if i was directed to this site from A.V.D or not, anyways, this page has been sitting in my favourites for quite a while and it is a fairly comprehensive "how to" on an always hot topic.

http://www.btinternet.com/~aircooled/wolfsburgeast/home.html

cheers

[ Edited on 7-11-05 by dumone ]

Very good info! I ended up with an airspeedparts show tower conversion and a 3" narrowed front instead, but given the opportinity to do it again, I reckon this would be better.

There is another good way to do this without relocating the frame head mounts.

God I love being held in suspense! Come on drag bug are you gonna tell us how? 😀

Didn't Ultra VW do it dragbugs way, cut on the outside of the frame head mounts on each side so your leaving the centre section intact. Either way its a lot of cutting, welding & grinding. But if it was easy...
Will be doing this to my 64 as soon as I get some time, think I'll do it the same way as this article, less welds on the tubes. You put this up in good timing for me, thanks dumone

Yep,
I cut either side of the frame head mounts.
I also do it The og way aswell.

Have learnt that if im going narrow'er than 2.
Lets say 4 or 6 inch,then i generally go out side the mounts.
You can work a side at a time this way.
Trimming and refitting becomes easier.

Keep a look out for one of my cars when i finish it.(after the new house and workshop is finished)..she will be a 57 running a 6 1/2 narrow beam.
Lots of camber at rear,and funny little switches that make air noise's.
Nuff said.👍

Apologies for the moronic noob question, but what does this mod achieve? Is it part of the lowering procedure for the front end?

gets the wheels further under the guards. this gives too advantages, if you use drop spindles, wider wheels or a front disc conversion narrowing can make up for the extra width in the front end. If you are lowering the car, the wheels have more room to go up into the guards if they are further in. However, some people just think it look cool. Warning though, some people (Richard Hoszl?) reckon it effects handling adversly, I don't know about this not having had a narrowed front end myself.

I pretty sure this modification is illegal in QLD. The QLD modification regulations state that narrowing the track of a vehicle is not allowed and you can only widen the track of a vehicle by 26mm.

Yeah Mike there are some restrictions in QLD - I know Wes posted a link to the draft vehicle modification rules somewhere in here - it may be changing but not sure.

I narrowed my front beam 80mm, however this was to regain turning circle when using my 17x7.5in ET52 wheels. To get the wheels away from the trailing arms, I then used spacers (bolted to the discs with studs for the wheels) - thereby regaining the track width (ie. narrow beam but space wheels out). Spacers/adaptors in themselves have to be approved, and because I worked with the engineer throughout the design of the suspension and braking system I had no problems having them passed - however you can't just bolt a pair of spacers on without the proper authorisation. I know some late model porsches come with them equipped from the factory which is of course an exception.

Back to the narrowed beam though - yep that is a good link (I've had that in the favourites for ages too!).

MikeM wrote:I pretty sure this modification is illegal in QLD. The QLD modification regulations state that narrowing the track of a vehicle is not allowed and you can only widen the track of a vehicle by 26mm.

any ideas on where on the tyres this would be measured from?

a narrower beam with offset wide wheels could have the same measurments as a stock standard beetle IF the measurments were taken from the center of each tyre......a simplistic view yes........lots of possibilities tho

Vehicle track
Track is measured at ground level from the centre of the
tyre on one side to the centre of the corresponding tyre
on the opposite side of the vehicle. Front and rear track
differs on many vehicles.
The wheel track must not be reduced to less than the
standard track specified by the vehicle manufacturer
for the particular model of vehicle.

The track of a car or car derivative may be increased
by up to 26mm beyond the maximum specified by
the vehicle manufacturer for the particular model of
vehicle. Off-road passenger vehicles fitted with front
and rear beam axles, may have an increase in track
up to 50mm beyond the maximum specified by
the vehicle manufacturer for the particular model
of vehicle.

The above quote is taken from :
QLD Transport all about modification PDF
http://www.transport.qld.gov.au/qt/LTASinfo.nsf/ReferenceLookup/Modification_Jan05v2.pdf/$file/Modification_Jan05v2.pdf

Qld Transport Modifications webpage
http://www.transport.qld.gov.au/qt/LTASinfo.nsf/index/vehicles_modifications

And to Dasdubbers point, if you involve a blue plate engineer you can often perform modifications that are outside the guidelines.

so you could narrow the beam to compensate for drop spindles then

or run massively wide wheels with a very narrow beam.......

U can actually narrow a LP beam up to 4" without moving the framehead mounts, modifing the body or sectioning the torsion tubes.
I had Adam Debasi do a 2" narrowed beam for me last year, but it wasn't narrow enough for me, so I have made a 4" beam to replace it. The way I have done it, is to cut off the shock towers to the width you require (2" per side), them cut new towers out of 10mm plate, weld this flush to the torsion tube, fit a set of the long nolathane torsion tube bush kits and refit your trailing arms...
On a BJ beam you can narrow it up to 3" using the torsion tubes section method and stock towers.

Of course you will have to shorten your torsion leaves and tie rods to suit. I haven't tried it yet but I would think you could mod a narrowed BJ beam buy making new towers as per a LP beam...
If want to go any narrower, you'll be looking at modding the inner guards and in extreme cases you could mount the shox in-board of the inner guard... But I would think you ride would be getting a little choppy with that sort of extreme narrowing... I do know of a few guys in the US that are running 6-8" narrowed beams... Pretty bloody hardcore!

Dasdubber wrote:Yeah Mike there are some restrictions in QLD - I know Wes posted a link to the draft vehicle modification rules somewhere in here - it may be changing but not sure.

I narrowed my front beam 80mm, however this was to regain turning circle when using my 17x7.5in ET52 wheels. To get the wheels away from the trailing arms, I then used spacers (bolted to the discs with studs for the wheels) - thereby regaining the track width (ie. narrow beam but space wheels out). Spacers/adaptors in themselves have to be approved, and because I worked with the engineer throughout the design of the suspension and braking system I had no problems having them passed - however you can't just bolt a pair of spacers on without the proper authorisation. I know some late model porsches come with them equipped from the factory which is of course an exception.

Back to the narrowed beam though - yep that is a good link (I've had that in the favourites for ages too!).

Hi Das,
I confess I've read this about four times over the past months, including in your excellent build report on the car and ended up puzzled each time. Apart from some pretty subtle geometry changes (there's now a longer arm pivoting from a closer inboard pivot point) , didn't you end up offsetting one action with another i.e. could you not have reduced the amount you narrowed your beam by the thickness of your spacers (X 2) then not fit the spacers, and still have had the centreline of your wheels in the same place, i.e. the same track? So assuming your spacers are 20 mm thick, could you have narrowed the beam 40 mm, not 80 mm, and not fitted the spacers?

Apologies for the convoluted question; I'm sure I'm missing something obvious.

modulus wrote:

Dasdubber wrote:Yeah Mike there are some restrictions in QLD - I know Wes posted a link to the draft vehicle modification rules somewhere in here - it may be changing but not sure.

I narrowed my front beam 80mm, however this was to regain turning circle when using my 17x7.5in ET52 wheels. To get the wheels away from the trailing arms, I then used spacers (bolted to the discs with studs for the wheels) - thereby regaining the track width (ie. narrow beam but space wheels out). Spacers/adaptors in themselves have to be approved, and because I worked with the engineer throughout the design of the suspension and braking system I had no problems having them passed - however you can't just bolt a pair of spacers on without the proper authorisation. I know some late model porsches come with them equipped from the factory which is of course an exception.

Back to the narrowed beam though - yep that is a good link (I've had that in the favourites for ages too!).

Hi Das,
I confess I've read this about four times over the past months, including in your excellent build report on the car and ended up puzzled each time. Apart from some pretty subtle geometry changes (there's now a longer arm pivoting from a closer inboard pivot point) , didn't you end up offsetting one action with another i.e. could you not have reduced the amount you narrowed your beam by the thickness of your spacers (X 2) then not fit the spacers, and still have had the centreline of your wheels in the same place, i.e. the same track? So assuming your spacers are 20 mm thick, could you have narrowed the beam 40 mm, not 80 mm, and not fitted the spacers?

Apologies for the convoluted question; I'm sure I'm missing something obvious.

The most common 'problem' that is found when fitting late Porsche rims is the offset. Some of the rims have as much as a 52ET... Which is huge for a rear wheel drive car! (most front wheel drivecars have around 42-47ET) Good for getting the rims under the guard, but not so great if you have big brakes too. What this means is the inside edge of the rim and tyre gets very close to the related suspension components, and the brake components get very close the wheel centre. Now when you add big calipers from the Porsche range such as the big reds, you would have major clearance issues if you did not run spacers as well. Porsces run a fairly large offset spacing from the rotor to the hub face. So you have to take into account the backspace (ET) of the rims, the hub face, the disc rotor and the various components hangin off the car under the guard. This is when the need arrises to select the correct spacer to get the rim as far under the car as poss and still clear all the bits that are bolted to it! Of course you must take into account the outer guard clearance issue as well. Obviously it is best to make as much room as poss under the car (narrowed beam), then build out from there.... If you wanted to run aero guards et al, then a narrowed beam is more than likely not nessasary, but some of us like the look of the stock guard (I know aero's dont do it for me!).
On my ragtop, I currently have the aformentioned 2" narrowed beam... I did this primarily for cosmetic purposes, but I also did this because I am running RADAR rims. Now anybody who has these rims will know that the offset is less than ideal (its a very old school 20ET). To get these rims under the stock guard on a very low car with anything bigger than 185 would be tough... I have 145/55-15's on the front and they look pretty close to stock in track on my car... Add to that some drop spindles and I think you may have guard lip clearance issues... Hence the need for the 4" narrowed beam.

Now I know that some ppl will tell you that the car will have suspect handling, and of course the handling will be effected when you narrow track, but I know from experience it is not as extreme as some would tell you.

If you are running a mildly narrowed beam(2"), with big brakes and rims, then I would doubt you feel a difference and you will appreciate the tyre to guard clearance. If like me, you are runnning narrowish tyres on the front (for that hardcore gasser look!), I would advise some care when negotiating that favorite roundabout of yours. But you would if your beam was stock anyhoo! Extreme beams such as the 6" - 8" deals that are so popular in the US are pretty suss, but these guys dont have the same crap roads we have, they drive mostly on the smooth interstates or cruise the boulevards, and the licensing laws are fairly flexible compared to our guidlelines. Im currently going through the engineering permits for my 4" beam... I know of plenty of hot rods that are legally running altered track widths, lets hope the engineer like what he see's...