Hi Guys,

I am still in the planning process of my Sabre rebuild. I've been a keen motorsport competitor for many years, and whilst I don't intend to compete in the Sabre, it will be setup as an occasional weekend/track car. Unfortunately my VW knowledge is somewhat limited, so I'd like a bit of advice on what can be done to best prepare the car for the track.

In my case, I have a '71 model Type 3 IRS chassis, but hopefully some of the information will be relevant for anyone looking to set their VW up for some track duties.

Chassis stiffening

My car already has a steel subframe and half cage so that should be a good start in this department.

Seam welding or stitch welding the pan. Worth doing or over kill?

Any other chassis bracing or modifications worth doing?

Adjustable sway bars, what are the options?

Suspension

What's the best way to lower a car without compromising the steering geometry or putting too much stress on other parts?

What are the best shocks to use, Koni Adjustables, custom shocks or does anyone make a decent adjustable coilover?

Torsion bars, what sizes are recommended?

Wheel alignments

What sort of camber, caster and toe settings seem to work with VWs.

What parts can be fitted to give more adjustability and/or required camber, caster or toe? Adjustable spring plates, caster shims, eccentric bushes?

How do I dial out excessive camber in the rear end of a lowered VW?

I'm sure I'll think of more but some answers to these questions would be a good start.

Thanks, Paul.

I'd replace all the worn components like suspension bushes, swaybar bushes and ball joints.

I'd make sure the suspension is a little lower than standard but most of all I'd try and get the car level left to right and front to rear.

Then I'd get some new konis or bilsteins to suit the suspension travel.

Then I'd get a 4 wheel alignment that's close to factory specs.

Then I'd drive the car and see what it does before investing in sway bars, heavier springs or aggressive suspension settings with bent arms etc.

I'd follow a similar process with the brakes.

The reason I say all this is that I bought all the fancy stuff and most of it didn't suit my driving style or what with I do with the car. In short start basic and then see what you need to fix in the handling department.

I hope that helps.

There's definitely some merit in your advice.

I guess the main consideration at this point in time is the chassis. Any modification here in terms of stiffening or modification to beams etc is best done whilst I've got the car stripped down. Really just looking for some pointers from those that have been down this path before as to what they found worthwhile and what hasn't been in their opinion. Sway bars is something I can look at down the track.

As for suspension, the main consideration is how I get the car lowered without compromising the steering geometry and shock travel too much. Once I have that figured out I can work on spring rates and shock valving to suit the car and my driving. Same with torsion bars but I'd like to hear what size the track guys are using.

Again wheel alignment specifics can be sorted out down the track. I would however like to know what parts people are using to give them the adjustability they need to get the right setup.

As for brakes, I'll definitely be doing some sort of four wheel disc upgrade to match my expected power output of 180-200hp from the engine.

I'm definitely more about spending the money up front and doing it right the first time, than throwing something together and finding I need to spend more time and money on upgrades later on down the track.

Hi

Buy the best tyres you can afford.

Type 3s have nice soft rubber mounted comfortable suspension, there hasn't been the development that has gone into Beetle suspension, strut or beam apart from the rear end which is the same as Beetle IRS.

If you haven't got them already fit some Type 3 wagon torsion bars front and rear, they are a direct replacement and are little heavier.

Steve

Thanks for the advice on the torsion bars Steve. it's been so long since i built the car I can't remember whether the donor car was a wagon or fastback.

I'm not sure on what tyre and rim size I'll end up with yet, but it'll more than likely be either 17" or 18" rims with 265 wide tyres on the rear and 225 tyres on the front. I have a lot of guard to fill

Yeah fair enough. I guess it'll depend on what rim widths and offsets I end up with.

Anyone have any advice on the best way to lower the car. Is adjusting the torsion bars the only way to really lower them?

Yup - adjusting torsion bars is really the only way to lower them.... it's the VW equivalent to putting in lowered springs.

As to suspension settings, how to get low without bump steer etc. well really a bit hard for us to say... Type3 suspensions and geometry is quite a bit different to a Beetle's, and having a different (lower/lighter ?) body just makes it even more different. For example with Beetle's it's normally a good idea to stitch weld the frame horns that holds the transe, but your chassis doesn't even have frame horns!!!

Agree on the tyres comments too... tho 265 and 235 seem WAY wide to me... I've found 205's all round is plenty.

Thanks Sides.

These Type 3 drop spindles look like they'll give me 46mm drop whilst leaving the torsion bars in their original location, and therefore retaining the original steering geometry.
Is that right?

Is there any disadvantage to using drop spindles like these:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1060650 

Agreed 265 tyres are probably too much and ultimately I'd like to have a maximum of 245 provided I can get the right offset rims. Remember the engine will have roughly 200hp to start with, possibly more if I end up with an EJ20T.

The type 3 front end allows you to adjust the ride height by the splines on the ends of the torsion bars. You will want to adjust it from standard at least enough to compensate for the reduced weight. It won't cost you anything but time. With a bit of luck the steering geometry may be OK.

Hi

CT aka Fullnoise may have an opinion on drop spindles that he used on his bug.

Steve

Corner weight the car.....and tyres, u may have all the good parts but tuning is the method...

Thanks guys.

The car has previously been lowered by adjusting the torsion bars, but ideally I'd like to retutn them to their standard loaction, or near abouts, and lower the car via some drop spindles to avoid changing the steering geometry too much.

JVL, I've already put the car on the corner weighting scales to get a set of baseline figures. I'll do it all again at the end of the project.

In relation to corner weighting though, I've only ever made adjustments on other cars via adjustable coilovers, How do you guys corner weight the VWs if you don't have coilovers installed? What adjustments are available?

there's a set of type 3 whitline sway bars on ebay at the moment......

I have dropped-spindles. They're great.

The problem with lowering the beam using adjusters is that it changes the angle of the trailing arms. Instead of having them hang down and then going towards horizontal when the suspension compresses; they start at horizontal and have to go up and forward to compress. That makes the suspension stiffer and gives a short, sharp and choppy ride. This makes the suspension resist weight transfer to the front and causes under-steer and the tyres don't work hard enough.

By installing drop spindles and backing off the beam adjusters my suspension softened right up. It started transferring weight properly. The turn-in was awesome and the front tyres began to show much higher temperatures. I had to remove the big rear springs and big rear swaybar to get the car to stop over-steering.

I first tried cast dropped spindles but they were too flexible for track work, I'd get toe-out under brakes. I ended up getting some fancy ones from Custom Bugs and Buses that are really strong, but I don't think Mike was going to make them anymore.

I hear you can get chromoly ones now. Those would probably be the go. I think Rod Penrose had some.

Cheers CT

I can't wait to get back out on the track. I've got a few combinations to try.

ADVAN Neova street / track tyres in a staggered size 175/55 front and 205/45 rear - should increase understeer.

ZF diff - should increase understeer.

Who knows, maybe I'll have to put the big rear springs and/or swaybars back on?

Either way I'm looking forward to seeing how the car handles.

For what it's worth, CT, I've found that working on the rear end until you get under-steer, then work on the front end until you get over-steer [andso on] seems to get results.

Cheers, Greg

I never thought of it like that. How simple. Good one Greg.

The car is kind of at that point. Without type 3 springs and the small 18mm (I think) rear bar the car wouldn't turn off the bridge at Oran Park's GP circuit and it was slow to get to the turn 5 apex at Eastern Creek. I think Wakefield was okay. So I've been running the rear bar for a few years now. I don't touch the front.

The only thing I can see that it does wrong is lift a front wheel occasionally.

Sorry Paul, I hope I haven't hijacked this post.

Back to the hijacking: It was a tough day at Wakefield Park yesterday. I wish I had a bigger memory card in the GoPro. It would've caught the high-speed 360 degree spin I did coming onto the back straight. It's certainly a lot more challenging to drive street tyres at the limits compared with the semi-slicks I normally use!!!! Normally I can take that corner flat; without lifting.

I'll need some practice with the new set-up. All I could manage was a 1:17.0. 2.4 seconds slower than my best. I reckon I could get down to a 1:16.0 with the ADVAN Neovas.

Unfortunately changing into second for the fish-hook (thanks to the new 3.88 R&P) was a bit hard on the fan belts. I broke two in three runs and didn't want to risk the third. I tried to find a replacement at Supercheap Auto Goulburn but they didn't have the right size. Bugger.

The first fanbelt took out a filter sock on one of the ida. The second fan belt knocked off one of the springs holding the distributor cap on necessitating a tow back to the pits.

That's racing though. I'll start with the small pulley next time and have a good stash of fan belts.

thanx ct did you do some tyre temps with the Neovas? i bought a set and am keen for some feedback. regards.

The Neovas were mid to high 50s at the rear. The fronts were mid to high 40s. I started at 30psi hot but the pyro suggests that's too high for the front. I dropped them 3 psi but then it rained, so I'll have to resume trying lower pressures at the next dry track day. The wet was fun, but I think a sand bag or spare wheel would help.

The 2012 Neova Cup score board should be up in a week or two.

Cheers