My Fugitive,of which i'm soon to put some pictures of on the forum has IRS. Thing is the ends of the torshion bar stick out about 5" or so in front of the tyre. I notice on some of the gallery cars that the torshion bar end is little more than a flat plate, how do i go about achieving this with mine.
The reason i want to loose the bar end is i have a pair of 33x12.5 tyres i was going to try on the back. It was more for round town use and to look really extreme as i appriciate ratios may a little suspect.

The swing axle fugitives have shorter torsion bars.

My understanding (which may be wrong) is that if you get the torsion bars, spring plates, covers (and maybe bushings) you can swap them on to yours. But, you have to re-trim the spring plates to the IRS shape.

Can anyone else confirm this?

100 bob - although the sound and sight of 33 inch diameter rear tyres sounds and looks really cool..........speaking from personal experiance I would strongly advise you dont fit them.........the reason being is the tyres are so big and heavy, that when you hit the slightest pot-hole or bump in the road, it throws the car all over the place........I took my big tyres off and sold them on, I fitted a set Nankang 205-50-R15 up front, and 235-50-R15 at the rear, and it totally transformed the handling and gearing of my fug-4.........I'm assuming you have an air cooled engine?........if so they are really low on torque, and if you are fitting big diameter rear wheels, you need a torquey engine to push it along.........do yourself a favour and fit some sensible sized street tyres :D......see pics of my fug-4 here
http://forums.fugitives.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=14

It has a lancia 2ltr twincam which is another possible issue. I'm not that bothered about tyres,they were cheap and would easily sell on. But more to the point the lancia engine is sitting upright which is not what lancia engines are suppose to do. I'm a little unclear on how much of a problem this could cause. Have emailed two recognised authorities on lancia engines and their opinions differ greatly. Anyone know any different.

@ dvd8n : you're right about using springplates from a swingaxle type.
the torsion bars from the swingaxle are also a bit stiffer ( right word ?) because they are shorter... it is easy to do. you only need a good example...

If you're flush with cash then you can order longer / wider trailing arms that move your wheels out and back. You need longer axles too though.

You can achieve a similar effect more cheaply using scrappy parts from Porsche 944s too. You need to pick the right model, though. They're not all wider.

Evening,
VW made the torsions bars longer on the IRS equipped cars in an attempt to soften the ride. Torsion bars are great but you can't tune them, unlike coil springs or the like. If you swap everything over from a swing axle torsion set - up you can have the flush plates but it will be a much much harsher ride....

944 S2 's (as mine, with the forged alloy swinging arms) will give you a 60 inch rear track or 3 inchs aside greater than stock VW IRS. But if you are planning to use big diameter wheels forget this too as the torsion set up on the 944's is the same as the IRS VW (same length torsion bars) only larger diameter (28mm from 22mm). But then the VW 1303 was the grandad to the 924 set -up anyway.....

I think I would opt for massive off set on the wheels instead (if you look at alot of early photo's of Fugitives used in off roading etc most will have the rear wheels fitted back to front to gain the off set) and keep the diameter semi - sensible !!

This isn't enough to help clear the torsion bar projection then?

are you saying then we can possible use adapt 924 bits which are a lot cheaper than 944

You can.... but the 924 rear end is identical to the 1302 / 1303 Beetles right down to the drum brakes. So if you want IRS go for the Beetle. However if it's brakes you want, a cheaper option would be early 944 rear disc brake assemblies as these will bolt striaght onto the the VW IRS / 924 hubs. :)

Tigger

But are the hubs for the IRS interchangeable with the swing axle rear end.

Is it a cheaper to find a nackered 924 and divest it of it's wheels and suspension and brakes than a 1302 1303 as I will still need bigger rims?

I would like 235 75 at the back to fill the back up a bit

If you have a swing axles does the gearbox need to be change as well if you go IRS as I have seen mention of IRS gearbox seals somewhere?


you say early 944 for the front and rear end circa what year?

Blimey so many questions....ok,

Quick History lesson......

VW in the early '70's built a prototype front engined car using the Audi 4 cylinder engine and Passat front end (VW at this stage had just bought Audi) with the 1302/1303 gearbox and rear suspension (50 / 50 wieght dist) They decided not to use it, but sold the concept to Porcshe instead. The 924 was born. Which then developed into a go faster version... the 944.
So now you can see the parentage you get a good idea of all the lovely bits you can bolt on to your aircooled chassis......

So, to start answering your questions...I hope

The hubs are inchangeable IRS to swing axle and visa versa. So if you wanted you could put early 944 (or very late 924 for that matter) disc brakes on a swing axle and IRS trailing arm alike.

I wouldn't have thought so, mention you want Porsche bits to a Breakers and their eyes light up. if you need a IRS beetle rear end set up and are stuck, I might have a couple of sets lurking in the garage.... ;)

The 924 / 944 and Beetle all run on 15 inch rims so no gain there I would have thought...

Yes ! If you convert to IRS from swing axle then the whole shubang has to go including the box, I have converted them in the past but Beetle stuff is still plentiful, so I would just find the correct box. The torsion tube in the frame is the same but for IRS you will also have to weld in some mounts for the trailing arms to bolt to. To summerise then, for IRS convertion you need to change the torsion bars, spring plates and cappings and the gearbox.

Not sure wot 235/75 equates to...but that is pretty big isn't it ??


Anything mid eighties on is good. Best way to see is that the 924 (in general) ran 4 stud 130 pcd hubs (VW aircooled pattern). Therefore are interchangable with all 4 stud Beetles. Early 944 used Porsche 5 stud 130 pcd pattern but Audi brakes on 944 hubs. all this really meant was that Porsche made up a alloy hub bracket that bolts to the 924 (1303) trailing arm to fit the bigger brakes to.

The front end is slightly more complicated, but the same options more or less apply.

Hope this helps :P

dutch site about 944 brakes on beetles/buggys...

http://www.vwbuggy.nl/944schijfremmen.htm


and this is from the www.keversite.nl . also about the rearaxle

Rear Torsion Bars:

This is clearly the toughest area of selection and setup/installation you will face in this whole suspension system. I am not even going to get into the proper adjustment of the torsion bars here, it is complicated and I would advise going to a professional race shop to get this worked out and corner balanced right, which is a great advantage when on the track or if you like to carve through twisty mountain roads.

The best VW rear torsion bar offered seems to be in the T3 Squareback wagon with 23.5mm torsion bars (thanks to Chigger for that info). The base sedans torsion bars seems to be 22mm units, but I am not sure of that. Basically any VW torsion bars that are 26 9/16" long are a direct fit/swap in an IRS pan.

SAW has many varieties to choose from in almost any combination you can imagine from 20-30mm. Here is a chart showing the spring rates of each SAW torsion bar, VW bars 26 9/16" long:

22mm (stock) 464 lb
23mm (stock) 554 lb
25mm 773 lb
26mm 904 lb
27mm 1062 lb
28mm 1212 lb
29mm 1400 lb
30mm 1603 lb


That was pretty dry, now on to the Porsche stuff! Any 924 or 944 (968?) rear torsion bar will fit into a VW IRS pan with no problems at all.

924 1976-1979 22mm
924 1978-1979 Optional 23.5mm
924 1980 + 23.5mm
931 (924 Turbo) 23.5mm
924S TBD
944 1983-1985 23.5mm With M030 = 24.5mm
944 1986+ 25.5mm
944S 26mm (according to KDanie)
944S2 24mm With M030 or M031 = 25.5mm
951 (944 Turbo) 23.5mm, With M030 = 25.5mm
944 Turbo S 25.5mm


Plenty of selection here! The 25.5mm torsion bars are a perfect choice and will match up closely to the 26-27mm that we were originally shooting for.

Tigger

excellent history lesson never knew this
it all makes more sense now.

re wheels I don't want them larger diameter more width as I am sure the 924 are wider than 5.5 j ?

235 won't fit on a 5.5 j I think the biggest that will go on 205

cheers

Re: bobacat, no problem :D And I was serious if you need any bits I have a shed full........

Re: rutger, I am running a complete 944S2 rear end in my Fugitive (25.5 mm torsion bars etc etc) and it seems to work really well. I was pleasantly surprised. Nicely balanced without being too harsh.