I have been out in the fug-4 today......thrashing the 5hit out of it trying to get it to handle properly.......playing with front tyre pressures has drastically reduced understeer .......changed from 25psi to 18 psi......worked a treat

but I have come to the conclusion that the rear suspension needs lowering by about 2 inches, as when I'm cornering hard it feels like the fug is trying to turn over......being a swing axle I'm very concerned that a wheel might tuck under and flip the whole car over......not good me thinks.

when looking at the suspension from the rear the outer ends of the swing-axle drive shafts are marginally pointing downwards....only just.....which is very slight positive camber........I'm thinking the spring plates need rotating by 1 spline.......can anyone tell me how much this will equate to in terms of a rear ride height reduction????.......I'm sure this is common knowledge on beetles????............I notice the formula vee racers run lots of negative camber on the rear, so I'm thinking lowering is deffo the way to go......but how much does 1 spline equal :( :( :(

One spline should give you the 2 inches you are after - according to James Hale
in his book "How to modify volkswagen Beetle suspension, brakes and chassis for high performance". B)

thanks fugepilot - just the answer I was looking for :) :) :)

This is probably far too late but remember that the number of splines on the inner and outer ends of the torsion bar are at different pitches - so one inner spline change is different to one outer spline change. Also sorry if you knew this already :unsure:

no I didnt actually know that!.....nice one.....but I was planning to only move the outer splines by 1 spline..........my current front and rear ride heights are both 9 inches......I want to lower the front by about 2-3 inches before I lower the rear.......so I am currently looking for a secondhand adjustable beam

The idea is that by moving the outer spline in one direction and the inner in the other you can make tiny changes to fine tune the position of the spring plate - if I remember correctly you can make less than a degree of change.

Posting on behalf of Tom:


Hy. I can help. The inner end has got 40 and outer 44 splines.
That makes 360°/40=9° and 360°/44=8°11'. If you turn 1 outer spline down and 1 inner spline up it will effect in lowering it 0°49' or 0.82 degrees. This means little morethan 0.6 cm at the wheel per 1 spline up and 1 spline down. 5.7cm when 1 outer only. But considering that the negative camber will increase is important, especially with a swingaxle!!!