412 le lowering help
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andycoco
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Mon Oct 24, 2005 2:10 pm
412 le lowering help
hi im in the united kingdom and these cars are very hard to find only tracked 4 in the country .now having just bought mine i want it lowered i know the back will be easy but the front?? i need help whats the best way to go and how can i get parts for these in the usa and get them shipped cheaply thanks andy
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tuna
- Posts: 2531
- Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2000 12:01 am
You'll find that there are a lot of posts here on that very topic. Ray Greenwood has made a lot of posts about the proper way of doing it, and the issues with doing it. Do some searching and reading.
To everyone
It looks like we need to put together a stickie about lowering the Type 4. Anyone want to volunteer to help? I'll assist, but I'm not the expert. Those of you who have done would be a valuable asset. I'll start the stickie soon.
Tuna
To everyone
It looks like we need to put together a stickie about lowering the Type 4. Anyone want to volunteer to help? I'll assist, but I'm not the expert. Those of you who have done would be a valuable asset. I'll start the stickie soon.
Tuna
http://vdubgeek.blogspot.com/
Type 4: Secrets Revealed - https://type4secrets.blogspot.com/
Tom's Type 4 Corner - coming soon!
EMPI Imp Homepage - coming soon!
My VWs - http://vdubgeek.blogspot.com/p/my-vdubs_5.html
Type 4: Secrets Revealed - https://type4secrets.blogspot.com/
Tom's Type 4 Corner - coming soon!
EMPI Imp Homepage - coming soon!
My VWs - http://vdubgeek.blogspot.com/p/my-vdubs_5.html
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andycoco
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Mon Oct 24, 2005 2:10 pm
412 lowering
hi thanks sounds good lets get it started i was told using audi a4 front springs and cut strut legs and using shortnend dampers???
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raygreenwood
- Posts: 11907
- Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2003 12:01 am
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tuna
- Posts: 2531
- Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2000 12:01 am
Yep, that's a pic of the North American XB-70A Valkyrie (actually the first prototype A/V1). Ever since I was a teenager, I've been fascinated with airplanes (mostly military), specifically the really fast ones, like the Blackbird series, XB-70, MiG25/31, Concorde (and Tu-144), etc. Actually I like anything that pushes the limit of technology.
The last couple of years I've been reading some books on the Blackbird and right now I'm finishing a book on the B-70 history. It's truly remarkable how they work.
I found this picture on Google. Using their image search, I look for large images of the XB-70. I found a few, but I wish there were more. Someday I'd like to make it to Wright-Patterson AFB to check out the remaining XB-70 (A/V1) there. I've seen one of the remaining A-12s (predecessor to the SR-71) at the Aerospace Museum in San Diego.
Unfortunately politics killed both the Blackbird and the Valkyrie. What a shame.
Tuna
The last couple of years I've been reading some books on the Blackbird and right now I'm finishing a book on the B-70 history. It's truly remarkable how they work.
I found this picture on Google. Using their image search, I look for large images of the XB-70. I found a few, but I wish there were more. Someday I'd like to make it to Wright-Patterson AFB to check out the remaining XB-70 (A/V1) there. I've seen one of the remaining A-12s (predecessor to the SR-71) at the Aerospace Museum in San Diego.
Unfortunately politics killed both the Blackbird and the Valkyrie. What a shame.
Tuna
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tuna
- Posts: 2531
- Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2000 12:01 am
Actually, it was designed for nuclear bombs, not conventional weapons. Like the SR-71, it used speed and altitude to evade the enemy's defenses.73'vw412 wrote:Thats the Valkyrie, right? That plane was extremely fast. had no other weapons than the heavy ordnance, used its speed to outrun anything that came its way.
Tuna
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73'vw412
- Posts: 42
- Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 8:10 pm
If you like speed, check out the x-15. Fastest manned plane in existance(mach 6.8, I believe). Im also watching the development of the scramjet on the boeing X-43. Cant wait till the make a manned flight! I've also been fascinated with planes for a long time, with particular focus on speed and size(I like small planes). Now if I could just put a type 4 in something like the Stits Junior.... 
btw, this is the Stits Junior for those who dont know what one is.
btw, this is the Stits Junior for those who dont know what one is.
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tuna
- Posts: 2531
- Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2000 12:01 am
Oh, I'm very familiar with the X-15. One of the X-15 canopies is in the San Diego Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park. Very cool to see in person.73'vw412 wrote:If you like speed, check out the x-15. Fastest manned plane in existance(mach 6.8, I believe).
The thing I liked about the planes I mentioned is that they are able to takeoff/land under their own power. They could operate independently of any other aircraft.
Tuna
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plumcrazee
- Posts: 128
- Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:18 am
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raygreenwood
- Posts: 11907
- Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2003 12:01 am
Yep...its about time to start pulling out some parts and measuring. I know I have a lot of projects that are promised. I am working about 100 hours a week right now.
But one of the more easy things to do...is to make some measurements of the two main types of struts that are already on the car....and also...some measurements of how much safe clearance you ahve on the control arms. I will try to post tehse by next Tuesday here....so Tuna can get them on a sticky.
These are the things you need to STUDY...before you make any decisions to lower it...no matter how low you want to go....or by what method you use.
A warning to think about please.
The front coils on this car are superb. You will be paid well..to incorporate them into whatever lowering scheme you design.....and not just delete them and use soemthings elseThey were calculated and engineered in a very solid manner for this car. They have enough tension in them for ANYTHING...you will ever need to do with this car.
They can be compressed further (preloaded)...without seriously messing with their calibration...by almost 2". But...you need to think about dampers/cartridges....and minor upgrades to the mounts.
Well engineered coil springs...are not just stock parts that are in a catalog and sized up and taken from the shelf. They are engineered specifically for the load and road harmonic of each application.
The type 4's were awesome.....as are most BMW products. The damper was the crappy part....as well as the front end geometry settings.
Bear in mind...that you will need to do a little fabrciating to get what you want.
For those that weld well....one of the very best solutions for lowering....as well as having a car that then will handle almost...well enough for the track.....no kidding... I can offer you is this:
Take the measurement between the lower spring perch edge..starting at the indention/notch...where the coil spring seats...to the edge of the lip of the top plate....of an assembled...STOCK late 412 strut.
It should be around 18" (I will measure tommorrow). Now subtract .9" from that. Lets say that leaves you with 17" for the sake of argument .That will be the assembled length of the spring, from lower perch to top plate of the new strut assembly no matter what you do to it to lower it. write that down.
I use this measurement..because that is what is required just to set the front end level of the 412...and get rid of that nose high attitude. But it also still keeps the right spring frequency for great tire adhesion, smooth ride and superb steering....as well as giving a good deal better preload to deal with the uprated dampers.
Get a pair of KYB GR-2..strut cartridges for an Audi 412....vw quantum.
With no further fabrication, is you install those..cartridges....you will find that they are about 3.5" shorter and will overcompress the coil spring upon assembly. That leaves you with a coil spring length from the perch to top plate ...of about 13.5" (for the sake of the conversation).
At this point...if you removed the lower spring perch and dropped it that 3.5"...to regain your 17" assembled spring length.........you will have lowered teh front ende of you car by 3" and still have kept absolutely superb strut,steering and handling control.
The max compression rate/distance over even ugly bumps is less than 1.5"with this set-up. I cannot stress enough, how good the valving of the Audi 4000 cartrdige in the GR-2 low pressure format...and the stock spring...is for this car. Yo usjust have to see it to believe. And being that stiff you might think it would be shocky...or jarring...but not atall...because the rebound rate of teh low pressure gas cartridge.....was design to control a front engine front drive weight.
But bear in mind. This is just a "how to" to explain how to possibly do this well and simple. I have no idea yet..wether there is enough fender well room...and enough control arm travel to lower the front end by 3.5".
Also bear in mind, that you will need to put in castor adjustment. Not hard..just some fabricating.
the way mine is set up now...wth stock spring and KYB Gr-2's for the Audi 4000 strut....without lowering the lower spring perch is like this:
Because audi strut rod is about 4.5" shorter than the stock strut rod.....and I wanted to lower the front end by about .9"....I built a screw on top shaft extender.....of about 3.5". I then ground off the top 10mm lug that is above the threads on teh Audi strut rod...and threaded on the extender. I then set screwed it...and lock tighted it.....and assembled the strut. This allowed the use of the stock bump stop.
Now using this stub method...if you wanted more lowering than the .9" I sed...but less than the 3.5" youwould get by not using a stub at all....then you you use a stub of the same design of some other length...AND lower the spring perch as well to keep the same spring compression length.
One more thing. Lowering the rear is not easy either. If you cut the coils...you have screwed up. Take one out and look at it. They are highly...highly...progressive.....and very calculated. They have a very tight short load section on the bottom end of the coil. This has to counter the entire weight of engine and drivetrain.
If you remove any of those.....you can and will... bend the rear trailing arm assembly on a hard bump....as the there will no longer be enough load control to counter the enertia of the drive train. I have actually done that...and it is bad news.
If you lop off any of the top coils...there will not be enough preload to keep the body in contact with the coil spring on a hevay rebound when using teh stock shock. The spring unseats....makes an ungodly jangling nose as it cocks side ways....and will usually bend and puncture the shock. Removing one whole rear coil will destroy your shocks. I have done that too. It is waaaay ugly.
There are a couple ways to lower the rear that I can think of. Both require some fabrication and a shorter shock of the same load range...possibly.
The hardest...but best....is to get a large holesaw...or plasma cutter or a steady hand with cutting torch. You will have to remove the trailing arm assembly. Then cut...ann remove the seat in teh body...of the spring. This will be like a 6" hole and go through two layers of sheet metal all the way into the rear cargo area behind the back seat.
You will then...make a "bucket"...out of steel pipe slightly larger in diameter that the coil spring...with a piece of 1/4" steel plate welded to the top. The depth of this bucket will be teh length you want to lower. There will be a hole in teh plate for the shock rod. Weld the bucket in at the correct angle..and you have new top setas to seat the stock spring and shock in. There may be an issue with the rear sway bar travel distance. You may need to extend the outer links. ray
But one of the more easy things to do...is to make some measurements of the two main types of struts that are already on the car....and also...some measurements of how much safe clearance you ahve on the control arms. I will try to post tehse by next Tuesday here....so Tuna can get them on a sticky.
These are the things you need to STUDY...before you make any decisions to lower it...no matter how low you want to go....or by what method you use.
A warning to think about please.
The front coils on this car are superb. You will be paid well..to incorporate them into whatever lowering scheme you design.....and not just delete them and use soemthings elseThey were calculated and engineered in a very solid manner for this car. They have enough tension in them for ANYTHING...you will ever need to do with this car.
They can be compressed further (preloaded)...without seriously messing with their calibration...by almost 2". But...you need to think about dampers/cartridges....and minor upgrades to the mounts.
Well engineered coil springs...are not just stock parts that are in a catalog and sized up and taken from the shelf. They are engineered specifically for the load and road harmonic of each application.
The type 4's were awesome.....as are most BMW products. The damper was the crappy part....as well as the front end geometry settings.
Bear in mind...that you will need to do a little fabrciating to get what you want.
For those that weld well....one of the very best solutions for lowering....as well as having a car that then will handle almost...well enough for the track.....no kidding... I can offer you is this:
Take the measurement between the lower spring perch edge..starting at the indention/notch...where the coil spring seats...to the edge of the lip of the top plate....of an assembled...STOCK late 412 strut.
It should be around 18" (I will measure tommorrow). Now subtract .9" from that. Lets say that leaves you with 17" for the sake of argument .That will be the assembled length of the spring, from lower perch to top plate of the new strut assembly no matter what you do to it to lower it. write that down.
I use this measurement..because that is what is required just to set the front end level of the 412...and get rid of that nose high attitude. But it also still keeps the right spring frequency for great tire adhesion, smooth ride and superb steering....as well as giving a good deal better preload to deal with the uprated dampers.
Get a pair of KYB GR-2..strut cartridges for an Audi 412....vw quantum.
With no further fabrication, is you install those..cartridges....you will find that they are about 3.5" shorter and will overcompress the coil spring upon assembly. That leaves you with a coil spring length from the perch to top plate ...of about 13.5" (for the sake of the conversation).
At this point...if you removed the lower spring perch and dropped it that 3.5"...to regain your 17" assembled spring length.........you will have lowered teh front ende of you car by 3" and still have kept absolutely superb strut,steering and handling control.
The max compression rate/distance over even ugly bumps is less than 1.5"with this set-up. I cannot stress enough, how good the valving of the Audi 4000 cartrdige in the GR-2 low pressure format...and the stock spring...is for this car. Yo usjust have to see it to believe. And being that stiff you might think it would be shocky...or jarring...but not atall...because the rebound rate of teh low pressure gas cartridge.....was design to control a front engine front drive weight.
But bear in mind. This is just a "how to" to explain how to possibly do this well and simple. I have no idea yet..wether there is enough fender well room...and enough control arm travel to lower the front end by 3.5".
Also bear in mind, that you will need to put in castor adjustment. Not hard..just some fabricating.
the way mine is set up now...wth stock spring and KYB Gr-2's for the Audi 4000 strut....without lowering the lower spring perch is like this:
Because audi strut rod is about 4.5" shorter than the stock strut rod.....and I wanted to lower the front end by about .9"....I built a screw on top shaft extender.....of about 3.5". I then ground off the top 10mm lug that is above the threads on teh Audi strut rod...and threaded on the extender. I then set screwed it...and lock tighted it.....and assembled the strut. This allowed the use of the stock bump stop.
Now using this stub method...if you wanted more lowering than the .9" I sed...but less than the 3.5" youwould get by not using a stub at all....then you you use a stub of the same design of some other length...AND lower the spring perch as well to keep the same spring compression length.
One more thing. Lowering the rear is not easy either. If you cut the coils...you have screwed up. Take one out and look at it. They are highly...highly...progressive.....and very calculated. They have a very tight short load section on the bottom end of the coil. This has to counter the entire weight of engine and drivetrain.
If you remove any of those.....you can and will... bend the rear trailing arm assembly on a hard bump....as the there will no longer be enough load control to counter the enertia of the drive train. I have actually done that...and it is bad news.
If you lop off any of the top coils...there will not be enough preload to keep the body in contact with the coil spring on a hevay rebound when using teh stock shock. The spring unseats....makes an ungodly jangling nose as it cocks side ways....and will usually bend and puncture the shock. Removing one whole rear coil will destroy your shocks. I have done that too. It is waaaay ugly.
There are a couple ways to lower the rear that I can think of. Both require some fabrication and a shorter shock of the same load range...possibly.
The hardest...but best....is to get a large holesaw...or plasma cutter or a steady hand with cutting torch. You will have to remove the trailing arm assembly. Then cut...ann remove the seat in teh body...of the spring. This will be like a 6" hole and go through two layers of sheet metal all the way into the rear cargo area behind the back seat.
You will then...make a "bucket"...out of steel pipe slightly larger in diameter that the coil spring...with a piece of 1/4" steel plate welded to the top. The depth of this bucket will be teh length you want to lower. There will be a hole in teh plate for the shock rod. Weld the bucket in at the correct angle..and you have new top setas to seat the stock spring and shock in. There may be an issue with the rear sway bar travel distance. You may need to extend the outer links. ray
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plumcrazee
- Posts: 128
- Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:18 am
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Wally
- Posts: 4564
- Joined: Mon Oct 28, 2002 12:01 am
One thing to bear in mind also when lowering spring perches (and the reason why I have not gone that route) is that you will probably get clearence problems with that lower spring perch when using large(r) diameter rims with big off-sets...
Probably only a concern for the german-style guys as larger diameter, big ET is virtually a description of late porsche rims
Regards,
Walter
Probably only a concern for the german-style guys as larger diameter, big ET is virtually a description of late porsche rims
Regards,
Walter
T4T: 2,4ltr Type 4 Turbo engine, 10.58 1/4 mi in a streetlegal 1303
"Mine isn't turbo'd to make a slow engine fast, but to make a fast engine insane" - Chip Birks
"Mine isn't turbo'd to make a slow engine fast, but to make a fast engine insane" - Chip Birks
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plumcrazee
- Posts: 128
- Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:18 am
Wally wrote:One thing to bear in mind also when lowering spring perches (and the reason why I have not gone that route) is that you will probably get clearence problems with that lower spring perch when using large(r) diameter rims with big off-sets...
Probably only a concern for the german-style guys as larger diameter, big ET is virtually a description of late porsche rims
Regards,
Walter
well as i will be puting porka 7.5 * 17s i dont think that route will help me then
has any one looked at raising the frount shock mounts higher??? or would that clash with the bonnet/hood havent looked to closely as of yet as its at my mates house
