TheSamba.com :: View topic - Porsche Powered Mid-Engine Double Cab Build

Wed Jan 27, 2010 5:49 am

Holy crap, that's some IMPRESSIVE fab work. I do have one question, what will the old engine bay now look like? Will it be sealed up, like some kind of trunk, or? Ok, one more question, is the back seat going in again? Is there even room above the new engine (which I ABSOLUTELY LOVE!!!)?

Wed Jan 27, 2010 6:31 am

That is absolutely stunning work!

Wed Jan 27, 2010 6:44 am

Boy...I opened this thread expecting the worst....although I shed a couple of tears for the poor old double cab...the mad fabrication skills have replaced my frown with a big smile. Nice job.

Wed Jan 27, 2010 6:51 am

rjonas wrote: Boy...I opened this thread expecting the worst....although I shed a couple of tears for the poor old double cab...the mad fabrication skills have replaced my frown with a big smile. Nice job.

Eh, no big deal. At least it wasn't a Binz! :twisted:

Wed Jan 27, 2010 7:02 am

very nice...I like

Wed Jan 27, 2010 7:03 am

Thats is amazing work. Are yall going to make use of the old engine bay space for anything.?

Wed Jan 27, 2010 7:45 am

impressive welds.

this thread reminds me of the 4,341 people who have said this to me:
"hey did you know you can put a Porsche engine in there"

Wed Jan 27, 2010 8:01 am

I'm loving this thread!

Gives me some ideas and hints for my crewcab too.. ;)

Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:54 am

Hebster52 wrote: Gives me some ideas and hints for my crewcab too.. ;)

Me too !!

Going to collect a complete 964 C4 drivetrain (minus engine and gearbox) in a couple of hours.

Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:14 pm

Truly excellent work! That suspension sick! I would love to see a video of this thing running.

Wed Jan 27, 2010 5:20 pm

The old engine bay will be closed in with sheet aluminum and become a trunk of sorts.

I am going to build a new seat base using foam as a cushion and sheet aluminum for a firewall on the engine side. the seat back might be custom as well with headrests, or modify the original.

The front suspension is set for now but I know Seth could design and build a awesome front A arm setup, got to leave something for future mods.

Wed Jan 27, 2010 10:25 pm

amazing fab work, top notch for sure.

but,

the ride hieght(stance) and tire sizes make it look like ass.

Wed Jan 27, 2010 10:33 pm

my65vert wrote: amazing fab work, top notch for sure.

but,

the ride hieght(stance) and tire sizes make it look like ass.

Don't quote me on this, but I think it will be going down like 2 inches. The suspension is set up to travel the way he wants with all pieces set centered for a neutral adjustment point. Everything can be adjusted from here. I believe he will be going with softer springs as well, because I think the coil overs came with 400 lbs springs. It's pretty stiff as it sits, since it still has the torsions acting with the coil overs.

Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:28 pm

Hey Seth, funny you just replied to that point as I just came back from my shop doing a suspension tune.
I put some 220# springs on the front and dropped the beam a notch and its sitting perfect.(wether 220# is the correct rate will have to wait for the test drive!)
I pulled the torsion bars last night and tested range of travel of the rear suspension and its spot on at 7" from full droop to full compression.
Now I know where you can build the bump stops.
I am going to adjust the rear torsion splines to set the rear height, keeping the 400# coil springs as a starting point.

The tire/ wheel combo is 7" et55 16" with Toyo TR1 215/40
rear are 8" et52 16" with Toyo TR1 245/45 factory Porsche cup 1's.
Tire sizes in 16" wheel size is shrinking rapidly, I would have rather run 245/40 on the back and 225/40 fronts, but the back tire rolling diameter is just a little smaller than the stock 944s2 for a little more low end, plus I expect my top speed to be only around 145m.p.h. due to aerodynamic restrictions!

Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:32 pm

Oh, and I agree it does look like ass in that photo!

Thu Jan 28, 2010 12:12 am

Sounds like the bell crank is working perfectly if you are getting 7 inches of travel at the wheel.

Thu Jan 28, 2010 12:52 am

This thing is sexy! Keep it up.

Thu Jan 28, 2010 1:45 am

Twisted Minis wrote: Sounds like the bell crank is working perfectly if you are getting 7 inches of travel at the wheel.

So is the point of bell cranks just to fit a longer suspension part in there sideways? Or is it just to say "look at that!" :lol: They are pretty cool.

Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:59 am

LeviMan2001 wrote: Twisted Minis wrote: Sounds like the bell crank is working perfectly if you are getting 7 inches of travel at the wheel.

So is the point of bell cranks just to fit a longer suspension part in there sideways? Or is it just to say "look at that!" :lol: They are pretty cool.

The shocks he bought have a max of 4" of travel, and they also have that built in bump stop which probably will limit that travel even more. We couldn't get that sucker to compress very much. So the shock doesn't really travel enough, you would be either bottoming it out or limiting your droop a lot depending on where the ride height was and how it was set up (the front will probably be a little bit like this, droop wise it doesn't seem like it has enough, if I had not moved the shock down it would have had 3/4" of droop from ride height). He wanted more travel at the wheel, so the bell crank has a 1.5:1 ratio on it, which would give approximately 6" of travel at the shock mounting point on the arm. Since that point is inboard from the wheel about 8 or 10 inches, I knew we would get a little bit more travel at the wheel than at the shock mounting point. I just hoped that number would be 6.5 to 7 inches with the bump stop in there, since we never fully cycled the suspension here at the shop.

So in short, the bell crank is there to provide more travel than the shock could ever dream of doing in a normal set up.

Since it is on a ratio it will slightly soften things, so it will probably end up with a slightly stiffer spring rate than a traditionally mounted shock would in order to achieve the same load capacity. But the shock itself doesn't care, it will still work just the same. The shock only sees this as moving slower, which means it's never going to start fading (you would have to work a Bilstein pretty fast to get shock fade anyway).

Normally when I play with bell cranks it is just for relocation sake. So this was fun to get to play with ratios and angles of the shock and connecting link rod to get the desired travel numbers. Right now I am designing one for a guys front suspension, because his wheel is hitting the shock in turns and is still about 3" from the frame, so it's limiting his turning abilities. So what I will do is similar to this here, I will run a link bar as tight to the control arms as possible, and it will have a bell crank that will put a Bilstein shock horizontal above the control arms to get them out of the way.

Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:18 pm

An amazing amount of fabrication and engineering. Well done Sirs!