Better ride on a Dropped Speedster

2110 will be in place next week. Thinking about the stiff ride. Here is my conclusion:

I think my front shock are to long and to stiff. Is it possible the the front end of the car is to lite to enage the shocks? Should I replace with a pair of crap shocks? If so, what size is best for a dropped speedster?

I had a Jeep before my life as a French Male driving a speedster. It had 36 Super Swampers Tires and was very rough on the road. I let the air out of the tires to soften it. Is this a good idea or to dangerous?

Also, what are the pitfalls to removing the swaybar?

Thanks
Todd

Todd
If I was you,I will leave the sway bar alone.A sway bar increases the suspension's roll stiffness.
The front of a speedster is way to light so cheap shocks will work fine. In my car I used adjustable beam to lowere the front,and the tire pressure is around 27-28 psi.

Todd, I wouldn't monkey around with air pressures if I were you. that will get you killed quicker than a favor.

FWIW the VS Owners' Manual specifies 22 psi all around for 165-SR15 tires. That's probably due to the fact that the cars are light and, as Lambros said, any garden variety stock replacement shocks for VW will work beautifully (plus they're less expensive too).

Dropped spindles keep the same ride quality as stock (But they do add width to your track).

An adj. beam will make the ride more harsh

There are "dropped shocks" if you think you need them

I guess i'll chime in here having played with beetles for so long, there's a few things that were'nt mentioned here.

There is a few things that effect the ride quality that you can really improve, when you put adjusters in a front rack, the rack is now operating at a lower setting, stock shocks compress and bottom out at 14" from eyelet to eyelet, when a lowered rack needs about 12-14", so the stock shock will bottom out early, giving you a really harsh ride. You can use lowering shocks, oil filled seem to have work the best for me, bugpack makes a really nice set of lowering shocks that have a range from 9"-16"; perfect for a lowered beam.
Also one other thing that's overlooked is the balljoints, when you lower a beam the balljoints could be at their max travel, they are not made to be at extreeme angles of a lowered beam, they also sell lowered balljoints, keep in mind that alot of driving on stock balljoints can make them fail (very very ugly!!!), and give a really hard ride when you lower a beam.
Tire pressures - this is a funny one, when you look at the stock beetle pressures, Front: 16psi city, 18psi hwy, rear: 24psi city, 26psi hwy, your realize that there is alot more room to allow adjustment other than the replica reccomendation. Try running 16psi front and 24 rear, the tires are about half of the suspension, but this all rests on how you drive your car. If you drive it fast, you'd want to increase the tire pressures, and this is also for the 165R15 sized tires.
Dropped spindles don't change ride quality, and is a good option to lower your ride, BUT you have no adjustment, and some dropped spindles also have a larger offset, making the wheel stick out further; so be careful.
Sway bars - if you remove your sway bar, you'll most likely notice a huge improvment in ride quality; assuming that you have addressed the shocks and balljoint issues first. But you'll loose that "flat" stance in turns, and create a little more discomfort in high speed turns, again all depends on how you drive your car. Stock beetle sway bars have a nice balance with not adding too much stiffness to the front end, but still getting the benifit of the sway bar espically in a much lighter speedster. After market "heavy duty 3/4" sway bars add alot of stiffness to the front end of a beelte, never mind the lighter speedster replica.

I'd almost bet that if you have stock shocks they are bottoming out, try taking them off, and putting the car on the ground, rolling it back and fourth to settle the suspension, then measure the distance between the mounts, and then compress your shock fully and measure that. If you are lowered more than about 3", your stock shocks WILL bottom out. If you find yourself bracing for every bump in the road, then you have something bottoming out, either shocks or balljoints, resolve those issues, and expirement with tire pressures and sway/no sway bar, you'll find a happy medium as i did with ride quality and handling.

martin

Martin,

I'm not worthy of your knowledge. That was awesome!

Todd

Martin - Cool tech tips! I learn something new everytime I visit this site.

Peace - Out!

thanks guys, i can tell you i've seen/had/driven just about any combo of front suspension mods. And i've found out what works and what does'nt the hard way.

I'd suggest lowering shocks, oil filled as they have the same dampening action at any point in their travel, and sway bar if you wish, and drive your car fast thru turns. Also lowered balljoints are almost a must, as well as the shocks. If you have a adjuster on the top leaves and the bottom of the beam, then you can also play with the pre-load on the adjusters seperatly, i believe the factory spec to a beelte is a 20-30*deg difference between the top and bottom, but i can't remember.
You would be amazed how well a lowerd beetle can drive, as well as a speedster, actually everything should be better in a speedster due to the lighter weight. I don't know why replica manafactures reccommend those higher tire pressures, maybe due to much larger engines??? I run my speedster at 18psi front, since most of my driving is out of town, not inner-city. As for the rear, stock shocks won't bottom out in the back so there's not really anything to worry about there, just dial in your torsion bars in the rear to get what ever ride height you want, much eaiser with IRS to do than swing axle.

I prefer to use the aftermarket sway bar 3/4" as i like to take a few turns with my beetle and speedster at high speeds. My bug handles like a go-cart, just a stock motor, but alot of other mods, the whole car has been lightened, from 1-peice windows, to grills/light shaved, and all sound padding removed, i think i took about 400lbs of stuff off of the car and it made a HUGE difference in handling.

Don't be afraid to expirement, on my bug with 914 2.0L fuch alloys with 185/60/15's i run 16-18psi pressure and it's more than enough, actually at 20+psi the front is hard like a rock. Alot of people don't realize that the tire on these vw's is half of the suspension!!!!

Here in the UK, the recommended tyre pressures given to me by one of Chesil's mechanics (for 195/60R15 tyres) was 18psi front and 26 psi rear.... These tie up nicely with the advice given in the thread.

Nice work Martin! Thanks, think I will check out my shock travel this afternoon.....

I'm running 185/65R15 tires and have driven many miles for over 10 years with 18psi front and 27psi rear.

I agre with Simon -

I had been running 18psi all around and it rode like a dream....until you hit the first really hard corner and then the front tires (or is it tyres) plowed (under steered) and squeeled a lot.

Ran everything up to 28 all around after my son complained of the tire noise on a road course (Watkins Glen). Later ran a different road course (Roebling Roads, Savannah) and, while it definitely rode a bit harder, absolutely NO squeel and would out-handle just about everything out there (19mm sway bars front and rear, KYB Stock shocks all around, Avis lowering kit on both front beams, 16 X 7" wide rims all around, 205 X 16 front, 225 x 16 rear tyres.

I am only moderately lowered (not a weed beeter by any stretch) so stock length shocks work well. In fact, the special shorter front shocks for "Lowered" cars proved to be too short and limited travel upward.

gn