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@ALB posted:

There is the Mendeola as well as a couple other custom A arm front suspensions built for VW's over the years, but I couldn't tell you if Henry at IM ever used any of them.  Anybody shed any more light on the subject???

He didn't and he wouldn't have.

The absolute best suspension setup on the Vancouver IMs was the 911 longitudinally oriented torsion bars. They opened up enormous amounts of real-state in the front of the car, and provided a modern-feeling front end. It required that everything in front of the bulkhead be completely different that a beam -- so the frame for a beam car cannot be adapted to a 911 suspension (the frame is glassed into the car).

The A-arm setups for beams are all compromised to one degree or another. The main problem is that the arms themselves are often pretty close to equal length, so there are issues with that.

If your car has a beam, there are things you can do to make it better. Start there.

Last edited by Stan Galat

The early 911 and 914 front suspension are interchangeable through certain years.  (i.e. swap car for car) but have slight differences within them, heavier torsion bars with different splines and different front hubs with different ear spacing for calipers.  The 914 guys usually swap to 911 parts (I did this on my '72 914) in order to easily run 911 calipers and rotors, but the torsion bars can be too stiff for a 914, especially a gutted race car.  I only mention this because it would seem practical for the 914 and 911 front suspension IMs to have the same frame/chassis as none of that changed between 914 and 911.  Only a guess, but I'm betting a good one...  that would also mean that if one was better than the other, then you could upgrade from 914 to 911 or vice-versa if that its what your car was originally built with.  As mentioned above, it would have to be a completely different front section of the frame 914/911 vs VW so that would not be an upgrade without serious fabrication.

@550 Phil posted:

Ther was a former member named Carlos Everett, who went by motocarlo, had a blue intermeccanica.  The car I believe was a 2006 IM.  He lived in northern Georgia.  I thought he had a unique front suspension on that car.  But I could be mistaken.  I really think it was from a Jetta.

It can't be 100% Jetta, they have MacPherson struts and are a bit taller in the front where the struts go. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

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