Improving the handling of my speedster

I am looking at optimizing the handling of my speedster. At present the car has no anti-roll bar installed at the front.

What size anti-roll bar should I fit to the front.

A friend of mine used to race an old beetle (oval) very successfully. He fitted a home made "Z" bar to the rear. He also had an anti-roll bar fitted to the front. His recomendation is to fit Bilsteins (gas shocks) what do you guys think?

Is there any body racing a replica speedster.

Even a stock VW swaybar is better than none. It depends on if/how your T1 VW chassis was lowered on what you can actually fit. Did you use lowered spindles when you converted to disc brakes? Of do you have adjustable beam adjusters? Or other more archaic lowering methods? - less bars/cut beam)? Some SO have to flip a sway bar to get it to fit. Is the rear swing axel or IRS? Dos a search to see what others have doen - should write up in Knowlege tab too. Do you have low profile tires? Shocks seem to have little affect on Speedies - do a search here and you'll see cheap oil filled schocks recommended for a decent ride due to light weight of vehicle. IMHO Bilsteins are probably over doing it.

There have been several threads about front sway bars.

Some people seem to have been able to get a front bar to fit without hitting the bumper brackets by flipping it over. I don't think I have seen any specific information about what bar works except the stock thin bar.

It would be very nice to get specific information about what bar works with manufacturer and model.

I did notice that Moore has sway bars for about half the price of other sources.

I used the 3/4" Bug-Pack or Empi front and rear bars from CIP1. I lowered both front and rear some so used the regular "non-lowered" ones. The OEM stock front was a little less than 1/2" diameter. For best handling you'd want to lower the front and rear -- and get lowered shocks and the sway bars for a lowered suspension --- jsut don't hit any of those termite mounds in Africa. If you have a swing axel (pre-68 US) rear axes then you want a cmaber compensator.

You mentioned Z-bar - CIP1 has that too but isn't really for handling. They say:

Z-bar - This chrome traction bar / Engine brace kit is designed to take the weight and torque of the engine and transmit it to the chassis. Eliminates suspension windup and wheel-hop.

Thanks for the responses. My chasis has been lowered in the front with a single beam adjuster. The rear is a little high at the moment and i will be lowering it a bit further.

Years ago I lowered my '56 bug by moving the motor upwards, to keep the wheels more or less upright, but i guess this defeats the object of lowering the centre of gravity. It does however look pretty good.

One other person has said that gas shocks are a waste of time, what do you think

Just for the record we also have our grid lock on our 5 lane highways (without termites hills!

Greg, how did you move the engine up??? With a 56 VW and a swing axle, if you were able to move the engine "UP", then it would cause the rear tires to go into a positive camber mode when the car was under no load.

Did you move the spring plates up?? (thus taking pre-load off of the torsion bars) if so, then that would lower the car and the rear tires would tend to lean in and show more Negative camber

If you moved the spring plates 'down' then that would put more pre-load on the torsion bars and would raise the body of the car thus sending the rear tires into Positive camber mode.

I was waiting for somebody to ask!. I made upmy own engine/ gearbox mounts. I effectively moved the geabox 35mm abov the chasis. The mount was however solid and required a bit of butchering of the chasis for the gear selector.

I guess i could make a plan to still use a rubber mount to dampen the vibrations.

I am looking at installing a Toyota twin cam motor so i might not have the clearance from the top of the motor to the boot. I suppose time will tell.

I have also added a pic of the car.

What exactly is a camber compensator and how does it work

It's like a transverse leaf spring designed to help keep swing axles from going to positive camber (top of the wheel sticking away from the body)

Greg:

You've probably already found that there is a LOT of "performance handling" information out there, most of it conflicting, some of it interesting and a lot of it not especially grounded in fact or practical experience. A good example of that is the "use the weakest shock you can find" theory, the premis being that a strong shock will make your ride feel stiff. That may be true for some cars, but not for most.

Rather than give you a lot of information here not based on fact, experience or trial-and-error, let me point you to a web URL on VW performance handling that I believe is right on the money, because he tells you what he did, and what the results were, good and bad. I've done a lot of what he did in the past, and usually came up with the same results:

Good luck!

http://www.aircooled.net/gnrlsite/resource/articles/handling.htm

Thanks Gordon

This site is pretty amazing. It has answered a lot of questions. He talks about a balljoint front end with a swing axle. If I am not mistaken my front end has king pins! or have I missed the boat somewhere!

I would emagine that the concept remains the same

More than likely, you have a ball joint front end. VW switched to ball joint front ends in 1965.

For more handling information go to:

http://www.spyderclub.com/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=19

Larry's right when he wrote: "VW switched to ball joint front ends in 1965. "

However, they continued with swing arm rear axles until 1969, when they switched to IRS.

There are a lot of Speedsters out there with Ball Joints and Swing Arms, like from VS, Beck/SE, JPS and so forth.

That said, if you know that you have King Pins in the front, you probably have swing arms in the rear and, therefore, shouldn't be putting an anti-roll bar back there and should be using a camber compensator instead.

As Larry mentioned, it is a transverse leaf spring (usually one leaf) that attaches with a "U" clamp at the ends of the swing arms and has a spacer/mount under the transmission. The purpose is to keep both axles "level" when cornering. In that respect, it acts much like an anti-roll bar.

Several different outlets sell camber compensators, and a lot has been written on here about them. Do a search on them here and check it out.

The camber compensator as installed by Porsche on the some models of 356 was intended to add spring rate in jounce, but not in roll. In conjunction with this, the rear torsion bars were smaller in diameter, thus having a lower spring rate. The compensator primarily served to maintain load carrying capacity when traveling straight.
The key here is the softer torsions, and no added spring from the compensator when in roll. The purpose is to reduce rear roll stiffness & thus reduce oversteer. Total roll stiffness is maintained with the larger front bar. The compensator can also reduce the tendancy to tuck, but was intended primarily to reduce rear roll stiffness.
A Z bar does the same. It adds spring in jounce, but not roll. Additionally, it does a better job of eliminating tuck than a z bar. It offers more adjustability than a compensator since you can vary bar diameters and adjust preload if the drop links are adjustable. It any case, it too should be used with softer rear torsion bars and a larger front sway bar.
The ultimate expression of reduced rear roll stiffness is the zero roll rear suspension as used by Formula V cars. I've seen it installed in Spyders, but it will not fit in a Speedster without hacking away most of the area behind the seats.

Well, THAT totally explained it.

Thanks......

I have investigated my front suspension and I have a king pin front suspension. Apparently 95% of the beetles sold in South Africa all had King pin front ends!

I am by no means an expert on this topic, but I am guessing that short of redoing everything, front and back, you will benefit from anti-sway bars front and back, and maybe a lowering of the car some. These will improve cornering. Fooling w/ shock stiffness will also gain you some in handling, at the expense of comfort.

I Have ordered a camber comensator and a 19mm roll bar for the front. I am going to fit the camber compensator first and then try the car (Give it horns) and then fit the front anti-roll bar and then you guessed it, horns again. I will post as soon as I Have fitted them.

When changing shock rates, the older hydraulic double acting shocks will stiffen the ride up to a possibly unacceptable level in a light weight car such as a Speedster/Spyder....The "newer" gas shocks are a distinct advance over standard shocks if you remember that most are for "standard" VWs....KYB makes a series of shocks....I use the GR-2
model and find them to be a great street shock.....

Hope this helps....

That's what my VS has in it.

I'm using KYB GR-2's as well, but I find them just a tad too weak for larger tires (I run 205 X 16's front and 225 X 16's rear). I would imagine that for 185's or smaller they would be great.

Been thinking of trying something a bit stiffer this Spring.

I have spoken to the local agent for Bilstein, He says they can set up a set of gas shocks to suit the weight of the wheel and the car. They are however fairly expesive so I will wait a little before fitting them

Greg... KYB offers stiffer shocks....While keeping the price down...

Bilstein is a great shock also....but as stated, somewhat pricy....
Their technology is unsurpassed, and if you realy intend to FLOG your ride, worth the extra coin....