Rear Lowering IRS 73 Beetle

You will probably get varied opinions, however, what I have done is made the gross height adjustment with the splines on the torsion bars and then use adjustable spring plates for fine tuning.  They are very useful for side to side adjustments.

Thanks.   Alan gave advice on the spine too.

Benefits of adjustable spring plates- as James mentioned, you can do the rough adjustment of ride height with the torsion bars and then fine tune relatively quickly with the spring plates.

Cons- They add unsprung weight to your suspension (a detriment to the best handling, acceleration and braking possible).  The rear of your car is already too heavy- why add more needless weight at that end?

- if you're trying to fit the widest rear tires possible the adjustment blocks take up precious space

- once you have the ride height dialed in (which admittedly may take 2 or 3 times resetting the torsion bars), since you will probably never play with the adjustment again they are simply not needed

- since you already own stock spring plates (and since the stock single plate units are more than enough for the job) you're spending money you really don't need to.

Take your pick...

@ALB posted:

Benefits of adjustable spring plates- as James mentioned, you can do the rough adjustment of ride height with the torsion bars and then fine tune relatively quickly with the spring plates.

Cons- They add unsprung weight to your suspension (a detriment to the best handling, acceleration and braking possible).  The rear of your car is already too heavy- why add more needless weight at that end?

- if you're trying to fit the widest rear tires possible the adjustment block takes up precious space

- once you have the ride height dialed in (which admittedly may take 2 or 3 times resetting the torsion bars), since you will probably never play with the adjustment again they are simply not needed

- since you already own stock spring plates (when even the stock single plate units are more than enough for the job) you're spending money you really don't need to.

Take your pick...

Point well taken...   I will do it right and use stock EQ

99% of these cars are never really driven that hard. My point is that worrying about the weight of adjustable trailing arms on performance is a wasted worry for most Speedster dudes.

But the ease of adjustment is worth it. Who wants to spend DAYS futzing with trailing arms and torsion bar splines?

Sorry Al(the weight weenie).

If I was going to do it, I’d use Sway Away adjustable spring plates, not those EMPI Chinesium ones.

@DannyP posted:

99% of these cars are never really driven that hard. My point is that worrying about the weight of adjustable trailing arms on performance is a wasted worry for most Speedster dudes.

But the ease of adjustment is worth it. Who wants to spend DAYS futzing with trailing arms and torsion bar splines?

Sorry Al(the weight weenie).

The weight of what someone is putting on their Speedster may or may not be a worry and is only 1 of the points, Danny- I only tried to point that out.  And to your 2nd point, after you've done it a couple of times most guys should be able to adjust their torsion bars a couple of times in an afternoon and the idea of it taking DAYS is a pretty gross exaggeration, so why you're going all New Yorker on me I don't know.   As far as I know I listed the pros and cons with no bias or opinion (if it didn't come across that way someone please correct me)- anyone who reads it can decide what's important to them.                                                                                                                      As I said- take your pick.

Boy, I thought I was being nice! So since you asked for it:

When is your pile of drilled holes ever gonna get finished? Hmmm?

Now that's "going all New Yorker"!

This isn't the first or second or 5th time we've talked about the pros and cons of adjustable spring plates, and Al is on record every time with his distaste for them. I get it, but there are other considerations as well.

I've got no dog in the hunt, as an IM uses a different arrangement on rear torsion bars, which negates indexing anything and makes adjustable spring-plates redundant. In addition, I converted the back end to coil-overs anyhow, so as I said - it's no skin off my back.

I hear what Al is saying about unsprung weight. I don't want to speak for him, but so does Danny. Danny and I both hammer our cars, so weight considerations (unsprung and otherwise) are real. I'm in the middle of a pretty extensive/expensive wheel and brake conversion, with a strong eye toward reducing unsprung weight, so it should be clear that it's important to me.

We had a recent discussion where it came out that the vast preponderance of members here were also card-carrying, dues-paying members in the Anti-Hoon and Pearl-Clutching Society, so getting the last 2% out of a Speedster is not on their radar. Most guys run swing axles, 20 lbs steel wheels, and an EMPI brake package (4-lug or wide 5) with a pretty complete disregard for unsprung weight. The wide-5s are barbell plates, easily 25 lbs (or more) per corner, and the front 4-lug calipers weigh probably 10 lbs each, all by themselves.

My point is that another 5 lbs per side on spring plates will make zero difference to 99.9% of the people on this site. James has already talked about why you'd want to use them (to fine tune ride height).

I think that's what Danny was saying.

It'd be good if we could all give each other a bit of grace, realizing that things that are important to us are not necessarily important to everybody.

@Stan Galat That's EXACTLY what I was saying. Plus, you made me laugh with the anti-hoon stuff. Thanks.

With respect to my car, I've got aluminum hubs and aluminum 4 piston calipers up front. Vintage190 aluminum wheels and simple, solid cast iron discs. Koni shocks in front on a 2" shortened beam. Out back are QA1 coilovers(which are 10x easier to adjustthan any torsion bar splines things).

Everything is as light as is possible and still not stratospheric in cost. The only place for improvement would be the heavy iron rear e-brake calipers, if only a suitable and reasonably priced alternative existed.

@DannyP posted:

@Stan Galat That's EXACTLY what I was saying. Plus, you made me laugh with the anti-hoon stuff. Thanks.

With respect to my car, I've got aluminum hubs and aluminum 4 piston calipers up front. Vintage190 aluminum wheels and simple, solid cast iron discs. Koni shocks in front on a 2" shortened beam. Out back are QA1 coilovers(which are 10x easier to adjustthan any torsion bar splines things).

Everything is as light as is possible and still not stratospheric in cost. The only place for improvement would be the heavy iron rear e-brake calipers, if only a suitable and reasonably priced alternative existed.

Love the post, I am reading g tons how and what to start buying so these details help give direction.

You guys are turning this into way more than it should be!  Yes, we all know our various stances on the subject as we've discussed this a few times (as Stan pointed out).  Again, I thought I was being fairly objective listing the pros and cons for the OP (which was the original point here, btw).  Reading through my original post AGAIN, I will add-

@ALB posted:

Benefits of adjustable spring plates- as James mentioned, you can do the rough adjustment of ride height with the torsion bars and then fine tune relatively quickly with the spring plates.

Cons- They add unsprung weight to your suspension (a detriment to the best handling, acceleration and braking possible). If you're looking for that last bit of performance out of your Speedster, the rear of your car is already too heavy- why add more needless weight at that end?

- if you're trying to fit the widest rear tires possible the adjustment blocks take up precious space

- once you have the ride height dialed in (which admittedly may take 2 or 3 times resetting the torsion bars), since you will probably never play with the adjustment again they are simply not needed

- since you already own stock spring plates (and since even the stock single plate units are more than strong enough for the job) you're spending money you really don't need to.

Take your pick...

As I've already said, it's simply a list of the pros and cons of running adjustable spring plates as I see it- if any of you think any of my points are wrong or I've omitted anything, I'm all ears.

Otherwise-

Unless there's something relevant to discuss I'll bow out now...

_{(and yes, Danny, I still owe you a phone call!)}

Hey guys, an interesting quote by Colin Chapman (Lotus Cars)  "Adding power makes you faster on the straights....subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere".  That's for the folks who want to get every last bit of performance out of their cars.

That is ALB's mantra.  Drill as many holes as you can without having the entire car collapse. 

Some of us think it's an obsession...

O.  Bsession

@jesse postill posted:

Hey guys, an interesting quote by Colin Chapman (Lotus Cars)  "Adding power makes you faster on the straights....subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere".  That's for the folks who want to get every last bit of performance out of their cars.

Where is the limit of adhesive grip …. Weight to tire. surface area to friction area would be nice to know

@jesse postill posted:

Hey guys, an interesting quote by Colin Chapman (Lotus Cars)  "Adding power makes you faster on the straights....

subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere".

That's for the folks who want to get every last bit of performance out of their cars.

Exactly!

@Bob: IM S6 wrote- "That is ALB's mantra.  Drill as many holes as you can without having the entire car collapse.

Some of us think it's an obsession..."

And your point is???

No argument here. As I said, I'm on a mission with unsprung weight in my car.

Not everybody cares about being faster. As a matter of fact, given the hand-wringing on the "hooning" thread, very few people do.

I do.