Widened front beam on a flared body?

Has anyone installed a widened beam in the front suspension of a flared speedster? What was the over all result like to drive - before and after? Would you do it again?

I would like to eliminate my wheel spacers and move my spindles outboard, approximately two to three inches on each side. The front track will not be changed. The goal is to get the spindle closer to the wheel centerline to lighten low speed steering, improve steering response, and improve road feedback at speed.

I know 6 inch wider beams, complete with lowering adjusters, are readily available from many dune buggy shops. Some unanswered issues that exist include:

How to modify the torsion bars? Or did you convert to coil-overs? How did that work?
How to extend the steering arms? A welded tube sleeve seems to address this issue?
Is there a source available for lengthened anti-sway bars? No good without a bar!
Brake hoses with additional length seem to be available.
The brake calipers should still fit inside my 16 inch Fuchs, no problem there.

Thanks in advance for your collective insight.

David,
Can you send me a side shot of your car? Also, could you tell me how your Fuchs are mounted? I want to go to to fuchs on mine and I plan to use 944 brakes on the back. You can use 944's on the front with some machining and widen the track about an inch per side.

Ben,
On the front I have Ghia discs and 2.25 wide wheel adapters to get to a 5-130 stud arrangement. On the rear I have IRS with EMPI discs and 1.125 wide adapters, also with 5-130 studs. Had to machine the left rear adapter down to .9 inches, but tire still rubs a bit on the fender lip under hard cornering - either my body is slightly off center, or maybe the body is not symmetrical to start with. The body seems to be an older design, I like your wheel fitment to fender much better.

If you were to used the front dropped spindles wouldn't that give you an extra 1/2" each side? Not much but might help.

Puzzled - how does a dropped spindle move the spindle pivot point (ball joint centerline) closer to the wheel centerline? Anyway, I looking for more like 2 or 2.5 inches per side.

Read it in one of old Hot VW or VW Trends - actually in several different articles.

"The problem is, the dropped spindle kit widened my front end by 1/2" on either side, and now if I run stock 165R15 tires on it, they rub on the fenders so bad that they smoke, if I have a passenger in the car. I switched to a Michelin 145R15 (which were REAL tough to find, I must add), and most of the problems are gone."

Here's link to that thread - (cut and paste full URL to browser)

http://www.google.com/group/rec.autos.makers.vw.aircooled/browse_thread/thread/120b26ab0ffbf115/ee209b9691324557%23ee209b9691324557?sa=X&oi=groupsr&start=1&num=3

Thanks Woflgang. Any additional knowledge is welcome. I get a distinct feeling that nobody has put a widened beam on a speedster. Maybe I should be the first . . .?

For starters, my car isn't flared, but I think I can relate.
I narrowed the rear torsion on my car by 3" per side and thought I was going to have to bring my front beam in also, but I didn't have to. You might want to look at wheels with a different offset spacing than you have right now to make up the difference.
I'm on Center Lines right now because the four-inch offset in the back and the three-inch offset in the front put the edges of my wheels at the optimal points within the body. I put the drop spindles on the front to lower my center of gravity, and found that the tires point a little more inward at the top from the change in mechanical angle in the suspension, but I think I'm going to see them come right back out again under hard acceleration.
With a VW, you're ideally going to see the suspension travel back and up with a bump; the tire at rest wants to sit pigeon-toed without a sway bar holding it upright.
Delicate stuff messing with the beam. Be careful; I'd do an alignment check with measured points laid out on a parking lot if you add anything to it.
You might be able to use a narrower bead and wider tread to soak up some of that space before you have to do anything involving a plasma cutter and/or welder.
It could be as simple as removing the folded edge of your car's body in the wheel wells.

Wolfgang, David,
A previous reply in this forum said that Dropped Spindles added 1/2" to each side. There was a link to an article to verify this.
Here's the deal:
The article in the link was from 1995. The Dropped Spindles referenced in that link were made by cutting two (of the same side) spindles, welding them together with the 2" offset to make One Dropped Spindle. The fact that two spindles were mated made them thicker, resulting in a wider front wheel stance.

The dropped spindles you get now from places like cip1 or CBPerformance are forged to the same thickness of a stock Spindle except the pin/stud/spindle (the part that carries the wheel) is offset the 2 or 2/12 inches. The wheel track with these new Forged Dropped Spindles will be the same as a Stock VW.

Greg B

Who makes the best wheel spacers? If I use adapters to the chevy 4 3/4 can I also use a spacer to get out more?

Lot's of vendors make wheel adapters and / or spacers: Performance Products, H & R, CSP, and Wheel-A-Dapters, your local vintage Porsche mechanic. Do a Google search.

Still puzzled by explanation of lowered spindles. How can install of a lowered spindle move the ball joint axis outboard (more than

David,
Sorry if explanation wasn't very clear. I was trying to point out that when the tow spindles were welded together (face to back) that fabricated assembly is now "thicker". The track width per side will increase the amount of the additional thickness added to the spindle.

Food for thought on wide track front beam:
Take two beams and cut them down the middle, plus 1/2 of how much wider you want the beam to be (cut the torsion bars also) , leave the centermost torsion bar achor point. You'll want to fabricate something to help anchor the center most anchor point.
Weld these wider beams halfs together into a single beam assy again. (don't weld the torsion bars, just the housing.
You'll end up with a front beam made from two, that has independent torsion bars, each side will have it's own torsion bars and center anchor.
Everything else, tie rods, swaybar beam mounts will have to be fabricated or altered to accomodate the added width.

Wheel spacers:
I bought spacers (generic) from the tirerack.com and some from Pep Boys. THe only difference was the price. Pep Boys was about half the $$.
They are made from cast alum. I've used them for a couple of years now, with no problems.


Greg

David: The reason lowered spindles increase the track width is so that there is clearance for the bottom ball joint. With the spindle moved up 2

Bruce - Yes, vertically I can see that as a problem with dropped spindles. Do they make 20 inch Fuchs wheels? Just kidding!

Greg - Weld up two front beams? With two adjusters per beam? Very interesting idea! Wondering how difficult it would be to set up correct ride height with equal suspension balance left to right? Fascinating idea.

Got to balance that idea against thru-rods and coil over shock conversion (readily available parts). Was doing some measuring yesterday, and I think I could even use the "standard" six inch widened dune buggy beam. Still need a widened ant-sway bar though. Hmmm?

Thanks guys, keep the ideas coming.

Hey,

I was searching for the exact same thing. I machined spacers to move the front wheels out a little wider and to compensate for the positive backspacing of the mustang wheels. The net result of adding a 2-3/4" spacer to each wheel was that I moved the wheels out about 1".

I am also looking at adding air suspension to the car by doing the front first. With the air suspension, there is no need for the torsion bars so that is not a problem. However, like David, I would like to keep a front swaybar on the car. Is there anyone that manufactures a 2" (or slightly larger) front swaybar? Is there any similar industry that can bend up one for me (maybe ornamental iron workers, etc.)? Thanks in advance for all the help.

Paul