new suspension, brakes for '69 Ghia

[Ian Godfrey]

After a few years break I'm rebuilding my '69 road/track Ghia with more brakes, better suspension, a Berg 5 and a weight loss program.
Below you can see how the car looked last time I raced it. My speed was up to 190 Kph and I thought it was time for a roll cage and more brakes as the main straight at my track (Phillip Island, Australia) is down hill at the end!
First up I'm working on spindles, axles and brakes. I'm using early 911 unvented in the rear and 944 turbo vented in the front with Wilwood calipers.
I've been working on the rear, focusing on reducing rotating weight, drilled the stub axle, drilled the hub and make and modified some Ti bits, studs, fat washer and nut. I converted the 944 axle to cotter pin like a beetle so i could use an off the shelf Ti nut. I got 700g out of the assembly.

hub.jpg

I'll ad some more pix and details as i go along. Sorry about the photo order!

[Bruce2]

Looks like you have steel wheels. If your bolt pattern is 5x130, Fuchs will remove 1.5-2kg per corner.

[Ian Godfrey]

the steel wheels are very heavy, light wheels on the 5x130 stud pattern will be a big improvement.

[wreck]

5D9967B6-21B4-4AF3-A75D-9ABD4A916C8D_1_201_a.jpeg

What are the chances of 2 Godfrey's, unrelated with quick 1969 Ghia's in Australia !! Godfrey is my last name by the way . I'm using 5x120 stud pattern and Simmons wheels ,16x7 rears and 16x6 fronts . I've a set of Australian Ford Falcon EA rear calipers to mount at some stage to replace the generic disc upgrade kit .
Ian I hope you get to bring your Ghia to Raleigh raceway next July for the VW Spectacular .

[Ian Godfrey]

Well that is wild, 2 Godfrey's in OZ with '69 Ghia's. That is a fine looking car you have as well. What size tyre do you have on the back, 16" sticky tyres are hard to find.Did you have to roll the guard a bit? I have 7's and 6's as well, but 15". I don't know if I'll be done rebuilding my car for July, but we'll see, but as a Victorian the thought of going north in July is very appealing

[wreck]

This year was supposed to be the "year of the Ghia" , sadly cancelled to Covid , so hopefully next year will go ahead . It would be funny to have 2 white 69's at the event with our names , confuse a lot of people !!
I'm using 205/50r16 Yokohama AD08s I did roll the guards slightly . The wheels are off a Commodore( B45's ) with 4inch inch inner bands on the front to give the 16x6 instead of the standard GM 16x7 fitment .
My car is more street now . I was aiming at Hill Climbs but finances have changed and the thought of an expensive "Off" has changed my mind a little .My 2 Local hill climb tracks are very unforgiving . Mt Cotton and Noosa . plus I'm a complete rookie driver .

For the master cylinder , I made set up a twin set up with bias bar . A good friend is builds Rapier Formula Vee's so it's nice to have that experience to at hand .

[Ian Godfrey]

The next bit I've been working on is the rear gearbox cradle. I found an alloy one on the Samba that I drilled a few more holes in for a good weight saving and drilled the mounting bolts.

early mount.jpg

alloy mount.jpg

bolt drilled.jpg

on to the front hubs next.

[Ian Godfrey]

Time for the next instalment:
I've been working on my front spindles and brakes. My goal was to have something as light or lighter than the Type 1 disks (278mm), but vented and more thermal mass, and Porsche bolt pattern and still fit in a 15" wheel. I used alloy 944 hubs and vented disks, 282mm diameter, and wilwood Dynapro 4 piston calipers. Lanner in Canada made the bracket to fit the radial mount calipers to the VW (or Mendeola spindles).
I made some aluminium grease caps:

grease caps.jpg

1 disk front.jpg

and cut some meat out of the back of the disk:

2 disk back.jpg

I used Ti studs and mounting bolts throughout and it turned out 1.332 kg light than the VW set up:

3 old disk.jpg

4 brake assembly weight.jpg

[Ian Godfrey]

Back to the gearbox mounts, i just finished the mid mount for the Berg 5, hopefully the strength will still be OK. The plate is 10mm and the rest 5mm. The green urethane mounts are from Revshift, available in different hardnesses.
https://revshift.com/collections/e36/pr ... 1428542641

Mid mt steel.jpg

Mid mt alloy.jpg

[Ian Godfrey]

I've finished up my new axles to work with early alloy 944 arms.
I used gun drilled Vanagon axles and race prepped light weight GNK T2 cv's, and Stage 8 bolts.
I was hoping to match the weight but missed out by 46 grams
old T1 axle and cv's

T1 Axle.jpg

Drilled Vanagon axle and CV's

T2 axle.jpg

and complete with clips, grease and bolts

T2 axle with grease bolts and clips.jpg

[Bruce2]

Did you do the drilling of the axles? What size did you drill them?

[Ian Godfrey]

Bruce, the Vanagon axles are 27mm so I got them drilled 13.5. I believe it's about a 10% strength reduction.
Fortunately there are a couple of gun drilling specialists in my city. It came out extremely smooth and doesn't need reaming.
they do quite a bit of motorsport work.
Though I did drill my rear stub axles myself on my drill press (from both ends)

[Bruce2]

I calculate a reduction in strength in torsion of only 6.25% IOW, drill them more! They're still 50% stronger than Type 1 axles.

Aren't the Vanagon axles a different length than Type 1? How did you make them work?

[Ian Godfrey]

Bruce, I did think about drilling them more, but erred on the conservative side, it is a amazing how much strength is left when you take out 50% of the diameter. My setup is a berg 5 with quaife with T2 output flanges and early 944 turbo arms so the 21.25 vanagon length was just right. I didn't want to use an Empi axle or spend the $ for a custom axle
I'm not sure what the length of the axle in a steel arm early 944 might be, but it should be close to T1

[Ian Godfrey]

The Berg 5 gear box was built some years ago by Dave Butler in OZ. I asked him to take out as much weight as he could without going crazy. he drilled all the Weddle gears:

gear drilling.jpg

here is the stack with the thrust conversion Dave worked out:

gear stack with thrust conversion.jpg

and he cut a fair bit of the ring gear:

ring gear.jpg

ring gear light.jpg