IRS Spring plates

dpeters60ghia · Post by **dpeters60ghia** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 5:24 pm

Ok, as an avid do-it-yourself'er I have pulled apart my IRS Spring Plates.
The reason I did this was because...when I used to drive my car...the rear suspension sat lower on one side than the other.
So, fast forward to the present...I have lowered the angle of the spring plates from about 19 degrees on one side and 18 degrees on the other to 10 degrees on both sides.

That means that un-loaded...the spring plates hang just barely off of the spring perches. I have managed to get the trailing arms onto the perches...

I am interested in opinions, experience etc... from people who have lowered their IRS and if they feel that 10 degrees will be too low or not.

I'll be running EMPI Sprint Stars 5.5 wide with stock 165-15' tires.

Let the games begin...

- Doug

Capgun_Slim · Post by **Capgun_Slim** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 11:55 pm

Are you talking about 10 degrees from stock? If so, your fine. 1 click on the inner part of the torsion spline will move you 9 degrees, or about 2 1/4 inches. If you move the outter torsion spline 1 click, it's 8 degrees, 40 minutes, which puts you at about 2 inches. In case you didn't know, there are 40 splines on the inner part of the torsion bar, and 44 on the outter. Per an old 1987 hot vw's magazine article on adjusting spring plates, each degree of spline change equals approximately 1/4 of an inch. As for your rims and tires, you should be fine. I lowered mine 2 1/2 clicks in the rear from stock, and it now sits a little over 5 inches lower in the rear, and I'm running 4 lug stock chromies, and 165/15 tires with it, and no rubbing problems. Tucks perfectly. You may have to trim the bump stops a little, but that's simple. Hope this helped, have fun!

dpeters60ghia · Post by **dpeters60ghia** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 8:57 am

Thanks for the reply....sounds like I'll be safe.

As I said, the the passenger side sat at 19 degrees..so when I turned it one spline on the INNER side of the torsion bar it came to rest at 10 degrees ( a change of 9 degrees as you mentioned ). The other side was out by about 8 degrees...and I changed 1 spline on the OUTER side of the torsion bar.

Anyways, that being said...it now registers 10 degrees on both sides..I'm happy now and I'll bolt it all back up and call it done.

What a learning experience...good thing I had the Genuine VW tools to do this job... made it MUCH easier.

- Doug

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 11:39 am

Hey Doug,

What VW tools did you use? I'm going to have to raise my Ghia a bit and I'm reading up on it know. I'm having rubbing problems on drivers rear, running 5.5 chromies and 195/60's.

jeff

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 4:39 pm

The toos I used came from the VW Dealer I worked for ( they were cleaning out the tool room and dumping the air-cooled tools in the trash bin. I managed to salvage a couple (thank-goodness).

I used MATRA VW245a (measures angle of torsion bars in degrees )

and a Peiseler VW261 (also measures torsion bar angle )

I wish I had photos...but I'm pretty sure you can find photos in the BBB of these tools in use for doing this sort of job.

Thanks for asking...

- Doug