Our Porsche 944 is intended to be a ChumpCar racer. So it has to meet certain rules. One of the controversial rules states that it can’t have adjustable shocks even if it came with them from the factory. We have elected to remove our very nice and expensive Koni racing shocks and swap in some KYB replacements.
The upper mount uses the stock bolt so we will reuse that. It can be accessed by dropping the suspension fully (removing the bottom shock bolt helps) and turning the head of the bolt from inside the wheel well. You will have to hold the nut with an open end wrench while turning the bolt from the wheel well.
The bottom of our Race Konis were mounted on very nice adapters that allowed the use of the spherical rod ends. To remove the adapters, we first had to support the wheel at just the right height to remove pressure from the bolt. Then the mounting bolt could be unscrewed from the adapter. The adapter was them removed from the control arm.
Since we did not have the original bolts to put the bottom of the shock back we started a quest. We measured the threads on the adapter and found they were M14 1.5. We estimated we needed 80mm of bolt. We set off to ACE hardware. They had one. But only in standard grade. I wanted a 10.9. Lowe’s and Home Depot were less helpful.
After some research on the internet we found that the factory bolt is actually 85mm. Porsche no longer sells it but BMW does. We have ordered a pair of part number 07-11-9-914-829 and will try again next weekend to get the bottom of the shock bolted in place. It is a shame to do so much work to make the car handle worse. But that is racing when you try to follow the rules.
Update: got the bolts from the BMW dealer. Also picked up several at pull a part as spares. Drilling the heads for safety wires was easier than I expected.