ABS Brakes

[Ianbott]

Has anybody done an ABS conversion on a bug if so how difficult was it, if not does anybody know if this would be possible?
Cheers Ian.

[rjes]

ABS is particularly difficult to transfer from one car to another. I think this is because the ECU is programmed to suit the corner weights and rolling radii of the tyres (which is often different from front to rear on our modified beetles, but rarely is on production cars).

If it's for a lowered beetle, the time and money are probably better spent on making sure it has correctly working front suspension. Get that right, and youare a lot less likely to need ABS!
I ran my 1970 beetle nice and low (but not stupidly so) for a long time afew years ago. It was only when I had a go around the Curbrough sprint circuit in it that I realised just how badly it understeered due to lask of front suspension travel. All suspension conponents were not worn out, etc.
Another symptom was that under breaking, if you hit a bump you'd get a slight 'chirp' from the front tyre. The only explanation I could come up with was that the suspension was unable to keep the wheels properly in contact with the road, and the whell locked up as soon as it was unloaded. Great - I'd built a car with lots of oversteer and understeer, which couldn't keep it's front wheels on the road.
I ditched the old front beam, and built a new one, this time higher up, and with Komi adjuatables all around. It retained the 19mm anti roll bar from before, and I added a 944 anti roll bar to the (IRS) rear. It still didn't handle as well as I'd hoped. The plan was to fine tune the understeer / oversteer balance by swapping between the different sizes of 944 rear anti roll bar and altering the damping rates. The only problem was that the car's been off the road since then, so I never finished the handling project.
_________________
Regards,

Richard,

R J Engineered Solutions
Quality Subaru Powered VW Components
www.rjes.com