I have a swing axle trans in my buggy--looking to convert over to coilover IRS set-up....could someone explain the difference between IRS and swing axle that makes the spring plates different lenghts....and will IRS spring plates fit onto a swing axle torsion ???????? Thanks in advance.....

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My goal is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body,but,rather to slide in sideways,totally worn out,beat to hell,shouting "Holy Cow!!What a Ride!!"

the spring plates in a swing axle are longer-- the torsion bars are shorter. What i would do if i was you would be to cut the spring plates down to fit and redrill them--- that way your torsions dont stick out in front of your tires.
Your biggest difference is in your torsion housing itself -- swing axle doesnt have the places to mount the trailing arms for irs. So you will have to put irs torsion in or weld in the mounts
Thats why the plates are different - a swing axle doesnt use trailing arms so the plates are longer to put the axle where it has to be. IRS uses different axles and cv joints whic connect trans to trailing arm.

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harleys and vws----ac all the way

I love my country, But i fear my government

Thank you sir.Yeah--I have the pivot mounts for the IRS that I'm going to put in-here in the next week or so.Eventually it's going to be a coil over set-up and do away with the torsion bars in the rear and the springs in the front...I was just curious to know if the spring plates from an IRS would fit on the torsion bars on a swing axle.Thanks again...I'll give it a shot and see what happens.....

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My goal is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body,but,rather to slide in sideways,totally worn out,beat to hell,shouting "Holy Cow!!What a Ride!!"

The swing axle and the IRS both use the same splines for the torsion bars but the swingaxle bars are to short to reach the IRS spring plates. You can mix and match stuff to make it work.

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Buy the best and cry once.

do yourself a favor and get a jig to weld those pivots on. i have gone down that road before, it almost always comes out bad. i know that pacific customs even sell jigs now, or you can make one off a good one.

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Maybe you should chug on over to mamby pamby land....

Here is a jig being sold on The Samba.com forum. You could buy it, use it and sell it to the next guy here on the board. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=281289 Well worth the investment to get it right the first time. An 1/8 of an inch off can make a big difference here!

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Water cooled Dry Sumped Subaru Powered Turbo Charged Fuel Injected 2500CC Tank. Oh Rah! He who dies with the most Toys not only wins, He also wears them out!

Thanks guys--I'll be ordering a few things this week-end for the rear conversion...get every thing first before I start cutting and welding...get my front and rear suspension done then I'll be building a 2.0L motor to put in it....that's going to be more questions I'll have ...Thanks again

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My goal is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body,but,rather to slide in sideways,totally worn out,beat to hell,shouting "Holy Cow!!What a Ride!!"

cool tip guys -- i'll be totally honest-- i didn't even know they made a jig for that. Learn something new every day

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harleys and vws----ac all the way

I love my country, But i fear my government

They sell the jig to do this conversion. OR you can make your own easily.

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Buy the best and cry once.

One more thing I suggest is to "beef up" the center of the torsion where it gets small. Take a piece of 2 inch pipe, about 4 inches long, split it, then cap it around the center of the torsion and weld. Swingaxle torsions as well as early IRS ones can bend down in the middle (very common), giving you negative camber (tires lean in at the top).

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In GOD we trust.....ALL others pay cash.

Thanks for that info Eric--that's the first I've heard of that..haven't seen it in anything that I've read either.I never would have thought of that until after it was to late.One more question--how difficult would it be to cut down and re-drill the spring plates on my swing axle to fit up to an IRS set-up...Just to hold me until I get everything else for the coil-over conversion ?????Thanx

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My goal is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body,but,rather to slide in sideways,totally worn out,beat to hell,shouting "Holy Cow!!What a Ride!!"

You CAN cut them down, but an easier way, imo, is to cut the splines out of the swing plates and weld them into the irs plates (after you cut the center out of them). Make sure you have the holes in the right place and the splines facing acordingly before you weld. Either way will work, but the latter is easier for me and it makes a better looking job.

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In GOD we trust.....ALL others pay cash.

they are easy to cut and redrill-- unless you have the holesaws and etc to cut them out and reweld them thats what i would do -- I marked mine out used an angle grinder to cut em and redrilled both in less than an hour

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harleys and vws----ac all the way

I love my country, But i fear my government

Thanks every body--going to start making the jig for this conversion either monday or tuesday and hopefully I will have my new parts in a couple weeks--thanks again

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My goal is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body,but,rather to slide in sideways,totally worn out,beat to hell,shouting "Holy Cow!!What a Ride!!"