I have had a '86 TA 305 TPI for 8 years. I just bought a '89 TA GTA for parts. I've read that the GTA's had a level 3 suspension in them ( aka WS-6). How do I find out what level suspension is on my '86 TA? I know that it was the fastest TA produced that year, as the 350's were not available until '87. The '86 has a 34mm front sway bar vs. a 36mm sway bar on the '89 GTA. The '86 has a rear bar of 23mm, vs. 24mm on the '89. Also there
were 15" wheels on the '86 vs. 16" on the '89 GTA. Both cars have 4-wheel disk brakes.

Is it worth moving any of the suspension from the GTA over to my old '86 TA?.

 

I have a 36mm bar on my '86 and I like it.

 

Check the rear sway bar; mine's a 24mm. Also, the GTA should have the PBR-based rear discs with a 9-bolt rear; this is a good piece that might be worth swapping.

 

sorry but whats PBR

 

PBR is the manufacturer of the calipers for the '89 and up rear disc brake set-up. it also has the larger rotors versus the '88 and down disc brake set-up, i think it is 11.8" versus 10.0" respectively. i have the 10.0" set-up and it SUCKS, calipers stick all of the time, e-brake always sticks when it is used. i am switching to the other set-up as soon as i can afford to.

 

E brake, you mean that lever sticking out of the center console... so thats what thats for. Since my cables are frozen I have no use of it cept for making that annoying ratchet noise thats gets on everyone nerves

Could ya let me know whats need to make the swap to PBR

 

Do a search for it.

By the way, I'm not saying that to be a jerk, I just don't know jack on the subject and that's the best advice I can give. I'll bet my Blazer that you'll find whatever you need to know about it, though!

Laters,
Scott

 

How many times do you have to turn your steering wheel from lock to lock in your 86?

 

Steering wheel turns 2 1/2 times on the '86, and 2 1/4 times on the '89

 

They're the same box with different stops in them. If you put wheels roughly 235 or wider on the front of a car with the 15" wheel box the inside of the tires will actually rub at full lock, where the thicker stops put in the 16" box will prevent that (and not allow as tight a turning circle). Personally, I prefer the 15" box with ¼" wheel spacers (preventing most rubbing)

 

My 82 Recaro TA has 2 1/4 turns lock to lock with 15" factory wheels.
As far as I know 82 Recaro TA's came with WS6 suspension (unless they ended up with WS7) which for 82 included 32mm front and 21mm rear swaybars, limited-slip rear axle and 4-wheel disc brakes.
I changed up to a 36 front and a 24 rear on my car and I noticed a small improvement on the street, the best place to tell the diference would probably be on the track.

 

I tried putting 16" wheels from a '91 GTA with WS-6 suspension on my '86 TA, but they only fit on the back. The front would need 5/16" spacers, and I was told that anything wider than 1/4" was unsafe. To bad, I have six good 245/50/ZR16 tires, that will only fit on the rear of the car.

 

the wheels are interchangeable. I'm guessing you tried to stick a set of rear 16's on the front…

 

I was thinking about getting a set of 16" rims off an 88 GTA for my 82. I understand there is a different offset between the front and back rims, so I'd be interested to know if you can get your rims to clear everything up front?

 

On my '86 TA, I always thought that the stock 15" wheels were all the same, they came with 235/60/15 tires, and I always rotated them front to back every 10K miles.

It appears that when the 16" GTA wheels came out in '87, that there was a difference between the front and rear wheels.

Your right the 16" GTA wheels I did try on the front of my '86 were off the back of a car I found in the junk-yard. I 'm gonna try the front ones, I remember which ones they were.

I hope they work, I'll report back later.

 

I've had '89 GTA (actually, gold TTA) rims on both my '83 TA and '87 formula… they fit if you put them on the right end. Fronts will fit on the back but they stick out a little.

 

They have labels on the inside.

The fronts have a 0 offset, the rears are 16mm in. The 15's all have a ½" offset in and I think look/work MUCH better with a ¼" spacer.

I don't think that any cars came with 235 60 15's before the late 80's or maybe early 90's cars, before that they came with 215 65 15's.

 

So if I use 1/4" spacers with the 16" GTA rims and my 15" rim power steerstops it should clear ok?
Did you buy your spacers or did you just make them?

 

Just use them on the right ends and don't worry about the spacers. With most 245 50 16's I bet that they won't even touch, and even if they do you won't notice (just end up with a bright spot on the inner fender). Just don't turn the wheel to full lock (actually, even if this wasn't the case you shouldn't do that, it's not good for your PS system, overloads the pump and tends to blow seals)

 

Thankyou for the info!! I just tried putting the 16x8 GTA rims on the front of my '86 TA, and it seems to work fine, although I only drove a few miles.

When I bought my car in 1996, it had 15x7 aluninum rims, with 235/60/15's on it. I 'm not certain what size of tires came stock, but I think the 15x7 rims are stock.

83CrossfireTA, can you explain what is meant by "offset"?
You said that the front 16" GTA rims were 0 offset, the rears were 16mm offset, and that all of the 15" TA rims were 1/2" offset. Exactly what does that mean?

 

Offset is the distance from the centerline of the rim to the hub surface where the wheel bolts to the hub. So a 0 offset wheel mounts to the brake hub exactly on it's centerline, a 1" offset in means that the hub centerline is offset 1" to the outside of the rim so the hub surface is 1" further out then the centerline or the whole tire mounts 1" in. Usually this is referred as positive or negative offset which I try to avoid because that gets seriously confusing. The problem is that wheel manufacturers refer to positive offset as a rim that mounts further inboard, where chassis engineering refers to positive offset as wheels that mount sticking out more. Before aftermarket wheels got as popular as they are now positive offset wheels were referred to as "deep dish," where now it would be the other way around. It's just not worth the argument, but as an example, the rear, 16" rims on 3rd gens are built so that the wheels mount 16mm further in then they would if they were mounted on the wheel centerline, which wheel manufacturers would call +16mm and chassis engineers would call -16mm. Same deal with the 15x7's, they are offset ½" inboard…

To me this makes a lot more sense then "backspacing" mostly because people at least make some effort to be consistent. Backspacing usually refers to the measurement from the hub surface to the inside rim on a wheel. The problem there is that it seems every manufacturer actually measures to a different point on the rim. All of them measure width between the bead surfaces on the rim, so typically a wheel will actually measure ½" – 1" wider from edge to edge then it's size, depending on how thick the lip of the wheel is (EX, OEM 15x7 aluminum rims measure about 7.75" wide from edge to edge). The problem is that a lot of manufacturers measure backspacing to the rim edge even though they measure the rim width to the bead surface (which to me makes no sense to me, how are you supposed to figure out where the rim is going to be in the wheel well unless they also supply the rim metal thickness measurement and the rim edge profile?), some measure to the bead surface, and others, well I don't have a clue what they measure to.

For example, my brother just bought some bogart rims with 15x4" front rims, the speed shop ended up ordering 2.5" backspacing which was all wrong and we reordered them with 1.75" backspacing… the thing is that NOTHING actually measured 2.5" or 1.75" on either rim, I have no clue WHAT they were measuring to. Back to the example of the OEM 15x7's, if you measure to the bead surfaces you'll find that they are about 7" wide and have a 4" backspacing, but if you measure to the rim edge you'll find that they are actually roughly 3/8-1/2" more backspacing and just short of 8" wide.

 

That's a good explanation!

 

Thankyou for the informative reply.

Earlier 83CrossfireTA, you talked about GTA tires rubbing in a 15" box.
On mine, when I make an extremely tight turn, it only barely rubs.
I don't think I would ever make that tight of a turn, unless I was going pretty slow, so Is it safe to say that it's no big deal?

 

yea, that's why I was saying not to worry about it... if you've turned the wheel that far you're doing more damage to the ps pump/box then you're doing by the tires slightly rubbing on the inner fenders.

 

Does anybody know how to find out what gears the rear end of my cars have? My PRO codes are no-where to be found. I think my '86 TA has 2.73, but according to various Specification data pages, it could also have 3.27, if i had the "G92" option.

At 1500 RPM, my '86 TA goes 60-63 MPH, and my '89 GTA goes about 45 MPH.

 

Assuming that it's a 700r4, at that rpm it's 2.73...