Tie down your GT3

[jim911]

Since these cars do not have center lock wheels, how do you plan to tie down for trailering?

[skl]

You could always do what a friend of mine did- paid a guy to trailer a pristine 356 Cab back from Phoenix to Des Moines for him a few years ago. When he got home and went to take it off the trailer, the guy had just driven it up on the trailer and put on the parking brake!!! And he made it all the way from Phoenix to DM with no problems. Talk about luck... Couldn't you run the tie-downs around the half-shafts in the back and the lower suspension arms in the front?

[mds]

The owner's manual suggests tieing down through the spokes of the wheels. Or you can use these from Autometrics:

[jim911]

Where do these attach in front? Has anyone used the performance products wheel tie downs, the ones that attach to 3 lug bolts on ea. wheel.

[mds]

The picture shows the front pretty well. If you look under the car from the front, just inside of the brake duct scoops, you will see the heads of three bolts. The hook attaches to the frontmost one. I have the hooks but have not installed them yet. The instructions call for locktite, I need to buy some.

Edited November 23, 2003 by mds

[jim911]

Thanks, I will check it out.

[jim911]

Mike, how will you tie down the front. You sure can't get a ratchet under there, and I don't think there is enough clearence under the spoiler to run straps foward.

[mds]

Jim, I will know more Wednesday morning when I rent the U-Haul. Possibly diagonally and across might work.

[KarlS]

I don't like running straps through the wheels. I used to do this with my 996 and I would consistently pull the car out of alignment. Here's what I do with my Cup car and it should work equally well with the street car.

First I lay out the front straps on the floor of the trailer. I adjust them to equal length and then cross them over. I then drive the car onto the trailer and over the straps. I attach the hooks to the backside of the front jack point. The jack point is mounted to a U-shaped metal bracket and the strap hook will clip right into the backside of the U. Then I roll the car back until the front straps are taunt. The eliminates the need to adjust the straps via the rachets, which you can't do because of the front spoiler.

In the rear, I run the straps straight and attach them to the chassis reinforcement bar that runs across the car just in front of the rear wheels. The hooks will clip over the bar just inside where the cross brace attaches.

I've also used the Autometrics hooks which work well but my method is FREE.

Karl

[mds]

Thanks for the tips Karl.

A note on the Autometrics' hooks. The front pair, although no lower than the brake ducts, are a hard point from a ground clearance standpoint.

Front:

Rear:

[mds]

What worked best on the U-haul was to run the straps between diagonally opposite corners of the car. That is from the front left hook on the car to the right rear loop on the trailer, and similarly for the other three straps. All of the ratchets are placed at the rear end of the trailer, so there is plenty of space to get under the car and cinch them tight. To get the car on the trailer you will need some wood blocks to extend the ramps. I also used wood on top of the trailer's wheel tracks to lift the car to help avoid scraping. I ended up using about seven 10 foot lengths of 2x4s total. Needless to say the U-haul is not designed for low cars like the GT3.

The biggest problem I have encountered so far is that the front hooks scrap the ground when driving. In situations where you would normally just scrap the brake ducts the hooks will scrap and bend. I may end up removing the front hooks and use Karl's lift point idea instead.

There is also an issue with one of the rear hooks. One of them is very near an oil tank line and so you need to be careful so that the strap hook does not press against it. Running the straps to the opposite ends of the trailer solved this problem.

I put the car on the trailer backwards so that more of the weight is in front of the trailer's wheels. So it towed very well at high speed behind my Land Cruiser.

[mds]

Here is a picture of one of the bent front hooks. It is bent from scraping the ground and not from the tiedown strap forces. What surpises me is how much it is bent yet the brake ducts were not stripped from the car. The bottom of the bent hook is now about one inch above the bottom of the duct.

At this point the hooks are not scrapping much anymore. I think they are about as bent as they are going to get, unless I hit a kerb or something.

[KarlS]

Two for the price of one. Not only does Mike have front tie down hooks but they also double as brake duct protectors. Nice, Mike.

Karl

[clord]

The brake ducts are attached to the front suspension lower control/trailing arms and will therefore move upward a bit with suspension compression leaving the tie down eye as the lowest point to hit the pavement.

[Paul Fanning]

I had the same experience in my 996TT which is lowered to GT2 ride height. Hopefully the bent mounting points will still be strong enough. I was surprised at how easily they bottomed out.

Paul

[mds]

Paul, I'm worried about the bent part being strong enough also. Any movement of the car is going to stress the weakest, bent section even more. When I get a chance I am going to have a new part machined with a slightly downward angled piece only enough so that the straps hook ends will stay clear of the car.

[Jean-Marc]

You don't need anything for the front. Porsche has 2 holes along the front of the body that they use for when the cars get on the boats. You put a hook in there and with a long strap bring them in X shape to the back of the trailer. For the back, I used the autometrics parts or going through the wheels - I was always worried about my alignment doing that but really never felt any problem

JM

[mds]

JM, where are these holes in the front? Are they the ones Karl mentioned on the insides of the front jack points?

I removed the front hooks, they were too badly bent to use anymore. The rears are OK.

[KarlS]

Yes use the front jack points. If you look at them closely, you will see that they are really a U-shaped piece of steel that is hollow inside. I stick the tip of the hook into the back end of the jack point and cross the straps to the FRONT of the trailer. To do this, the straps have to be laid down in advance and then you just drive the car up over them. I use an old coat hanger to reach under the car and pull the straps over to where I can reach them. Then I attach the rear straps and rachet the car tight from the rear. Double check to make sure both front straps are tight when you are done in the rear and if not, there should be enough clearance to tighten them one or two pulls if you need to.

Karl