Services Performed At Vorshlag

Vorshlag has 4 aspects to the business. In addition to our CNC shop (which makes many of our suspension components), parts sales of our own and other people's parts, and supporting our dealer program. Vorshlag Motorsports also performs various services to race and street cars.

This list of Services is extensive, and includes: suspension design and installation, a huge array of chassis fabrication, construction of roll cages for all sanctioning bodies, construction of lightweight/high flow exhaust systems, safety gear installation (seats, fire systems, nets, etc), custom aerodynamic aids, repair work to select makes/models/systems, complete engine swap/integration work. We do work in our shop as well as lots of testing on road courses. You can read more about the services we offer below.



Suspension Design and Installation

Vorshlag started out as an engineering shop focusing on suspension development. Over the years we have built a large array of parts such as spherical top mounts, camber plates, coilover shock systems, suspension and driveline bushings, and other automotive suspension solutions that we make in-house.



We use Solidworks & GibbsCAM software to design and CNC machine parts in our machine shop. Various suspension geometry mapping software and other tools are used to develop custom suspension components and complete chassis for street and race cars as well.



We help our customers choose the right parts - and avoid the wrong ones - to fit their needs, racing classes, skill levels and budgets. We also reserve the right to NOT install parts brought to us by customers.



Sometimes the "right parts" don't exist off-the-shelf for a given car/customer/use. In those cases we can design and build a custom solution and fabricate suspension and chassis parts for a specific set of parameters. From custom control arms, subframes, IRS swaps, to complete chassis - Vorshlag has done it.



Vorshlag has come to learn many tricks for proper suspension installation and set-up over the years. When it comes to automotive suspension - that's our main focus, and its what we know best.  We have access to dozens of brands of shocks/bushings/bars/etc, and we can help you can get the suspension system you always dreamed of.

We have spent decades racing sports cars in various forms of motorsport, from autocross to road race, rally to hill climb, drag racing and Bonneville. Each type of racing has one main common component - the tire is the most vital part of any competition car. Everything we do in the suspension is to maximize the grip of the tire. 



In most forms of racing we have found - after much testing - that you can almost never have "too much tire". So we go to great lengths to maximize the tire size for a given car and class, and to do this we almost always need to specify a custom wheel. We work with a variety of measuring tools and techniques to get the correct width, offset and diameter for the desired tire.



Roll Cage Contrustion

Building roll cages is a large subject that we could write books on. We have an extension forum thread devoted to the theory, engineering, class rules and more about roll cages located here.



Please read that and if it looks like Vorshlag is a good fit for your race car's roll cage or dual purpose street/track car's 4-point roll bar, give us a shout.



Vorshlag can build a roll cage for virtually any racing class or sanctioning body, and we have examples that are legal for: NASA, SCCA, SCTA, NHRA and more.



Custom Built Street and Race Car Exhaust Systems

From custom built exhaust headers to mandrel bent complete stainless steel exhaust systems, Vorshlag has the capability for making your race or street car sound good, make more power, and save weight. All of our exhaust systems are made from stainless steel tubing and mandrel bends, TIG-welded, and made to fit the chassis to offer the best ground clearance, with the best flow possible, at the lightest weight. joined with V-band flanges,



We do not make cheap exhaust systems or "quickie repairs" - this work must be scheduled in advance, sometimes requiring an appointment to put the car in the air for an estimate, to be able to properly order the components and mufflers for the particular job. Vorshlag stocks a number of stainless steel mandrel bends we can get anything needed.

Safety Gear Installation

No matter the type of motorsport when you end up in timed competition you almost always have some safety upgrades that must be performed to your car. Running a bone stock street car with no safety preparations on a race track can lead to driver fatigue, injury, or worse. No matter how "good you drive" there are always things outside of your control - the weather, oil spills, other idiots on track. Nobody wants to end up broken, burned or killed in racing, so when you get serious about your safety, we can help.



Virtually all forms of competitive racing require you have to use a minimum amount of safety gear, which is specified by the rules makers or sanctioning body. You can almost always use even more safety gear than required, and in situations like HPDE and autocross you are left almost completely on your own for making your car safe.



Trusting just any random shop to install a racing seat, plumb a fire system, specify your harnesses, or design and build your roll cage is a path to doom. Luckily Vorshlag is well known for the installation of racing seats, fire systems, roll cages, nets, even parachutes and harnesses. We have many decades of racing experience and fabrication to handle the most basic to extreme racing safety upgrades.

Custom Aerodynamic Work

When your racing car gets serious enough to need aero improvements, you need to work with a shop that has the engineering and fabrication chops to get the job done right. Most factory built street cars have aerodynamic down force (or lift!) and aero drag heavily compromised for exterior styling or Federal crash requirements. This can lead to a car that doesn't exactly "cut through the air", and some car shapes (with unintended lift at one or both ends) have downright scary handling characteristics at high speed.



Air is Fluid and something we know how to divert, slip through, or force into various areas to improve down force and cooling, and to reduce drag and lift. We can design, build and install wings, splitters, ducted hoods, diffusers, canards and other devices to improve aerodynamics on any type of car, for almost any type of racing.



Circuit road racing in NASA, standing start (drag) racing in 1/8th mile to full mile events, rallye cars at Pikes Peak, even top speed trials at Mojave or Bonneville - we've built it, raced it, and won in it.

Testing At The Track



General Racing Related Installation Fabrication Work

Vorshlag has the capability to do many fabrication jobs that most shops cannot or will not tackle. These are outlined below. Basically, if something needs to be cut, welded, machined, bent, or joined, we can handle it.



Chassis Repair and Reinforcement

We are familiar with many generations of various chassis, and some cars almost always suffer the same issues. We know the weak points of some chassis and are skilled in tier repairs. The trunk floor of the BMW E30 and Z3 have a tendency to fail from the single ear differential cover mount, and we have updated a number of these to dual ear mount with our own custom fabrication work.



Another common problem is cracking at the the rear subframe mounting points on BMW E36 and especially BMW E46 3 series. These will all crack over a long enough time period of use, no matter if its a street car or a race car. There are a variety of laser cut and CNC bent chassis reinforcement kits available that we can weld into the these weak points to fix cracks and prevent them from happening again.



There's more to it than just "slapping the plates on and welding it up". We have done 100+ of these BMW chassis repairs and have a good grasp of the hours, parts costs, and the procedures - we are known for this work and have customers ship us cars from across the country to get it done right at Vorshlag. There are associated bushing replacements that should be handled at the same time as this repair - call or email us for more details.

Racing Seat Installation



Let's say you are ready to step-up and install a race seat into your autocross, track, or race car. The company you get the seat from might even have brackets to install them into you exact car. Trouble is, they never fit just quite right. The seat is sitting too high (your helmet is touching the roof), too far to one side, the seat is hitting the door, etc. So many variables go into proper seat installation, and many of them depend on your body type and seat position. Vorshlag is known for handling these tricky installations and doing it right. Low profile dual-locking seat sliders, custom floor brackets, integral harness mounts - we can help with all of that. Click this link to see more race seat installations performed at Vorshlag.