These showeed up today.
Then I used this:
And came up with this (on a spare test knuckle)
Nets me a 1.25″ taller ball joint. Should definitely help the camber curve. I basicaly just need to weld the cup into a plate, and bolt it in place of the stock ball joint. Pretty straight forward.
Dan
The swaybar and arms showed up xmas eve day but I just got it unpacked over the weekend. Cant wait to get the brackets welded to the car. Maybe wed night.
I need to cut about 6″ off the arms (they come 17″ long) and drill and tap the holes for the drop links.
Dan
Finally made it over to pick up the swaybar mounts last night.
May try to test fit them tonight, with any luck have them at least tacked in sunday.
Dan
Welded in the swaybar brackets to the axle beam. This is where the endlinks will attach to, multiple holes will correspond to various holes in the swaybar arms (for different rates).
Also, not shown yet, I made some sleeves for the lower shock mounts, so I can use 3/8″ bolts instead of 12mm bolts. This will allow me to use the shock mount hole as one of the swaybar endlink positions.
Dan
While Im waiting for all sorts of metal to arrive for the rear suspension, I thought Id start removing some other metal.
My stock decklid arrived at VFN last week. I was told friday that they will be pulling the mold off of it and making my new lift off lid in the next 2-3 weeks. I figured that was reason enough to cut the trunk hinges and brackets out, and pull out the torsion springs. All said and done 8lbs removed. I still need to grind the welds smooth, touch up the paint and vacuum up all the chips. The new lid should be around 12-14lbs. Between the stock decklid and the hinges and crap I should be down about 30+lbs.
Then I pulled the front end all apart and started cutting. Plan is to have the front end come apart with two assemblies to here in <5 mins and shave off aobut 25lbs. The plan is for the bumper cover to come off first, then an assemly which will consist of the bumper support, headlights and upper core support second.
I dont have a great before shot, but I removed the upper core support, the panels behind the headlights etc (~10lbs). The stock bumper support (25lbs) will be replaced with some sort of aluminum frame (ya ya it wont be a “real” bumper).
I had to reroute some wires for the EGT sensor, EBC solenoid and the fan and alternator (which Im still working on). Also mounted the EBC solenoid to the radiator, instead of the core support.
More to come this week.
Dan
Welded in the rear beam flex joint tubes. Im going to weld in an angled piece of tube next to them to fill up the rest of the space, mainly so it doesnt look goofy. Im sure they are plenty strong the way they are in the pics.
Started tinkering on a suspension positioning setup. This is my first prototype of the pot and arm assembly. It will connect to the suspension via a 8-32 endlink setup (similar to a swwaybar endlink).
The pot is a sealed honeywell 1/4 turn unit. Should provide some pretty decent feedback over a small range.
The pot will mount to a plate and a nylock nut will hold the whole assembly together.
Dan
Came up wiht this design for the swaybar mount extensions. I may change it up some, but I think its going to be the strongest and lightest way to do it. Each assembly weighs 0.9lbs plus any weight added by welds. Not that bad I guess. THis would be welded onto the frame rails, like the 2x4s were taped in the pics above. If it needs more lateral support I would praobably add some sort of rib to the tire well.
Flex joints for the axle beam came in yesterday. At first I thought maybe I could just split the beam and then slip them in, but it just wasnt happening. So I cut the mounts right off the beam and will weld the new joints in as pictured below. I may wrap another piece of steel over them to weld to the beam, but Im just not sure its necessary.
I finished up the design for the new bearing plates. Im sending them out to be water cut tomorrow.
Also verified the design for the swaybar mounts tonight as well. Hopefully I can get that finalized and out to be laser cut by thursday.
Dan
The mounts for the swaybar showed up the other day. I bought a 1″ wooden dowel to serve as the mockup bar and made some brackets and links out of abs.
It looks like everything is going to work out nicely.
First pics are a 6″ bar length at both ends of full travel. Next are with a 9″ bar lenght.
And a couple pictures from underneatht that show the bar mounting and routing.
Dan
Ive been working here / there on the rear axle beam, getting it ready for the new bearing plates, k brace mounts and shaving some weight off of it.
As of tonight I have all the holes drilled in it, which saves 3lbs.
The old hub plates and k brace brackets cut off.
Im hoping to get the model for the new bearing plates ready to get cut by wed (we’ll see).
Mounts and endlinks for the new body mounted swaybar should be here tomorrow. I also ordered some off road flex joints to use for the axle beam pivots. With any luck they will be here by friday.
Dan
The car is finally running pretty good. I have a few more issues to work out but I think it will finally hit the dyno in the next week or so.
This past week I spent a little time working on the new door panels.
The aluminum part will be powder coated wrinkle black this winter. For now the raw aluinum will work.
