Recently in Chassis Category

Today I used the new alignment machine at my brother's shop. After putting
on the new suspension, I needed it. Well the settings weren't too bad, but
I have some adjusting todo. Thanks for Greg Jacobs and JB Jordan for coming
out.

I finished the drivers side front suspension and I must say the car feels
tighter with the new suspension. I also noticed a significant improvement
in "turn in". It maybe the settings, but if I got it right the 2 degrees
camber may be into the "oversteer" mode rather then understeer. Time will
tell on that one.

On other fronts I rebuilt my front end cooling tubes. Since I installed the
new bypass thermostat, I have had leaking problems with the front of the
car. I also blew a hose at the vegas track event. So I fixed it once and
for all armed with large selection of 1 and 1/4 inch copper fittings and
pipe. I removed about four hose connections. I soldered the cooper together
in method that only neccesitates three hose connections for the thermostat
itself. I painted the copper with high temp paint and clearcoat. I also
used copper wire to create "barbs" so the hose would not slide off the end
of the pipes.

I filled the car with coolant and went for a test drive. I had one
hose I forgot to tighten but other then that she is dry as a desert. She
was running really cool so I may have licked my cooling issue as well. Time
will tell.

I picked up my suspension from JB this week. I asked for a cast aluminum
look, which is exactly what I got. The pieces look great. I weighed them on
the bathroom scale, with the bolts, bushings, ball joints, and the box they came in. The whole thing weighed 72lbs.

The pieces come with ball joints, and bushings/bolts, adjustable balljoint
positions, and are considerably stronger then the stock units. When I exchange my stock units I will weight them and post the comparision. I highly recoomend JB and his work.

I started with the passenger front since it was handy. First order of business was to remove the wheel, brake caliper and rotor. After that I removed the upper a-arm and lower a-arm. It is handy to use a jack to compress the suspension in order to remove the sway bar which is under tension. The tie rod end, spindle, upper and lower ball joing were all left together. I also only needed to remove the shock from it's upper mount. I used duct tape to hold the whole mess up and away so I could install the new lower a-arm. Before you undo the ball joints and a-arms you should take measurements of where your spindle sits so you can "reproduce" that setting with the new suspension. Two settings you need are the height of the spindle relative to the body or ground, and horizontal position of the spindle relative to the body.

I then measured my existing bushings width on the outboard and inboard side of each bushing. The bushings I have are poly bushings with one side wider then the other. The new suspension comes with a bushing that is narrower then the stock bushing ( about 1/8" ) and also symmetrical, having just as wide bushing on the fore and aft positions. To compensate for the narrow bushing, you are given a set of shims. This is how the new suspension system get's the ability to change itself easily. The shims can be used to place the a-arms further forward in the frame or further back. Since my car was setup properly before removing the old suspension, I measured the offset in my existing bushings and replicated that with the shims. It is important that you not only measure the new bushing width but also where those bushings are relative to the old bushings. Where the new bushings are mounted to the arm is slightly different then the stock system. I measured again and again to make sure my shim placement was reproducing my existing bushing setup.

After I was happy with the shim placement I installed the lower a-arm. I then mounted the lower ball joint and shock to the new a-arm. JB supplied new bolts and washers for the lower ball joint. It went together very easily. I then mounted the upper a-arm again matching my existing bushing offsets with the supplied shims. I then mounted the spindle to the new ball joint in the upper a-arm. The new suspension system only replaces the upper ball joint not the lower. I used the jack to compress the suspension enough to mount the shock in the lower a-arm and sway bar mount. I had to get new bolts for the sway bar mount because the old a-arm had a threaded receiver, where as the new suspension is a plain hole which required a longer bolt and nut.

At this point you need to remeasure your spindle and make sure it is where you measured with the stock system. If you need to adjust you will use the threaded bushings, or additional/different shims. Shims will move the spindle fore or aft, where as adjustments on the bushings will move it up or down. The idea is to get it as close as possible to the stock system, to minimize time and money at the alignment shop. Assuming everthing is fine, tighten up all the bolts and remount your rotor and caliper. It's a good idea to compress your suspension a couple of times with the jack to check for easy movement, and also turn the wheel lock to lock to check clearance. I had no issues with clearance. I have after market calipers and rotors on this car which are larger then the stock system.

It was a pretty easy install. Not counting the trip to the auto store, it took me about four hours to disassmble and install the new suspension. I was taking my time, it could be done faster. Kudo's to JB for a nice product, and also fielding my call on a sunday morning for tech support. I called him to ask about the ball joint boots and how they were attached to the ball joint. The boot was not "wired" or there was no keeper to hold it against the ball joint. However it doesn't need to hold any pressure, rather just hold grease so it was not an issue.

 

The half shafts came in and they look great. They seem about the same size,
just stronger, better metal. They are zinc plated which makes them look
good as well.

What do you need to go to the track event? How about an IO-PORT rollbar
camera mount, fire exstuinguisher, and batter shutoff! Getting the camera
mount setup should be a lot of fun.

Progress is being made on the suspension and undercoating of the wheel well areas. I have put the rear suspension on with temporary tires to roll around the car. The front suspension will go on this weekend with the steering rack and sway bars.

A friend is still color sanding the car to get the finish as smooth as it can be. I'll start thinking about adding the glass and some of the interior in the next coming weeks. I have done some sound deadening with dynamat and undercoating.

The brakes and suspension components are from Pantera Proformance. I got the 4 piston caliper Wilwood set with new rotors and the fully adjustable shocks and GT4 springs. Axles have also been upgraded to the solid billet type. All bushings are poly bushings and we also got adjustable upper A-arms!

Well almost there. As of tonight the car has no suspension, no interior, no drivetrain and now glass. I made a really nice "dolly" for the car today. I used mostly 2x4 with some 2x6 as well. I will take some pictures of it later. It basically consists of two boxes that mate to the spots on the frame where the A-arms used to attach. A box was built to span both a-arm brackets for the front and the back. After I was finished I was able to hang from the structure without damage. I used construction adhesive and screws for the job. Screws hold better then nails. And with adhesive it makes a pretty solid structure. I finished the boxes by putting casters on each. Two swivel caster for the front and two static casters for the rear. The caster I got were too small so I will have to go find some large ones. It's too hard to push the body around with the little casters.

On other fronts I was able to trade a guy a 2-stroke dirt bike I have in exchange for porting and polishing my new A3 heads. The heads should come in on monday or tuesday. The guy that is porting and polishing them is an Alfa-Romeo specialist so he is used to porting aluminium heads.

A glass company removed my glass for me, they charged me $100 to remove the windshield, rear window and both small side windows. I still need to remove the door windows. After removal of the rear window we broke it, I will need to look into getting a new one.

I also purchased the Dyno2000 desktop engine simulator from Mr. Gasket. It is a nice program that calculates your hp and torque ratings based on cam profile, head flow, bore/stroke, and several other parameters. The really fun part though is that it has a tester in it that allows you to take a specification like intake lift and specify a range that you want to test over and how large the steps are that you want to iterate over. You can iterate over 8 different parameters in one run. So you can easily determine your best cam profile for your engine based on your rpm limits and usability ranges.

I was able to dial in my 408 stroker to about 531 hp, that is with the A3 heads as the come from Ford. After porting they heads should allow more hp but I will have to get them tested after porting to get the exact numbers. If any of you are still reading my log and want me to run you engine numbers for you I would be glad to do it, just drop me an email.

The first task was to replace the u-joints in both axles. This is pretty straight forward. What is not clear is which way the axles go into the car. The axles can go with the larger end towards the tire or the larger end toward the tansaxle. We opted for the latter.

Rebuilding the rack was an all day job for me. I also wanted to clean up and paint the rack properly as well. I clear coated the aluminium shell that surrounds the rack. The bushing that was supplied by Hall Pantera was too large for the shaft that I had. I had to use emory cloth to reduce the inside diameter of the bushing to keep the rack from binding.

After both these tasks were accomplished we were back on the road. My wife and I went for a long trip around Scotts Valley. My wife fell in love with the car. She cannot resist the italian designed body.

We arrived in Scotts Valley about midnight and put the car into the garage. The next morning after a breakfast we went out to look at the car. After inspecting the car for awhile Nick noticed that one of the caps on the u-joints had worked it's way almost completely out of the u-joint! Needless to say the axle was about 10 miles away from flying apart! Either the car loves us or we are just really lucky people. The car lasted 600+ miles but couldn't go any further.

Plans were made to replace all of the u-joints on both axles. Also we thought one of the rear bearings was worn out so I ordered u-joints and an rear spindle kit from Hall Pantera. On the trip down we also noticed a lot of play and rattling coming from the rack and pinion. So we also orderd a rebuild kit for the rack.