Hey byndbad914,

If you remember the 6-wheel Experiment: my "cousin" Sir Jackie Stewart found that the car had too much understeer! In spite of 4 front wheels, the tire compounds available were too hard and it was never worked out before the F1 rules outlawed the design. So, another interesting idea was KILLED.

Best,
Terry

But today he could have sneaked in a set of A15 compounds and who would know the difference.

Actually not many as this guy drove away from the field.

yeah, have to wonder if there was any net gain with that technology if it were still allowed to be messed with - one of those "who knows" sorta deals that probably would result in no net benefit but we will never know.

Back on the home front, I can assure everyone that notching tubing by hand suuuuuuuuucks but I got a couple new tubes added into the car on Saturday so I have rearward upper A arm mount locations to build the front uppers to. Have to go super slow with it to ensure nice tight seams for welding and still managed to get some not so perfect ends, but weldable nonetheless.

Next weekend we are supposed to have cooler temps, and it is a 4 day weekend for me (I have every other Friday off and Labor Day Monday) so hopefully I can really get some focus into the car without sweating to death... when I have to grind and weld, shorts and a T-shirt tends to hurt, but jeans and long sleeves in 90 deg weather is just like hand notching tubing - suuuuuuuucks

Hey Tim,

Glad to hear you parked the Z06 and started slaving on your 914 again! Please send photos! I'd love to see your CAD design turned into real parts.

BTW: The Tyrrell 6-wheel car had another big issue: with the narrow front track,
it tended to roll too much while cornering.

Terry

A propper diameter hole saw, drill press and a good drill press vise makes it less painful.....A mill makes it better. Too late, eh?

Bought a Habor frieght tube notcher back when I was doing the cage in the race car. 1/2" heavy duty beast of a drill made it not so bad.

The HF notcher is the biggest POS. Way too much flex. I broke one and used another for awhile. The I actually like my new one more than even a mill. It is stout.

This one is money. http://www.vansantent.com/tube_coping_mach...Notchmaster.htm

That does look like the cat's ass......just the same, I'm glad I'm done with cage building.

I hear you guys about the tubing notchers and have used similar items in the past... but I only had to do two straight tubes so while notching by hand sucks, it wasn't worth it to me to spend a few hundred dollars for two tubes to buy my own I was just whining really

But will definitely keep that info Brett in case I find myself needing to add any significant tubing in the future. I literally added two 21" lengths (no bends) to tie in between two main supports to have something to weld upper A brackets to. When I get further next weekend I will take some pix and it will become obvious.

Check out the tubing coping software available on the net. A buddy of mine used it a couple of weeks ago when I took my notcher back. He said he loved it. That is probably the ticket for the few tubes you have to do.

BTW I am coming out in Sept for my honeymoon. Would like to stop by, but I doubt the new wife would be cool with me spending several hours at your place and not paying attention to her.

If it's for your suspension arm, then I would highly recommend you use a tubing notcher to get as close a fit up as possible as opposed to using a grinder. I use my mill to notch tubing since I don't have a notcher, but the one that Brett posted looks pretty nice as it has a lot of adjustability built in.

Andys

I will look for that software to check it out. I am sure your new bride would absolutely love to hang out in a garage and talk about a race car for awhile, then get to go to dinner for a beer and burgers and talk about race cars some more Kristi looks forward to every chance she gets to listen to me and friends talk shop!

Congrats on the upcoming wedding nonetheless! How long are you going to be out here and when?

Andy - using a hand held die grinder I am able to get the fits pretty tight actually - I am super anal so I hate any gap really but that is why it takes so long when I did it last weekend - I take a little at a time, check fit, measure location/level, mark, grind, again until it fits exactly how I want it. The hard part is of course getting both sides absolutely symmetric in terms of location, etc but the two tubes are tacked in and looking great to build from. Final welding will go without a hitch.

That soft ware will make your job super easy.

I am getting married on 9-14 at 9:14. Flying to Denver round 8PM. Stealing Brian's truck and finding a nice hotel. Not interested in seeing you on my wedding night. Then we are driving down to Durango and around to several other places and flying out on Sunday night. Might could catch up with you on Sunday, but make no promises.

I assume I should take some comfort that you don't need to see me before you can feel prepared for your wedding night

So didn't get as far as I had hoped due to lack of parts, and Labor Day weekend meant no chance of finding stuff (hard to do in CO as is, I tend to order from CA places anyway), but I can actually see some light at the end of the tunnel. I have the front susp mount tabs tacked in and verified for upper arm angles, etc.

I cut some old rear susp tubing way down and tacked it back together to get a feel for overall fit on the front upper As - I need a couple more threaded bungs to weld in to make the rear tubes (apparently miscounted what I needed originally and need two more), and after seeing how short the upper is really going to be if I try to use two rod ends, I am thinking I will order the drop in spherical bearings and weldable cups to make the upper As make more sense (only need one side of adjustment for camber anyways).

So I need to order some parts from Kartek this week and get them on their way, hopefully tomorrow work gets out of the way so I can order and maybe have by Friday.

Nonetheless, I think this thing can be fully mocked up and maybe start or have finished all of the welding on it by month's end. It won't have sway bars as I will have to fab something at this point, but if it were on the ground by Oct 1 I would be happy. I have work travel first week of Oct, SEMA in Nov, so forth so I have this narrow window to get things finished.

Had to cut out a simple reinforcement tube for the headlight assy (like it actually needed that kind of reinforcement anyway) to get tire clearance. This puppy is going to be LOW. At full rub

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you can see where the tube was that is now removed. look back thru other pix and you will see it.
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sitting on some blocks the tire is about 1/4" up from ride height, so this is approx height. I have the front spindles adjustable so once everything is tacked and verified I can weld up the susp, etc, set the car down on the ground in the rear, then set the front with jacks where I want the ride height to be, set the lower As and tack the spindles exactly where I want them. Again, leaving some room for error between reality and a computer design.

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showing one side with one of the new tubes I added in for mounting points for the upper As.

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you can see how tight the upper A is to package if I try to use two rod ends v. a spherical cup and rod end.

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That upper arm looks really short. How short is it, as the photo may be deceiving? Is that the result of having to adjust for the different wheel offset than you originally designed for? Camber curve look ok? Knowing you, you undoubtedly ran the numbers.

Andys

pivot to pivot is around 5.5", so yeah, it is pretty short. That said, I have run the numbers and I get around 1.3 degree camber gain in 1" compression, so that is fine, and at the upper arm angle required for that I get a RC height I like as well (forget the exact number of top of head, but it was where I wanted it relative to the rear RC height). At 2" of compression it gains another 1.5 deg, so that is getting pretty aggressive, but I won't get anywhere near that kind of compression with the setup the way it is - bump stops will come in before that.

Frankly I like being able to stand the tires up a bit more at static settings to get maximum contact patch for more initial brake stability up front and rear traction, so I expect to be happy with the camber gain curves I have plotted out.

Again, it is all theory for now, we'll see how it is in practice The car is a collection of compromises as all cars are, so I focused on what mattered most to me and dealt with the remaining items Fortunately suspension motion tends to be pretty small on track and camber gain can be fine tuned with static settings/tire temps.

edit - actually if you look, it is hard to see in the above pic but in other pics you can see the lower A arm tabs extend out from the frame pretty far - I kept the lower A somewhat short that way to balance out the short upper. If you look at an Ultima kit car for instance, the upper As aren't much longer when you actually see them in person BUT the lower A is much longer, so they would have similar camber gain, maybe even more (haven't mapped one out, but "by eye" looks similarly ratio'd to what I have.

check out this website - he has a bunch of dynamic tags on pix so I can't embed the images I want to show, so just go he'are

http://www.markkoch.net/canamMain.asp

click on his suspension tab on the left, scroll down the page near the bottom to see what the ultima stuff looks like for reference. Now imagine being a dorky arse engineer actually putting a ruler on the screen and measuring the arms upper and lower to get a ratio between them yeah, that's me!

From one of the pix I got a measurement of roughly 2.5" upper to 4" lower on the screen at the base image size, my upper arms were going to be around 5.3" to 5.5", so I set the lower A at 5.4" * 4 / 2.5 ~ 8.64", so I made the lower pivot length 8.5" to 8.75" (depends on overall static camber settings as I adjust the bulk of that with the lower). With bias plys I will be around 8.5" and with radials closer to 8.75".

Again, all of that stuff floats in reality so that is why I say it is all approximate (~).

I think I've seen that site before. Anyway, good to model after or reference a proven design, and the Ultima is a good one.

Andys

got a fair amount accomplished this weekend as my needed parts showed up Friday. I have the front all tacked into place and was able to set the car down and inspect ride height. I have some blocks setup for 3.25" front frame height and 3.75" rear frame height.

As mentioned I left the front end able to have the spindle height moved in case my tolerance stackups were off, and I need to make some adjustments to the front spindle height to get the A arms exactly where I want them, but overall this ride height will be where it should end up. There is 3" at the front splitter.

Pay no attention to the camber, etc here as everything has been moving a bit as I mess with adjust-ability, etc, and all that will be correct when I am done. No sway bars yet, will have to probably build them from scratch to match what I have in the car.

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funny, looking at the pic I just posted, that hand truck is taller than the car

close up of the rear, little blurry, but you can see the lower A is exactly where I wanted it to be with 3.75" rear height. I don't think I would want this car much lower in the end... I was restricted to 3.75" at the lowest by existing geometry of the frame and where I could fit mount points - I think that it turned out a good restriction. Much lower and I could never recover if I went off track

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and a shot of the front upper A. Note I will have to post machine the high-angle spacers I have with the upper heim joint - they are too tall. I can machine them down a bit, still have full articulation, and get the upper A down almost parallel to the lower. Then I can simply shim that interface to adjust roll center

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got all of the chassis tabs and new tubes welded in this weekend, hopefully going to get the uprights all TIG'd up next weekend. Have a new front swaybar on order amongst other items so will hopefully be able to mock all of that up next weekend as well.

If I can get the uprights all TIG'd together I can at least make a blast or two around the neighborhood with the car next weekend... we'll see, depends on a couple items coming in UPS by Friday. Relying on others for welding can be tough, but I wouldn't go 150 mph on my welds

Squared the car up as well so I should be able to weld up the uprights, put it all back together and only have slight tweaking to be ready to roll.

thought I would throw out a quick update - been awhile and been working all the little stuff that it takes to wrap things up.

Rear is fully welded along with the uprights fully TIG'd, etc and the car is officially sitting on the ground in the rear, on the springs, ready to roll. My custom stub axle adapters are all welded up, so now I have removable/rebuildable 930 CVs inside and outside on the Carrera axles. Not being able to rebuild the outers has been a thorn in my side since I bought that setup but the axles fit perfectly and it is nice to have an off-the-shelf item.

Various UPS orders and delays would move me around a bit and sometimes really blow a weekend, but I got the sway bars and custom bent links (they are steel and unfortunately rather heavy - 13lbs per end!) and finally my other rod end showed up to put the front tie rods together and get the front end squared. It is nice as I used the computer to determine nominal toe link angles for near zero bump and doing this both front and rear meant that I measured the link angle with a gauge when I installed them, and sho' nuf, when I checked bump all four corners were spot on.

I had to order some more tubing to mount the rear sway bar, notched the existing chassis to fit it in, welded it in with reinforcement, all that good noise so now I have a rear sway bar finally! Much needed after I added the LSD sequential trans.

The front sway bar mounting was already set up for the 1" diam Tarret bar, so I had to remachine and grind out some of those pieces to work with the new 1.25" diam Speedway front bar and all that is done and the front bar is also now installed.

Was cutting downlinks tonight from tubing so I hope to get them drilled and threaded tomorrow or Fri, then Sat my buddy is set to come over (barring he doesn't get called into work, he has had insane OT lately = bad for me ) and finish weld the front upper A arm stuff.

I am actually thinking I may be able to fire the car up and hammer around the block by Sunday :knock on wood/hope I didn't jinx that smiley: I sure hope so, weather has been perfect for a track day and will not be so in a few weeks.

Will be gone to SEMA first week of Nov as well, so I want to keep rollin' on this and be done!

Hey Tim,

Thanks for the project update! It's great to hear of your progress. I am jones'n for some more photos to see your accomplishments.

So, if you are able to take your 914 out for a "spin around the block", will you need to use SNOW TIRES?

Best,
Terry

gonna try to get some pix after it is all wrapped up. So far if I can be done by Sunday no snow tires but sadly they are predicting snow showers already next week

Got my buddy lined up to rent me his diesel truck to tow the car tho' if I can get a track day in this month. Economy caught up with his position at work last Fri so I figure would rather give him $120 than U-haul.

You only get about 3 really great months here in CO, roughly May or June, and then Sept and Oct where the weather is perfect 70s to 80s and nice evenings. Otherwise it is either hotter than 85 or colder than 65. Nothing like a 55 deg track day in Dec if the track is clear

Forget the track pictures, we want video with sound and all. Want to hear that puppy pulling out of corners at blinding speeds!

Tim,

Thanks for the report! I'm looking forward to your first track day when the rubber meets the road (track). That's when the real work begins! Keep us posted.

Andys

man, it has been a LONG day. Getting a car perfectly square and hitting all of the alignment numbers is a fricken nightmare, but I always get it pretty much exact the first time because once I start adjusting at the track, that can go all over the place and I want to know that I am as close to square as can be.

Being a bit off, say 1/4" in cross I don't think I could ever notice or feel to be honest, so if I start at zero I have some wiggle room.

No pics as I just got wore out but I did blast around the block for grins earlier today just to actually drive the car. I forget how nuts this thing is to drive in a neighborhood as even first gear is a bit fast. Car is so low - like 3-1/8" at the rear and 2-3/4" at the front... if I go with the Goodyears instead of Ho's the front tire is a bit larger in diam (matches the rear) so the car would be somewhat level with that setup.

It has been over a year since firing, but primed the motor with the dry sump and poured some gas down the carb vents to fill the bowls and it fired right up. Weather is predicted for sunny and in the 60s next Sunday (tho' a week forecast in CO is a bit of a farce) with an open track day and winter rates, so hopefully I can rent my friend's truck

Need to finish squaring it up (yeah, still going) over the next couple of nights and hopefully Friday I can take it out of the neighborhood and run it up a bit.

Good deal man, glad to hear it is working out.

Hey Tim,

HOORAH! Isn't it great, after all the work, to have it come to life and be DRIVEABLE! Good Job! Looking for those pics!!

Best,
Terry

OK, it is freakin' FREEZING out here I have been running the garage heater the past two nights keeping a rollin' but can say the car is fully squared and setup for the trial run! Wheelbase and crosses are so spot on I can't measure the difference, so they are within a 1/16", all four bias ply tires are set at -0.4 deg camber (close enough to -0.5 to start with static and see if the camber curves work out from there), front caster is just over 6 deg, rear toe is 1/16" in with slight toe in on bump, the front is 1/8" toe out with slight toe out on bump. Just need to bolt the front underside panel and splitter on to be ready to roll.

Here are some final pix on the ground. I took seven pix of the rear sitting outside and only one wasn't shaky from me shivering in the cold air Keep in mind this was a ride height I was shooting for originally

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think I hit it almost exact!
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front shot - kinda tight in the garage to get it all in
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nuther - note to self, a T-shirt and sweats aren't gonna cut it when it is this cold - out of 5 shots this was the least shaky one!
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coolest part is all of that backspace on the wheels and NO spacers with the wide bodywork. Will be interesting to see how much easier this thing is to turn with the scrub reduced so much.

Crap! Just realized, I have no front fenderwells (had to cut them out to fit the upper A mount tubes) so I gotta figure that out. Might just Gorilla duct tape the crap out of the inside - it is amazing what that stuff can do! Total redneck move but now that I think about it, that may have to work in a pinch. this may be my last track day (and only track day) of the year so fenderwells out of duct tape is a completely viable solution at this juncture! Maybe I can hit pick a part on Friday...

That is one AWSOME looking machine!!!! Drive it like you stole it!

thanks! I definitely want to beat hell out of it! After a few warm up laps of course. My hope is that the initial setup is close enough to get some good laps in - the fear is I am off somehow on setup and it either under or oversteers like mad, etc. I only have the set of springs that are on the car (the old spring rates are way too low) so I don't have a bevy of springs to mess with unfortunately, just sway bar adjustments and shocks. This first day will truly be a "see where I am starting from" sorta test and tune.

Just talked my buddy, the truck is secured for this weekend, so now it is just a matter if the track has enough sign ups to actually open for the day. Gonna work on my duct tape fenderwells later today.

A smiley story of how the fenderwells were dealt with

the old ones out in some new support tubes duct tape

cardboard and duct tape fenderwells are in, got the car all corner balanced today, and finally took it out onto the main streets. I can already see this car is WAY easier to steer with the major reduction in scrub.

Also stepped up and bought Hawk DTC-70 brake pads for the car - I have been using the "performance" version of pads for 930 calipers and they have been rather sucky - lemme say the DTC-70s, stone cold, are orders of magnitude better brake pads. Literally locked all four tires up (have never done that BTW with the big slicks) after having to completely readjust my brake bias. Car will slam me into the windshield so I am really feeling stoked to get this onto the track on Sunday! And I totally forget just how fast this thing accelerates Now it may stop just as quickly!

Holy crap, there is something called Lingerie Football League on MTV2 right now... this is a whole new level of entertainment! Chicks in tiny shorts, bikini tops, shoulder pads and helmets playing indoor football and tackle the crap out of each other... I have never been one to sit and watch a football game but I am thinking I could get into this Was just watching Underworld with Kate Beckinsale She may be a vampire, because there is really no way someone can be that stunning and be human. The football girls are a bit like Maaco paint jobs - great at 10 ft hahahaha.

Anyway, back on topic, signed up and paid my money for the track day, friend got back into town tonight and will be rollin' out with me on Sunday so I have a camera mount now and will try to get some vid of the car on the track. Gonna have him help me double check toe front and rear tomorrow, get loaded up and be ret' ta roll.

Hey Tim,

Great news! Way to go: it's on the road and you can drive it! You scared me for a minute as I thought the photo was YOUR lady and I was thinking, hell, he'll NEVER find his way to the garage!!

Forget the Chicks, any chance of pics of the finished suspension?

Best,
Terry

"Holy crap, there is something called Lingerie Football League on MTV2 right now... this is a whole new level of entertainment! Chicks in tiny shorts, bikini tops, shoulder pads and helmets playing indoor football and tackle the crap out of each other... I have never been one to sit and watch a football game but I am thinking I could get into this Was just watching Underworld with Kate Beckinsale"


I saw the same channel when surfing and just had to look.

When you said the ladies were hitting and tackling hard, that would be an understatement. They were tough.

And the outfits!

Hey where is that video from the track day and your first impressions driving the car????

Now that you've cured the scrub, put some erasers on them wheels & go autocrossing. The "trend" these days with SCCA is open courses with HP getting the nod. You'd fit like a glove in E Mod.

Ditto......How'd it go?

Andys

man, editing video to get it down to a reasonable timeframe for YouTube is a PITA!

So I have "part 1" edited and loaded up.

http://www.youtube.com/user/byndbad914?fea...u/0/z8S9v2LkacM

The car ran great - have a couple minor issues to flesh out but all in all the best track day I have had in easily 5 years, not kidding. I ended up having to remove the rear sway bar links and use their smaller diam spacers for the shocks as the bolt head was rubbing on the rear wheels at max compression so my wheels have some scraping but nothing major. Will need to machine up a couple more small spacers to reattach the drop links.

The car has a severe low speed understeer so the rear is just too soft (and why it was moving so much and rubbing the bolts I suspect). So I need higher rate rear springs and get the bar back in.

I had such bad understeer in the tight turn coming up out of the first downhill (you can see in the vid how slow I take it tho' not as bad as the Miata ) that even tho' I was going slow and had lower gear mechanical advantage, if I would smash the gas to bring the rear around it would just lift the front and drive off track, so no steering with the right foot unfortunately. You can often see the front plow out coming into the esses as well. I would go into T1 rather slow too to be safe and keep it on the track.

With no traffic and a more neutral setup I would hope to shave a few more seconds off. Best time was 2:02.11 in the afternoon session (in part 2 to come tomorrow night). I am sure I could get the car sub 2:00 after some tuning... which is a pretty fast time for the track but not the fastest by any means. If I were more like 1:55 I would be happier of course... maybe with more track time, no traffic and some tuning!

Oh yeah, those brake pads are night and day compared to semi-metallics I had before!

Congratulations!! Nothing broke, and minimum problems makes it a successful outing given the massive changes to the car. I'll refrain from being PITA about tire temps, adjustments, etc. Glad you enjoyed the day, and I look forward to video #2.

Andys

Tim,

Thanks for all the video, I am eager for the rest.

FANTASTIC!!!! You car just looked Fantastic! I've never seen a 914 sit so flat in corners, especially a 914 V8!! I hope you are very proud after all the time and work you put into your suspension: it certainly works!

Now I'm feeling sick to my stomach: I thought my car was getting pretty good, but nothing like yours. AW SHUCKS!!!

Hey, I'm thinking you're ready for the Rolex Series!

Best,
Terry

yeah, pretty happy overall with the outcome on the car.

No tire temps - can't believe of all the things to forget on the workbench, I had some welding gloves thrown over it and just didn't see it! But tire wear looked good so that is promising.

I was going to swap the front bar to the rear since it is a stiffer bar, but then as I noted, I had to remove the rear bar down links anyway... I made sure to have the exact same length/diam bar front and rear so I can play that game (different wall thickness for stiffer rate) but again, will start with stiffer rear springs first for the next outing. At the rate I have been moving, likely next year as winter should be coming on here, tho' we have been unseasonably warm (me likey!!).

Funny anecdote, when I downloaded my camera there was a quick vid I shot almost exactly one year ago on 10/30/09 - it was the day after we had 16" of snow and I noted it hit 50 deg that day and melted most of it!! So having a solid 60s temp with minimal winds at HPR on Halloween was really a dream of a day. Not the most perfect track weather but certainly the closest I have been in awhile.

Back to work... will edit the other 1/2 of the vid tonight, then tomorrow pack, off to SEMA Th and Fri!