Yeah, I should try to get out there with the camera. Shocks are $825 each with the remote reservoir.

As for that engine, I am a big fan of the LS design - to be honest it is really a small block Ford that has been upgraded. GM guys hate when I say that, but the dimensions of that engine are nearly identical to a mix of the 302/351W/351C Fords, nice center thrust on the mains, heads are similar in layout, and the head gasket is almost identical to a 302/351W with exact same bolt pattern. The early SBC like mine is a bit of a POS as far as design, and when I built mine the LS stuff had just come out so I was wary of it... if I knew then what I know now I would use the LS engine. Actually I would have a stroked 351W Ford had I foreseen going to tube chassis like I did... but that's just me.

Only funky thing with them is they seem to push oil thru the PVC system... my neighbor has a new Camaro and he went on a big round about journey down to AZ and back with windy roads, etc. He got back and has 3000 miles on it and it is down a quart on oil! A whole quart in 3K miles on a brand new engine. He said GM claimed they fixed the issue with the LS3 but sounds like they didn't.

Key is to just run a catch can inline with the PVC so you don't actually suck the oil into the intake and keep up on topping off the oil. If you programmed around the PVC you could just disconnect it altogether and run a catch-can breather.

And you're right, for the money you get a lot with those engines.

How do you think the Penske shocks will compare to the Fox shocks? Jerry Woods is pushing the Fox shocks out here so am taking a serious look.

Did you see that Horsepower TV episode where they put one of those motors on the dyno and it did 495hp with a different set of headers?

That motor can't weigh much more than a 6.

Probably don't need to go the E-Rod motor since he doesn't need CARB compliance, but nevertheless it's a great motor. Nice when you can start with 430HP dead stock! Being active on the LS1 forums, it's truely amazing how much power an LSx motor can make with some very simple mod's.

In my own case I'm running an LS1 motor which makes ~340HP, but it's a street car so I'll probably refraing from any mod's that have much effect on its manners. I could easily upgrade to an LS2, LS6, or an LS3 later on down the road, but I better focus on finishing the body and paint before thinking about that!

LSx an upgraded small block Ford?.......Never heard that one before :-) Keep the photos and updates comming!

Andys

The Fox Shox are rebuild-able/revalve-able so they are likely fine - the Penskes are supposed to be a seriously nice shock with a lot of repeat-ability. Lots-o-hyphens in that sentence. I have Fox Shox on the rear currently but they are single adjustable with nitrogen - problem is to adjust at the track to mess with it requires carrying a nitrogen bottle and the proper regulator setup to do that, a PITA.

These DAs have nitrogen as well, but instead of tuning with nitrogen (you can as well) they also have a knob to adjust them within a somewhat limited range, but adjustable nonetheless on the fly and easily. So if the car is neutral in the middle and plowing coming out I can futz with the rebound and compression settings front and rear to remove that pretty quickly. I had that issue for example before and no good way to tune it out - all the power just picks the front end up and drives it off the track. Getting shocks tuned right can cure that sort of stuff.

Does Fox make a double adjustable (DA) setup now? Or are they still just singles with nitrogen adjustment?

Back to the LS stuff - I didn't see that show but can attest as Andys mentions the LSx engines can make serious power. LS7s are out there with hyd roller cams making around 700HP. At 1.6HP/cube with a hyd setup that is pretty solid - 'course the LS7 spins over 7K rpm with the ti intake valves so that helps.

And I can say, the first time I went to drop a cyl head onto an LS engine and grabbed the gasket, I honestly thought they gave me the wrong ones and put 302 Fords in the gasket set by accident or someone at the shop was playing a trick on me and swapped 'em. Nope. They are very similar with only slight changes in water passage holes; the similarities to the SBF v. SBC are uncanny.

Got some quick pics after tacking in some more brackets on the rear so will upload 'em later.

couple shots of the rear, everything is laid out with levels and tape measures since it was all modeled in ProE, not guessing as to the location of the tabs or doing stuff by eye, so I can place them without having the uprights yet (parts are still in work today).

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Hey Tim,

I'm enjoying your progress on the suspension project, keep the postings coming w/ photos!

I have a question on your billet A-arms: what alloy did you use? Will you Polish, Paint or Plate them?

best,
Terry

They are 6061-T651 plate. I used that to get the high strength in the threaded joints to hold the rod ends in - 1D depth into 6061 is right at equivalent to the steel bolt strength, and I will be engaging more than 1D of thread into the arms with the heims at all times, so the weak point is the heims.

I plan to just rattle can them like the rest of the car, nothing special once all of the machining is done. I need to get the shocks, hang 'em and see where they can mount thru the arms and then machine the mounting pockets.

I just want to say something nice about my friend Clint who owns Rebel Racing. Good guy, any way you look at it. Smart too. Oh yeah, nice products. I had one customer's car that kept breaking bump steer parts, like 2 a year. I put on Clint's bump steer kit 3-4 years ago and never another problem.

deet deet deet deet deet deet deet duhdeet deet deet deet

a low rye duh don't drive too fast drives real fast now

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Mocked up the rear after my machinist friend dropped off the upright pieces so I could tack one up and get rolling again. Keep a couple things in mind with these photos, the rear wheel is around 5deg neg camber cuz I grabbed an old chunk of tube arm and barely threaded the ends in for the upper mockup, so they aren't even close to right yet and I will be making correct length arms. And also placement was funky with no caster link on the upper so it is just resting for the photo but close to correct - enough to BS at least.

Still haven't had a call from Kodiak and I called today only to get a voicemail, so we'll see if I ever get wheel halves on order for the front.

upright pieces all cut from box beam - I will use plate to cut little rectangles out to fully box these all in before use of course.

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mo'
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mo'
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mo'
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my friend back years ago - Chuck McKinney - lived in Pasadena when I first talked to Sheridan about my kit in the mid 90s (Roger was in Agoura Hills and in process of building his awesome car at the time) and essentially this is the ride height I wanted when I built the chassis but somehow that didn't quite happen, so now I am happy to be getting the car down where I want it.

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My car runs the same size wheel and tire sizing as his did here. I have never been a "level" car guy, I like rake, so I am just a bit higher in the rear than he was and will be a bit lower in the front for around 1" of rake. Because I can place the front spindles anywhere I want on that upright, I am going to tack everything in, lower the car down on jacks to get ride height front and rear and then set the spindle height by eye for what I like and roll with that (a lot of the reason why the front spindles look the way they do and have wheel clearance top and bottom whereas the rear wheels damn near scrape the heims to get best packaging/leverage).

and here is the ride height I am shooting for so I am pretty much spot on where I wanted to be.
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Love this!

Thanks!

Just got off the phone with Aaron at Penske and have the shocks on order - I have to admit I am a PITA customer getting these cuz I have tons of questions given the $$ being spent, but he is super patient and we worked out a kick-ass setup me thinks. I have to run really short springs to get the rates I will need with this car, while the installed heights are tall given the current chassis config, but he got it all worked out with extended mounting eyes, extended spring seats, etc etc to where I have sufficient travel but can run as short as a 6" spring and have adjust-ability. Pretty stoked. And he is giving me a 10% discount and including bump stops on them as well, so he is being really cool.

I am going to base my initial setup on 2.2Hz frequencies front and rear (no bar) - I think a lot of road race guys shoot for higher but not me. Also he said most guys go down in spring rates once they have these shocks, so I will be starting there as that is what I basically had before and it was soft IMO so the new shocks with better compression design/tuning I will likely be fine. The motion ratios on this car with the dual As now means I have to run significantly more spring rate than say a strut with nearly 1:1 ratio - like 3-4 times as much spring rate. I am looking at 1500 lb/in rear rates and 1200 lb/in front rates to get the right wheel rates.

Those rates sound about right. Not to long ago I was helping clean out an old race teams Datona Prototype spares and they ran around the same rates on those cars. A lot of the parts I guess were sold to a guy building a Pantera with a 750Hp Ford motor with Motec, x-track 6-speed out of a DP car, and full DP suspension, brakes and wheels. Kida reminded me of your 914. Well other than the transmission was $45k for a used one .

Damn its a shame I couldn't get by there this past week/weekend while I was out in the area. Looks like you are making great progress.

I talked to Xtrac a few years back at the PRI show in Florida when I saw them on display - talked for about 25 mins before I bothered to ask for literature with pricing Pretty much ended that convo.

Brett - yeah, I didn't hear from you but figured you got derailed with other things, it's all good, catch you next time.

Damn Toyota 4wd clutch job. I will hit you up when I come back later this year. I expect a ride.

hopefully it is back together by then

Got the right rear fully tacked in and mocked up both sides today and got the right front in with the longer brackets I had made to reduce scrub - the left front will come out and the longer brackets put in - measuring right to left with all tacked in everything was under 1/16" on the wheelbase so pretty amazing how just being anal can work out with a tape measure. The measure from the trans flanges to the uprights are also almost identical for axles lengths. When I redo the left front I will get the cross and wheelbases set exact - I didn't work too hard at it since the left side is coming out anyway. With adjustable upper As I can get it perfect but am shooting for perfect at the lower As with both sides all the same dimensions.

I set the car up to be pretty tune-able such as I will be running 3/4" wheel spacers in the back to shove the tire up to the fender, but also if the car doesn't want to turn, tho' it might look funny, I can run narrower and narrower spacers to reduce rear track width and just have the tires tucked like a tubbed drag car. I don't want to run spacers on the front for tuning as that will increase scrub again.

Now for the bummer - talked to Kodiak today (finally, been a process to say the least) and they have the outers I want but not the inners. Since everyone likes big heavy wheels, the 16" diam isn't so popular so they weren't even going to give me a lead time, just wait until they get an order for a couple more 16s... shit, that could be a year, so I offered to throw an extra $200 at the total to pay for setup time and that would help, so they might get to them in 3-4 wks. He said to call in 2 wks and didn't take a credit card # so who knows how this is gonna roll but at least this guy seems like he is trying to work with me.

So the car is going to be together and waiting for wheels. I really wanted to hit the track first week of June but that ain't happening now. I will pull the nose off and run my current wheels just to test drive it around the block and hope I don't get a ticket for driving a car with no signals or fenders on the front

Tim,

You forgettin your roots? Hell you could get a whole set of Diamond wheels for the price of just one of those "I can't get em" wheels. Diamond makes 16's in a Porsche pattern with any off set, any width. That would get you on the track by June for sure!

Great progress!!!!

Andys

yeah, I just don't like how they look. I planned down the road to get a set of them as backups so I could have a second set of wheels, but really prefer the looks of the Kodiaks. We'll see what happens in two weeks, I may be buying the backups.

I just spent 2 hrs driving myself apeshit crazy measuring the crosses and having numbers that didn't match or make sense. Round and round I went. Then I thought I should actually double check all of the rod ends to make sure I have them all at he same lengths like I thought I did Apparently I brain farted on one of the fronts and threw myself into a complete whirlwind of BS by adjusting the rod ends 5/8" different So the back is all square, wheelbases match, cross Fd up. I hate when I have a long day because the obvious didn't hit me for 2 hrs

Funny part is I have 8 spots now on the garage floor from plumb bobbing more points than I had to begin with She'll be square for sure now...

more fun in the saga today - found that the rear was not quite right doing all the squaring stuff, I was off 3/16" on the left placement with is exactly the thickness of the brackets, so sho' nuf I checked and I measured to the inside of the brackets on the right like I was supposed to, but then brain farted and measured to the backside on the left - at least I caught the obvious before spending 2 hours futzing with the crosses again

Easy fix since everything is tacked in 'til it all works out.

So relocated the left rear back 3/16", made a couple arms for the uppers now, got the lower As at exactly the wheelbase I want, etc etc and will get started on the front uppers this week. Lower As all around are all square now within 1/16" which is certainly within my accuracy with plumb bobs and tape measures and probably better than the car was new haha and picked up a little longer wheelbase which I wanted as well.

Don' need no sticking frame jig

We just went through issues with Diamond wheels. They aren't always round and true. The set we had has pretty significant runout. Call CCW and get the wheels you need. Tell Kodiak to take a flying leap.

pisser is I started out to get CCW wheels and found the Kodiaks - CCW said the wheels would be 18lbs each in my size and Kodiak said around 15 lbs each, so I went with them. 17 weeks later (4 times the quoted lead time) they showed up... 18 lbs each. Had they not lied about the weight, I would have gone with CCW to begin with.

Not going to get a new set of wheels tho', too much money. Already have $2400 in this set, so cheaper to deal with the BS on two wheels than get a whole new set. Assuming I have to wait 5 weeks, while is sucks, is worth not spending another $1700 additional on a whole new wheel set.

I agree. Possibly sell them to someone who can use them?

Guess I'm always looking at things from a racing perspective; you can either show up on the grid with some Diamonds, or stay home waiting. I know, we ain't racin :-) Gotta get that out of my head!

Andys

CCW has an offset that I would prefer too... argh. The real selling point was the looks of these wheels, I really like the centers and they tend to be pretty unique in the 3pc wheel world. CCWs look like every other BBS copy... I dunno. I really try to keep some level of form in the function equation on this car, and I really think these wheels look great on the car.

But the CCWs are damn tempting... to the point of getting a set, then telling Kodiak when they get around to it, make me new halves whenever and have the backup set. If anything could put a more DOT legal tire on 'em for the street I currently just blast around the neighborhood main roads with the slicks when I test drive, but if a cop were a tool he could tow the car as it wouldn't be considered "road worthy" on the slicks, even if I were only a block from home.

Meanwhile, more of this coming I now have the lower As so fricken square you can't even measure the difference in cross or wheelbase on a tape, so less than 1/32", so the heims are locked down and I started building the upper As in the rear last night.

Rear wheel spacers are down to .350" thick with the bias plys, will be thicker with radials if I go back to them as the top comes way in, around 3/4" like I mentioned before. Nice thing about the thin spacers is I can use the hub centric feature on the hub itself, not the spacer, so less tolerance stackups which is what I am really after.

So now I don't feel so bad letting the cat out of the bag - this car was NOT square before by any stretch of the imagination or tape measure. I spent two days after I picked it up, one weekend before I moved to CO, with my circle track friend Scott trying to set this car up. He has built track cars on the floor of his garage in Moreno Valley and decades of racing means he knows his shit. We fought this car, gave up and got it as close as possible after a 15hr Sat and 12hr Sunday. The two of us can square a car within a couple of hours typically. Right off the bat we realized that somehow the whole rear end is shifted over 5/8" (!) and why I had all the new custom brackets waterjet so I can get everything where it belongs - the right side brackets in the rear are 5/8" longer at the lowers, same length at the uppers as the left.

Before I had different length tubing right to left, all sorts of shit just trying to get by, so now you guys all know why I decided to just hack in so deep and really redo everything.

So for guys like Brett - imagine what my RCs and ICs were like before! Certainly not symmetric and would have wandered like a mofo. And if I lowered the car 1" it would start bump steering in the rear to the tune of 1/8" in the next inch... PER SIDE.

Embarrassing to admit since this is stuff I caught and would have had fixed, but unfortunately I was moving out of state by the time it was in finishing stages, so I had to accept what I got.

Car bodywork is within 1/16" on all corners now with lower arms at exact same adjustment - damn fricken tight for a garage job I had to square the rear body work a little (it was out a bit as I fudged it to make the previous stuff seem ok) and now am plumb bobbed exactly the same fender to hub on the front and 1/16" out on the rear so a little more squaring, but everything is where it should be.

Finally. Need :smiley with poor bastard wiping sweat from his brow:

Feeling pretty good as it should be a much nicer car to drive now. It was a handful before when it wasn't squared up - makes a car freakin' DARTY, 'specially at speeds around 150-160mph when things aren't square. I need to knock on wood to remove the coming jinx, but I am really looking forward to seeing how this thing drives with the new stuff.

Bet it felt good to find those dicrepancies; not good that they were there at the start, but good that you can now make it right

How good is the chassis in the horizontal plane?

Andys

yeah, feels good to have it right. In the horiz plane the whole car is level (mess with the jack stands a bit to get it totally level before I even started) and you can string around them and it is level on the bubble level, so I would guess within 1/16" all around.

Hard as hell to get that but part of what I did when I had the chassis tabs made was put a level feature on them (look back at my pic of the cutout plate and you will see lots of flat edges), so when I installed them I used a level to get that feature perfectly level to the leveled chassis, so everything tacks in perfectly. I might be off 1/2 deg here and there as those small, round chassis levels can be hard to read when you have your head shoved up in the fenderwell, but 1/2 deg over a 2" bracket won't be noticeable. I was going to use my laser finder but the issue is my garage floor isn't level enough to get the level to be level (hows that for play on words), so I leveled the arms, leveled some string at the four corners with a bubble level and measured with the tape up to the arms - can't measure any difference on the tape so good 'nuf for me.

I am super, super anal (probably why I moved from cars to engineering so smoothly) and that is why it took me four days to get the lowers all where I wanted them and relocated brackets to fix even 1/8"... way too anal really I can guarantee this car wasn't this good from the factory Rubber bushings alone would deflect out of my tolerance zone.

been pretty busy on the car actually - got the rear tubes and mounts all finalized and boxed the uprights so the rear is all tacked together and looks great. Ride height is right where I expected it and the toe links all fit in the wheel. I have 1/2" adjustability up and down from center to dial rear bumpsteer in to exactly what I want (none, toe-in, or toe-out is all possible).
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having the front upright tubes redone (my bad, slight mistake on my part and once I saw what I did, it was one of these moments ) so I should get new ones back near the end of the week. It has been 13yrs or so since I have built a car from this level and the rust is showing

Shocks should be here Wed, talked to Penske today and he is set to ship them tomorrow and will next day them no extra charge to keep me moving. Gotta tell you, thus far I am very impressed with Aaron at Penske. Actual real, good customer service is hard to come by for some reason and he has been great.

So I should have shocks Wed, can set into the car and determine where I can cut the mount pocket on the lower As, etc and get those over to the machinist as well. I need them to know exactly what width I can make spacers, etc and the pocket to get full travel in the monoball mount.

here is final rear ride height and wheel placement. I have 1/4" spacers in there - I had decided to go with none until I found out that the wheels wouldn't bottom out on the Carrera flanges The wheels have big chamfers on the back but the hub-centric Carrera hub has a large diameter step, then the hub centric stuff, so the wheel sat on that step, not the mount flange. It is 0.230" tall, so I am running 1/4" spacers both sides to get a correct wheel mount.

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Dude, what does your rear bump toe curve look like. Looks very scary.

Did everything in the computer to make sure that angles all work to have ability to get only a few thou bumpsteer thru first two inches of motion - much after that and the CVs will start bottoming out anyway and so will other items. I haven't measured it yet in the car but I have it adjustable to make sure it can be tuned to near zero or a few thousandths thru my range of motion. Preliminary quick check with a laser finder and tape measure looks fine, but not measuring down in the thous, just less than 1/16".

I can tune in either toe in on compression or toe out as well but am going to start with zero to slight toe in. The model predicted like 0.012" toe change at 1.5" compression IIRC, don't have it open as I write this.

After all the fabrication is done, the real work starts :-) Getting everything aligned, etc. You got a bump steer plate?

Then once you arrive at the track, make sure you brought along all the goodies necessary to to check and adjust accordingly since you'll be starting from zero. I know you don't like doing adjustments at the track, but I think in this case you'll need to invest a good deal of time with a solid methodical approach; it's a lot of work....I personally kind of enjoy that end of it as long as progress is made, otherwise it can be real frustrating. Once you iron out the basics, I'd be curious to see how the camber gain works out; a tire pyrometer is your friend.

Great work; keep the photos comming, and good luck!

BTW, I'll be meeting Terry @ SOW on Saturday for more testing and development.

Andys

doing adjustments to the five link setup before was really tough - it would often take me 2 hrs to get the rear setup at home. Now I have a much better designed setup and can change it pretty quickly. I will definitely be doing more tuning at the track now, especially with the Penskes being so adjustable just turning knobs I can easily mimic in spring rate, etc.

Agree about tire temps being key - my friend the circle track guy can damn near tune a car by only using tire temps and nothing else and I have gleaned a lot of what he does. 'course driving it will tell you a lot but you can come in, say nothing, he'll take temps and start in telling you what the car is doing without you saying anything.

Brett - checked the computer and then the actual car to confirm a couple things. I know you know, but many here might like the info. The lower arms are parallel to ground - if the toe link is in plane then it needs to be parallel as well. The upper link is 17-17.5 deg, so if the toe link is mounted at the same point inside, it needs to go out at 17-17.5 degrees. In my case the link is in between them and not at 50% but closer to the upper mount than lower mount, so the angle is around 12.5 deg degrees that it needs to be. The left one bumps in with the washer stack centering the link 1/16" at 2" compression. The right bumps in just over 1/16" at 2" (not so perfect at tacking and welding in place as the computer). I can move the link up and down to vary this, and when I find what I like will custom machine spacers to get exactly what I want to remove the washer stacks... mostly cuz they are an absolute PITA to get wedge in with the rod end

Talked to John at CCW yesterday, by the time I removed my head from my arse I realized it was too late to call and order wheels today. I just needed my notes on backspacing to know what to get now. I am going to try to sell the Kodiaks tho' I like the looks better, John can get the aggressive backspace I want for the fronts and Kodiak will take too long. He can have me a set in 2 wks and has some nice light inner barrels in stock to keep weight down around 18lbs each again. I just wish his LM20 was offered in the 130mm bolt pattern and I was going to attempt to convince him to make me a set and modify the center slightly to make it work I don't want to pay for that so I need to convince him every Porsche guy would want the slightly nicer style hahaha.

relocated the front brackets a bit to lower the front (see aforementioned moment I had before, this is part of the fix). I should now be about 1/2" lower in the front than the rear which is what I want. The tires right now are slightly smaller diam in the front than rear so I may have around 3/4" or so of rake which will look nice.

Always good to get done re-tacking everything into place and get the level out and find out where it all ended up. I couldn't have done this good if I tried any harder This is with both A arms level, then my long level across both of them - they are perfectly level to each other.

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Penske shocks
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Brett - this might help to see the arms in relation to each other for bumpsteer tuning.

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a look-see at the front uprights, no upper A arms yet. Will wait to get the wheel situation figured out first, then set the lower A to work with whichever backspacing I can get, then make the upper As correct to that geom. I had begun to weld in the upper mounts but then realized I better get everything else first, then know whats I gots

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Amazing! Just awesome. As an artist and creator I am very impressed.

Those Penske shocks look sweet too!

Hey Tim,

Your suspension work is beautiful! The rear looks very CAN-AM-ish!

I'm interested in your design approach to the toe change as controled by
the "steering link." Will toe-in increase on jounce?

Keep those great pics coming: I can hardly wait to see the completed front suspension.

Best of luck,
Terry

That looks better. Must have been perspective. You may look widen the tabs for the toe link, just to have plenty of adjustment for bump steer. Looking good though.

thanks to all for the kind remarks!

Brett- yeah, figured having a more level sorta iso shot would make everything clearer and it was the perspective of the shot, after your remark I could see it wasn't the best angle of a photo.

Going beyond ride height (droop) only toes-in... however, I can tune compression, which I am most concerned with anyway, to have virtually zero toe (.005" toe change in 2" compression), or tune for either bump toe-in or toe-out by moving the outer attachment point up/down. compression is of course loaded, and if the tire is mostly unloaded (drooping say 1") then the normal force and friction it is providing isn't as important as the loaded wheel's.

A little toe in under braking isn't a bad thing. It will make the car "feel " little better. Not a bunch of toe change but a small amount will help driver feel and improve confidence.

Fantastic work - man, what a project.

Can't wait to hear how the car does on the track.

Ever going to run that puppy at one of the California tracks? Would love to see you tearing around Infineon, Laguna Seca or Thunderhill. That would definitely be a track day I wouldn't miss.