wfritts911

Quick update as far as usage of the kit. DeMeanZ in Houston(Not sure if he is on here or not) put my kit through a 8.9 1/4" mile with a 1.3 sixty foot. In a 280Z powered by a twin turbo LS motor with a powerglide and trans brake. Not sure how many passes he has on it now, but he has worked his way down to 8s, so I'm sure its decent bit. He did end up going with the fancy stub axles from DSS, and he has 300M axles and quality CV joints, not the cheap EMPI ones listed in my parts list. He never tried the cheaper components though, so I can't say how well the stuff in my list holds up, but as far as my fabricated parts and what not, they have seen some power so far. -Will

I still plan on making more kits. Hopefully pretty soon, been crazy busy as usual, 95 hour week last week. Bramagedained, huge props to you for the pictures and how to! Sorry for the issues with the spare tire well, my cars was cut out already when I got it, so I never realized it was so close.JustAFantaZ, I sent a PM back to you, you can convert to cobra brakes by cutting off the mounting ears for the caliper on your current upright, and just bolting on the cobra caliper bracket. It bolts on with the same bolts as the hub, so all you have to do is lose the wilwood caliper mounts. Thanks for all the support guys, I will keep you guys posted when I get ready to make more kits. Thanks, -Will

Can't remember off the top of my head, will have too look when I get home today. I think its something like 7 degrees. The only downside to adjusting the camber with my upright is you will push the wheel closer/farther away from the upright. This is generally ok, but can be troublesome if your wheels are pretty close to your coil-overs. trying to add negative camber could push the wheel/tire into the strut. -Will

Well after a long overdue hibernation from me, I finally have the ball rolling on 10 more sets of these. Placed an order with a laser shop on Monday. I have made a new thread in the Vendor section to deal with the purchasing side of things and will leave this for the tech side of things. http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/121613-s30-ultimate-88-irs-swap-kit/ On another note, how is everything going? Anyone driving on their setups yet? I know Texis300 finally got his car going and has been putting some miles on his. Mike? What about you? I do apologize for the stripped bolt, I might try to chamfer the entry to the hole more on the next ones to help with that. I know the boot definitely makes it difficult to get the bolts in properly. -Will

At work so I'll make it short. If the F150 outer CV axles end up being a problem. You can get 930 Micro Stubs that you can bolt a porsche 930 CV joint to which fit the Intrepid hubs. And I'm sure those come in chromoly. I just didn't go that route cause the stubs are roughly $160 each plus 2 more 930 CV joints need bought. So it ends up being a couple hundred bucks higher than using the F150 stuff. But there are stronger/high quality parts than the F150 CV joints if those become an issue, but I don't forsee that happening. Here is the first link I found of the microstub. Sure you can get even better than these if you wanted(300M stuff). http://www.pacificcustoms.com/ac525112-33e.html -Will

So how does your control arm length center to center of the heims/bushings compare to a stock arm? Because myself and Sean(Texis300) have both successfully ran the setup with stock A-arms and the axles in the list(16.25" long). Are the aftermarket controls arms shorter than the stock arms? This doesn't make sense to me as that would add positive camber to cars. I'm not understanding how aftermarket controls arms effect the axle length? If they are adjusted the same length as stock then it shouldn't matter if they are aftermarket or stock. Mike, is the camber adjustment where the strut bolts to the upright tight? You could leave it loose and then adjust it to where the camber is reasonable while the control arm is near stock length. Also, the 1/2" thick aluminum washer that goes between the hub and the OUTER CV joint can be moved to the outside of the hub, so the 1/2" washer will go between the axle nut and the hub. This will give you another 1/2" of length on the axles if needed. Mike, can the upright not be pulled inwards to the control arm to bolt up properly? Are you running camber plates? Something doesn't seem right Also, the spindle bolts I sent with the uprights are Grade 8 5/8" bolts, not 16MM. I believe the stock units are probably metric, but when I measured out my stock upright, it measured out to be damn near 5/8, so that's what size I used for that reason and the availability. 16MM = .629, which will not fit through my upright, unless you have drilled it. I sent 5/8"-11 x 10" long bolts with the kit, which is what myself and Sean(Texis300) are currently running. Mike(Or whoever), if you can provide some more information on this issue that would be great, something doesn't seem right. I want to figure out what is going on and resolve the issue. Feel free to call me at (501) 472-8960 if you are at the car and we can talk to try and figure out the issue, which will probably be faster than forum posts. -Will

I'm at work now so I can't get a full reply in, just wanted to let y'all know I see these replys and will have a better response either on lunch or after work. Something doesn't seem right unless aftermarket control arms are significantly shorter than stock arms(Which doesn't make sense to me). -Will

Mike, they will come with the F150 CV axles you buy, at least they did with mine. I ordered the cheapest F150 axles that Rockauto sells and they came with the nuts...where did you get yours from? -Will

Not taken as bitching Mike, you shouldn't have been the one to use a dial caliper to measure the holes, I should have checked them after powder coating but I didn't. It's my fault and a do appreciate you letting everyone else know hopefully before they ended up in the same situation. As far as the cobra calipers go, BLKMGK if you have a cobra caliper/bracket you are willing to send me, I will be more than happy to see what I can do. Or if you can get true Cobra calipers from parts stores I can pick one up, measure it, then return it. Shoot me a PM if you are interested or know if I can pick one up locally and return it. If the spacing isn't too far off and everything can be worked out in the rotor hat then its easy to just change the mounting holes. It does get a bit more difficult if it needs a separate caliper bracket to get the spacing right. Will the Cobra caliper work on the 12.2 inch wilwood rotors? What is the cobra rotor thickness? -Will

Well just looked for photos and apparently I quit taking pictures after getting the snap ring off the inner CV joint. I thought I took a lot, but apparently the greasy hands made me quit after I got in too deep. The process goes like this: Take the complete F150 front CV axle and remove all (4) CV Boot clamps. You can just cut them off as they are pretty much impossible to remove and reuse. Take care not to cut the OUTER CV Boot(The end with splines). Go ahead and remove the INNER CV housing(The flanged part). It should slide all the way off once the boot comes off of it. This part is trash. Then clean the grease off of the axle end and the tripod joint to see the snap ring holding the tripod joint onto the axle. Remove the external snap ring from the axle shaft and the tripod joint should slide off. Remove the INNER CV boot now. All of these parts are trash. Now carefully slide the OUTER CV boot off the shaft. This part will be reused, so take care not to damage it. Now use a chop saw, cut off wheel, etc to cut the axle shaft off as CLOSE to the OUTER CV joint as possible but taking care NOT to cut INTO the OUTER CV joint. I used a 4.5" grinder with a cut-off wheel as my weapon of choice. The goal here is to cut the shaft short enough so the CV can be rotated far enough until the (6) CV balls fall out. With that shaft still in the shaft hits the housing before the ball can fall out. So once you cut the shaft off use a hammer or something to get the CV joint to rotate until you can remove (1) of the CV balls. Then continue to rotate the CV joint other ways until you can remove enough balls so the whole joint comes out. Once you have the joint out take the inner "star" with the shaft going through it and put it on a vice/pipe/etc so the shaft is not support but the CV "star" is. The goal here is to get at the back side of the joint to hammer the shaft through the joint. So the shaft needs to be able to move but the CV "star" must be fixed. A piece of pipe that happens to be sized with an OD slightly larger than the shaft would be ideal, but I used a vice tightened up slightly larger than the shaft. I recommend marking which side is the "inside"(uncut side) of the CV star as it is directional and can only go in the CV joint one way without binding up. If you don't mark it or remember, you have to use trial and error figuring out which way it goes into the outer housing(Ask me how I know...I guessed wrong lol). Now that your fixture is setup place the CV "star" with the cut side of the shaft facing down(You will hammer on the uncut side). Now I HIGHLY recommend a second set of hands. This can be done by yourself, but it is a lot more difficult. You need a hammer, and 2 flat head screw drivers, and maybe a socket to hammer on instead of hitting the shaft directly. Clean off the grease so you can see what is going on. There is a snap ring the is the spring type(It springs out once it gets past the splines to keep the shaft from coming out). The goal here is the use the 2 flat heads to force the snap ring to compress below the splines so the shaft can slide out. Use one flat head to press on one side of the snap ring and use the other to press on the opposite side. Push in on both of them to compress the snap ring down below the level of the splines. Watch your fingers/hands doing this because if you aren't pushing the screw drivers directly towards each other you can rotate the CV joint and the flat heads will slip off and go flying towards your hands. No one wants to be impaled, so be careful. Once you press in the snap ring use the hammer to hammer the shaft down through the CV joint. If you have the snap ring compressed all the way, it shouldn't take but a couple of decent hits to get it to slide through the CV joint. If it doesn't seem like its going then you need to compress it more with the flat heads. Once the shaft is out of the CV joint its cleanup time. Since there will probably be metal shavings in everything take special care to clean everything very well. The CV "star", the 6 balls, the cage, and the outer housing need cleaned until they are spotless. Once everything is cleaned its time to reassemble the F150 OUTER CV joint. It can be kind of tricky since they are pretty tight when they are new. You have to put the inner star, cage, and one ball in at a time. Start with one ball then just roll the star around getting it close to its limit of falling out and insert the other balls. The balls in my CV were very tight going through the cage so you will probably have to tap them in with a hammer. Everything is hardened so you shouldn't have to worry about scratching them unless your hammer is really hard. You can use grease before you start if you like, or you can grease it after you get it together. The grease will probably help with the reassembly some, but makes everything really slippery. But anyways, grease the CV joint up very well. Now the 930 axle can slide into the F150 CV axle. Then you take the CV boot you saved and put it on the CV joint. Be careful to not let the 930 axle slide out of the CV joint after the boot is clamped on, it can be quite difficult to find the spot where the axle and the splines line up perfectly to get them re-engaged(Figured that out the hard way too). NAPA has been my go-to source for good CV boot clamps. They have the OEM style crimp clamps that are probably the best ones. Everywhere else had the pull through then bend over style ones that I wasn't a fan of. You can crimp them with pliers or the proper tool, I've done it both ways. The proper crimp tool works better but pliers work decent. You can fill the boot with some extra grease before you crimp it on so it acts as a reservoir. ZIP ties work as well for the CV boots if you have some good ones(The EMPI 930 CV joints actually come with zip ties for there boots. They appear to work well). Now that the outer CV joint is taken care of its time to do the inner. Put the boot on first then the boot flange, then the 930 CV joint. Grease everything up really well the crimp the boot to the axle and the boot flange. The boot will probably still be able to slide on the axle shaft, but make sure to take care it doesn't get very far off from where it will want to ride once the boot flange is tightened up to the CV joint. Put the snap ring on the end up of the shaft that keeps the shaft from coming out of the CV joint. Now the axle is ready to bolt up to the stub axles. Think that pretty much sums up the process. I wish I had some pictures for you guys, but I don't. The process isn't too bad. Just very greasy. Reassembling the F150 CV joint is probably the hardest part. Getting the ball back in can be pretty difficult, especially the last one. If you have any troubles let me know or call me and I can try to help you out. -Will

Finally looked at your thread over here. PM/email me what the new spindle bolts cost you from AZC and I'll refund it for the troubles, the least I can do for making you waste 4+ hours fixing my mistake. Let me know if there is anything else I can do. -Will

Mike has brought up that he ended up having to remove all of the powder coat on the Upright-Strut Tube connection. There is a good chance y'all will have to do the same. I knew it would be tight but didn't think it would be this tight. When I welded them up I didn't account for the powder coat thickness like I should have. If you have any questions/concerns regarding this issue shoot me a PM. Mike also let me know that he had to clean up the spindle bolt bore on the upright to remove the powder coating to get the bolt to go through. I didn't even think about the powder coat getting in there and making to bolt not fit, so that is truly my bad. I would recommend taking a .625 drill bit and running through the bore. The bolt is a tight fit in there to begin with so any paint will make it that much harder. I generally had to tap the bolt through when I test fit them on my car. So don't be alarmed if the bolt doesn't fall through as it is tight to begin with, but the powder coat might make it too tight and need removed. Sorry for this issue as well. I would like to thank all of you for being the guinea pigs on this setup and unfortunately these are some things that come with prototype setups. Hopefully the slight price break y'all got for being the first ones at least partially makes up for the troubles. Like before though, feel free to contact me if you feel the need to do so. Just realized Mike already posted about the spindle bolt issue, don't know how I missed those couple of posts. In regards to that, I never drilled the hole out. It is DOM tubing with a .625 ID that fits the 5/8 bolt nice, it is a little tight, but I think that is a good thing. A 5/8 drill bit should be fine to run through the bore. Thanks guys. -Will

Mike/Sean, My brake setup that is on Sean's car works so good it seems to have stopped his build completely...Hard to say how it will hold up on the street/track since all they have seen is the shop floor hehe. -Will

Good deal, sorry I didn't get better instructions to y'all before you got the kits. I have attached some PDF's that show the complicated parts and hope this gives those of you who haven't installed anything yet some direction. Let me know if anything else is still confusing. Two finals Thursday plus a truckload of other things which need done. Busy Busy Busy. Also because I feel like bragging a little bit, here is my latest "creation"...my 280Z lost its motor/trans to this car. Take special note of the orange sticker hehe. Finally got it running last week and still haven't had time to put the hood back on. -Will Front Differential Assembly Drawing.PDF Mustache Bar Assembly Print.PDF Upright Assembly Drawing.PDF

Sold the 911 for a poopra??? Shame on you Sean... -Will