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

Soon enough. Gotta finish finals man, then I'll churn out some more sets.

I haven't re-read that thread, but I believe it is wrong. I ordered the gland nuts for this swapping thinking they would be the same as the stock 280Z tubes(M51x1.5) but that is not the case. The stock 280Z tubes are M52x1.5 . This swap uses M51x1.5 and couldn't go any bigger because these tubes are 2.125OD vs the 280Z's 2.170 OD. You will need new gland nuts Mike, sorry bud.

Ok guys, I've been meaning to get something together as far as how everything goes together but haven't had a chance. Was going to do it tonight but my jump drive with all my models on it is up at work. So here goes this: The mustache bar is not symmetrical side to side and the mustache bar mounts have an angle cut in them. The mustache bar angles DOWN towards the front of the car. This is because the explorer rear cover has slanted bolt holes. The diff mount holes are biased CLOSER to the drivers side of the car. There are 1/2 thick aluminum spacers between the mustache bar and the differential. There are 1/2 thick aluminum spacers, (1) 1/2 extra thick flat washer, and (1) 1/2 lock washer on the bottom of the mustache bar mount to allow the nut to get tight before bottoming out on the threads. The front diff mount should be pretty easy. Just fits up there and uses the supplied bolts. The part that captures the bottom part of the diff mount must be installed after the diff goes up obviously and bolts up to the same holes. The actual diff mount bolt goes up from the bottom then the nut goes on top. It's a little tricky but a wrench on top and a ratchet on bottom and its not too bad. Trboflyer has brought up that his diff mount hole isn't lining up properly and I'm not sure what the reason is yet. There is also a washer that is part of the front differential bushing that goes on the bottom. It is a large washer with a rubber part on it that completes the front diff mount bushing. Hopefully y'all are getting that with your differentials. The Dogbone piece just bolts up in place of the factory LCA dropdown brackets and uses the factory bolts. Nothing special there just needed it because the rear diff mount holes went straight through the factory drop downs, so it needed braced. There are (4) extra thick flat washers that go on top of the coil-over spring top and below the factory top mount in order to let is seat properly. There are (2) 1/2 thick aluminum spacers that are large. These go between the hub and the F150 outer cv joint. The F150 splines are longer than the hub so the spacer is needed to ensure the axle nut works properly. Some of the gland nuts will be a little hard to thread in. My threading process was having some issues so some of them are a little tight. Think of it as a self locking mechanism. But don't be alarmed if they don't go in by hand all the way. Just take care in ensuring it gets started properly then a spanner wrench might be needed after that. Ensure the bolts that hold the strut tube to the upright are TIGHT. As I'm sure you have seen you can control camber from here and the external tooth lock washers are there to provide extra grip to keep it from slipping. So make sure they get tight tight before driving. This same location might be a pretty tight fit getting the brackets over the upright. The powder coating added some thickness which hopefully won't cause any major problems, but it will probably be a tight fit. The hub into the upright will probably be a tight fit for the same reason as above. Warning, if you put the stub axles into the 8.8 differential. They can be a PITA to get out sometimes. Just a warning if you decide to test fit them. Be prepared to cuss yourself for trying it lol. Once again sorry for not getting some more detailed stuff yet, its been busy for me with school finishing up and what not. I will grab my drive from work tomorrow and try to get some nice 3D models for everyone to see how it goes together. Hopefully this list knocks out the main items. Feel free to post up any other questions if y'all are trying to install things. Or feel free to call me at 5014728960 at anytime(Even in the middle of the night, I won't cuss you too bad haha). I'll be able to walk you through anything hopefully until I get some better instructions going. And yes the mustache bar is aluminum, which is why I opted not to coat it. I wasn't going to blast it either but the aluminum stock I got was a little dirty so I just wanted to clean it up, but the sand blasting left it with a texture finish, which I thought looked kind of good. -Will

Well it isn't going to rust like the carbon so I opted not to coat it. But I didn't realize sand blasting would give it the texture look like it did, it really needed media blasted of some sort instead of sand. But I think the texture look it got turned out looking pretty decent. Do you think it would have been better to just coat it? I was half and half on coating vs not coating. -Will

Well I know a couple people have got the parts in as of now, and the rest will probably get them tomorrow. Pete280Z has expressed some issues with my packaging that led to the paint getting scratched up pretty good on most of the parts. Maybe his was a fluke, maybe I just have sorry packaging skills, but I just want to let everyone else know to check everything over good and let me know if there are any issues that you see. I'll be more than happy to fix any issues you have with any parts. So if y'all can just post up on here if all your parts look fine or if they were damaged during shipping. I will try to get some diagrams/instructions made in the next couple days, been a busy week. -Will

Everything has been shipped! Finally! Now I've got to run off to school to work on a group project, so pictures will have to wait a bit longer. Check your PMs guys. -Will

Call Koni-NA direct. That's how I got them. Unfortunately they are an oddball size that they might have to get sent over from Holland, but they fit the strut tube well. That was the cheapest and easiest place to get them. Hope the lead time on those doesn't put anyone in a bind as I think its 2 weeks if you airmail them. I should have let y'all know sooner to make sure you got them ordered in the beginning. Shipping out boxes today finally, got killed with school last week. I PM'd a few of you because I never got shipping information so please reply to those PMs ASAP. I will post some pictures after I ship Mikelly, Pete280z, and Torqen2k1 swaps. Still waiting on Turboflyer and Heavy88chevy's shipping information. -Will

Well everything was supposed to be done at the powder coater Wednesday but I ended up working late trying to finish up some last minute projects before thanksgiving so I wasn't able to pick everything up Wednesday. And now of course they were closed yesterday and today so I will be picking everything up Monday and hopefully shipping out Monday or Tuesday. Sorry for the delays guys, the holiday got in the way. -Will

I will round my pictures up and post up a more detailed How To in the next couple days, but the short version. Remove Boots, Inner CV slides right out of the stub, nothing holds it in. Snap ring removes the actually rollers from the shaft. Remove both boots being careful not to damage the outer boot as it will be reused. Now you have the outer CV and the shaft. Use a cutoff wheel or stick it in a chop saw and cut the axle shaft as close to the CV as you can, being careful not to let the blade walk into the actual CV This allows you to spin the CV "star" around enough until the balls fall out. Remove the balls and CV "star" from the housing. Use a vice or piece of pipe with an ID larger than the shaft to hold the CV "star". There is a spring loaded snap ring on the back side of the "star" keeping the shaft in. A second set of hands makes this easy, it sucks by yourself. Use 2 flat head screw drivers to push the snap ring into the shaft. Then tap the shaft with a hammer until the snap rings compress inside the splines enough to allow the shaft to go through the star. Clean the CV really good to remove all metal shavings and then reassemble in reverse order. You dont use a snap ring to hold the shaft in though, it just floats in the splines.

PM's are sent with totals for everyone. Now back to finishing up my homework... -Will