tube80z

I've used something similar and it was fine. I have a smart camber now that I'm very happy with. Cary

There's a good book you need to get by John Dalton called DIY gas porting. Search Amazon and you should find it. It may have a different title now but I believe it's back in print. He has DIY ways to make molds and a flow bench. When I used to do this I made a few molds to port heads I didn't want to destroy. Then I made a number of guages up that you inserted a certain depth down the port to get the shape I was after. These could be based off molds but are a more realistic way to do this work. And these days if you do one cylinder and get it to where you like there are companies that can put this into CNC and do the rest of the head for a reasonable cost. Hope this helps, Cary

You need more of a throat section. Think of a carb venturi sliced in half. The diffuser acts to speed the underbody flow, which results in lower air pressure. Cary

Maybe rediscovered but if you go back in history you can find these on some of the old landspeed cars. I seem to recall seeing a mercedes or auto union in one of my books. Just like a really old pic of a car with a wing. Cary

Just putting a ramp in the back of the car isn't really building a diffuser. Sure it's a crude one at best. But a real diffuser has a throat section that leads to the ramp and often a aero plug as well. If you look at how these work they are really to accelerate air under the flat section ahead of the diffuser and that's what creates your low pressure zone. If you don't have a copy of Mcbeath's new book (he writes aerobytes in RCE) then you will want to get it. Cary

I won't argue with your results but I wonder if it's really the diffuser that's helping or the fact that you don't have a parachute in the back of the car creating a high pressure zone? Cary

There is one point no one has brought up yet about seem welding. And that is if you bend the car it's much easier to pull it back into shape when welded. I think that's why you see it done more often than the stiffness increase. Cary

I would move the plate as far back as you can. To get lots of caster will require that you push the wheel forward and the larger the tire the quicker this gets into the fender. John's 8 degrees is going to take a lot of cutting to make work. Anything you can cheat on the top is going to help with this. And if you plan to race where there's rules regarding wheel base or pickup point movement you should think about that before you start welding. Cary

have you considered media blasting. I've seen good results on soda blasting on a few cars here. Cary

The camber/caster plates seem like a nice idea but as Jon mentioned you don't have much movement. On my GC plates there's only about 1/4 inch that I can get out of the caster adjustment. I don't think that will get you too much. The problem I see with the above design is that it won't be very stiff the way it is built. All the compression is against a thin piece of metal and my guess is you'll lose a lot from this. I think the design could be improved upon but it would need more depth to make up the stiffness. Cary

I seriously doubt it. On board video http://videos.streetfire.net/video/ce45c672-2fb3-4674-bf9c-988500be8efa.htm The car is owned and driven by Kevin Marckrell and the report from http://www.hillclimbracing.com says it is a contender for outright victory on the hills. The car is in Australia and you can find more picks from the above site. Cary

The best advice I could give is not to buy anything until you have the money to really get started. The problem with buying parts is by the time you have enough and the time to do this project you're going to have a lot of old stuff that's not as good as the current hot stuff. In 5 years who knows what the hot suspension and engine combo might be. Why buy a Ford or LS-1 now and get locked into that. You also really need to decide what you want to do and if this is going to be a street car or a race car. Too many compromises lead to a mediocre solution that doesn't do anything well. It's also a lot cheaper to buy someone else's car/project that's spent a lot of the money on pieces you want. Cary

Seals-it is another brand name. Available from pretty much everywhere (Jegs, Summit, etc.) Cary

If I have a known weight why am I measuring it on a scale? Wouldn't I measure deflection of the bar in this case? Cary

I like your louvred hood. Where can I buy one Cary

The pedals cannot be installed in with the foot pads in the stock location. You will have interference with the stock steering column, which I believe was your question. You have a couple of options. You can modify the column or live with the pedals being a little further apart. If you're a left foot braker having the pedals more to the left isn't a bad thing. Cary

So how about a counter point. I'll admit upfront I have no real experience with any of these items but I've seen them on a friends car. 1. The camber plates are a weld-in variety. Nothing wrong with that unless you decide you really don't like them and them you have major surgery to go back to stock. 2. What are the shocks. As far as I can tell these could be really good or they could be crap. The problem is there's no real info out there. I haven't seen a dyno sheet and it's hard to say how well the adjusters really work. Can they be rebuilt, etc. All good questions to know. Can you buy just one of they go bad ... 3. Being able to adjust ride height versus preload is a spurious argument at best. This in my opinion is marketing hype than anything else. 4. These haven't been out there that long. So that may be why a number of people don't have them. Like I said I don't have them but I know someone who does. They seem to work but not any better than Konis. Before I plunked down my hard cash I'd ask some serious questions. And If I get non-answers I'd think about buying something name brand. That unfortunately, is a path I've been down too many times. Cary

This will be an interesting test. My old car had about 200 WHP and used to lift the inside tire similar to the picture you posted John. When I started running with reduced droop and a lot stiffer springs it no longer did this. The video I saw of the COT on a road course was amazing at how high and long it lifted the front wheels. I wonder if the rules for the road course specify spring rates. To me it looks like the car is way too soft. Cary

I seem to remember Mark Ortiz debunking this in a column. I do know the back of a Z has a lot of toe compliance and fixing that may help all this. Cary

I'd be careful with wheel widths if you're planning to run a particular class. Some have class max widths. Adding on to the first point Jon raised above, you need to remember increased scrub leads to increased steering induced weight transfer and higher steering linkage forces. You're going to have a car that has a tendency to follow ruts and is going to be hard to control at the limit with the amount of steering kickback. You may want to consider power steering at some point. With regards to the vette it's a completely different type of suspension and doesn't have these issues as much. So they can run a wider wheel without having to deal with as many issues. Carrol Smith once said not to go over 20% of your wheel/tire width in scrub as a max. I'm pretty close to that running a 10 inch wide wheel. And I can tell you that at times it feels like the car drives me. So be careful. A good combo I think is 10 front, 12 rear. And think about power steering. Cary

Yes, you can get a pressure gauge that screws into the bleeder. Then you have someone press on the brake and you get a reading. Before you go down this path take a look at everything on the right side of the car. It sounds like you have something sticking and when that happens all the pressure goes to the other side. Eliminate the obvious then go from there. I'd guess a sticking caliper or some obstruction of the line. Severe cross weights can cause this but I've never seen or heard of both tires on one side locking first. Have you flushed all the fluid and done a decent bleed? That and inspecting the brakes to make sure they are actually working is probably step one. Cary

I bet they didn't test siping the tires at 4/32 to see how much of that "loss" could be gotten back. Cary

I think an additional set of jam nuts but Dave will know for sure. Once this was fixed he's seemed pretty happy with them. That's about all I know. Cary

PM viperredls1, he's been running these for over a year on his track/autox/street car. He had some initial problems with the tubes loosening but that's all solved now. His car is in the install pictures on the AZcar website. Cary

Why can't you just measure the strut tube angle directly? Everything is in line. Cary