JMortensen

The forum database won't let you capitalize everything in a post, so it instead capitalizes the first letter of every word. Since I've already posted with a bunch of non-capitalized words, I CAN NOW CAPITALIZE JUST A PORTION OF A THREAD FOR EMPHASIS. Don't know why they do that, but this is not the only forum software that I've seen that has this function.

No kidding. Front Page blows chunks, pages won't be syntactically (is that a word?) correct and therefore not viewable for all browsers, adds 500% more tags than necessary, etc. Avoid it at all costs!!!

Nah, takes me YEARS to do this crap, so I have the bill spreads out... Thanks, though!

I don't know what tie rod people are using to replace the ball joint, but it looks pretty beefy to me. It looks like it is 3/4" threads, probably off of a big ass truck. I've never heard of anyone complaining about the older AZC arms, FWIW. I do agree about the adjustment; you obviously need to disconnect the TC rod, and you obviously need to go around 360*. The only other comment I have is that there was another thread where it was pointed out that the TC rod itself has the most strength (takes the least side load) when it points directly at the ball joint. If you notice neither of these aftermarket arms has that angle "right".

I'm not seeing it.

What are the specs on the cam you had ground? Hard for us to say if it will make a difference without knowing that. If it's big enough to make a difference, then it will make a difference. If it is really tiny like a Schneider stage 1 you might not notice any difference at all. You can swap out the lash pads with the cam in place. What you do is loosen up the adjuster, remove the mousetrap springs, turn the cam so the lobe is away from the rocker, then pry the rocker off to one side and pop it off the ball end.

There is a bump inside the floor where the frame rail attaches. I think if you hammered the tabs flat on the inside you'd distort the crap out of the floorpan. I still think you guys are fixing a problem that doesn't exist, and although I have no doubt that the ribs would stiffen the structure, I just don't think they're necessary, and Pete's larger rails are easier to do than that would be, and still stronger.

Changing your title. Next time try to make it so that we know what the thread is about before opening it.

I was wondering what kind of rpms that gear is going to see.

That's a structurally important part of the car. You can cut it out, but you should really do some bracing in there if you do. Having been working in that area a lot in my car recently I find it hard to imagine that you'd need the seat that far back. I think if you lowered the seat in relation to the floor you should be able to get a bit more headroom and then you can slide the seat back further than stock and sit a bit more upright. If you do that I think you'll get the legroom you need and still have a couple inches to spare before the seat hits the storage compartments.

The rail is already 1/8" thick. I wouldn't hesitate to put a jack under one.

Sure do. I think around page 2 or 3. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=106974

They're designed to fit right over the existing rails. I removed the originals on my car due to TC rod changes and the fact that mine were all bent up and the BD parts would no longer fit over the originals.

I don't think they have a website. There is a picture of a car running the flares on this thread (he's running the rear flares in the front as well for more tire clearance): http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23482 I'll have pictures of mine when they come in as well. I've seen race weight flares before, and you really don't want them on the street. We'll see how thin they are when they come in... EDIT--they also have box flares for 240s. They had to call me to make sure which kind I wanted.

Mine is from 2000. I think that is a fair price. There are other similar flares available from Jim Cook and from the guy who bought all of AZC's molds. Also MAS (not MSA) makes a similar flare, but it is a racing piece, very thin fiberglass. If I had known about this a couple weeks ago I would have bought them. Instead I've got the MAS ones on the way.

That would appear to be correct.

Weld the two pieces together at the seam and then they're one piece. Personally I think what you've got there is just extra weight. The floor pan will be the top of the "box", so you don't need to add another piece in there. If you wanted a top for the box that was .120 like the rest of the rail, then you really only need a top piece which is .120 across the flanges on the top of the BD rails. If you want extreme overkill then you should sell the BD rails and do a larger box tube like Pete did. But I think the BD parts are already a huge step up from stock since they connect the subframes and they're 3x as thick as stock (if not more), so the question is how far do you really need to go, and are you going to rely on your subframe connectors for ALL of the structural improvement, or are you going to beef up the rockers to, or do a cage, or a roll bar, etc.

$104.95 per pair front and rear was the old MSA price.

I think your fronts are just too powerful in comparison to the rears. If you can bleed the rears then you have plenty of fluid movement. A restricted brake hose is pretty obvious. You'll open the bleeder with pressure on the brake pedal and little or nothing will come out. You can install an adjustable prop valve, but if it is all the way open and you still don't have enough rear brake pressure, then you have a problem. You might look at the possibility of installing the larger prop valve and also installing larger wheel cylinders. I think Dan Baldwin was looking into that at one point. He might be able to direct you a bit, maybe PM him about it. The other solution is dual masters, but unless you buy something like John Coffey's bolt in dual master adapter it is not going to be a straightforward installation.

Too many stock questions for my taste, but I agree would go over well at classiczcars.com. 11/20, but I removed my stock speedo in my '70 8 years ago so I'm going to cut myself a little slack for that one.

A wise man once said "Don't ever trust Jon's math". Maybe Terry (blueovalz) or Cameron will check your math, but I won't. Bumpsteer moves in an S curve when you plot it out on a graph, and it's usually more severe at the ends of the suspension travel. How that works out for you in this case I really don't know. Maybe somebody else here has a program that can figure it out and plot the bumpsteer curve for you. You might be right, it might not make much of a difference at all, but it will make a difference.

No, no beatdown impending. We're getting into an area that always confuses me, but I think this is how it works. Follow me here: If you lengthen the control arm, you need to lengthen the tie rod and equal amount to get back to 0 toe. They are still the equal length. If you redrill the hole, you still have to lengthen the tie rod to get back to 0 toe. Now they are not equal lengths. When the suspension moves, the two won't stay parallel because they are not the same length anymore. The shorter one will move in a more severe arc than the longer one, leading to bumpsteer.

The one thing that I think you'll find is the the DOT tires will make you a lot faster, but they'll also be SCREAMING for more camber. I would still caution you against redrilling the hole because it will mess with the bumpsteer if and when you decide to worry about it later on. I'd run the DOTs as is if you have to, but you'll have to run a lot of pressure in them to prevent them rolling over onto the sidewalls. As a stop gap for the meantime I'd probably go with some camber bushings in the front (even though I really don't like them) vs redrilling the hole. Or lengthen the control arm like Dan did, which isn't too hard to do. Nobody says you have to take my advice though. Thank you sir.

Biggest things to change for turn in: CASTER and TOE. Set your caster to about 6 or 7 degrees and your toe to something like 1/4" toe out (don't drive to the track with the toe set that way, change it at the track) and that car will turn in a whole lot better. The more you get into this the more you'll realize that it all works together and any change you make to one part is going to affect everything else. If you are building a track car you will want to take bumpsteer into consideration. It may not have been a problem thus far, but eventually it will be. A couple years ago I started to get going fast enough that it suddenly became a problem for me. I was running Buttonwillow clockwise like I had before without issue. This time was different though, I'd come over the Grapvine I guess they call it and when the car hit that rise there at the exit of the turn the car would do a really abrupt twitch, almost like an emergency lane change maneuver to the right. Then going through that long sweeper I'd be sawing at the wheel and the car would be taking a steady line around the corner. After that I determined that I needed to fix the bumpsteer. Did the slotting and that was it. Measured the bumpsteer, raised the LCA pivot until it was gone, went back to the track and I could go through the Grapevine foot to the floor and it didn't twitch at all. There is a ton of info on camber mods here and you should read all the stickys and FAQs that concern it, but here's the bottom line for me (and I'm sure some will differ with my opinion): The "best" way to adjust camber is with a combination of adjustable control arms AND camber plates. The reason is that our cars are almost never square so if you have for example -1 degree on the LF and +1 degree on the RF and you redrill the holes, you'll still have a lot more negative camber on the LF. If you install adjustable control arms you would need to adjust 2 degrees on one side just to square them up at -1 degree, so that doesn't work either. Plus when you have them squared up the RF control arm is say 3/4" longer than the LF, so that wheel isn't inline front to back anymore. Making the front track wider than the rear pays off in a big way, so you might want to adjust the track with the control arms for that purpose. With both adjustments available you can set the track where you want it with the control arms, then adjust the camber independently with the plates on top. There are other issues too. Lengthen the control arms out too far (or redrill the holes too far out) and you'll run out of threads on the tie rod ends. Redrill the holes farther out also exacerbates bumpsteer issues. It goes on and on. I'd suggest you do like I said and read the FAQs and all that, then also search the archives and read, pick up some books on the subject, and try to take as much into account as you can. If you're looking for a quick fix I'd take Dan Baldwin's advice, lengthen the control arms 9/16", slot the strut tops (you might be able to even the camber out left and right with the slotted tops). By the way I totally disagree with Dan's bit about rear toe in. In my experience my lap times were fastest with about 3/16" total toe in at the rear, and I tried everything from 0 to 3/8" toe. You can always do the crazier mods later on. At some point you need to decide to take the plunge and go all the way. I started with a pretty mild street car and changed parts and more parts and more parts, I think I've been through 4 TC rod modifications now, 3 front control arm mods, 3 rear control arm mods, etc. If I had known then that this was going to be a track only car, I would have foregone all the BS and went all the way the first time, and I would have saved a hell of a lot of money in the long run.

I had somehow gotten confused when I wrote that FAQ and made a big mis-statement that spacers could be used to fix bumpsteer. They absolutely cannot fix bumpsteer. They change ROLL CENTER. If you look at the diagrams, Rob was showing why the spacer doesn't change bumpsteer at all, and how moving the control arm pivot DOES change bumpsteer. You weren't initially interested in bumpsteeer, you were interested in changing your camber. Moving the pivot up or down doesn't do anything to change your camber. I'd suggest if this is a street car and you're not racing that you look at camber bushings as a cheap way out and don't bother with bumpsteer. If you are planning on road racing then you need to take all of this crap into consideration, and I would worry about bumpsteer and roll center by drilling or slotting the crossmember and then worry about adjusting camber with plates or with adjustable control arms or both.