JMortensen

Shouldn't you have a longer than 2" stud if you're using a 2" spacer?

I cut all the stock stuff off and made my own TC brackets, so it might not be very helpful, but here are a few pictures.

I had a friend add a gusset in the middle of his 4 point bar to the map light area. Said it stopped all the interior panels creaking in the back end of the car. Just some anecdotal data with a sample size of 1.

Ever considered using Lexan? Might be stronger. You going to do some vertical flaps in front of the tires? That would be a good addition. How are you heating the ABS and bending it? I'm imagining a heat gun and the edge of a workbench...

I think they're talking about the CV shafts being too long, which you've already accounted for by making the short shafts.

We're beginning to split hairs but McBeath does point out that a splitter works BETTER when more air goes under the car on p70. In particular he's talking about diffusers and how they pull more air under the splitter, which raises the velocity and increases the downforce. Regardless, if a splitter were there to prevent air from the engine compartment going underneath the car, it would really need to extend at least until the back of the engine compartment. If not, well, you still have several sq feet of area where that air can get under, so it's not a very effective solution to that problem.

If you're having them machined you might be able to make them a little thinner and avoid having to hassle with the CV shafts.

You shouldn't need to check the pattern. The pattern is largely determined by the pinion depth. If you get the backlash back to where it started, the pattern will be the same as it was before.

Richard, I hate to disagree, but the purpose of a splitter isn't to keep air from going under the car. That's the job of an air dam. The idea behind the splitter is to accelerate the air going under it and decelerate the air on top, creating a pressure differential between the bottom side of the splitter and the top side of the lip that sticks out front. If you run your splitter to the xmember, then you will clean up airflow under the car which can increase the effect and maintain higher velocity and lower pressure under the car vs on top. Diffusers into the wheel wells or at the back end of the splitter also intensify the pressure differential at the front lip. The task of limiting air under the car should be done by first limiting the air going into the compartment via a rad duct, and then getting it out via some sort of venting, whether it be fender vents or hood vents or a rad exhaust duct.

Dan McGrath has the solution here. No A pillar bars and no halo on his car, it's more like a cage that you would see in a convertible. There are pics in his album, 74_5.0L_Z is his username.

Some pics here: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/44769-aerodynamics-tip-front-air-dam-mod/

There was another aero thread where I think Tony D nailed the reason why John's splitter didn't work out so well. He had no airbox, so essentially a whole lot of air was getting shoveled into the engine compartment, and his was getting scary light in the front end at speed. If you really want the splitter to function, I think the rad duct is a necessary part of the equation. Another option is what a bunch of the wind tunnel test guys did (bjhines comes to mind), which is to add a flat plate from the air dam to the rad core support. Simpler to construct, less obvious, strengthens the airdam, and doesn't get bent or torn up if you drag it on the ground. It prevents some air from going between the air dam and the ground under the rad, but doesn't prevent it from going over the rad, so not nearly as good an aero solution as a rad duct and splitter IMO.

The rails have lots of lateral support. There are tubes welded from the xmember to the TC rod brackets and from there to the rockers. For vertical support there is a large brace right under the motor mount bracket. The motor mount will hit about 5" behind the brake bulkhead fitting right on top of the triangular brace for the TC rod. Between shortening the upper rail, adding the brace to the lower at the STB, adding the xbrace at that position, the K member and brace to the rocker, the rocker to the upper frame, and the two cage tubes that attach to the bottom of the A pillar and the dash bar to the STB, I think I'll be alright, and I would guess that it will be a heck of a lot stiffer than stock.

Factory Toy pads don't have a lot of dust. I ran those on the street and for autox for a while.

I looked at that and running the shaft through the mount wasn't an option. Yesterday I made the frame rail reinforcements and I'm pretty comfortable with how it ended up. Need to clean up the rails and weld them on, but I'm thinking it's going to be fine. The outside part of my reinforcement will go down to the plate that reinforces the stock rail where it bolts to the xmember. On the inside I have a big reinforcement that goes on bottom to strengthen the TC rod boxes that I welded on. I see two outside possibilities now. 1. The frame rail still manages to tear apart as the engine lifts on the driver's side. If this happens, I can put a bolt through the bottom of the rail and leave the stud sticking out the top and put a nut on top instead of a bolt going down into the rail. 2. The flat bottom on the tube that's bolted to the rail isn't strong enough and it starts to tear. If that happens I'll go with Coffey's suggestion and make the mount a Y so that I spread the load.

You can run a tape measure across the tire and measure the toe.

I used a knotted wire wheel first, then dug the rest of it out with a pick. Worse is the arch over the wheel wells, BTW. If I had it to do over again I'd lay a piece of sheet over the joint and weld that. In the wheel well there are 3 or 4 layers, and getting them all clean enough to make a decent weld is a real PITA.

http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/24100-the-poor-mans-rear-toe-in-adjuster/

Could be that the spindle was drilled wrong. That's been reported before. Simple fix is probably camber bushings on the rear. Search "poor man's toe adjuster" for another solution.

www.colemanracing.com also has them.

I've heard good things about the Rustoleum Appliance enamel paint. Haven't tried it.

I was going to do solid mounts but I think it's best if you're going to solid mount the drivetrain that the ENTIRE drivetrain be solid mounted. I've got poly everywhere else and it would add a considerable amount of time and effort to change it out, so I figured easier to make this poly than make everything else solid. Besides, gotta leave a few projects for later, right? EDIT--Did take a look at Mike's mounts, that looks like a good solution, just running the reinforcement across the whole top and down a bit on the sides. Sunny, didn't plan on going this far when I started or I might have cut the whole front end off. Ended up here though. Beefing up a short section of the rail might be the answer though. Looks like yours is essentially the same thing but welded at both ends. I would weld mine in but I am pretty limited in how high I can lift the motor. I am thinking though if yours is holding down 600hp, I should be alright with me 350 or so...

How did you order the main element? Are you having it foam cut with the hot wire, or are you having someone build it for you?

The steering is REALLY in the way of mounting to the crossmember. I do have the xmember welded in and I've welded the crossmember to the TC buckets, essentially making it a welded in K member. So far my thoughts are: Do it and see what happens, or reinforce the top and both sides of the frame rail, which wouldn't be hard at this point.

That is what I'm worried about. I don't have an inner fender anymore, but I'm worried about tearing the frame up.