RebekahsZ

How well did the clutch tolerate being slipped at high rpm?

Let the car rust out from under it. Heavy duty paint scraper followed by mineral spirits.

I'm trying to have some custom 15" steel wheels made for landspeed racing. I contacted Marsh Racing Wheels (MRW) and they sent me a 15x8 barrel, a 15x4.5 barrel and a 4x114.3mm bolt pattern wheel center. I am to mock up a set of wheels combining their center and each barrel in order to know exactly how much offset is needed to clear my AZC brakes. Then, I send the parts back to them so they can weld them up, put dzus fastener tabs on for moon discs, powder coat them and send them back. So much goes into how a wheel fits, from the design/profile of the center, brake clearance, and barrel valley design. I hope I don't need spacers, but when the caliper protrudes 3/4" out from the hub face it is hard to predict what is going to fit. I post this to say: "Don't be afraid to ask wheel builders to work with you." Will mock up this weekend and follow this thru to completion or failure. So far I have $132 invested.

Let 15psi out of your tires.

Get the motor in first, then worry about the rest. Don't major in the minors.

Rust inside the muffler, or maybe a hole? You gotta get some of those plastic balls to hang from the back-every redneck in Alabama has a set!

Yes. I marked the gauge with a sharpie when I had the L6 in it. The gauge reads at the same spot now with the LS that it did with the L6. I have been down with a wicked cold. Will try to send you a photo tonight. PM your ph# to me so I can just send a photo from my phone to yours.

For some reason, I incorrectly remembered guard rails along both sides of the track from T15-16. My bad. Will get a refresher in October.

Spending some money on the tow vehicle: 2002 S10 extended cab. Paying this swap out. Builder has swapped the G80 factory "locker" ( behaves like an open) for a helical Dtroit Truetrac LSD. Got lucky and truck has an 8.5 diff from the factory. He has torn down a 6.0 LQ4 to pu in it with car intake, corvette from accessory drive and a cam of some kind. Keeping the NV3500 5-spd trans. Got update today. Diff is done; engine got new bearings, rings, pushrods, lifters and cam, head gaskets. Delay now for progress is waiting on motor mount kit and figuring out A/C compressor setup. Gotta have it back in time for mid-Sep tow to the GA mile.

Very cool car. Try to plan for body roll and bump compression. Cars that you can look at for flare placement pictures that are actually being driven hard/raced include: SunnyZ, duragg, MiKelly.

Be careful of the rear chains when you tip the motor back to get it in, the rear chain puts pressure on the intake manifold and can break it. I cut brackets out to bolt to the accessory bosses on the cylinder heads in order to avoid contact with the intake. Sunny is smart to just remove the intake. That also should help you get the motor under the hood latch bracket.

Well... I adjusted them with the tire off and the car in the air. Then I used a spanner wrench and cranked as hard as I could. I put the tire back on and set the car down. Did it squat any with the car's weight? I dunno...well, with that setup it drives fine on the highway and at the dragstrip. I haven't autocrossed it yet.

Haven't tried.

Wow.......

The size of your rear tires matters a lot in selecting a ratio. With 24.5" tires and a 3.90, 1st gear was optional, but I cruised in town in 5th and used 6th on the highway. When I put on 26x8.5 MT slicks (fits in fenders with 4.5" backspace 7" wheels), you are out of first quickly, and you are out of legs in 3rd gear before 600' when dragging. Gotta use 4th. But, for 1320' this setup was perfect, hit the rev limiter just past the 1320 in 4th. Switch to a 3.54 and you use 1st, and run out of 3rd at about 620'. I found it fastest to just ride the rev limiter thru the 660' instead of shifting to 4th. To go to 27" or 28" slicks required major fender cutting. But, I like 28" slicks with the 3.54 for the 660'. It lets me stay in 3rd all the way thru. Haven't tried it in the 1320. With the 3.54, 1st is worth the trouble, but I'm cruising in town in 4th and almost never get much opportunity to use 6th-it's kind of lug-y on the highway at 65.

TonyD-I will have one side drive thru but just to get bikes, canoes and lawn mowers out. The garage is going to be on a slope with a retaining wall so there won't be any real driving thru. I'm in town in a subdivision with rules and crap. The side with the 4-post won't be drive thru-will have pumps and filters for the pool. Would love to have a gantry crane like in an airplane maintenance hangar, but I'm afraid a traditional engine hoist will have to do.

My rears are topped-out and the ride is great-I expected it to be an issue and it hasn't been. If you want me to take a tape out to my garage to do some measuring, call me at 256-366-4685 and I'll measure while we talk. I'll be happy to check all my numbers against yours. I'm still eager to hear if you put any spacers into the tubes.

Cool-got it. Your garage and mine look pretty similar.

Do us all a favor and design a crossmember with a removeable center!

Take a look at the work required to actually adjust the compression adjuster in the 8611s. The contortions required to make that adjustment is what caused me to opt for the 8610s. If installing konis, be careful if using an impact wrench to tighten the big nut on the top-it is easy to also inadvertantly tighten the adjuster to the point of breakage. If I ever have mine apart again (please-no!), I want to have flats machined at the very top of the strut rod so that I can use a wrench below the camber plate to allow me to tighten the big nut without using an impact wrench.

Johnc, when you made the FAQ for strut sectioning, what wheel/tire combination did you have on your mock up car? Did you envision all this big-offset, super wide wheel, stretch business? It all worked great for me with stock fenders so long as I was running 7"-zero offset wheels with 225/50/15s (I remember calling you ten or so years ago for a tire size recommendation). Things only started getting weird for me when I started going bigger and wider on my tires. I think Krinkov would be golden if he just moved his offset inward or found some more narrow rims.

Thanks man. If you are at 6" your ride height is fine. The problem is in your flares and wheels. Only do camber plates if you are prepared to go 2" lower. But lets see if we can find a little more adjustability. How did you mate your upper seat to the strut insulator? What exact shock brand and model did you use? Did you put any spacers inside the tubes? If so, did you put them in the bottom of the tube or between the shock and the gland nut? When you put the car up in the air, jacking from a solid place on the frame (not a control arm), does the spring become loose on the seats? Each shock has a different length of strut rod (the chrome plated rod coming out of the shock). This gives each shock a different amount of droop. For example, my Tokico Illuminas have me so much droop that I could shake my spring an inch up and down. But my Konis do now allow that much droop (extension) and I often run a little preload in the rears. We need to either increase your extension somehow, or thicken your insulator up. The only way I know how to go that is either with some kind of machined spacer between the upper seat and the stock insulator (assuming you have enough available threads on the strut rod) or by switching to a taller insulator, like the rear insulator from a 280z.

Go ahead an 9" it and be done.

I can give more advice after you post your actual ground clearance. From the fact that you have billet axle stubs, I'm going to gather that you are a straight-up performance oriented guy and not just a customizer, so lets get busy and fix your problem together. I've been where you are.

I just measured mine, and I'm at 5-1/2 right behind the front tire at the pinch flange. I hope that helps. You car looks super nice-it must be frustrating not to be able to drive it. Do you have any spacers behind the rear wheels that you could remove?