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heavy85

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Posts posted by heavy85

    Anyone know how to make a chop saw cut straight?

    in Fabrication / Welding

    Posted

    I've got a 14" Dewalt chop saw that's about as worthless as a football bat. First of all the fence is cast at an angle .... on purpose which is OK if you are cutting at 90 degrees both otherwise it holds the metal crooked. Next the blade flexes soo much that you end up about an 3/16" longer on the bottom than the top. I'm so frustrated by it that I've banished it to a $170 pile of scrap taking up valuable garage space. I'm mosting trying to cut 1x3x.083 and 2x3x.083 mild steel for my subframe connectors but I've given up and just use my 4 1/2" angle grinder with a cut-off wheel. What could I be doing wrong as I can't believe this thing could be so useless?

     

    Thanks

    Cameron

    Final started chassis stiffening ...

    in Brakes, Wheels, Suspension and Chassis

    Posted

    Here she is in all her glory on jackstands - the LS1 is under the tarp

     

    P1010045.JPG

     

    Crack I found in subframe right at the base of the firewall. Appeared to have been jacked by a rather small bottle jack on the corner which caused the crack.

     

    P10100431.JPG

     

    Another misc crack I found.

     

    P10100401.JPG

     

    Subframe connectors in progress. I found another crack at the base of the firewall in the lip and a spot weld broken but you cant tell from the pic. Lastly is that the doubler plate had rust behind it on both sides so I removed them and now have to decide how to fix - NOTE this one is tricky in that there is no seam sealer so water is free to get between the base plate and the double and you cant see the rust unless you dig in from the top. I would bet that nearly all Z's have this if you look close enough.

     

    P10100361.JPG

     

    Had to remove the front seat bracket which I was planning to anyway since it pushed the floor down just enough the SFC wouldn't sit flush. There was absolutely no evidence the bracket ever moved just manufacturing tolerances. New favorite tool for cutting metal - air chisel but it really sucks for cutting spot welds as it tends to punch through the wrong side. Cutting the factory subframes off really sucked and took forever and the floor still has too many holes in it.

     

    P1010039.JPG

     

    I'm finding this to be the biggest piece of crap I own. I can't get a straight cut to save my life.

     

    P1010044.JPG

     

    I'm starting to omit the year when I say it'll be on the road on May :(

     

    Cameron

    Ls1 Part #3

    in Gen III & IV Chevy V8Z Tech Board

    Posted

    heavy85,

     

    Are there any local fbody clubs you are a part of? When I say apart of I mean online really. That is a great way to post to local people so you do not have to ship items. I joined 4 clubs and it helped part things out big time. You can make people great deals and move many items at a time. This my first time selling parts at this time of the year and Spring does seem to be better time to sell parts. Ebay is really slow right now and I am going back to selling Z parts. If you do not mind how much did you recover so far? What methods have you been using?

     

    Clive

     

    I've only sold off about $870 so far but that's only the wheels, rear axle&brakes, front spindle&brakes, nose, & battery mount. Needless to say I've got a LOT left. I guess I really need to find some local clubs (Central Illinois if anyone knows of some). I've only sold to two guys and both of them I race with.

     

    Cameron

    Ls1 Part #3

    in Gen III & IV Chevy V8Z Tech Board

    Posted

    Evil,

     

    I'm parting out my '02 Z28 ... been putting it off since Summer but now I need money to fund the swap but was looking at e-bay a week or two back and noticed that things dont seem to be selling well. Since you've done this a couple times any recommendation how to part this thing out and when the best time to sell is? I'm thinking I should wait until Spring since people are spending their $ on the holidays but really need the space and $. Any advice would be appreciated.

     

    Thanks

    Camero

    Anyone tried these type of motor mounts?

    in Gen III & IV Chevy V8Z Tech Board

    Posted

    I was thinking more of making the crossmember into a k-member by adding legs from near the center of the crossmember back to the TC buckets. Then attaching the mounts in a more vertical fashion to the legs but angled in some. This way the load is shared between the crossmember and the added legs back at the TC bucket. Sorry Peej but I'm not a fan of the cantilever design you got going there as it does not seem to be a very strong (unless your using some BEEFY stuff) or efficient load path IMHO.

     

    Thanks

    Cameron

    Need help tying roll cage into suspension pickup points

    in Brakes, Wheels, Suspension and Chassis

    Posted

    Jon,

     

    This goes back to your recent thread on the LCA vs the strut taking the moment load but IMO the inner LCA pivot takes very little vertical load so I dont understand why you need to tie into there? The load path seems to be along the floor fore/aft and side to side. I'm thinking about puting a big X connecting the two subframe connectors together underneath and doubling as a trans mount to help distribute those loads assuming I have the load path correct. If your running any door bars and even if you are not I've alway thought it was a good idea to tie the kink in the main hoop into the rear tower to help distribute t-bone loads but that's just looking at the load path and no direct experience.

     

    Edit - I just saw 260DET reply while typing this and he's basically saying what I'm saying.

     

    Cameron

    Final started chassis stiffening ...

    in Brakes, Wheels, Suspension and Chassis

    Posted

    has to be CCameron: nice... nice work. cool idea for stiffening without a cage. ... Oh and what Cary said about pulling the collar back brings up a good point.

     

    Thanks for the kind words. Now you say pull the collar back - mine is as far back as it goes so should I get a longer tip so that it extends out past the collar for this application or do they even make such a thing? My current tip is flush with the collar.

     

    Thanks guys for the tips on doing a more thorough job with cleaning as I was thinking cleaning with acetone to the new metal was good enough. Will try grinding the surface down a bit for the next piece.

     

    Thanks

    Cameron

    Final started chassis stiffening ...

    in Brakes, Wheels, Suspension and Chassis

    Posted

    Hi Cameron,

     

    You should be able to weld all the way around the tube in the example above. I've done this myself a few times. I generally turn up the shield gas, assuming mig, and pull the gun cover back as far as I can. Then you need to let the stick out increase a ways but you should be able to go all around. ... Did you clean the area with acetone of something similar?

     

    Cary

     

    Yes it is mig but when I pull the gun back it just 'misfires' and starts popping and just generally making a mess so maybe I just need to practice more. I do clean it with Acetone.

     

    You need to clean your plate before you weld it to the car. It has a coating called mill scale on it, and it will weld a lot better if you clean it off. I have some that has a SERIOUSLY tough coating on it, takes forever with a knotted wire wheel so I've changed to a flap sanding disk to get that crap off. ... Overhead welding does suck and that's the main reason I made a rotisserie to put my car on. If you're going to stitch weld the whole thing or even if you're just planning on working underneath a lot, you might seriously consider going that route. Good luck with it!

     

    The metal I'm using is very clean to start with - unlike the heavily scaled stuff you get at the hardware store. I'm also not going to stitch weld the whole chassis I was just playing with it up front. When I first tried the overhead weld I thought I would have to build a rotiserie because it just spattered everywhere but I'm getting the hang of it so I think I should be OK. The only other main thing to weld upside down is the subframes but I've found the the rounded edge of the tube makes a real nice place for the weld to hang out when your welding overhead to a flat plate such as I'm doing with the subframe. Since I dont want to cut-up my floors I'm just going with 1x3 tubing attached to the underside. It's the flat plate to flat plate that I'm still not consistent with but I'll get there.

     

    Thanks

    Cameron

    Final started chassis stiffening ...

    in Brakes, Wheels, Suspension and Chassis

    Posted

    P1010036.JPG

     

    Learned a lot in the process. These (both sides) are the first things I've welded other than a whole bunch of practice scraps. Overall it turned out as I expected. Learing that you cant reach the inside edge of the miter since the gun can't fit so they will have to stay unwelded. On the same note need to be careful before you start that you can actually reach the areas needing to be welded as I had to make a few modifications from the initial design. Things like I ended up welding the lower back-up plate to the tube first since you can't get to it afterwords. Also find out real quickly that overhead sucks as it's much harder to get consistent welds - once you get some heat in it your good as long as you can see where your going it's mostly getting starting I still have a hard time with it spitting and popping. Also you'll notice when a little seam sealer / undercoating is between the panels if you stitch weld as it'll pop real good and smoke / burn / small flames. Last tip I found is that for some reason a brass wire wheel seems to work better than anything else I could find for getting to bare metal but you still have to scrape off the undercoating first for which I used a gasket scraper.

     

    Now on to the strut tower bars and removing the old framerails. Keep debating weather to stick or seam weld the back-up plates but for now I'm going with stitching them.

     

    Cameron

    Rough Ride on the street

    in Brakes, Wheels, Suspension and Chassis

    Posted

    I'm running 225/250 which is mostly driven to and from the autox with SA Koni's. I'ld have to say yeah the ride is tolerable but not exactly comfortable. It does handle very flat and I'm pretty happy with the results on the track but if your doing mostly street driving I would personally go down a couple steps in springrate and an accordingly 'softer' strut.

     

    Cameron

    East Coast vs. West Coast setup?

    in Brakes, Wheels, Suspension and Chassis

    Posted

    If you decide to go the slicks route make sure you jump straight to radial slicks. Currently the hot setup is the GY FA radials, which we've found to work much better than the Hoosiers.

     

    That's new as just last year this time discussions centered around Hoosier bias plies. Glad for the heads up but I just quickly internet searched and teh GY FA's are $300 a piece which is nearly double the Hooisers. Even if you can finds some used one's that's a lot.

     

    And if you run where it is cold you will probably be faster with a good DOT radial (Kumho, Hoosier, or possibly Hankook).

     

    Yeah I found that out the hard way. With ambient temps mid 50's I lost at least 2 seconds a lap (~50 sec lap times) to where I had been relative to the DOT cars in the summer. Went from within 1 sec of FTD (to a SS Z06 who ALWAYS gets FTDI) or even FTD once to about 3 seconds back.

     

    Sorry to threadjack the WC/EC question but should be useful to the discussions none the less.

     

    Cameron

    East Coast vs. West Coast setup?

    in Brakes, Wheels, Suspension and Chassis

    Posted

    If you are going into E-mod anyway because of the engine just go full slicks. That's where I'll be next year with the LS1 from FP this year. You can buy used with basically full tread (take-offs from the nationals with one heat cycle) for about $70-75 a piece and mine could probably last two seasons if I push it. In the end you will be faster and save $$. I'm running Hoosiers 9.5x22.5(going from memory)x15 running on 15x10 rims in the R35 compound. R35 worked well in the spring and summer but really sucked this fall because they wouldn't build any heat.

     

    Cameron

    • Like 1

    Opel GT + 2.4l ecotec engine for my wife...comments?

    in Non Tech Board

    Posted

    How safe are they? I know this question is relative on many things, but...from the factory are there any major flaws with these cars? I found out the headlights would short out, but I'll be rewiring the car. What about the strenght of the car? Its tiny so I think I'll keep her under 250 HP.

     

    Anyone know how well they handle on the road? I've never driven one. Just bought these off a friend dirt cheap.

     

    I used to have an early '70s GT. It was kind of fun but is VERY small - like try a helmet on inside one. If you are going to restore yours you may want to consider spending a little up front and save a lot down the road because you can find restored ones for only a couple grand (at least you could 5 or 6 years ago) as they basically have no value and well worn ones are just about free. There are at least a couple places that specialize in them - OpelGTSource is one but that's going from memory there. As far as safety goes the only memorable thing is that the gas tank is basically inside the car. There is a package tray area behind the drivers seat which mine was missing (it's a bolt in). Directly beind that tray is the gas tank so in mine if I turned around I saw the gas tank. This kind of concerned me but I never has any specific problems. Other thing that I didn't realize until after I bought it was the fact that there is no hatch!

     

    Good luck as it could be a fun project.

    Cameron

    Any problems with fiberglass Tubes?

    in Fabrication / Welding

    Posted

    We used to use CF for our formula SAE cars (back in the late '90's not sure what they are using now) for the intake manifold and that was in a turbo application. Main reason was to achieve nice smooth transitions, tapered throat, etc. If vacuum bagged (as our was) it weighed virtually nothing. Only problem I recall was one flat spot in the roof area opposite the runners that would bow out when it got hot and under boost but it never failed. A simple rib fixed that. We made it by rapid prototyping a wax mold then melting the wax out later. You could always hand carve a mold out of a chunk of wax from the craft store.

     

    Cameron

    Oil filter test results

    in Gen I & II Chevy V8 Tech Board

    Posted

    In the WIX filters we use a (orange) silicone Anti-drainback valve, it stays flexible in extreme tempertures,improves oil flow and keeps oil in the filter to prevent dry start ups. Competitive filters use (black) nitrile anti-drainback valves that get hard and brittle and let oil leakback into the engine or oil pan. I am hopeful to be able to give you more info tomorrow on these filters, after talking with my Tech service Dept. Jerry

     

    I've used Fram filters (not saying I like endorse them but they are easy to get and used in the minivan) and Motorcraft and both had an orange looking anti-drainback valve.

     

    Cameron

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