Mikelly

Car is done and back together. I still need to adjust the suspension coil overs, and I need to pull the pan and address some issue with the rear of the gasket leaking. Otherwise, I now have zero issues with rubbing on the fenders! Mike

To the "marketing" director" for XXR... Could you please tell your folks to post worthwhile technical data on your wheels? I'd love to know the weights and the construction specifications of these wheels. I'm running a coil over, significant fender modifications, and can handle 4.5 inches of backspacing... Would be nice to know if these wheels can withstand some abuse on VIR, Watkins Glen, Summit Point, or other road courses... To you other guys who think they don't look good on the car, it's why we have "choices". If everyone's car had panasports, where would the creativety be in that? Same color? Same body treatments? To each his own, indeed... I'm just looking for a decent track safe wheel that will elimenate the need for spacers on the rear of my V8 track *****. These might fit the bill, and since I'm already running 18s to clear my larger brakes, I'm good with this fitment... especially if I'm shoeing on some R6 Hoosiers in 275-35-18 on the back and a 245-35-18 up front. Mike

I'm researching wheels and I'm trying to get to an 18X10 with 122MM max backspacing (about 4 5/8th inch) for the rear that is light, and won't require a spacer. I'm shooting for a 275 Hoosier on the rear... Suggestions? Mike

The brakes are from SVT package mustang cobras circa 1993-2004. I'm running Ross's stub axles and adapters for the Q45 rear. Mike

So due to the opressive heat, I was in the shop at 0530, on a Saturday morning... I got the fenders tach welded to the inner fenderwell/patch material, the holes drilled for the new flare loctation, and I got the 500 pound springs on the front of the car. Here's a couple of pics to show where the ZG flares used to be, how much material was cut out, and where they will be now. 104 degrees here today... it's stupid hot out... Mike

Few minor updates... Bought a shift knob from summit racing, had to add helicoil to size it down as one of the inserts was missing in the package... typical white ball with the five speed pattern on it... Hurst like. Got that installed this afternoon... Also did this: Took an hour to clean the area, tape off the car, mark the centerline and then mark each spot and double check everything before I installed them...According to the instructions, the outer fin is at 0 degrees, with the next being 5 degrees, the 3rd in being 10 degrees, and the two closest to center (from each side) being at 15 degrees. I'd put the fins themselves up, and forgotten where I put them. Took a while just to locate them!! Mike

The heimjoint on the AZ Zcar control arm is only slightly larger, so opening up the tab on the slider harder is possible. Looks like a large cotter pin was used to keep the slider in place, along with the two "clamping" bolts. It has two drilled holes. John, I bought this from a racer who was liquidating all his Zcar "stuff"... I thought he said it was an "old" DP unit, but couldn't remember until I just read your post. Mike

Guys, I've got an adjustable rear swaybar that Im' trying to sort out. The mounts to the chassis (behind mustach bar) are already on the Zcar. But I'm trying to source parts for the endlinks and I'd like to get pictures of the unit already mounted up. I've owned this bar for a little while and bought it off a member on ebay a while back... It was used with zero documentation...I'm also running the AZ Zcar rear chromoly control arms... Looking for sources for hardware and pics of the unit mounted up. Any help would be wonderful... Mike

Guys, I truly appreciate the sympathy. My dad would appreciate the fact that I deal with stress by keeping my mind and my body busy. He spent his off hours his whole life in the shop tinkering, where he's actually choosing to spend his last days, sitting in his shop and chatting with anyone who will listen... This evening I needed some time in my own shop to be distracted. I got a bit done this evening... Swapped in the 400# rear springs and cut out the rear passenger fender.... I also dug out my rear 5/8th swaybar... Going to post a question in the suspension section on "parts" for this bugger... Mike

Thanks John... Much appreciated. Here's a pic of the cable pull for the door release... Simple 3/16th cable and a section of brakeline. Mike

So today, I had a little time on my hands and needed to relieve some stress, so I did this: Drivers side only so far... I also picked up some materials today and made some cable pulls for the door handles. Since the doors are gutted, I don't have door releases from the inside, and copied what was done on the SpecMiata. Missed taking pics of them, but I'll snap some later. Pretty simple to make, actually! Not sure what lies ahead in the coming weeks. My father was sent home from a Dr's appointment on Friday and told his options were checking into the hospital or having hospice come in to take care of him until he dies. I knew he was sick, but was a bit surprised that he's that far along. His heart is simply to weak and they don't expect him to be here much longer. Anyway, Hope to wrap up the fenders soon as possible. The fenders are going to be flush from the inner fenderwell to the outer edge. I should now have plenty of clearance. Mike

Here are a few pics of the driver's side damage I found when removing the flare... You can see the damage to the fender lip in the pic... This is a close up of where it bent... some of the rubber collected in the wheel well...My inner fenders are painted silver/aluminum. That's a lot of rubber in there... The cut tire is pretty bad. Pretty sure the tire is toast. What were the odds that it would catch it right on the the seam at the end of the treadblock? So I've already got more springs in a box... ordered them Tuesday evening. I also have some sway bars for the rear, but haven't installed them yet... I've got a 5/8th and a 3/4 unit. I'll probably run 350# rear and 400# front to start with on that 5/8th rear bar, and go from there... Hopefully this will cure that issue. Also found the rear of the oil pan leaking. Fortunately you can see the rear main seal due to the McLeod Bellhousing, and it's the seal on the pan. So I'll have to unbolt the motor mounts, unbolt the pan, jack the motor up and get to the rails on the oilpan with some sealer... these rubber "self sealing" gaskets... yea, not so much. Mike

That's about what I expected!!! bjhines, I'm going to remove the fender flares today and see where we are on the damage. I'm going to also go with a stiffer spring because the car needs to be lowered some more... And based on what John C., Mark I. and others have mentioned, the struts I'm using will handle a MUCH higher spring rate. Mike

Here's the video from my second shakedown run. The first session was two laps, one under caution, and then on the second one I brought it in.. So this one has me giving it a little more gas and going a little quicker! Mike

Here are a few pics from early in the project showing how "opened up" the fenders are... The pics are with the old Mustang 8 inch wheels on it. But you can see that there is a lot of space there between the tire and wheel well. Mike

Couple comments here... I'd hope by now that you'd think that I'd not be a noob in such a situation to just "blindly" throw stiffer springs on the car... I use this blog as a way to throw out ideas and get info back, but I assure you that the last thing I will do is go "blindly" into the night. The fender lips on this car were cut off completely. There is no rolling of the lip, as there is no lip and the fender has been opened up quite a bit. I believe that if you go back a number of pages, there are pics to show this very thing... One of the first things I did was reach out to John C. who has given me excellent advice based on what he knows to work first hand. I'll also bend the ears of people like John Tedder and Mark Icard to see what they use... This much I do know: the 300# springs in the rear, using AZ Car camber plates & control arms, with camber set to 2.5 negative caused significant cutting on the inside edge of the outer most tread block from somewhere in the previously cut fender opening. The wheels are TSW Thruxstons in an 18X9.5 and I don't remember off hand the BS or OS. I am running a 1/2inch spacer to clear the suspension in the rear. The tires are Kumho Victoracers in a 265-35 profile. The plan is to move to another wheel as I'm not happy with the weight, but this may accelerate that issue! JT1 (john Tedder) thanks for the info and I'll look at those 10&2 locations specifically. I've already ordered some 350# and 400# springs, per Mr. Coffey's recommendation! I'll get the car out of the trailer in the coming days and we'll see what's what!! I'll get more info up later, but I am lead to believe right now that I'm going to need to clearance the fender openings even more AND use stiffer springs on the setup. Mike

Thanks for the kind words gang... I'll have some video up later on from both inside the car going around the course, and outside the car from the side of the track... Just gotta get time to get it edited and posted on youtube. I'm really going to have to do some research on this whole "rear fender" issue... Stiffer springs are part of the solution, but I also need to raise the level of the fender so I don't have this issue again...I also don't have much in the line of ride height adjustment in the rear, as the coils are cranked up as high as I can get them... So this really needs to be fixed... What coil spring rates are you guys running in the rear? Mike

Few pics from today: Really liked the seating position today... Along with the steering wheel and pedals... Was very easy to heel/toe the setup. Also very easy to shift the car and the overall ergonomis were very good. Mike

So day one is done and thanfully, the car didn't burst into flames during the time in the pits or on track running today. It did manage to cut the rear tires with some tire rub. Tom and I both are pretty surprised at this due to the fact that we have some 300 pound springs and probably 3.5 inches of clearance between the seams Jamie welded and the top of the tire... So much so that during my second session of the day, I had to come in because the cabin was fillin with smoke. The track marshal found FINE POWDERED RUBBER from the treadblock on the drivers side outer treadblock. Couple of observations... The suspension felt great in the 6 laps I drove it. No noticable under or oversteer and bump compliance was decent. The car hasn't been scaled yet, and all I did was a string alignment on it. No shakes, no bad behavior, other than the rears rubbing. It didn't stop well, at all. I'll have to address this with possibly pads or maybe a different setup all together later. Not sure the answer, but stopping was an issue... This car is STUPID loud... Earplugs are mandatory. It also needs a proper dyno tune to baseline the motor. I'm leaving a ton of power on the table. I was short shifting at at 4K rpms, but still. I'd expect a 400WHP car to be much quicker... Def. needs tuning by a pro, of which I am not. The heat today was horrid. We drank a case of water between three of us. And we still bailed early. It was just that hot, and tomorrow doesn't look any better. So we'll probably cut tomorrow short. The Miata did well and Jeff did well driving it. I got to take Tom out for a few sessions to give him some passenger seat time on Summit Point Main. So those wondering, it's back in the car trailer and will be headed home for some work on those inner fenders. And We'll be working on resolving this asap. Mike

So that was fun... In the interest of full disclosure... Yea, remember when I said I adjusted the valves... I didn't set the timing againg... So I forgot...Then the battery drained due to the timing drag. Then of course we adjusted the floats because someone mentioned it in the pits today... then the car belched, backfired and caught the gas on the intake on fire... Hey don't laugh, I got to try out that nifty fire extenguisher we have... Yea, so now in the morning I'll get to fix all of the above before I go out... Atleast I know what's ahead of me!! This one is going kicking and screaming onto the track... Thank god we also have the Spec Miata with us... Mike

The cage is actually 1.5 inch tubing. Mike

Had lots of trouble with the car yesterday getting it ready... It's in the trailer now with the battery on charge. Wouldn't start after I washed it, and over the last 4-5 days I had noticed the battery cranking a little slower... So I'm not sure what's up. I'll have to check it out at the track. Hopefully it's nothing serious, but it was low cranking enough that it didn't want to run driving it up the driveway from the shop to the house... Hopefully it was just a weak battery and the ignition components were just not happy with less voltage. Did manage to paint some pavement "keeping it running" while getting it up the driveway...:>) We're loaded up. I did manage to go ahead and install my brake cooling ducts on the car while I was bleeding the brakes yesterday afternoon. And along with the battery tie downs, I was able to address a few other issues related to the car. we'll see if I get to finally make a few laps around a road course...I'm 50/50 right now. Mike

Finally got the heimjoint spacers in for the upper camber plates... was missing two from when I bought these from another member. Ground Control had them instock and they arrived yesterday. All that's left to be done for now is bleeding the brakes and mounting the battery box... I'll adjust the harnesses, raise the idle, which fell when I put the ramairbox inplace, and wash/dry the car. Everything else is done... Man, this is calling it close... We'll have it loaded up today and ready to head to the track tomorrow afternoon... Suspension currently is: Koni 8610 strut inserts set to 1.5 turns from full soft. Range is 2.5 turns from full soft to full hard. Ground Control Coil overs with 300 rear springs and 250 front springs 1 1/8th front sway bar No rear sway bar Camber up front is set at 3 degrees negative with about 1/16th toe out Camber in the back is set to about 2.5 degrees negative with tow at 1/16th toe slight in Tires are Kumho Victoracers in 18X265X35 We also have My Zcar controlarms/TC rods up front with Ground Control camber plates uptop. In the rear I'm using AZ ZCar control arms and camber plates. Any suggestions for suspension tweaks would be great... All ears as of now...Brakes are Hawk HP+ pads on it all the way around on Mustang Cobra calipers with Wilwood two piece rotors. I'm using a Tilton Bias adjuster and Motul RBF600 brake fluid. Speed Bleeders are in the calipers. I have 3 inch brake cooling ducts for the front calipers fed from the MSA Type3 airdam. Getting a little nervous... this thing is going to be a handful. Mike

Good Luck Rick. Enjoying the read, and envying your retirement... Mike

Hood latch pins are "good enough" for now... Really Screwed up the rear hatch, but I'm planning to order one from Betamotorsports so such is life... Need to bleed the brakes, fabricate the brake cooling ducts for the fronts, instal the vortex generators, and adjust the rear filler roll over glap in the filler neck... adjust the harnesses... I'm sure I'm missing something else... Mike