Project PT-57, 1957 Truck, Built By Hot Rod Jim's

[syborg tt]

This truck is going to look way cool.

I really like the color scheme and I can't wait to see it at Sema.

[rat_rod_russell]

Originally Posted by syborg tt

This truck is going to look way cool.

I really like the color scheme and I can't wait to see it at Sema.

That makes two of us, LOL.

We have the new table finished. I spend 3 days tweaking and heat shrinking to make sure the welding from attaching the legs made the table square and level. Plus this metal is not that great from the factory so compensating for that as well. Got the cab up today the bead will be up on the table tomorrow with the rear fender and the big wheels.

Big change, after tweaking and playing with the C4 bits and pieces plus I started looking at widening the rear end to get some better wheel scrub radius. I was going to need 4” wider rear and the C4 hubs still have almost no scrub angle. From what I can tell it’s .25 degrees maybe, I almost thing there was something under the caliper at one point. Plus the brakes and on and on I’ve decided to just run the C5/6 goodies. I had 3-4 complete suspensions out back, I need to test the C5/c6 differential adapter we’ve built and it’ll be a whole lot easier to set up right. Pfadt sway bars only need to be shortened a little and bow-chick-a-bow-wow we’ve got fun. You can see the Solidworks drawings, this makes life so much easier.

As you can see a lot of the simplicity originally planned went out the window with our SEMA invite, oh well.

Potential project changes, TKO600 or T56 Magnum, Stroke out the LQ4 and a bump to the compression. Carbon fiber goodies here and there to include a carbon fiber driveshaft for reduced rotating mass.

I’d also like to thank Air Ride Technologies for sponsoring by upgrading our Shockwaves to the I.S. Internal Ride Height Sensors. One less thing to mount, more accurate, and lighter once you consider all the pushrods nuts and bolts used to prevent binding on the old ones. I’ll get some photos up when I get them back.

Solid Works Updates







PT-57 one the New Jig





-Russell

[Ketzer]

Awesome build! Good looking shop cat.

You do know that SEMA is in November, right? How do you guys do it?


Jeff-

[rat_rod_russell]

Originally Posted by Ketzer

Awesome build! Good looking shop cat.

You do know that SEMA is in November, right? How do you guys do it?


Jeff-

No life

-Russell

[ironworks]

You care to share the vette a arm solidworks files?


lookin good

[rat_rod_russell]

Originally Posted by rat_rod_russell

No life

-Russell

And Monster, cases and cases of the Green Monsters

Originally Posted by ironworks

You care to share the vette a arm solidworks files?


lookin good

The admin at SEMA would kill me. Hunt me down and kill me, arrrr I asked the head of the Tech Share program a while back and they told me no, sorry.

-Russell

[rat_rod_russell]

So I had a hard drive crash on me and I lost a bunch of photos of the truck that I hadn’t gotten onto the backup server, o well. So there has been work done I just can’t show it.

I’ve finally gotten my hands on Suspension Analyzer v2.0 and I’ve spent a few weeks playing with C5 corvette suspension geometry in finding the weak links and where to improve on them. I’ve also been racing a few C5 Z06 Corvettes getting more familiar with their traits and trading suspension tuning for seat time so I could get some hands on time looking into actual tuning results on these babies. I work on them plenty but I almost never get a chance to tweak, log, tweak, and log to see what the actual results look like in real life.

So our goal is improved handling over a corvette but in our PT-57. The C5 Corvette relies heavily on the face that the large rubber bushing will deflect. Under heavy turning the C5 will see up to 8 degrees of positive camber on the outside tire. Way too much but the roll center on a C5 is a thing of beauty only moving a few inches through almost any suspension travel or roll. Better for drivers to feel the car but it hurts the possible handling that the car could be capable of with a few minor angle changes and upgrades.

What I’ve done with our car is lower the roll center and remove a large portion without getting too much roll center migration. Migration make it harder to feel what the suspension is doing but it also directly related to how much grip you can get out of a car. I’ve cut the positive camber in half during turn in and I’ve relocated the A arms to better accommodate the anti dive needs for the truck. Front swing arms have been moved out to match up with the swing of the rear suspension so the tires will roll together so I can simply soften a corner for improved grip. I’m going with all Pfadt upgraded bushing and for the sake of simplicity coil over shocks for now. I’ve attached some photos the current setup and I’ll be getting more knocked out soon and get some more updates out as soon as I email the frame parts out to the Laser.

Power train upgrade, STS Twin Turbo system will help push our little baby around the track. The Side pipes will be hooked up to the waist gates so when we hit that back strait we should see some flames.

I miss worded my previous statement about the Optima Battery race and I apologies. We have not been 100% officially invited as the car is not finished yet but I talked with Jimi Day over at FM3 and we have a tentative spot in the race as long as we get the truck done in time. With that said I’m heading back into the shop.

[tones2SS]

WOW!!
Sweet looking rendering. Can't wait to see the finished product.

[Josh69]

Excellent! My next build has to be a truck, you guys are killin' me here! Thank god we have guys like you and Rodger to figure these out for the boneheads like me to bolt together!!

[rat_rod_russell]

Originally Posted by Josh69

Excellent! My next build has to be a truck, you guys are killin' me here! Thank god we have guys like you and Rodger to figure these out for the boneheads like me to bolt together!!

Thanks I hope Rodger brings his truck so I don't feel lonely

On the to the update

Parts and Design

Finally broke down and bought a new processor for my computer and now I can work without the darn thing dying when Solidworks loads up calculating changes.

Steering arm parts came in from the laser yesterday. I just got them nailed together, I’ll try to get some photos on the knuckle next time. You can see the 3D model up in my previous post.





BIG thanks to the crew over at Pfadt. Not only did they send me there new aluminum lower mounts they also built special models for me to add into the computer. They even build special radius pieces into the shock so when I check the suspension travel I make sure the Patten Pending Delrin / Aluminum upper mount doesn’t bind up. Huge thanks for that. Next to the shocks are the Sway bar arms from Pfadt. The Rear is going to be the stock C5 width (The C5 rear is wider than the C6) so we can use Pfadt’s stock rear sway bar and the front will be custom cut for our narrowed front end.





-Russell