I love it, Preston! I think you've done a great job over the years building something exactly the way you wanted, think of everything you've learned doing all of this. Nice job!


:thumbsup:

Yeah I've always figured when the economy collapses I'll be in a much better position knowing how to weld and fabricate and fix things than relying on my ability to manipulate abstract symbols on a computer screen.

So I've got that going for me....I've always thought maybe I could do some part time fab work for a car shop as a semi-retirement plan too.

Preston, your skills are in the right place man.... building and designing and rebuilding your car pretty much everything touched by you best I can tell.... that's better than just being able to post crap on the interwebs. :sieg:

Your car -- to me -- is like a winning USCA car in 2020 -- but was built a decade before. A man (and car) ahead of its time.

That thing has to be a hoot everytime you get it in. Hope you keep it.

:thumbsup:

Looks great Preston. Don't be afraid to take some time off from the car. I wouldn't sell it though. It sounds almost like you'd be doing it out of spite or confusion/indecision. Just tuck it away for a bit and focus on something else.

Thanks guys.

So yeah after some heavy thought I'm gonna keep it through another season, more than anything just to have some projects to work on during the cold, dark winter.

If someone walked into my driveway with an open checkbook I'd have no qualms about moving on with my life, but the actual act of cleaning it up, taking a bunch of pro photos and listing it for sale is just too much, I don't think I can do it.

I'd sure like to know some kind of ballpark value though, it would be interesting to list it on BAT or ebay with a high reserve. I mean if you had a shop build something even remotely like this it would start at 1/4 million dollars and yet some days I think christ you can buy a super nice C6 for $30k or less how could I expect to even get that much out of it ?

Plans for the winter include some Ron Sutton spec'ed springs and shocks and possibly a new upright to provide some tweaks to the front end geometry, a new round of soundproofing on the interior, and possibly, maybe, adding A/C. Because when do you want to drive it ? In the summer, when its hot d'uh. That would be a major major job though and there is literally no place to put the evaporator without major surgery and probably re-wiring the whole car to move the ECU And fuse boxes to the trunk.

Oh, and finally adding a radio. My daily drivers have very high end mobile audio installations, so I'm like the plumber who has leaky pipes at home, I could never decide whether to do something bare bones or something quality. I guess that depends on my sound proofing efforts. LIttle hint for people, dynamat is not a sound reducing element, it only reduces metal panel resonance.

Like an alcoholic or drug addict I thought I could go out and just have a few beers with the guys, but as usual I ended up waking up in the alleyway with a massive hangover and no idea how I got there. We've had our ups and downs but I always end up in the same place - "I can't quit you"

It started with just getting some decent shocks on the car. I've been extremely impressed with what Ron Sutton is doing for our types of vehicles so I thought I would hire him to spec them out. Now the original reason I started on this project in 1997 was because the stock based vintage Mustang front end was so crappy, and I've always been interested in suspension theory and design. So the more I looked through Ron's offerings the more excited I got.

Bottom line is instead of putting in a new set of shocks/bars/springs, I ended up cutting off most of the back and front of my chassis and building an all new setup using Ron's expertise and many of his parts.

I want to be clear that although I engaged Ron's services and gave him a fair amount of design freedom, I still had budget and legacy constraints and of course I am building most of it myself which means this is NOT a "Ron Sutton suspension" product.

Originally I wasn't even going to touch the rear end, but I ended up doing the following -

cutting out and rebuilding 90% of the subframe
removing my non-bladder aluminum saddle fuel tanks and going with a standard trunk mounted fuel cell
moving the dry sump tank and battery and drivetrain coolers from the trunk to under the car
adding a new x-bar to from the shock mounts to the upper cage (refitting a roll cage in a completed car sucks btw).
moving to weight jacker screw mounts for the rear shocks (and changed pickup location)
Moving the front LCA mounts from a fixed non-ideal position to slider adjustments
offset the upper 3 link (completely new adjustable front slider mount)
Put a 2-way torque absorber in the top link.
moving from an underslung axle mounted non-adjustable watts link to a Ron Sutton frame mounted adjustable watts link
larger tubular rear roll bar with new mounts, arms, and pillow blocks
new Ridetech single adjustable Ron Sutton valved coil over shocks
Replaced the aluminum honeycomb rear package tray with steel panelling for safety, and took the time to cut out new dynamat and MLV to improve the sound deadening.

Everything measured, x-measured, aligned, levelled, etc. in situ under my carport. Well technically on my frame table, which consists of 3 large MDF boards...sitting in my carport.


whew I got tired just writing that.

Here are my usual crappy pictures that do any justice to what I've accomplished this Winter:

I started out cutting a notch in the rear subframe rail to splice in a mount for the watts link, and by the time I turned off the sawzall I ended up here. I later took another 6" off of those rails.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...cutoutrear.jpg

Initial install of the watts mount:

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...attsmount2.jpg

Working on the axle, building the new upper mount. I went with the Sutton strategy of re-using one of the shock pickup points for the Watts link. I braced mine for extra insurance as its a bolt on mount. I'm afraid of welding on the housing so I use bolt on mounts, no time or budget to have a new housing made up.
http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...Small/axle.jpg


Here is a picture of the right side watts pickup point, it uses the two of the bolts for the clamp on trailing link/shock bracket and is triangulated to the backside half of the clamp that mounts the brakes.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...wattsmount.jpg


Under the rear of the car, note the shocks aren't mounted but you can see the jacker mount coming through the upper rail. There will be a trans fluid pump mounted there by the battery, the diff pump is on the other side. Not looking forward to having the oil tank and battery grimy, at some point I'll have to put in some shielding. At least the undertray helps a lot.

When I built the car I originally put in the x-bars from the main hoop down to the shock mounts and rear landing pads but took them out so I could fit my bicycle wheels in the back ha ha. Well it turned out my bike wheels don't fit anyway, so I painstakingly put the x-bars back in. Anyway, my point is that I"m really happy with the way the low mounted sway bar pickups are triangulated right up to the main rail where the new x-bars and main cage down bars connect.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...suspension.jpg




I'm currently working on the front end - again a total rebuild using a
Ron Sutton inspired/designed super long arm front suspension. I'll be running 315's on a 12" rim under my current sheet metal and will have almost 4" of suspension travel.

I'll cover that in a future post

After spending most of my fake work day (if I start later in the day, I can begin with beer) staring at the cage forum on C-C, and seeing many pictures of this car's chassis, it's funny that I show up here and see its latest iteration being introduced. I think I can speak for many in saying that it's awesome, even if it is against your best intentions. Inspiration, like hope, can be so much worse than crack . . .

Your story sounds far too familiar. Quite a slippery slope but should be killer once its complete

Cool progress on the chassis Preston and I feel your pain.


Quite funny you mention drugs. I have often wondered if this hobby is cheaper or more expensive than a drug habit. I'm beginning to think drugs would have been cheaper!

Glad you're sticking with it Preston.

The new Suttonization I am guessing will work out quite well.

What made you pick the single Ridetechs I wonder? They do seem like a great value before stepping into the high priced world of double and triple adj.

"SLA"... super. :D