Excellent!


Cool stuff. I wish you well on your new venture.

I'll have a few pics for you in the next day or so. Have the underneath stuff installed, with the exception of the sway bar braces. Installing the G-Brace add-ons now.

Thanks guys!

Doug, I didn't send you instructions for the upper cowl sandwich plates when I sent the others but they should be up on the website by this weekend.

I've got the passenger side drilled out and coated yesterday with sealer. Will be ready for the drivers side soon. Hopefully, I got it right. :-) I used every hole so I'm short a couple of 1" bolts because of that but no biggie. I'm going today to see if the supply house here has shouldered bolts in stainless so I can use those.

Narrow plates on passengers side and holes are slightly off center so you can flip them end to end or top & bottom for better fit against the short right angle lip on various cars. Wide ones on drivers side. The one notched for the wiper recess there is only one way it fits. Note bolt pattern for top plate in pic below so it lines up with the notched bottom plate. And be careful not to drop a nut down the side of the cowl. If you're short bolts I fear you tried to put a wide plate on each side. They're designed to get the most support we can without interfering with the stock plastic cowl screen or the 70-76 hood/cowl gasket.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...psxifnihnq.jpg

Man, I need these... I still have my orginal (non-adjustable) G-braces.
GREAT products you've developed my friend!! Filling a much needed niche for our cars! :cheers:

John,

I did just what you suspected. Guess I need to decide if I should use another top plate or fix the holes and go back with your original design.

On another note, do you know what billet hinges would fit with G-Braces?

Doug

You can use a drivers side top plate on the passengers if you want. Will make it better as far as strength goes but you'll have the interference issue with the plastic cowl grill if you're using one. Can send another drivers side top plate & the extra hardware you'll need. Call me.

IIRC we put Fesler hinges in Ty's car and he's got the original G-braces he mentioned in his post above so I'd send him a PM and maybe he can give you a solid answer.

A serious amount of engineering going on here!
Fantastic job. Thanks for sharing. Tons of valuable info and ideas.
Just a great build!

During the past couple months I haven't worked on the Firebird itself as much as I'd have liked to. I've been busy with the Lab-14 stuff and got involved in replacing the trunk pan, trunk drop offs, inner splash pan, frame rails, and torque boxes in my 67 Camaro that started with the intention of a much smaller project replacing the rear springs. However I did do some deflection testing of the 2nd gen sub frame using various parts from PTFB and Lab-14. I also did some baseline tuft testing on the highway for aerodynamics using a customers car with the same body, ride height etc. as my car (with the owners permission of course).

Pic below was taken during deflection testing. The front foot wells and cowl area were filled with a few hundred lbs of weight while the body was supported on wood cribs. A piece of right angle was bolted to the pinch weld on the body and an indicator bolted to the front of the frame horn to note deflection. Solid body mounts were used and I've boxed the rear body mount area of the subframe. I could get almost 3/4" vertical deflection of the sub frame alone when using a floor jack to apply pressure straight up under the frame horns until the body started to lift off the wood cribs. Not sure if more weight in the body would allow even more deflection but I was surprised to see how much frame deflection there was. I would expect similar deflection in the opposite direction would be possible and may test for that when I do some torsional testing. With a combination of the PTFB G-braces and Lab-14 parts vertical deflection was reduced to less than 1/8 " which appeared to be caused by the deflection of the floor pan where the rear body mounts on the sub frame attach under the front seats.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...psjgrgdr4x.jpg

The availability of a car with the same body, ride height, and tire size as a baseline test mule prompted me to do some tuft testing at highway speeds to get a good look at whats going on with the stock body configuration I started this project with. I'll do similar testing after my car's back on the road to see if I can note any differences due to all the aero changes and modifications. I'll post a couple still pics here and if anyone's interested there's some 360 degree VR videos we made I'll put links for . Those with certain phones or other devices may be able to pan around 360 but you'll need a headset to see full 360 3D VR. Sound is mostly wind noise since the 360 camera was out on a stick held out the window at 60-70 MPH so just turn it down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KQA9BzpN50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6pxo5eh7Zw

By being able to put the videos up on the big screen with the projector I can watch small areas or even individual tufts. So for those who always wondered if there is a ram air effect influencing the air for a 2nd gen TA shaker scoop created by the high pressure area at the base of the windshield, the answer is no at up to 70 MPH. I'll test that again with my own car at much higher speeds on track but I doubt there will be any noticeable air being forced into the scoop. If anything there's a possibility air may actually be getting pulled out at high speeds.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...pslrtvi7sc.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...psfunvhaet.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...pscm1tawj2.jpg