Originally Posted by SBDave (Post 444956)

Nice to meet you at SEMA, the 33 looked great out there and congrats on the OUSCI results!

Dave

Originally Posted by HWY Nova (Post 444957)

George: The 33 looked great at SEMA. I had a chance to look at all of the chassis mods. Very clean!

SBDave: It was great to see you again. Congrats on the awesome booth!
--Eric

Originally Posted by Bret_Voelkel

Wow...what a week at SEMA and Optima!

I have not been on here recently to post because, well...we've been working on the car that much!

I was very pleased with the results we acheived at Optima this year. Since "finishing" the car in May, we've proceeded to tweak, refine, change, and tune all summer...until about a month ago.

I had a lot of people ask about the car, how its doing, and what we've changed so here is the readers digest version of the refinements and the results.

When we very first put the car together and drove it, we could tell there was a significant bind in the steering system. After some investigation and research, we found that the steering rack itself was simply not stong enough to turn the front tires. It was a rear steer Omni rack that was coupled with a ver yshort 3.5" long steering arm trying to turn a tire that was about 100% wider than what Factory Five intended. The ultimate fix was to use a front steer Woodward rack. After about 70 hours of design and fabrication time the steering was fixed and we started racing.

The very first competitive event was Nashville Goodguys autocross. I had a set of old [hard] BFG tires that we fitted up just to get the car shook out. Success in that nothing fatal fell off the car, but it wasn't very fast.
After Nashville we came back and built a front and rear swaybar for the car and installed a new set of Falken 615K tires. We had previously seen a radical improvement in the 48 Hour Camaro with the Falkens so we wanted to try them on the 33 Ford as well. Off we go to the Midwest Musclecar Challenge at Lawrenceville on Memorial Day.
The initial runs at MMC were great and we were just getting ready to get fast when the distributor gear on the cam died. Done for the weekend. We replaced the cam the next week and took of for the Hotrod Power Tour and the Optima Qualifier in Arlington Texas.

The car did great at Arlington...top 10 in all segments...but I was still chasing a frontend chatter through the corners. We started looking at control arms flex, loose bearings, spindle flex...all sorts of things. Nothing immediately identifieable.

Next event was the Optima Qualifier at Road America. Again the car did great, but the clutch started going away. In reality it probably made the car faster because it took the edge off the corner exit tire spin [because my right foot is not nearly talented enough]. We ended up in the top 5 in all segments.

After freshening the clutch up I was expecting great things at the Columbus Goodguys event. What I got in addition to the 106 degree weather [in a flat black car with a flat black sheetmetal interior...] was rearend posi problems and a frontend chatter that was getting worse, not better. Results were poor. the rearend problems were an easy fix, but we were still looking at mechanical flex issues for the frontend chatter.

Next event was the Motorstate Challenge at Gingerman. I spun the car in someone else's oil on the first lap. No damage but still not a great way to start the weekend. It didn't get any better because the car started running like hell as well...and ended up dying completely on Sunday for the autocross.

The good this is that now we've got about a month before we race again...time to get some stuff lined out. More on that in a bit!

Originally Posted by carbuff (Post 721135)

I don't know if it is still, but when Ridetech sold the car it landed here in Austin, Tx. I passed it on the street a few times. It's been a few years since I've seen it though.

No idea on the details on the suspension, but I know Bret was very successful with this car at the GoodGuys autocrosses where I saw it. Fun looking car!

Originally Posted by 68454RS (Post 721141)

I talked with Ridetech yesterday about this car and the suspension set up and was told everything was one off and there wasn't any specs, designs or any info available.. i'm going to have to wing it myself.

Originally Posted by AZDblNckl (Post 723733)

From the Ridetech website:

“ The other problem resolved was the front end chatter. It was bad enough that the power steering slave cylinder rod broke off. Bad news…BUT the frontend chatter went away! Now instead of chasing an illusional mechanical flex problem, I started looking at the hydraulic system. A quick call to Woodward steering [why didn’t I think of THAT before?] got the answers: the pump was cavitating. Move the reservoir up, increase the return line size and make sure it flows evenly downhill to the pump with no dips or humps. Problem completely fixed!”