That's awesome, Lance. Glad the steering changes really helped the car.

Regarding Kansas; can't say I blame you for wanting to leave the weather behind. I spent nearly three years in Liberal and that was enough. Too much wind for me. My head would be covered with a skull cap continuously for the whole winter except for sleeping and showering. I did enjoy the low humidity western Kansas has to offer though.

When do you finally make the move?

Good advice, parts and install? Yep.

Set up close out of the box? Yep.

Driver getting it done? No doubt.

Nov 10th is the pull out date...





Thanks Ron... Hope you are sufficiently caffeinated and have your thinking cap on ready for a day full of learnin'

No problem, just trying to pay back for all that has been shared with me. And yes, it is a BLAST to drive!!


Wish you could have made it out to see it run in person...now you'll just have to look us up next time you are in Phoenix... :)

Well shucks...

The other half and I love to travel and she also loves cars. I wonder if I can convince her to go to a race? Hmmm... :)

Some of the Phoenix car friends I've met so far want to meet Barney in person, so I'm devising a plan to drag him out of storage next weekend. It's not exactly easy as I'm very limited in parking spaces both where we are living and at the storage units...but I think I've got it worked out.

Might even try to make it up to the car show at 67th and Bell Sat evening if any Phoenix locals want to meet up there. Can't wait to drive around a bit and see how Barney likes Arizona asphalt... :D

Call Charley and store it at his new place......

Post his number up and I'll give him a shout!! :D

I seriously need a place to put either a open car trailer, Barney or both...for 3 months or so. Right now I have Barney on the trailer in a storage unit and it makes doing anything with the car a bit of a hassle.

I drove Barney out to my first Arizona Region SCCA Autocross last Sunday and had a blast. AZR runs a tight ship, had us hoping from the time we got there til we left about 2:30 pm. Mike Hitt came up and co-drove Barney with me, he did great considering he'd never even rode in the car before Sunday morning. That is a testament to a Ron Sutton setup, balanced and friendly enough that anyone can get in one and go fast with it right away.

Still getting used to the awesome Stoptech brakes and the new RSRT valved Ridetech shocks. I'm figuring out I can brake earlier and then get off the brakes before corner entry and the new Secret Sauce shocks will keep the front pinned down yet being off the brakes lets me carry WAY more speed into and thru the corner. There is more in it still, will just take time to learn to trust it'll stick.

Here was my best run of the day.



and here was Mike's best run of the day.



I finished a tenth off of Tommy Tomerdale in CAM T and Mike was right behind me. Tommy has an awesome 67 camaro with an LS6 and C5 front and rear suspension under it all on 315s. I'm pretty happy with how we did.

You can sort these by fast time and PAX...

http://www.azsolo.com/backup/index.p...s-info/results

Anyway, had fun racing in December...can't wait to do it again.

Awesome, glad it's working out well!

Not exactly the working conditions we are used to...but not too bad either considering it is 75 degrees outside these days.

New springs going in the front preparing for a race this weekend with Arizona Region SCCA.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._124234-XL.jpg

I hate you right now... Just kidding. I don't hate you, but I am seriously looking into moving.


Are you going to have a shop at the new house?

Nice chair......

Nice! How soon till your garage is built? Not long and it'll likely be an oven in that storage unit.

Spring brand change or just a new spring rate?

That chair is toast... Not sure how it survived the cleanse before the move...

https://photos.smugmug.com/Vista-Mon...ZRZVv56-XL.jpg

Another two months or so...



Just a new rate, going a bit stiffer to slow the travel down.

Moving right along and lookin' good.

Good luck with the new set up!

Nice place Lance! Congratulations! :D

Now I really need to move!!!

This is why I waited so long to upgrade the brakes on Barney, because I knew a spindle change was the only way to do that part right...but the spindle change was going to change the front end geometry that Ron and I spent so much time refining years ago.

The spindle pin height of the new ATS spindles was very close to the same as the original metric spindles they replaced after swapping the lower ball joint shorter pin in so I left all of the alignment adjustments as they were when installing new spindles. Handling both on the street and the track was awesome right away, these spindles gain camber faster and the result was even more turn in grip than before. They also push the wheel out 0.25" increasing track width by a half inch, also good for handling...but with the increased camber gain plus the track width, the outside edge of the front tire tread began to have significant contact with the inner fender in compression. The steering arm is also different which is great for additional Ackerman, but at full compression the tie rods were contacting the frame.

This is where putting race car geometry on a street car gets complicated...packaging. I am the only one that I am aware of that is putting this kind of tech onto a stock chassis G Body so sometimes it is trial and error until we get everything to play nice together.

Ron Sutton and I decided we'd try a stiffer front spring to keep the front from traveling so much, 600s to 700s. While I was making this change, I also raised the front ride height about a half inch higher than we had run it successfully before. More on this in a bit...

Thanks to coil overs these were both pretty simple changes to make in my storage unit garage. I did however have to run it to an alignment shop after to clean up after the adjustments. The shop was busy and I was short on time so we got the camber and caster set right where it was before then set the toe. The toe change was significant enough due to the ride height increase that it took the camber and caster settings out of our preferred range...but we didn't have time to redo it all once again.

Two days later I raced the car with Arizona SCCA Region on a fast wide open course with several fast slalom sections included. As I hit the first slalom section, I knew something was wrong right away. The car wouldn't turn in at all, just slid the front tires. This is something I haven't had happen since Stage 1 back in 2013. After braking for a normal autocross turn, the front was awesome...the whole balance was awesome. A bit tighter than before but very neutral. Basically the contact patch was great with the front compressed but when weight wasn't on the nose in a slalom not so much.

I made some shock adjustments and driving adjustments and got thru the day okay. The front is still traveling enough at extremes for the tire to just kiss the inner fender, not really an issue but close enough that if we lowered the car anymore, it would become an issue again. Our choice now to further refine the setup seems to be to either adjust the camber and caster at the current ride height back into our spec window or to lower the front some again, add bumps stops to keep tire off fender and tune alignment settings. I'll have to wait for Ron to finish moving his shop and get caught up again before making that decision. I'm good either way as I know where we want to be...I'm just not sure on the best path to get there.

This is where it's great to have a man like Sutton to help when venturing where no man has gone before... :D

Here is a pic of the current ride height...not quite 4x4 territory high but not slammed either.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._094937-XL.jpg

This is where it was before

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._140025-XL.jpg

It is between 1/2 and 3/4s of an inch higher...wild how that little of a change can affect so much.

Here's a video of a couple of my runs from Saturday. Not too exciting but maybe a bit of a reward for those that read this far down... :D

The house is coming along nicely, Lance. Enjoy the new life in AZ

Yeah -- he's got to hurry up or I'm going to be moving in to my new one before he does!!!

Thanks Trey...we got inside paint a few days ago.

Greg...you gotta find one first...not as easy as it sounds!!!

New home? You tired of the cold in Idaho already, Greg? Or are you buying a second in a warmer climate?

Great info Lance!

We've sold quite a few sets of G-body ATS spindles but for whatever reason they're not super public with their builds or seen at events as much. I think by far you've put more time than any G-body owner that I know of in sorting things out and it surely keeps the rest of us pushing forward. ATS spindles have been on my wish list too and hearing your feedback only makes me want them more.

Good luck with sorting the alignment, I look forward to more updates!

Well, Dr Ron has spoken... We had a chance to catch up the other day after he reviewed all of the detailed post race data I sent him.

Basically we made a front spring rate adjustment to (1) try to help keep the front tires off the fenders and (2) work on a loose condition post apex.

Those of you that were lucky enough to attend part 3 of his seminars knows that the majority of the track day tuning we learned about involved increasing or decreasing the amount of grip the inside rear tire has to adjust to conditions. This is assuming you have the rest of the geometry optimized of course which we did.

This spring rate change worked for #1 and helped #2 in braking turns but hurt slalom turns because the inside rear now had too much grip when not in pitch. I hate driving a car with a push, this was reiterated to me again at the last event.

The correct cure is multi-faceted...and will take me some time to implement. The good thing is I completely understand the whys and hows because I have a good teacher. This is just another part of the evolution of me as a driver and a tuner. 4 years ago when Ron and I started down this path, this would have been too much for me to comprehend, today though...I am ready for it.

#1 Mill 1/4" of hub of wheels to put them back where they were before the spindle change

#2 Put the 600# springs back in the front and put ride height in front back to where it was before to fix slalom turns

#3 Install bump stops in the front to limit travel to exactly where it is needed to fix balance in braking turns and use shims to tune these on race day.

#4 Ron thinks I have a little too much brake now and wants me to investigate MC sizing (or other options like manual MC or a driver mod).

Thankfully I'm pretty certain I have plenty of wheel hub material so taking 1/4" off of them shouldn't cause me any other issues. This will however correct the tire\fender contact issues the new spindles created and allow us to put the geometry back where it worked best. Difficult part of this is finding the time to dismount my pretty new rubber and then finding a machinist I trust here in the valley to love on the wheels a bit. This might not happen right away but I am aware it won't handle properly until this is done.

Meanwhile, I'll make whatever shock adjustments I can and lower the front ride height just a bit and race it next Saturday as is. With now understanding exactly what is going on maybe I can adjust the driver mod and get the most out of it I can until I can fix it properly.

Lance,
Are your front shocks the 4.2 inch travel shocks?
When I spoke with Ron about bump stops it sounded questionable whether I would have enough room for front travel and bump stops. I am running a f body not your g body, but this gives me hope that I can run them too.

I'm pretty sure I use the 3.6" travel shocks up front. We had to rearrange some things to make enough room to get full travel from them.

I'll do a more complete update later but here's a taste of some Barney action on a Good Guys course. Had a great time in Scottsdale this weekend, got to meet a lot of internet friends in person and even better, race against them head to head. Can't wait to do it again...




Here are the Street Machine results

https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/live...olby=totaltime

And overall raw time results...

https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/live...rcolby=rawtime

Did you rob a bank before your run? You came out of the last turn like the cops were on your tail. Hahaha!

Nice job Lance.

Shades of Danny Popp there :secret: :D

It was my first time performing in front of a grandstand full of people... :D

My back tires took a beating this weekend for sure.

I was just happy that there wasn't too much of this going on... :D


https://photos.smugmug.com/2018-Good...SC_0046-X2.jpg

Was that Adrienne's fault, or should I say due to her presence? :D

She wasn't in the car on that run, so not her fault! :D

Here she is doing her best impersonation of ballast though.

https://photos.smugmug.com/2018-Good...SC_0761-X2.jpg

Also a video of her ride along.

It was so cool for Weld to stop by, mainly because he brought her with him! :D

She's a Kool Kid, bit of a rubber neck on the brakes though :D :thumbsup:

Just wait until you get to feel how well these Stoptech brakes work in person, you'll get it then. :D

My new to me daily driver has freshly rebuilt Brembo calipers with ABS and StopTech 309 pads from Mr. Sutton. I've rubber-necked a few unsuspecting passengers. :lol: :thumbsup:

Great to see you Saturday Lance! The car performed awesome and your driving is equally stellar! I've watched just a "few" (LOL) cars on various courses.... You've got that Purple People Eater dialed in.

Thanks too - for taking Adrienne on the ride-along. She loves this stuff. It was a nice stress reliever for her. The suddenness of her promotion and move - while great for her career - was a little bit of a shock.... so she needed some excitement that wasn't work related. HAHAHAHAHA

Love ya buddy -- See ya in April.

Thanks Greg! It was a nice surprise that you made it here for the show and even better that you brought Adrienne with you. Can't wait to check her new place out.