The last picture of the rear
 

just looks mean!

thanks guys - I talked to a local fab shop that does some sprint cars mostly but all sorts of cages and am thinking of having them bend up a cage. I have never bent tube, but not having done something has never stopped me before so I may just buy a bender and go for it because I would like to learn how to do it, but in the long run I will spend a lot more money buying benders and F'ing up tubing to learn than just have it done. We will see which option I pick, he said he is super busy (it is the off-season for racing so for fab shops that is on-season) so I may just go for it based on timing.

The other thing I am trying to figure out is if I want to do a rockered suspension system. I have a rocker concept designed up in engineering software and just need to have four of them machined (I don't have lathe access), but am assessing the real value. My Penske shocks from the Porsche have somewhat limited travel since I only was tracking the 914, so building a ratio into the rocker means I can have the tire move more than the shock, which is better since this is now a street car and our roads in CO are pretty rough. It also moves the shock and coilover inboard and out of my way near the tire, but that is less of an overall concern. It would be nice to get some more clearance around my rear axles and move the coilovers away from them. But then I have this rocker assy to place in the mix.

I had a plan for how I would run the fuel cell, but I set it in place and would really like to change its orientation and that would definitely mean I need to rocker the rears. Joys of actually fabbing v. thinking about fabbing, you have to fit everything in when you actually build it :D

I am hell bent on having a back seat in the final build and that makes a few things a total PITA. Having a back seat means I can scare up to 7 people, the three with me and the four in the car next to me :thumbsup:

Oh yeah, as for wider fenders, the front track width is going to wider than the rear at these settings and I can get a fair amount of tire rotation at the front, more than I had on the 914, so I should have no rubbing issues and still be able to make turns on the track. U-turns will be 3 pointers, but that is a small sacrifice to be able to get to ludicrous speed with wider front meats.

been super busy with work travel and family in town, but...
 

got a little progress today. Had some "surprise" work travel to NorCal right after I got back from DC area, then my mom drove into town last weekend, so it has been hectic again lately, but I did get some progress today - I worked with the machinist at my job to machine up the first of four bearing carriages to make my suspension rocker arms to move the shocks/coils inboard. We had to lathe out the center and then cut an internal groove for the spiral locks and he did an awesome job.

Now I need to see if I can make the pieces for the rocker and weld them on without distorting the hell out of the little housing. He has the bore tight to just over .001" which is way better than I could have done, but leaves me little room for overheating while welding.

It is hard to see but I have two bearings in there so they can react any moment trying to twist the arm and force it to only pivot about the bolt. He is going to make the other three housings tomorrow and then next week I hope to get in there and lathe up some 1/2" spacers for the bolt.

The nice thing will be that I can build a ratio into the rocker arm that matches the ratio at my lower A arm between the shock and wheel center - that will mean I should have a 1:1 wheel rate and therefore a 1:1 motion ratio. That is nice because I was buying really stiff springs for the 914 trying to get a good wheel rate, now whatever I want at the wheel will be exactly what the spring rate is, no motion ratio math to mess with.

Cant wait to see finish pics

been an interesting past couple of weeks, an update...
 

Behind the scenes I have been attempting to pick up a Z06 since I have been missing my Grand Sport. I thought I had one bought in TX but that fell thru so I gave up, but then ran across another one that actually I prefer so I am glad the other fell thru. Now that deal is getting a bit shakey as the seller didn't realize how much he actually still owed v. what we agreed for purchase price but it is still moving toward a June 1 close date - hard to make a straight deal!

Then today I ended up talking to a guy about my 914 and he sent me a deposit tonight to buy the roller I had advertised a few months back, so now I am moving the suspension back off the Nova and putting it back on the 914. This is a good thing actually because he gets a great deal on a great roller that was a well tuned setup and I can reconsider the Nova design and try to run C6 Vette parts to keep the car GM instead of mixing in Porsche parts. It will cost me more in the end than I got for the 914 to replace the pieces I was going to reuse, but apparently wasting my money on cars v. saving it for later has not been a problem to date! I won't be able to build this stuff when I am old anyway so I might as well work then and play now, right? :relax:

So, it will slow the progress on the Nova here while I regroup and configure a new shock, brake, and suspension package but I think it is a move in the right direction. In fact, I am hoping to be able to set the car up to run the exact same wheel offset as the Z and then I can get multiple sets of wheels I can swap between vehicles depending on what I am tracking and what I am streeting. Was not really interested in running 18s on the Nova as I dislike large wheels as a general statement, anything over 18s being out of question. On the Nova I really liked the fit and look of the 16s, but getting bigger brakes onto the heavier car makes more sense than sticking to a particular look :) And the 1" larger diam rear v. front look of the modern Vette is actually the one thing I really do NOT like about the cars, everything else is great. They look so much better with 18s all around.

Anyway, it has been a whirlwind couple of weeks piled on top of some pretty aggressive work stuff sucking up some of my weekend time as well but all will be back on track in a month or two.

Tim two steps forward ten steps back!! That's why it sometimes takes a while to build these cars. In the end I'm sure you will be happy with your new direction. Love the progress you've made so far, I just love the 66-67 Novas, I've a couple and want one again!!

I hear you Rick - I got the Porsche almost completely back together today. That is what is nice about the suspension the way it is, within a few hours it was off the Nova and back on the Porsche - it took me longer to get the engine and trans out hahaha. But then I am looking at the Nova and I am back to damn near Feb of this year :rolleyes: I was on path to have it running and on the track by end of summer but oh well, it is definitely the better direction to go.

Since I am a planner it will be a couple months of just replanning the design before I even get rolling again

Fortunately, the second deal also fell thru when the seller couldn't come up with enough money to pay his loan down - that got me looking and I found the car that I coveted most in Vegas - right where I was delivering the 914!!

2011 Carbon Edition Inferno Orange, only had 989 miles on it when I bought it Friday! I have wanted one of these so bad since I first saw it displayed in the GM booth at SEMA and sat in it, so fortunately the other two deals fell apart!! Great how that works out at times.

Now I can work on getting Vette suspension into the Nova and set it up so I can have a set of track wheels that would fit both cars and I can just swap back and forth.

Oh man, me likey that is hot for sure Tim. That should help take your mind off not having your Porsche anymore? Man I should just go buy one of these and forget working on a car?? :bitchslap: yeah then my wife does this to me :bitchslap: she hates vetts.

Mmmm beer errrr suede!

I upgraded to the 2012 seats in my C6 - and love it!

Great looking C6 Carbon!

There is something to be said about a turn-key hot rod!

As for the interior, I do like the suede seats and steering wheel as well. The 2012 seats had a different shoulder bolstering that looks like it might fit well but I will stick with the factory seat shape in this one.

It turned ok. :) Kyle Tucker once ran a faster time in an autocross in II Much than in his own car.

To avoid pulling the tires in to turn means nearly 4 inches difference in ride height -- which has its own problems as well. There's no good answer in a 66-67 Chevy II body without changing the body lines.

Yep -- I've been looking at my Dad's car for the past couple of years as I plan out my '67 build and I can't figure out anything "good" given that damn body line right above the wheel openings.

yep, it is hard car to get low with sides like a barn - that car is truly a box. I hear you about trying to keep it low too John, the only solution I came up with was the lowering of the center of the frame to keep all of the drivetrain weight low in the car and am essentially lifting the body up. Still has a higher cg than lowering the whole shot.

And that body line is the PITA part - I was trying to figure out if I could move the fender opening up in the car but then the body line makes that mod obvious, and to relocate that line down the length would be a total PITA.

The only other thing you can do is to limit the turning radius. I did that some, but I wanted to be able to make ordinary parking lot and U turns. If you give up some more of that, you could push the tires out an inch per side or so.

You are spot on John and this is exactly what I am going to do - I plan to track the car and give up some turning radius on the street to move the tires out. On my 914 I severely limited the turning as it was truly track only and I never needed to go to my "new" lock position, so I was going to copy that into this car. That is how I got the fronts out as far as I did in the photos and could still turn "just enough" and juuuuuusssst barely not hit the fenders.

I started measuring the Vette suspension pieces on my car last night and man the lower A arms are long! 'Course that car is also super wide, it barely fit in my trailer to get it home. I will likely just custom make some arms and then adapt them to the Vette uprights, maybe consider C5 stuff to reduce the wheel height requirement.

small update but at least there is progress...
 

I have been working on regrouping and so forth and finally last Friday I ordered a set of Forgeline GA3s with the correct fitment to bolt onto my Vette. Will look like this but with gloss instead of semi gloss centers

http://www.928motorsports.com/parts/...lackcenter.jpg

I intend to primarily use these wheels on the Nova tho'. Should have them in 3-4 weeks. 18x10.5 with 295/30R18 R6s front and 18x12.5 with 335/30R18 R6s on the rear. These will clear the front 394mm rotors and massive calipers on the Carbon so any brake I put in the Nova will fit without issue. My friend carries Stop Tech and Brembo brakes so I am considering them with 380-385mm front rotors and 355-365mm rear rotors for the Nova. That might be enough brake :mock:

Also I ordered C6 spindles from 2 different junk yards today to get a total of 4 on their way. 3 were basically brand new from a 2011 car (1000 miles on them, off of a car used in a new Schwarzenegger movie apparently) and then had to find the last one which is off an 09 with 18K miles. The latter has the hub still attached so that is good to get started overall spindle fitment. I will use SKF ZR1 hubs for final assembly.

Once I have all of these parts in hand I can start mocking up placement in the car again, take measurements, and design upper and lower A arms again. I measured a spindle on my Carbon and it was essentially the same height as the front spindle I had on the 914 so I might get lucky and be able to use the pick-up points I have already tacked into the Nova - we will see.

In other news, I ran across a critical piece of the Mendeola to Vette torque tube puzzle while in CA over July 4th weekend I had been searching awhile for - a buddy happened to have the rear housing out of a C5 auto and let me have it! TSA loved seeing that in my suitcase apparently as they rummaged thru my luggage like the low-brow, minimal IQ, 99.9% chimps they are and then left my neat, double packaging open so some of my nice clothes could get covered with grease stains on the trip home :bigun2: Apparently the "nothing is free" saying continues to hold true.

So I met with a rep at Mark Williams today to discuss making some adapter parts I need to attach that to the Mendy and then convert to Universal Joints to run a standard design, carbon fiber driveshaft. This is something I have considered the largest hurdle with the whole project, so to see that design coming to fruition is pretty positive.

The bummer is that between the new wheels and tires, spindles, hubs, big brake kit and the driveline parts, every dime I got for the 914 as a complete roller including a 2nd set of wheels will be :G-Dub: :animated_bye_bye_em OOF! That is a pretty square kick to the monetary testicles...

quick update
 

As I mentioned before, I had stripped my 914 race car down to build the Nova, then sort of out of the blue, got an email from a guy that had came across some extra cash and wondered if I still wanted to sell the roller. So, I took all the susp back out of the Nova, put it back, and sold the roller on Memorial Day weekend.

I got Forgelines today and fit them on the Vette and they look great. Will add a pic this weekend. I dropped a spindle in a front and measured stuff on the Nova - tho' I had already built the suspension up from my custom stuff I had in the Porsche then took it all back out of the Nova - turns out I could literally have reused everything from the Porsche with C6 Vette spindles and stock Vette wheel offsets! I had designed that suspension for the Porsche without much info on a Vette but decent info on a modern Porsche... and just having an idea of how suspension works... turns out the A arm ratios match the Vette, caster within a degree, kingpin inclination the same as a C6 Vette and the spindle height is literally within 1/8" of my spindles I custom designed and machined. Guess that explains why the car picked up nearly 10 seconds on the track when I put the new suspension in!

Good news is this means the Nova should be nearly as impressive for cornering tho' it will likely be a bit slower with about 2" narrower track width than the flared 914, a bit heavier and taller height.

Current plan forward is to get Coleman lower control arms with monoballs for the lower ball joints, Chrysler taper, then ream the Vette spindles to match. I will press the upper BJ out and make a custom spacer to replace it with a Chrysler taper, then use Speedway IMCA upper A arms with Howe Precision Chrysler BJs in the arms.All off the shelf stuff, literally nothing custom other than reaming the spindles to Chrysler 1.5"/ft taper :headspin: I am also hoping to get into the machine shop at work Friday morning and machine up the adapter for the Mendeola to the Vette hub, then get it over to Mark Williams for splining.

Will add pics as I move along... updates are boring without pics :)

This is going to be one bad ass Nova! Great fab work so far.

Are you mid mounting the engine? I wasn't sure on that answer!

Also on post #16 that red flared Mustang is my buddy Filip who owns Cortex Racing. My engine builder did the LS7 in it ;) It sports a new paint job (still red) but it is truly beeeeeautiful now with steel flares.

Engine is still front mount with significant setback (I am shooting for 6-7" setback from stock location). Should get the front of the block right inline with the front wheel centerlines, hence technically putting all of the engine weight behind the front wheels. I will then run the transaxle in the back, a C6 Vette bellhousing with aftermarket clutch assy, and a carbon fiber driveshaft to attach the two.

Got the lower control arms from Coleman and a bunch of HD rod ends and high-misalignment spacers from Kartek on order today. The uppers I need to really double-check the measurements tonight and order tomorrow - turns out the uppers have a somewhat limited range of adjustment so need to get out the fine tape measure :lol:

This car is gonna be wicked! :stirthepot:

I hope so :D The inspiration, as I am sure for many of us, is the car in your signature. I still recall seeing the blurb in Hot Rod Magazine when Big Red hit the scene, I was either a senior in HS or just graduated, after it ran the Silver State Challenge. My friend mail ordered a VCR tape (recall those days!) of the event and with seeing that car in action and it was all over for me. That and shows like Glory Days that Dave Despain did back in the 90s with a lot of SCCA Trans Am footage.

I am always sort of learning as I go so the car will definitely be a work in progress, hopefully not for 17 years like the 914 was, and one of the things I am going to have to learn is fabbing and MIG welding really thin steel. I still blow holes thru thin stuff :welder: Well that and learn how to TIG - I gas welded really well about 15 years ago, you would think I could pick it up, but so far practicing with TIG has not been so promising haha.

Tig welding takes lots of practice. What welder are you using for mig and tig? I love Miller that's all I have mig and tig, but the HTP unit is really nice as well. The newer auto set mig welders are really nice, you just set the wire size, metal thickness, and it sets up the welder for you. Once get used to how it works you can fine tune the setting from there.

One of my fab buddy's just picked up a new Miller unit that will do both mig and tig and stick. It's like and XTM unit from Miller but more mobile, compact. If I remember correctly this new unit has the auto set feature as well?

I'm thinking of selling what I have getting the same setup. I only have a 20x20 attached garage at home so anywhere I can save space I do, plus this new machine is nice.

Can't wait to see your fab work on the Nova, I really love these cars.

Actually I bought the very Miller all-in-one you are talking about, only 29 lbs without wire and comes with a carry strap. So far I have set it to pretty thin but I think I am tacking too long and need to do a bit quicker. The auto settings have been awesome for welding tabs for example, if I futz with the settings, it gets worse. Use what it auto selects and I am fine.

The next trick I have heard to try is using the 110V setup for thin stuff - leaving is set on the 220V is supposedly a bit much.

Pics of the new wheels on the Vette and then I mocked up the left rear to measure out suspension parts to keep ordering. What I like about using wheels with a lot of backspace is then when the car is on the ground it looks a bit more of a sleeper - people would likely assume stock-ish widths at first glance and just think the car is a bit of a classic upgrade... until you get down and look at the width of the tires :thumbsup:

Also seeing how the 295 and the 335 fits a bit narrow IMO is promising as well for running a 320/355 race slick setup down the road.

nothing too amazing... got front susp pieces in
 

Mocked up the left upper A and the lower A pieces. Coleman made the lowers, I asked for 12.5" with the rod end fully closed on the jam nut and damned if they didn't nail it perfect! They think of ever'thing too, the shock mount has a floating bushing so no matter what rmonoball the shock would have it would work, with a nominal width of 0.625" which is exactly what pretty much every 1/2" heim I have ever seen is :thumbsup: They knocked the price down a bit too and let me source my own heim which I prefer as I use the really nice HD ones as the liners last longer than a "typical" heim from McMaster-Carr and the like and then got the high-angle spacers and joints from Kartek in SoCal as I have bought from them for some time now and they have always been good to me. The same heims are slightly cheaper at Summit tho' so they are a good source I will use as well.

In the pic it is hard to tell but at 12.5" locked in I should have around 0 to -0.5 deg of camber which is a perfect starting point. If I were only expecting it to be a race car I would have made the minimum -.5 to -1.0 deg but there should be enough adjustment in the control arm heim to get out to -3.0 deg if I need to. With radials, -3.5 is not that uncommon if you are able to push the car hard enough (V8 Supercar guys would laugh at -3.5 deg and tell me to learn to drive) and I can get there if I suck the upper A arm in a little as well so I should have more than plenty of adjustability.

The lower monoball joint pin has shims in .125/.250/.375/.500 to adjust roll center. I will set the car up with .625 on each side and go from there. The upper ball joint ball/pin piece can be swapped out as well to adjust roll center, so again, tons of adjustability. Technically I could adjust ride height within that .625" lower range as well having the upper ball joint adjustable as well if I want to tweak overall stance/height.

The lower caster arm I simply ordered the shortest swage tubing they had in 3/4" thread size (9") and I need to cut it down to around 7" - I machined some 1" thread nuts to the 1" diam tubing so I can splice with it and have something to get a wrench onto when locking the jam nuts - the knurled section isn't all that great and if you pipe wrench it they just get all scratch up.

The uppers are from Speedway and I had them put in angled upper BJ mounts to ensure max compressive travel and unfortunately the threads were honked up on the right side, so they are going to send me a new upper and jam nut, should get them tomorrow. The left one went together without a hitch.

So I have some stuff to work with this weekend at least and keep the ball rolling. And before the peanut gallery gets after me, the grade 5 hardware is what I had laying around - I will be getting all grade 8 stuff :yes:

That is some pretty racy stuff right there
 

Looking forward to the progress. I see you are using the C6 spindle, will you make our own steering arm or used the one cast in?

I will use the one cast in and then make the rack able to move back and forth to adjust Ackermann and have a slip joint in the steering rod from the steering column. Pretty slick too as, for the fronts, the arm is angled down to offset the caster, meaning that when the steering arm is perfectly level, the spindle appears to be at about 7 degrees caster, so that will make resetting caster at the track easy if I futz with camber and so forth.

I will drill them straight and get rid of the damn taper on those, use a thru bolt and a standard rod end, and then I can machine spacers to set bumpsteer based on where final rack placement is.

The rears point rearward, so I can set those at 14 deg if I want to be particular and keep everything lined up like the front - technically you don't need caster in the rear but some is good as it supposedly keeps everything loaded and not at a zero point where every little bit of clearance in ball joints is then wandering around.

Very impressive Tim. Hurry up and finish it. :stirthepot:

small update - transaxle adapter
 

so this item is actually what I considered the largest hurdle of the whole project, so I am just glad to have it in hand and done. Everything else is busy work, but getting the drivetrain figured out was going to be the tough part.

I machined the adapter on the lathe at work - engineers don't usually get to use the tools but having a little machining background from my mechanic days bought me some favor :) Then I bored the center out to the dimensions Andrew at Mark Williams asked me to hit and took it to him for final splining. They had to rent a special shaper to cut this specific, odd-ball Hemi spline that Mendeola uses but it all worked out bitchin'. Heat treated it to boot - this should be the strongest piece in the whole drivetrain haha.

The batteries died right after I took these so as I feared, the images are a bit blurry (happens every time right before the batts die). Nonetheless, close enough for internet work. The assembly in the aluminum housing is the tail end of a C5 Automatic torque tube - we took it apart so I could machine the driveshaft side a bit and also replace the bearings, which I need to get on order. Basically I will be making a large adapter piece to bolt to the bell on the Mendy that then holds that C5 tail assy and the new adapter piece inline with the input shaft of the trans. This will be a tedious item to make but not difficult.

You will note I have a piece of sheared off input shaft for test fitting - they sent this to me for clutch alignment so it came in handy for making the part v. schlepping that trans over to Mark Williams for fitment.

got the UBJ issue worked out
 

spent some time on the lathe at work this evening and turned out four press-fit plugs to replace the stock UBJs in the C6 uprights with a tapered ream. Now I can use Howe race UBJs that are fully rebuildable and I can get different lengths on them to adjust roll center.

Now I just need to update dimensions in my CAD model and determine what upper A length I need now and where the mount holes need to be in the car for correct geometry...

more plugging and chugging...
 

Here is a shot of my dual A assy as of today - all the numbers are exactly what I want in terms of roll center, camber gain, and overall adjustability. I now have to fully adjustable pivot points (top and bottom) that I can mess with ride height and roll center pretty much at will.

For the front I am starting with a 13.5" lower arm length, 10.5" nominal upper length, and what both calculated in my computer and was verified with my angle finder in the attached image is a parallel lower arm nets me an 11 deg upper angle for a static RC of ~2.5" which is what I was shooting for. The lower pivot is not a ball joint but monoball from Coleman and they make a set of spacers that come with it. I can swap those around to vary the upper A angle and therefore static RC but comes with a 1:1 change in ride height (move the pin up 1/4" and the car drops 1/4") so if I need to make a big change I can then just buy a longer or shorter upper ball joint insert.

I then went on to verify I could easily get -3.5deg neg camber on the front for radials. A few may note I underestimated the arm lengths I would need upon my original parts purchase (might notice some of the heims adjusted nearly all the way out) so I will be getting longer pieces on their way next week. All the upper needs is some longer tubes, the lower I just need a new tube for the caster but will need a new custom lower made as they make those to order. Not a big deal, just a few bucks blown in the process of figuring out where I am going with the car :)

How are you gonna mount your shock?

Very cool!!!!!!

I am sure you are seeing the lower shock mount but will mention this anyway - if you look at the second image, with the tire, on the forward, lower control arm, you should see the welded on tabs for mounting a shock at the base.

I suspect you are asking due to obvious interference with the upper A v. a coil over shock. I am going to use a strut rod that will go to one side of a rocker which will be swage tube, probably 1" in diam so clearance won't be an issue. Once I have the forward down tubes in the car, I will weld up some bracketry to mount the rocker arm I designed. I will then mount the shock vertically, off the frame, up to that rocker arm.

I am sure that is about as clear as mud :lol:

This build is so impressive. I loved that video, I usually get bored watching a lot of the road race videos. Not yours! That motor revs hard! Thanks for sharing.

This is a great build. Very refreshing. Keep trucking.

thanks guys!

I went back thru as I recalled having a shot with my old Penske shocks laid in the front, here it is. Essentially I will get new Penskes and mount them roughly as shown here

https://lateral-g.net/forums/atta...1&d=1362884016

hmm, not sure why it only links and doesn't just reshow the image... just click on the link then and you see the image.

some progress, rough day on the CNC machine...
 

Made some steel adapters on the lathe to mount Spicer U-joint plates to. I had made alum ones for 1350 adapters but it just wasn't working out as I wished. So I went to 1330s which I am told will be more than sufficient for a driveshaft with no torque multiplication on it. The steel adapters are a bit heavier, but everything thermally matches up so I won't have shear loads on the bolts, and I could weld the adapters directly to the stock Corvette driveshaft items which solved a significant, "How do you line a 4-bolt pattern up with an existing 3-bolt pattern?" issue. The main bummer right now is that the carbon fiber driveshaft will have to have steel ends as nobody seems to make 1330 ends in aluminum like the 1350s. Small price to pay to have something that actually will work tho' I guess :D

My friend (and actual machinist, I play one on TV) at work came in on Saturday to run the CNC (I haven't a clue of how to do that) and burn out an alum piece I need to make the mount plate for the front of the Mendeola. I am starting with a center piece that will hold the driveshaft adapter out of the C5 auto torque tube, which originates with a 7" diam piece of round bar. Our lathe only has 6" jaws so that is why we were going CNC on a round item. Unfortunately during rough in the tool went "inside" instead of "outside" to clean the diameter to 6.950". I was left with an .050" wall instead of only taking off .050" :bitchslap: My friend felt really bad but as we all know, sh!t happens, especially if I am involved and it is your day off.

So I will need to get another chunk and we can start over. I am not a fan of one-off CNC machining because it either takes a foam run or five or a few wasted parts to get the program perfect, at least in my general experience. You aren't guaranteed a perfect first unit until you actually run it and get one, but we are stuck with CNC given the diam I need to start with. Again, not a big deal; I feel worse for my friend than my alum part as I have been there and you tend to beat yourself up if you screw up.

In the meantime I mocked the trans up in the car and got the susp pickup points welded in. Getting the axles thru everything is a total PITA and I will need to bend a cross tube for the upper As, weld it in place to hold the 6" spacing, then cut the straight cross tube out to get it thru but all pretty straight forward.

The good news is that it looks like once I have everything in the rear, I may not need to cut the driveshaft tunnel at all. If I ran a torque tube it would be different, but a 3.75" diam CF driveshaft should fit under the stock floor since I raised the body up off the frame center. Worse case I may just get a whole new floor and weld it in but raise it up a bit for final necessary clearance as necessary. If I could get damn near stock on the floor I would be stoked as the stock console will mount at normal height and keep that stock look inside.

small update
 

have the mounting plate with driveshaft adapter just about finished up - took 4 hours last Saturday both having the C5 hub adapter running in the CNC and then running a vertical mill to layout the plate with the bellhousing pattern. Need to weld the two together then finish out the critical dims. Hopefully have that done and the trans in this coming weekend.

Talked to the rep at Penske that helped me with my Porsche shocks today and he set me straight about motion ratio stuff as I begin to consider setting up the rockers for the suspension. I figured 1:1 was optimal but haven't overlooked the obvious fact that late model supercars utilize large MRs to run very small shock/spring packages. They can work with that setup, but he said it was absolutely better to be as close to 1:1 to get the best range of possibilities to tune the shocks for specific use. Furthermore, I had tender progressive springs I messed with on the 914 and basically gave up on them - and again, I noted supercars aren't running that, just short main spring packages. He noted in general they remove them if a car has them and just run main rates now. So I don't have to bother with figuring that crap out :lol: It will be awhile before I pony up and get them as I will need to get the car built and on scales to know my corner weights but I will need to build the car out to run a specific length so I am expecting to use 18" shocks to have a +/- 3" range.

I found stub axles at a company in NC that adapt ZR1 33-spline hubs to 108mm Porsche 930 CVs which will allow me to run a straight forward axle package with my existing Mendeola 930 hubs so I have those on their way. Totally awesome - I was getting myself spooled up to design an adapter to weld to stock Vette stubs so the fact I can buy an off the shelf item for it stays with my goal to have as little custom as possible. I also ordered four ZR1 hubs from LG Motorsports.

Trying to get lined up with Unisteer to figure out a rack with center take off to fit in the car as well. I have ideas of how I want to offset the input and so forth, just a matter if they can get me what I want. I intend to use their electric power steering unit as well instead of a standard hydraulic setup to minimize plumbing and crap being driven off the crank.

Chugging along...

got the trans in
 

Trans is in the car and mounts are all welded into place. Getting the adapter all finalized that bolts to the front of the transaxle is, as I have mentioned before, what I consider the largest hurdle. All else from here should be time and money but not as difficult to figure out.

The stub axles showed up Friday as planned but unfortunately LG Motorsports never shipped out my ZR1 hubs. In fact, they had zero record of my order at all, so I have no idea WTF happened there, but they are on there way and should be here Tues. Sucks to lose a good 3-day weekend tho' (had Fri off) but will work on getting all four hubs placed, all four tires placed visually in the fenderwells, then drop a plumb bob from all four corners and start verifying crosses and wheelbase is as expected.

Sent a draft of what I need to a guy at Unisteer on Tues and then called the guy on Friday AM - hadn't even looked at it, said would get back to me, never heard back.

[rant]
What the Hell is with customer service in the car world? There are good shops of course but it seems for every 2 good I get 1 bad - 66% isn't exactly a good average :bitchslap: unless you are in pro baseball. The ones that are consistent get my money every time; I have a short list of bad ones I still have to deal with but only if they are the only game in town on an item. I actually pay a little more going to some shops than others if they have been good to me, that is all that matters to me in the end.

The ones that are consistently bad are the "sell pretty much everything websites". I have ordered shocks for the truck, floor mats for my Vette and a cargo mat as well in the past 3 months and it took 5 orders at 5 places to get 3 things correct. One is so bad I basically paid for an extra cargo mat and will dump it on Craigslist v. try to get my money back at this point just to keep from shooting up the place.
[/rant]

Next on the list is to get the toe links figured out and then start figuring out how I am going to get the cherry picker swung around to start placing the engine. :hapdance: