Thanks Greg...appreciate the tips.

I'm not quite ready to tack yet... still finalizing position, but wanted to make some marks just in case.

I'll let you know when it's ready for final weld so you can swing by and show me how it's done in person. :)

As you know from all my past posts --- when I post something I usually am trying to help EVERYONE that reads these threads. Welding is something that almost every project needs - and many here are relative "newbs" or weekend warriors..... and they just don't do much welding. I'm a guy that thinks ANY advantage to helping make a better "whatever" is a good thing. Guys that weld all day everyday can make minor adjustments to position - heat settings etc and crank out a perfect looking weld. Us guys that do it rarely or occasionally need all the help we can get (talking about clean material here). Super clean material will help with porosity - fil flowing - and just generally a better looking better weld. It's the little things in welding that make a huge difference.... like learning to place most of the heat on the thicker material and just barely walking up to catch the thinner piece etc which then really helps with burn thru etc - these are all things we need to be reminded of because we just simply don't weld often enough and in off position or crazy positions (to reach something).

I get it Greg and yes, we all appreciate it.

It seems like my main issue when welding on the car is vision... I just can't seem to get where I can see the puddle and what I'm welding well enough from one end of a bead to the other. Usually it's my helmet that gets in the way or something or the light I'm using to light up the work area affects the auto-darkening of the helmet or it's just my bad eyesight can focus on the subject at hand.

This is why I'm a MUCH better welder on a bench on a flat surface with lots of light and nothing to work around.

Looks like I get to get some more practice though.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont...1_124619-L.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont...1_124605-L.jpg

Plan B initiated...

We’re all better on flat bench work.... and totally agree on being able to see!!! I’ve saud a million times.... if you can’t see you can weld. The pros can lay it on with just feel. But I need to see!! I had about 6 different helmets. And the new Miller eye glass helmet made for hard to get to places.

Looking good Lance.

I agree with Greg. As a hobby fabricator I learned a long time ago what Greg says is true. Another thing someone much better at welding than I will ever be told me is comfort is everything. If you weren't comfortable (seeing, standing, sitting, etc.) your welds will show it.

I love that you built your car and actually race what you built.

Well, it's all tacked into place for the last time...Uh...this time anyway. If I happen to knock it off on a speed bump at any time, I do have a plan B. For now it all fits and the suspension travels full extension to full compression without any bind of the end links which is huge. Once I burn in all of the welds I'm pretty confident it'll all stay in place and function great.

Finished cleaning the LCAs up from Plan A, needed a fresh place to start again.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._094154-XL.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._094158-XL.jpg

This is the only picture I took of the new tabs secured to the LCA in the new location. They are in closer to the car centerline by 3 Inches or so and canted a bit more than before. I am able to get the lower rod end into either hole in the swing arm without taking the top end loose which is nice.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._151258-XL.jpg

Here is the tube, bar and swing arms hanging in their final spot.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._133238-XL.jpg

The tube is about an 1/8" below the UMI bar tubes and the bottom of it is about 3/4" lower than the bottom of my cross member.

This is what it looks like from the side at ride height. I "think" it's going to be all right there. I know it'll be fine on any track I race on, my only concern would be any real steep and tall speed bump I may encounter. Going on the trailer will be no issue.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._133155-XL.jpg

Once I sleep on it and am sure I'll leave it this way, I'll pull the swing arms and rod ends, drop the lower ball joints for better access to both sides of the tabs and I'll burn everything in and give it a coat of paint. Then one more assembly and it's off to the races to see how it drives.

I'll have to put the springs back on the front shocks while it's apart and I'll take some pics of the new bump stops and shims to show then. They worked out perfect.

So it made it's first test drive around the neighborhood yesterday...nothing fell off!!!

:trophy-1302:



First big test was making it out the driveway without scraping, tons of room there. Made first run around with shocks on full soft to fully travel the suspension...no issues. Put race setup in shocks and made another round...really feels good, seems to stay VERY flat up front and rear seems to follow where the front goes which is also good.

Here are the bump stops and shims I put on the front shocks to limit the travel.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._123857-XL.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._123910-XL.jpg

Basically the new ATS spindles were a bit of a drop spindle from the metric G-Body spindles and I needed to limit the upward travel to keep the tires off the fenders. These bumpstops worked like a champ. It took 3 snap in shims to get to where they stopped the tire right before contact.

This Saturday I'm registered to race in Tucson with the Border Region SCCA. Friend is co-driving and we are doing time only fun runs after so should get about 20 runs total to tweak on the new setup.

Thats awesome! obviously, let us know how the auto-x/trac day goes...

So, Barney passed initial post race inspection just fine, no issues shown anywhere sway bar related or anywhere else...and we beat it like a rented mule making 17 runs (half back to back) on a long slalom intensive and fast course.

I'm going to share the video of our very first run...completely untested new setup, massive front bar change and completely new shock valving starting with Chris's recommended settings and new bumpstops on front shocks. I basically didn't have a clue what it would do when we headed into first gate. Check it out...

Very cool Lance[emoji106] Damn that looks like a workout!

How many gears do you use 1 through 3?

Thank you for sharing [emoji106]


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Looks to be handling very well! Now it’s time for some HP. Ha

You are welcome...always enjoy sharing our fun on course!! We typically get into 2nd gear and leave it there for these types of courses.


Thanks! Wait until I post the faster videos after we tuned on it for a bit. :D

I read your reply to my wife and she politely disagreed with you. ;)

After our first initial runs, Mike and I debriefed about what changes we thought it needed. Because we were co-driving in the same heat in run group 2 and run group 3, shock changes were really all we had time to do between runs.

The back was hopping in the two sweepers and we wanted to work on that first. Basically the inside rear tire was lifting which de-cambered the outside rear which would slip and loose grip setting the inside rear on the ground again where it would then lift again, rinse and repeat. It wasn't step out and spin loose but it was unsettling especially to Mike since he'd never driven the car and wasn't sure what it was going to do.

We started by taking 4 clicks of rebound out of the rear shocks and each made a run. It was better, maybe 60-70% better... After the next runs I took 2 more clicks of rebound out of the rears making it very comfortable.

Here were my fastest timed run and Mike's fastest time run.





We then decided that it was pushing a bit if we didn't get completley off of the brakes before turning in after the one big braking zone...so we took 2 clicks of compression out of the front shocks and that helped some. In hindsight, I should have put more rear brake in as well...that would have helped to keep from locking the inside front tire up. Will try that next event.

Here are my fastest Time only run as well as Mike's. I didn't get a time on that run and that was disappointing because I felt it was a good one. Mike's was the fastest of all of our runs and later on I'll lay them side by side in a video just to see if I was close to his blazing fast time.





Overall the car did great. Mike's last run was a half second faster than Tommy's Camaro which regularly is 1 - 1.5 seconds faster than me. I was only a few tenths off Tommy in the fastest scored run and possibly faster in my run with no time.

I can't wait to tune on it a bit more at one more local event before hitting Good Guys and then changing everything to try to make it work on that style of course. I know this...it won't have the body roll that it had there last spring, that's for sure...

New and rebuilt parts
 

Great vids, Lance. The car definitely looks a lot flatter in the vids and it's nice to see the shock adjustments, though small, made a difference. Looks like you made a big move in the right direction, especially after making a lot of changes at once!

So, at SEMA a week or so ago...I stumbled across these and had to have them.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._085738-XL.jpg

They are Ridetech's new R-Joint cartridges that press into the axle housing ears on my 9" (which still had rubber bushings in them. I'm not sure why I never upgraded the axle bushings but now is as good of a time as any I guess.

Here is a picture showing the rubber bushing on the left and R-Joint on the right.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._114607-XL.jpg

I must say that after putting these in the rear end articulates MUCH easier than with the the rubber bushings. It HAS to be better now right?

Ridetech also has a new rear sway bar setup for A-Body cars with this slick adjusting collar to let you dial the bar rate in easier.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._135748-XL.jpg

Bret mentioned it would also work on a G-Body with a few adjustments so they made me up one and it's on the way to me now. I should have it in time to get it installed before heading to Good Guys on Thursday.

When I've run rear bars in the past (tried several times) I had a lot of trouble with the bar picking the inside rear tire up in turns. This had a LOT to do with the outside front tire compressing so much and the resulting diagonal roll lifting the inside rear. Now that I have basically doubled the front sway bar rate, the inside rear has way less tendency to want to lift the tire which has me wanting to try a rear bar once again. This means that I'll have to soften the rear spring rate considerably as well.

I'll have a trunk full of parts and tools with me to make changes at the track if needed, but I think we have a pretty good idea of where to start with the setup. Worst case I can quickly put it back to where I know it works by changing springs and disconnecting the rear bar...but I hope that won't be necessary and I can just work on fine tuning the new setup with way more ways to adjust it now.

Hope to see a bunch of you there at the Duel in the Desert...should be a hoot...

So I've had a day or so to decompress after the Goodguys 21st Southwest Nationals and thought I'd share my feelings. Last spring I attended my very first Good Guys autocross and loved it, but I knew I had to make some changes to my car so it would handle this kind of course better. With a much stiffer front sway bar to control the roll better, bump stops to limit front suspension travel to keep front tires off the fenders, and steering stops to keep the front tires off the frame...I felt we were ready. After watching the first run, Chris Smith suggested a major shock change, then we made another major shock change after the 2nd run...picking up almost a second on each subsequent run. Before the 4th run we made one more major change going to the stiffer front bar setting and it woke the car up. That run got me within 0.162 seconds of making the top 32 spots and the Duel in the Desert and I'm pretty happy with that. I'm certain that if I had a few more runs in the heat with that last change, I could have gotten into the show.

I have to talk a bit about my StopTech big brake kit on the car. I still run a 1985 master cylinder and booster along with a 1985 disc\drum distribution valve aided only by an add on rear brake proportioning valve and the Stoptech brakes. With the rest of the car now very sorted, I can adjust the front to rear bias with about a turn and a half on the prop valve, going from locking the fronts first to locking the rears first...or somewhere in between. And this brake pad\rotor combination works perfectly...ice cold to last lap on a 20 minute road course track session including low dust street driving. I've had them on the car for a year now with a LOT of events under my belt and the pads and rotors still look almost brand new. Stoptech is adding more and more muscle car application brackets to adapt their big brake kits to the cars we love...and I highly recommend them as a fantastic all around brake package.

The new R-Joints from RideTech in the rear suspension really helped tame the back down. I had zero issues with lifting the rear tire last weekend. In fact, I never touched an adjustment on the rear of the car all weekend...it just flat out worked. The new valving in the Ridetech shocks worked out great as well. I now have a base setting to make them perform great on both big SCCA style courses as well as tight tough Good Guys style courses...with just a slight twist of a couple knobs.

The rest of the car just did what it does...horsepower is good, all systems held up to the abuse, FORGELINE wheels look awesome, and the car seemed to be right in line time wise with the rest of the owner\driver cars in a stacked field of competitors from across the Country. The driver actually needs more work now than the car does in order to really be competitive.

Here's a video of my fast lap of the weekend.



Thanks to Allison for taking the picture below, can't wait for a few more on track pics to make their way to the web for viewing since I know there were several great photogs there snapping pics.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont...84906752_n.jpg

Now I'm on to getting ready for the next event...once I rest up..

1985 Monte Carlo SS known as Barney
 

Great update and I'm looking forward to driving my car with the new R-Joints.

Thank you for sharing the info on the Stop Tech brakes.

Keep the updates coming and I love watching the videos and I love the fact that you did a little clap at the end.

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X2 on what Marty said!

Great write up on your GG weekend and the upgrade results! Good to see things worked to your advantage, but just missing the cut is a bummer. See you this Sunday at AZSolo?

It's taken me a few days but I just got caught up on this thread. Which btw is one of the best ones I've read and it's reassuring people still update posts!! Ive learned a lot and the hardest thing for me is knowing when it's me or the car misbehaving and then knowing what to adjust AND how much.
My car has similar mods and similar problems. Like quick performance 9" and ran it without seals and leaked fluid one side only!! But no issues with sealed bearings. I have rotted frame and body mounts... (Still need to fix that) and loose on corner exit.

Thanks Marty...I was pretty stoked at the pickup in time... :D



Yep, I'll be there...hope the school is going well today.



Thanks!! I can't believe you read the whole thing!! It's been a journey for sure. Any questions just ask away, our cars aren't that much different.

That's exactly why I read the whole thing so I wouldn't ask something that you explained at some point. reading the Ron Sutton suspension threads also!!
I installed the Currie version of the R joints in the upper axle mounts. First time out I didn't have them clocked properly and the arms knocked on the housing during hard cornering. I have similar R/Johnny joints at the frame mounts of the rear arms. Lots of movement now.
I've been researching the ridetech coil overs and trying to find pics of the "Moser style" mounts which are like the ones on the quick performance rear axle. That's how I found your thread. Your tuning greatly affecting the car convinced me I need the TQs and the secret sauce valving. I had been struggling if I needed that much adjustment and revalving. Had a crazy thought I could find them on a black Friday sale. But I can't find the Moser style mount anywhere but ridetech

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Local SCCA race today. Course was way more sweepers, more speed and less slaloms. I left the Proven good Good Guys setup in it just to see what it liked, stiff setting on front bar and front shocks full still low and high speed compression. Car liked it but was loose mid sweeper. Ended up taking rebound out of hte front and adjusting my line to put down a pretty good time.

Here are initial raw results, I'm B18. Time should PAX pretty well with only the best of the best below the high 44s.

http://realtime.azsolo.com/

And my third and fastest run of the day.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Moser style mount" but I know this, the shock mount on the QP housing is different than any other out there and I had to build my own lower shock mounts for the TQs. it's not that difficult and what's better is you can get them to end up exactly where you need them for the shock length you choose.

Did you choose your shock length or order G body rear coilover?

The Moser style refers to the shock mounting hole is incorporated into the lower control arm mount. (Just like quick performance and currie) Which needs a different bracket to mount coil overs and it Moves the lower shock mount inboard for more tire/wheel clearance.
Factory A body axles have two tabs for lower control arm mount and shock. The mounts for coil overs use the lower control arm bolt and the shock mount together. And usually drilling a third hole above the lower control arm bolt and the axle tube for more strength. Attachment 67399Attachment 67400

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I have never seen a shock mount like that before...interesting. We chose a 6.3" shock for my car and I built the lower mount to get it as low and as close to the wheel as I could get it.

So, we had a local SCCA Autocross here last Sunday...and it was awesome! Really fun fast course that was really Barney friendly.

Ended up 14th overall PAX and 15th overall in Raw time out of 118 drivers, my best showing so far with this Region. I haven't turned a knob or bolt on the car in two full events now...just working on driving it better.

Here was my fastest run in the TO fun runs.



The front bar on it's stiffest setting really has the rear tires planted on the big fast sweepers, something the car has NEVER had before. And there isn't even the slightest hint of a push anywhere.

These pictures were taken entering the right hand showcase turn about mid point in the run.

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

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

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

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

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

To say I'm happy with the performance would be an understatement. I had a very accomplished autocrosser ride in and drive the car Sunday and he had good things to say about the car as well, saying it handles well and is very balanced. He gave the driver some pointers which helped me set my fast time on my last run and he mentioned a couple of things that felt strange to him about the car. Most were "analog" deals vs the "digital" cars he is used to driving but one of them is something that I'm aware of and will be dealing with next. It's not crucial but it is near the top of the list for future enhancements.

Meanwhile, I'm going to just keep driving it into the ground and enjoying the heck out of my winter racing season.

Sutton taking credit for all your work???


LOL


Glad it’s all coming together for you!

Good plan! :D

Though I am a bit jealous of the winter racing season. Did you sell all your coats yet Lance?

Thanks Buddy...one of these days I need to get you in the right seat for a run...

I brought 2 or 3 of my best ones with me and still have them...just in case ;)

Did a little bit of photo editing this morning. Gotta thank Chris Niemeyer for grabbing these great action shots.

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont...ted%203-X2.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont...ted%202-XL.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont...ted%202-X3.jpg

Look at that contact patch!!

Job well done Lance. That looks WAY better than before the new sway bar install!

Great pics, Lance. You really were flying around that corner all day. I did notice a lot of rear brake lockup though, especially in the lefthander preceding this sweeper.

Thanks Chris!!

Thanks Ric. I noticed that I could hear the rear tires sliding when I watched the videos back but never felt them cause a loose condition on corner entry. I've got the bias down to about a half turn between locking the fronts first or locking the rears first and locking the fronts first does cause a push. Depending on what the next course looks like I may put a quarter turn more on the fronts for a run just to see how it does.

looks like Darrel Waltrip driving !!! lol Bugggidie buggidie
nice work

Sure appears to run a lot flatter

Thanks Blake... It freaks me out how serious my face looks in these pics...

I'm having fun at this REALLY!!! :D

One of the best testaments to a well setup car (besides great handling) is even tire wear.

I put new tires on Barney in October 2018. Since then I've run 2 SCCA Autocross events (one with a co-driver plus fun runs\20 long slalom intensive runs), 1 Good Guys event, and 4 more SCCA autocross events. I haven't rotated the tires once during all of this.

Today I took them off the car for inspection and was impressed enough with the even wear across all four tires that I thought I'd share.

You'll have to look close at these pics and know what to look for but if you pay particular attention to the center rib on each of the four tires, you can see how all 4 of them are wearing very VERY evenly...


https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._134016-XL.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._133957-XL.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._134038-X2.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/1985-Mont..._134049-X2.jpg

I'll probably rotate the rears to the front as there is just a bit more wear on the rears (probably just from the Good Guys event) and these should last me thru most of the summer at this rate.

If I really wanted to extend the life of these, I'd pay to have them flipped on the rims...and that's probably not that bad of an idea either.

Car is obviously working good, Lance, but we already know that, huh?! Definitely a fantastic tire choice for your application!

So this autocross thing can be a fickle bitch sometimes... I like to think that I'm getting pretty good at it and then I have an event like Sunday where I think I'm doing okay speed wise...and I end up 41st in raw time out of 130ish drivers. It wasn't just me though, a lot of the drivers I typically run similar times to in different cars were also way down on the time chart while others were way higher than normal. I'm still trying to process why and one of the things that helps is to watch videos from those that went faster on the same course.

Here was my fastest timed run in Group B (the one that counts). 46.243



Later in the Time only runs, I used the data from my solostorm and new 8" tablet to find ways to pick up speed.

E20 CAM-T TO Lance Hamilton 1985 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS 45.763 45.471 45.263 45.068

Here is my 45.068 run with data




Now, to totally blow our minds...here is Brian Peters in a 2018 1LE putting down a 42.879 in the cool run Group B I was in...

https://www.facebook.com/brian.peter...6247955797333/

He later ran a 42.562 in time onlys...

The full results are here

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

You can sort by fast time, PAX or class...

The car ran great and it's ready for Good Guys this week...and I got to share my hobby with a couple of our new neighbors that had never experienced autocross before. So it's all good.

https://youtu.be/zX2dVDkamVM

http://goodguysautocross.com