PIR, 3 to 8 PM Track Night in America.....you better stop by.

Sean

Had a little settling going on in the frontend so jacked the car up to adjust the coilover to find that something was going wrong. I was able to move the entire wheel assembly 1" front to back, it was super weird. Started checking things out and narrowed it down to the lower control arm bushing, at first I thought it was the bolt was wrong, but more disassembly led me to these gems.

https://i.imgur.com/AK63OsYh.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Uiw7TAph.jpg

I have never seen a bushing fail in that amount of time. Approx 300 or maybe a little more miles. 10 auto cross runs, 6 speed stops and 4 laps around a track.

These things are like gum. Super soft. We compared them to new in the package super blue bushings (IPD) and these were softer but not by a ton.

I thought that possibly the ATF from the power steering leak had hurt them but it did it on both sides.

So I tore everything down, first side fought me but the pass side was 30 mins tops.

https://i.imgur.com/rz0PeeVh.jpg

Late Friday night trip to the twins and they whipped up these awesome pieces.

https://i.imgur.com/EOPiHc1h.jpg

These are delrin with new sleeves. They pressed in the lower control arms pretty easy and we were off to the races.

Curious to try these out. We have no idea how long these will last at all, they are just a test. Initial drive was a massive improvement in turn in and steering feel and feedback. Little additional NVH was added by changing these out for some reason. Car is night and day difference with these installed.

Huge shoutout to these guys too. They have been a huge part of this thing, helping out with motor mounts, steering shaft, custom one off bits here and there like the dash insert, these lower control arm bushings, the LSX badges and lots of hard to find bits and pieces.

Thanks Scott and Taylor!!

Got the car together at 1 am, up at 5 for the portland transmission show, its a low key show but a great event tons of variety, mostly hot rods but some killer VW's.

Asher gave me a hand on Sunday trying to isolate my fuel leak. We used the smoke machine to find it and its the filler neck gas cap, we dropped the tank and replaced the filler neck to be safe as it was all ovaled out. Still leaks....so I need a new gas cap.

https://i.imgur.com/aLitZurh.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/UPiblh8h.jpg

Hardest job was getting the clamp on the filler neck at the tank.

Definately helped but still need a new cap. Smell is much better than before.

Drove it around town a bunch this weekend. Exhaust is too raspy for me, I think its the front muffler making the raspy sound so that might be on its way out.

Car is a riot to drive, badly needs an alignment and even more important a stereo.

Killer pics from LS Fest came in.

https://i.imgur.com/9LDtzLMh.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/jfyLCvTh.jpg


Weather depending.......Track day on Friday Night, IPD Saturday.

Lets hope for good weather.

Sean

OMG, I bet it turns in WAY better now... You'll have to learn how to drive it all over again.

Dude it was shocking how much different it was on turn in. I cannot wait to get some more seat time in it.

Have a few things to fix, rev limiter being one of them. It just hits a hard limiter, tuner says he thinks he knows what is going on so we are going to look into that thursday night.

I need more gear, or raise my rev limiter now.

Sean

Weather held out on Friday so I snuck out of work a little early headed home, grabbed the trailer and the old **** box and headed to PIR for Track Night in America.

Great group of cars, interesting group of drivers.

https://i.imgur.com/koWsiqlh.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/oNReQKBh.jpg

I didnt take too many pics was busy driving and doing some tuning on suspension bits.

First session out, much much better turn in with the delrin bushings, front control arms still have a little wiggle in them, assuming its the bubble gum rear bushings still in there. Does it on hard braking entering a corner, probably need to do more braking before the corner :roll:

Had a little shimmy on the rear of the car on corner exits in the first session but the car was doing well, full 20 minute session, no steering issues, got to 217 (Still on the stock 190 degree stat).

Pitted the car, adjusted the rears 4 clicks softer, adjusted the fronts 4 clicks stiffer. checked tire press, 30 front 27 rear. Good notes.

Rear diff needs a hose on the vent tube, losing a little oil out of that but not enough to stop from running again.

Session 2, much better, less rear wheel hop on corner exits, able to drive the car much harder, notice a little understeer mid corner, car rotates really welll, turn in is excellent.

Had a hell of a time, passed everything in our session except an RS3 that I had an awesome time running with, he was a better driver than I was so once he got around me I hung with him and followed his lead.

There was a guy out there in a McLaren that was a horrible driver, didnt watch his mirrors, wouldnt let anyone around him and though because he had the fastest car out there that he was the fastest driver....he was not, by a long stretch. Passing only on a point by and I wasnt going to break the rules but we both had him covered by a long shot. I was starting to get a little angry, realized it was just for fun and tuning and pull off track a few minutes before the end of the session, a solid 18 minutes out.

Car is getting better, getting used to it. Power and grip in corner exits is awesome, its much faster than I am used to in the F100.

Needs a little softer rear springs, I have 450's in now, ordered some 400's and 350's to try out next week.

I still believe it needs more front bar, I have a 25 on it now, going to go up to a 28mm and see how it does, could make the understeer worse.

I need more front camber.....more on that later.

Rear Diff Breather needs addressed as well as a 160 degree thermostat.

Was stoked to have Robert drop by with his father in law, we had a great evening, car drove into the trailer. Good Day!!!

Saturday was IPD's big annual car show and garage sale, car was pretty well received there and I took home a best of show trophy. Thanks to IPD for putting on this event, its a great time for all of us Volvo Folks was good to see some old friends and make some new ones as well.

https://i.imgur.com/dREcRO1h.jpg

I took half the day off today and cleaned up the shop, ordered a bunch of parts and then got too it.

Havent been looking forward to this but its got to be done.

These are Kaplhenke adjustable caster/camber plates with his strut bar as well. There are no instructions included with the kit so for anyone that needs to do this in the future here is what I did to get the camber gains but still keep the structure in the tops.

https://i.imgur.com/G81Gkrhh.jpg

I then traced out the inner shape of the strut tower opening on the top of the strut tower so I had an exact location of where I needed to cut.

Taped up and protected.

https://i.imgur.com/dp9T3mEh.jpg

You can see the pencil line

https://i.imgur.com/oQrssVXh.jpg

Drilled the corners so I had a nice radius and gave myself a big hole to start with the airsaw.

https://i.imgur.com/ODObb1Ih.jpg

Rough cut.

https://i.imgur.com/TYTesnrh.jpg

I cleaned up the hole with a 1.5" round sanding disc on a die grinder and several different files. I then touched up all of the bare surfaces with color matched paint. Its not perfect but 90% of it is hidden away,

https://i.imgur.com/MTkERc6h.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/edlX2Xjh.jpg

I think it actually looks better now than before so I call that success!!

https://i.imgur.com/AwXcurAh.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ygsRRg5h.jpg

I am not quite sure how much camber I gained, but I gained a bunch of tire clearance, and the strut top moved in a good .75" I still have a little more to gain.

Will get it all buttoned up tomorrow before the rest of the parts show up, hope to have it all together before next Fridays TNIA in Seattle.

This write up came out today, pretty stoked to see this posted up from our shoot a few weeks ago.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/perf...swapped-volvo/

All in all pretty awesome weekend and last few weeks, fun to see people dig the car.

Thanks for all the help and support over the past year, its been fun as hell!!!

Sean

Well deserved press on the car! Awesome.

Good luck at the track and be safe. :thumbsup:

I havent been great about updating this thread lately...

Car did awesome at TNIA in Portland a few weeks ago. Two solid 20 minute sessions before some weather moved in and I loaded up. Had a few issues with temps again being in the 217-220 range. Not something to worry about but it was warmer than I wanted it to be. Swapped in a 160 degree stat.

Also had a lot of understeer, so I got a real alignment done on the car as well. 2.7 degrees of camber.


Loaded up here at noon on Friday and headed North, ran into a nasty rolled over freight truck on highway 512 between Tacoma and Puyallup that held me up for almost an hour. Got there just in time for the drivers meeting.

Got the car unloaded, warmed up and got out to grid for my run group.

Oh man did my changes help a ton. They recently did a big upgrade on the back section of this track and its so much better, real curbing that you can drive over, even carry some tires too. Took a few laps to get the hang of the new layout and get a grip on the car.

Its a big fast track if you have never been before and has a monster of a straightaway. Although I am convinced that the rear end has 4.10's instead of 3.73's in it. Either way, the understeer is just about gone now, adding the camber made a huge change on turn in and corner entry, rear spring change settled the rear of the car down a lot. I was having a blast.

Temps were staying in the 190's so a huge improvement from the last track outing.

Brakes have zero fade no matter what I did. I need to work on my 4 to 3 downshift, have hit 5th a few times on accident. Need to adjust accelerator position up a little to assist with heel toe.

15 mins into the session or so, I came through turn 2 and felt the car do something weird mid turn, I couldnt quite tell what it did but it shifted over a few inches off the line.

Then on the next straight the steering wheel was no longer straight while I was going straight.......

So into the pits to see what was going on.

https://i.imgur.com/FkhIkJ0h.jpg

Unfortunately it appears that my steering rack has jumped a tooth. There was a pretty good clunk in the steering when working the wheel back and forth. Once under the car I could move the rack output back and forth a good 3/8".

Bummer that it ended my fun filled weekend of car stuff waaaaay early. I had planned on track night friday, Seattle cars and coffee on Saturday and Auto Cross on Monday.

Instead I had Dinner with my nephew and his lady friend and hit the road from Seattle about 9 for my drive back to PDX.

Saturday I tore this **** apart.

https://i.imgur.com/IW6FczQh.jpg

Picked up a known good rack from Scott and Taylor. Very minimal play in this one.

https://i.imgur.com/7Bn2S8mh.jpg

New Rack in!!! Get the rack in, fill with fluid and bleed a little before sleep time.

Woke up to a nice puddle under the car, not coming from the rack. The "rebuilt" pump was leaking now. It wasnt from the high pressure line like I thought as the car had not started yet.

So here we go again.....

https://i.imgur.com/7trev9ch.jpg

I tried to round up a pump but with no luck this weekend. I ordered a new pump from Turn One this morning. This time it has a real rebuild on it, tested before it leaves with a new reservoir and a billet wheel so the pulley doesnt need to be pulled each time you remove it.

Bummer that I missed out on all car stuff this weekend but I did manage to get a ton of stuff done around the house. All hard surfaces got pressure washed, trip to the dump, goodwill, took care of some touchup paint on the interior of the house, installed out killer new bedroom ceiling fan, assembled a new bed for the spare room.

The wife got the best end of the 3 day weekend for sure.

I have an event on the 8th and 9th at PIR and really hope that this thing is reliable for the weekend

My understanding is 210-220 is about the sweet spot for LS's on track. That's where my cammed LS3 operates.

You're a labor inspiration, Sean--you did more work on your house in one weekend than I have on mine in five years or so. Freak out much?

Seriously though, the breakage is a bummer, but you are doing it the right way: using it. Good work on that, and good work on proving me right in the sense that softer springs are better . . .

Your newfound grip (nice camber setting!) may require you to engineer a more stout rack and cooling setup. I don't envy the research requirements . . .

I think they figured this heat range out with the 1992 LT1--I remember bugging out seeing a new Corvette get that hot in a smog shop I worked in back then. The LS definitely continues to like it some heat (excuse language--I am in Georgia right now) . . .