Thanks :trophy-1302:
Rick k

Everything's permanently welded from the seat pan back. Thankfully all the fitting and refitting paid off. Seat pans are level!

Found a nice surprise when I got home.

Oh man could I use those! Nice.

Firewall was torn where e-brake mounts. I made a thicker patch out of 16ga.

The original tore where the metal was thinner around each stamped recess so I made one recess out of heavier gauge metal. I'll finish this up when I finish the cowl box.

Wow your are doing some great work on this!! :thumbsup: nice tires, what sizes are you running?

245/40R18 and 315/30R18.

Man you are kicking some butt... and are talented. Aren't you glad you decided to post this all up? We are.

:thumbsup:

Just plugging away at it. Haha yeah. I enjoy the conversation and It will be good to have something to refer back to once the car is done. (Are they ever done?) My wife doesn't know it yet but I'm going to get a new wardrobe out of the deal too. I keep burning holes in my t-shirts and shorts.

Awesome job on the patch I would never have know you did anything there.

Brakes showed up today!!! if you haven't tried them, Matts Classic Bowties is top notch. Kim has always taken care of me and never made me feel rushed. It's nice having a trusted source who takes time to answer my questions.

Drivers side cowl box was way off. I had to reshape the radius that meets with the upper cowl and lower it about 1/2". I sliced each side and hammered it into shape. Once I had it the way I wanted I welded in pie shaped pieces to fill the gaps.

Thanks. My goal is for it to blend right in when I'm finished.

Fits a lot better now.

I got hung up with making the hydraulic clutch bracket so I'm a little behind on finishing up the firewall. I couldn't find the dimensions of the 98-02 clutch master cylinder anywhere on the Internet. The parts store should have one in tomorrow afternoon so I can finish up my bracket. In the mean time I tore down the sub frame.

very nice work so far,also Matts Classic Bowties service is hard to beat

I got the old shock and upper control arm mounts cut off and the frame cleaned up. I went through a lot of cut off wheels and grinding discs. I wouldn't do this without a torch or plasma cutter if I had to do it again. Way too much work. Same goes for sanding and spot blasting. Next time it's going to the blaster.

I picked up some 1/4 x6 flatbar and the UCA jig Tuske427 sent. I cant thank tuske427 enough! I'm almost ready to start mocking up the front end.

Anytime. I'm glad you could get some use on it. Lookin' forward to the updates on this

The jig wouldn't sit tight to the crossmember so I had to slot the holes.

After more sanding and wire wheel I prep'd the subframe with Marine Clean and Metal Ready.

Great work, really enjoy the pics, keep them coming :thumbsup:

Nice job it coming out great.

i got the car mocked up at ride height to check and recheck my measurements. I setup the front and rear suspension for 4" ride tech coilovers taking into account the midpoint of stroke plus approx 5% for a little additional compression over extension. I also factored in shaft and suspension component bump stops. The packaging on the 4-link is very tight so I'll be tacking brackets into place for final mockup before getting too serious with the welder. Especially since I did all the original design work based on product specs and compensation measurements taken from stock suspension, wheels and tires, and ride height. The packaging on the front coilovers is pretty tight as well around the subframe pocket area. I was able to get ahold of a coilover for test fitment and was surprisingly right on with all measurements but one which was an 1/8" off. Fortunately I was able to mock this up before cutting the coilover brackets as this 1/8" ended up being a big deal since the pocket area is extremely tight throughout the travel arc.

I've also been working on the hydraulic clutch setup. As I mentioned a few days ago I can't find specs anywhere on the internet for the 98-2002 GM master cylinder so the bottom bolt pattern is a guess based on another rough template I found that was missing a lot of dimensions. Because of this I started from scratch with my own measurements for the entire thing. I also wanted to closely follow the firewall contours especially above the brake master cylinder and retain the factory speedometer cable location. I'll update the bottom bolt pattern when I pick up the clutch master cylinder. I was able to measure the rest of it out based on the car and my Wilwood brake master cylinder and it seems to fit well.

This is the front coilover mount. I haven't posted any dimensions of the upper control arm mount out of respect for DSE's design. I go back and forth on my 4-link as well because it has DSE packaging similarities but it's all my own math and dimensions. My shop drawings could also use more detail and be more complete but they are enough for me to remember what I'm doing and layout as intended. I've also gotten too accustomed to the ease of CNC/GNC and not having to dimension all my drawings. Draftsight has also been a little quirky with printing and exporting to PDF. There's a strange extension on the radius location in this drawing that's not there in the dwg file. The artifact just showed up on the export. Also for the life of me I can't figure out how to get Draftsite to export to PDF in 1:1 scale. For my own use I've had to save the DWG file and convert to PDF using the AutoCAD app for MAC to get the proper scale. I can print 1:1 scale but the app seems to randomly pick centering and loses the 1:1 scaling after each print job regardless of saving a printer profile or not. All these quirks exist in sheet and model views. Other than that its an awesome 2D CAD program. Especially since it's $0 cost. Hopefully some of this info is useful to help someone out there and I'm not ruffling any feathers.

DSE's engineering and craftsmanship is awesome. I just can't afford all of their parts so I'm making the best of it with what I have to work with. If I had the funds I would have gladly purchased all of their components and saved a lot of headaches, measurements, and computer time.

Putting in some leg work :thumbsup:
I just bought mine from ebay and called it a day.
But again last time I did any CAD work my computer screen was black and green and had to type 20 commands to make 1 dot.
Great work

Haha. I hear ya. The new features in Autodesk Inventor and Solidworks are crazy. I wish I had the patience and ability to learn the new tools to do all that fancy stuff like Cris@JCG can. I'm just getting by trying to remember what commands I learned 20 years ago. I don't think they use digitizer boards anymore either. LOL.

i'd change that R.75 to something longer and more of a 45*. Also use misalignment bushings and drop that bolt size to .500 that way you can use more material surrounding it.

looking good.

The parts store ticked me off so I haven't been back yet to pick up the MC. I hate driving somewhere for 30 minutes one way to find out the order didn't make it in on time and its going to be another day. I miss the days when parts stores stocked parts. Now it seems like every time I need something beyond plugs or a filter it has to be ordered from a warehouse. I've resorted to amazon, partsgeek and autohausaz for a lot of things. If I have to wait, I might as well get it cheaper.

Hi Vince. Good point on the 45. I was worried about shock body clearance and figured boxing in the top side would be enough but you're right. I should be able to 45 that.

On the bolt sizing.. I'm using a 1/2" grade 8 with 3/4" OD 1/2" ID bushings. one bushing gets welded to the mount and the other slides through the 3/4 hole as a press fit so there's tension on the shock bearing.

thats right, thats an all star stye bracket. I don't do them like that anymore. Carry on. : )

LOL. I went to a 1.5" radius and the bracket's looking better. I'll have to check out clearance tomorrow to see where I'm at. 1.75 or maybe even 2 would be better.

that looks much better.

I squeezed as much out of this as I could on the inside. I ended up having to go from a .75 radius to a .5 radius because the Ridetech coilover was wider at this point than the Monroe I was mocking up with. I went backwards. LOL. I'm left with .032 gap between the edge of the coilover and the bracket but the coilover swings away during travel so it should work. In addition to my plan to box in the top/back side I added more material to the top of the coilover mount hole location and changed the top from a straight line to a 3" radius. I think this should work as most of the force will be in an upward direction.

Finished grinding plug welds and sanding the interior. I sprayed the floor in black SPI epoxy.

I also sprayed the cowl box kick panel area so I can weld the cowl box in. The passenger side is ready to be seam sealed so I'm trying to catch up on the drivers side. 2k epoxy in a spray can would be handy for areas like this.

My dad cut the UCA mounts and coilover brackets for me. He also machined the spacers for the upper coilover mount. Everything fit together great.

I welded the brackets to the mounts then cut the slots for the mounts on both sides.