You aren't going to like it but that is most of your movement and what's causing your leak. I went through the same thing on my car. I changed from a roller to a tapered as that's what is recommended for any performance application. A tapered bearing keeps the axle in a more fixed position.

I'd space it out another 1/8 and see if it leaks again or begins to rub. If it does, this is where I'd go.

I think I've got the leak fixed finally... This last axle seal I put in was a 1.531 ID and the one before that was a 1.562 ID. Plus these bearing have the O-ring around the outside of them to stop anything that happens to get past those axle seals.

I've got about 500 miles on it and one autocross event and so far everything is still dry as a bone. **crossing fingers**

I know what the next step up is and it's a major one...I'll replace these bearings once a year for a while before I step up to hacking those axle ends off and going with something different. There are a lot of other things I'd rather spend money on making this car go faster than that.

Greg, I think side force is side force and I can't imagine the car cornering flatter is going to put any less pressure on the outside wheels...but I hear ya and trust me I'm working on a solution to lessen the body roll.

I'm as far as I can go with easier bolt on solutions, the next step up is again a big one and I need to stop repairing rear ends and replacing clutches long enough to save up the coin for a proper sway bar upgrade.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-y...wl+-+Imgur.jpg

Looking at the right rear and the weight on the left rear..........are you sure about that? :sieg:

I'm pretty sure that is an optical illusion and the right rear is not up in the air in that picture if that is what you are referring to!! lol...

When I first saw that picture, I immediately went to the high res version of it to make sure.

http://imgur.com/a/oK198#24

If the car was cornering flatter and the inside rear was in the track more, I'd be carrying even more speed and still putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the outside wheel. The wheel is still going to flex until the tire breaks traction and begins to slide.

Besides, Ron likes the inside rear to roll up some to let it release from the track to help the car corner. He is more concerned about the front not rolling as much moreso than the rear.

I remember when the VW Rabbits hit the autocross scene and everybody was laughing at how they carried the inside rear through a corner..........until they realized the were getting their arses handed to them by a 3-wheeler.........I'm not sure it works like that with American Iron though. :sieg:

I'm no Ron Sutton but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once and the corner to corner transfer looks a little much........in my feeble opinion. :lol:

Pre-Ron Sutton Race Technology setup

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-k...o/Before+6.jpg

Talk about corner to corner transfer... :twak:

..........talk about a Cone Plow.

:underchair:

Some of the 76 cars my heavy, old, leaning too much, american iron, hot rod beat in raw time in last Sunday's event include the following:

1996 BMW M3
2005 Volkswagen Jetta GLI
1995 Dodge Neon ACR
2012 Mini Cooper
2013 Scion FR-S
2005 BMW 330CI
2006 Mazda MX-5
2001 Porsche 911 Turbo
2005 Subaru Impreza WRX Sti
1970 Nissan 280 Z (full blown race car)
2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo
1997 Mazda Miata (on R-comp tires no less)
2014 Nissan 370Z
2011 Chevrolet Camaro
2014 Ford Fiesta ST
2012 Ford Mustang


The full list can be seen here.
http://www.kcrscca.org/results/solo/...event4_raw.htm



And that was with the crew chief letting the rear rim ride against the shock mount and the driver killing at least two cones on every fast run (2 second penalty each). I can't wait to see the kill list once the crew chief and the driver get their act together... :trophy-1302:



Class results are here, this shows each run time plus penalties sorted by class.

http://www.kcrscca.org/results/solo/...event4_fin.htm

Ain't always the arrow is it? :unibrow:

I took down many a favored competitor with my little red 'wagon' including on this wet day the club president in his '77 Porsche Turbo Carrera.

http://sieg.smugmug.com/Other/Cycles...File0014-M.jpg

Toyota Celica Wagon? Love the fog lights!

It's fun watching the veterans that can climb into any car and go fast and just about as fun watching the guys with the high dollar sports cars that can't drive worth a lick... I'm only 2 1/2 years into this and still learning a ton...but eyebrows are being raised :unibrow: For both the car and the driver I suppose...

We'll get 'em next time. In the meantime I'll be ripping the trans out tonight to survey the clutch situation and make a decision on a parts order.

I'm signed up for a full day SCCA Starting Line School with Evolution Driving School instructors on June 28th and then we get real busy with 7 SCCA events in 36 days and a USCA 3 day event out of town right in the middle of that stretch. Gotta get everything tuned up for the summer.

Corolla hatchback FTW! :lol: Those Cibie driving lights were quite functional for mini-gumball events. :secret: 2TC 1600cc hemi head with side draft Webers and TRD tid bits. Best feature of the car was the custom adjustable indexed billet chamber plates I had built for the front towers. Once at the autox course I'd jack it up and set the chamber at -2.5*. Even had Recaro seats out of a '76 911. :D

I thought after I posted it was probably a Corolla... Nice!!!

I owe it all to you Ron!!!

Can't wait to see how we do once we iron out all the kinks still plaguing us. :trophy-1302:

Man... I'm beat. :o Hopefully this solves one of the kinks that have plaguing this car, the clutch slipping under extreme loads.

With just 4 hours of sleep and a hangover, I set out to install my new Ram Performance Powergrip clutch Saturday morning. Things went pretty well until it came time to slip the trans back in place. I didn't properly attach the trans to the trans jack when I took it out, the middle portion of the T56 has a ridge along the bottom front to back which made it flop around like a fish out of water. It worked fine for taking it out but not so much for lining the input shaft up through the clutch disc and pilot bearing. After fighting it for a while we finally got it in. While slipping the clutch fork in over the throw out bearing, it didn't go in as I had remembered. I fought with it, finally got it to slip into place but it just didn't look right. The fork was in a different position than it was with the old clutch. It seemed like it was in place though so I shouldered on. Finished up everything else, cross member, driveshaft, exhaust, wires, shifter...then pushed the clutch in and it went halfway in, popped and fell to the floor, and didn't come back up again.

I was pissed...and very tired, so I quit for the day. After a shower, a meal and a rest on the couch I found myself going to bed at 8 pm...on a Saturday night. Bright and early Sunday morning, I went out to investigate WTF was going on. Pulled the slave cylinder and the pushrod fell out...I guess I missed the cup on the fork with it when I put it in. Still not trusting the clutch fork itself, I pulled the complete trans out to check the clutch fork to throw out bearing fitment. Convinced it was all as it should be, in went the trans again. This time I used a 2x6 under the trans that reached the flat parts on the front and rear part of the case letting me easily use the adjusting screws on the jack to position the trans exactly in place and it slid right into position. Reinstall everything cross member, driveshaft, exhaust, wires, shifter...clutch pedal feels great...start the car in neutral all good, press the clutch in...about halfway down a grinding banging noise happens. A BAD grinding banging noise. :!: The car will start in 4th gear, but not in 1st...the noise happens right about when the clutch is releasing.

We had a visitation service to go to so I cleaned up and left for a few hours. But before leaving I read up on the Camaro boards about an issue when installing an aftermarket clutch kit in LT1 style applications. Apparently the new pressure plates are thicker than the stock ones and an issue comes up where the clutch fork hits the pressure plate. This is what I found when I pulled the trans for the THIRD time this weekend.

Check out the marks on the clutch fork and all of the metal in the bell housing I found upon removal.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-z...180424_497.jpg

And I didn't run it like that very long either.

I ground an 1/8" off of the bottom of the Tee pivot block and rounded in smooth the ridges on the Clutch fork where it was rubbing the pressure plate just in case.

This is where it had rubbed on the pressure plate, the banging was from the edges of the bolt heads hitting the clutch fork ridges.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-d...180450_130.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-o...180505_757.jpg

and where the yellow marks are on the side of the fork is where it was hitting the edge of the pressure plate and the bolt heads...the area that I ground down just a bit to make sure.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-e...184318_918.jpg

It all went back together pretty smoothly only this time I stopped after the cross member was in place and started the car (open headers, no driveshaft) and ran it through the gears to be sure. It all felt good.

I test drove the car tonight and it all works great, no strange noises and the clutch engages and releases just like it should. The pedal travel and engagement spot seem very similar to where they were before, so I'm gonna call it good. There is no chatter, really the clutch feels almost exactly like the old one I took out (except hopefully it won't slip now under extreme load). I just have to break it in now. I still have to put the interior back together but that won't take long.

Why do things have to be so difficult with cars sometimes...

If I've said it once on Lat G - I've said it a 1000 times... Ya gotta cut to cure... and I've rarely come across a part I didn't have to hot rod.

Your situation was - sadly - more difficult because you can't see the clearances etc... but bet you were thanking your lucky stars that you have a lift and a tranny jack!! WOW... Think about doing that laying on a creeper!

Screw that... :snapout:

I couldn't have done it...not three times in one weekend anyway for sure.

I have a REAL busy schedule coming up with the car that starts later this month. Getting the clutch issue fixed before that busy time starts was crucial, that's why the push to get it done fast was in place. The setbacks were killer...but I had to push through.

Now I have 3 weeks to break the clutch in and work out a few other bugs before the busy summer racing season starts in earnest.

I did finally get my emergency brake issue fixed for good while I had the cross member out (the first time). I now have a functioning emergency brake again for the first time since I swapped my rear brake backing plates 180 degrees about 2 years ago.

Very nice lance

One of the guys with a similar style clutch on the MCSS board

Me:

:bigun2:

In all of my research done about which clutch to buy for the LT1, never did I stumble across a thread talking about this issue.

As soon as I typed in "LT1 clutch install issue" into the google, 30 different threads showed up talking about the same exact issue. :bang:

I don't mind dealing with it, it just would have been easier to deal with it on the first go around, instead of the third...

Stuff happens and most everyone knows I've had to do my share of "loving" on this car to get all of the mismatch parts and pieces to play nice with each other. It's cool to be able to figure it out and fix it, but every now and then it would be super nice if things would just go as planned for a change of pace. :lol:

So I drove the car around quite a bit yesterday, the weather was fantastic and I had a lot of errands to run. I really REALLY like the clutch upgrade. It is apparent to me now just how much my other clutch was slipping under a hard load. I'd compare it to a torque converter on an automatic trans.

Now with the new Ram clutch though, when the torque is applied, the tires spin first before the clutch slips. Big difference... It should make me quite a bit faster on the course too, as long as I can keep the rear end from stepping out coming off corners.

Driveability is fantastic, shifts smooth both up and down, pedal pressure is nearly identical to the stock clutch and the engage\release point is nearly identical as well.

That's cool it has such a noticeable improvement for you Lance.

After going through the thread, I see you've certainly added a lot of your own supply of 'sauce' too. ;)

Thanks... It's definitely a garage built kind of car for sure.

I'm at the stage now where I'm having a blast driving it and try my best to not take it down off the road for very long periods of time. I guess there will always be things that I need or want to do to the car but being limited budget and time wise keeps all of that from happening right away.

One also has to take in consideration how a change in one area may affect another area of the car (either planned or unplanned) and be ready to make it all play nice together once again. Sometimes that is easier than others.

Well...turns out...it kind of was the axle flexing not the rim...Actually it was the axle bearing...

Check out the movement on the outer race...



This bearing started to fail in less than 100 street miles. Here in the first autocross lap I ran on it you can hear it already failing...Go to about 34 seconds in

Looks like a radial bearing, they don't handle thrust loads nearly like tapered rollers. I have radials in my 9" Ford, they were put in by mistake from the builder and I haven't had any noticeable issues so I haven't changed them out yet. Were they both bad? Wheel movement wasn't noticeably different from side to side that I saw. What surprised me is how much front to rear it looks like it flexes, like the whole rearend is moving.

Very cool videos, looks like it's working very nice.

Thanks...

No just the one bearing went bad. It had to have something wrong with it from the beginning as it went bad on the very first autocross run. I ran the wheels off of the previous bearings and they were just starting to show wear after 5 years.

I'll replace it and keep a real close eye on the other side.

I was watching your other thread too. I've had similar troubles with certain bearings from "certain" countries.

Unless I have absolutely no choice, I won't use a bearing that isn't made in the US, Germany, Japan, Switzerland etc.. The metallurgy and heat treatment that is so important for bearings is what is misunderstood and/or skimped on in places like China, Mexico and India.

I'm not sure where Green Bearing makes theirs but I know even some Timkens are made in Mexico and those used to be my "go to" along with NSK

I just thought I'd update a few things and report back on the upgrades I did to the car over the last winter.

This season so far the car has 2100 miles put on it, around 70 autocross runs, 15 speed stop runs, (5) 20 minute sessions of road course action, and the rest is daily driving miles. The car is currently leading the local SCCA CAM class championship points and has been invited to attend The Speedway Motors Classic American Muscle Invitational Challenge at the SCCA Pro-Solo finale in Lincoln, NE next month.

During all of this I had to replace the clutch finally and refresh the rear axle seals and bearings, both upgrades came with issues during installation, but once corrected have performed flawlessly ever since.

Last winter I rebuilt the Power Steering system replacing the stock style pump with a reman unit and adding a power steering fluid cooler inline between the steering box and the pump. The fluid was replaced with Royal Purple power steering fluid and I have not had to think about the power steering system once since then...it has stood up to a LOT of abuse this year and kept on running like a Timex. Successful upgrade...

I added 9.5" rims up front and Falken Azenis 615K 275/40/17s on all four corners and this might have been the best upgrade yet. They just flat out work and the extra width up front along with the ability to rotate them around to even wear has been a great combination. They are currently starting to get a bit thin...they might get me through the Pro-Solo and Nationals, but I have canceled my registration for our local events 9 & 10 this weekend as they are going to be at Heartland Park Topeka once again and that surface there just chews tires to pieces and mine won't last through another weekend of that abuse. I've put out some feelers trying to get a little bit of help with some new tires for Nationals, we'll see how that goes. Love the Falkens though...definitely the go to performance tire for the type of driving I have been doing.

The body bushing project...I can't really say it has made a huge difference in the car's performance, but I can say that I'm pretty certain the old bushings would not have held up to the abuse I put the car through this year. I'm glad I did it...and I'm glad I won't have to do it again any time soon.

Things currently being considered are some more front end alignment changes. I need to get less static camber in the front which will involve removing a nut between the driver side UCA shaft and the frame and then all new alignment procedures. I also need to 4 corner weigh the car again and get it set to be balanced with just the driver in the car. At the Pro-Solo and at Solo Nationals you can't take passengers so I need to set the car up to be at it's best with just me in the car.

I also recently split a sway bar end link bushing and instead of just replacing it, I've ordered a RideTech MuscleBar front sway bar. I'm hoping I'll have time to get it, get it installed and get all of the other alignment and ride height settings updated before Nationals in a month...along with some time to test n tune on the car. This bar is around 30% stiffer than the bar currently in the car and will necessitate a rear spring rate change as well...but should make a huge improvement in the handle of the car on the track. It still just rolls way too much as it is now.

Overall the car has been fantastic to drive this year, everyone that rides with me on track has a blast in it, it always gets lots of pictures taken of it, and overall the response to it has been a lot of fun. I wouldn't change any of that.

Plans for next year are kind of up in the air right now...I really REALLY had fun at the USCA event and told the wife right after that if I could do a few more of those a year, I'd give up the local SCCA racing. That would necessitate at least a 4 point roll bar addition as well as some race seats and harnesses. I'm still mulling that around...

Hi Lance !

Lance,

Post up the diameter & wall thickness of your current bar ... and your new Ridetech Muscle Bar ... and I'll run the calcs to figure out the rear spring rate increase needed. This way everyone can learn along with us.

Sure thing Ron, the current front sway bar is from an F-body 36 mm dia, 0.220" wall tubing.

The new Ridetech MuscleBar will be 1.5" dia (38.1 mm) and 0.250" wall tubing.

I'm running a 1" solid rear bar and 162 pound springs.

Lance, I just read through your whole thread, great stuff. I really like what you've done with your Monte Carlo SS and look forward to seeing more, great write-ups. :thumbsup:
Good luck the rest of the season.

Hey Lance, just read through, great thread. I'm anxious to see how things go with the new parts. I'm always trying to read up on serious G bodies so I can see how my car compares.

To compare, my set up is-
weighs 3550 without me in it,
600# S10 front springs
Factory wagon 1 1/8 (28.6mm) G body front sway bar
front Varishocks set on 7 of 16

no rear sway bar at all
CPP C10 1/2 ton 3" drop springs, don't know the spring rate, I bought them used and just slapped them in.
rear Varishocks on 6 of 16

17x9.5s all the way around with 255 and 275 40 Nitto NT555s

Last SCCA event I went to my best run was 76.8 and a 2009 Vette that was there was in the 75s so it was running respectfully around the middle of the group on times. I was driving a bit conservatively just to ease into things as this was my first "real" event so I think as I gain more driving skills the car will get faster.

What's odd, my car doesn't seem to roll near as much as yours. Maybe I'm not driving hard enough, lol! I have a much smaller front sway bar than you and no rear bar. What might be making the difference is the 6 pt cage (which is only welded to the floor not the frame), I boxed the frame in the middle, I built a frame connector that ties the middle frame rails together and ties into the rear lower control arm mounts, a brace connects and triangulates the rear shocks, and a trailer hitch connecting the rear end of the frame rails. Up front I have 73-77 A body firewall to rad support braces, the Regal brace that triangulates the radiator support, and I built a heavier wall larger tube triangle brace that goes under the front frame rails. In my videos I see the fender gap flex maybe 1/8"+ so my next step is down bars connecting the firewall to the front frame rails. Not sure that is what is making my car roll (read twist) less, but these frames are ridiculously flimsy and bracing can only help. You mentioned early on a roll bar, have you done that? If you custom build one you can design it to be out of the way and easy to get into. It may not be NHRA 9 second legal but who cares. I have lots of pics in my build thread link below in my signature if you want to see what I'm talking about.

Other than the bracing, I wonder where the big difference between our cars could be? Again, I'm anxious to see how the Monte acts with the new parts. Good luck!

Here's a link to an outside view video- does it seem to roll less than yours? It's kinda hard to tell unless both cars were on the same track, but best I can tell yours rolls a little more... It looks ok embeded here but if you watch the youtube link it's a little clearer and larger.

Ben, the pictures you see of my car when it's really rolled hard are possibly more a product of the courses we typically run on. Instead of large open sweeping type of corners like you showed in your video, we have mostly short chutes, hard braking and super tight corners.

This picture was taken in the middle of a large high speed sweeper at Gateway.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...94152145_o.jpg

And this picture was taken at the end of the course at Gateway under a hard braking tight type of corner.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T...o/P7190359.jpg

It might just be that it appears that my car has more diagonal roll once the back is up in the air under braking.

Those are great examples of different situations. My next SCCA event I'll have to see if I can get my son set up on a tighter part of the course for some shots of harder cornering.

Again, I'm trying to see how my car is doing compared to others with cars like mine. As far as I know, I'm the only one in this SCCA region that even runs CAM class, so trying to compare to lowered Hondas and 350Zs just doesn't help me much, lol! By watching and talking things out with folks like you is helping me get a better car and driving style together. After all, somebody, with maybe a G body or other "different" car needs to whoop up on all those Camaros once in a while, right?

Yeah, I suppose it's hard to tell/ compare unless we could see both cars on the same track. I watched my video a bunch of times last night, particularly the quicker turns before the large sweeper. It seems like I have decent roll range, but I guess I just need some video/ photos from some areas with tighter turns to see what's going on there too. I've tried to pay attention to different cars and folks like Ron, and I realize that some roll is good to help plant the tires, not enough or too much maybe isn't so good.

It seems there's only a handful of us G body guys that are serious about autocross, it would be way too cool for me to meet up with some of you guys at an event and compare notes. Maybe one day... I'm totally changing my entire suspension in August so I can sneak in a couple of SCCA events before the Hotchkis autocross at Fontana in October. Maybe there will be some other G body guys there, hopefully. Next year I'm going to try to get out to the Heidts challenge so maybe that's where I'll see some of ya.

Thanks for sharing that Ron. One of the reasons I'm deciding to go to Coilovers is so that I can play with/ factor in easy ride height and spring rate changes. The most recent mod to my car was cutting a bit of coil off the front springs and it went lower than I had wanted. In a world like this to me dealing with coil springs is a lot bigger pain than just swapping to coilovers.

Lance- Sorry to hijack your thread a little, just trying to learn from the things you're trying to sort out.

Ron- so in a car like Lance's or mine, being a daily driver that's "purpose built" and will see more track time than the average car, what type of range are we looking for in shocks? 2+ inches?

If I'm understanding you correctly you're going with a stiffer sway bar so he can maintain the height but lessen the roll, correct? Do you feel like the car is close to where it needs to be other than that?

No problem Ben, that's why I do these threads...to share with others about what we've done and plan on doing and to share how it's worked.

Before we started, my front shocks had about 1/2" of compression travel before bottoming out, static fender height was 25.5". One of the first things Ron had me do was put zip ties on the shock shafts and make a few autocross runs to see how far the suspension was traveling. That was eye opening and started us on this journey of making the suspension travel more to obtain the handling we wanted. A suspension bottomed out on the shock body in a turn is not what you want, trust me on this.

We now have enough travel built into the car that under full bump the fender height is 23.25" and full extension is 27.25" (this extension measurement was done before the longer Ridetech Shocks and LCAs were added and may be even higher now) and we have the current ride height set at 26.25" (25.5" tall 275/40/17 tires). We have the 3.6" travel Ridetech shocks on the front and they bottom out at the same time the tie rod ends hit the frame and sway bar (all at the same time). I don't have the exact shock travel numbers with the Ridetech shocks here at work, but you can see we are traveling the front suspension a LOT for a G-body. It took work to get that all to play nice together, but it is certainly worth it with the way the car turns in now.

Hi Ben,


Oh boy ... that's pretty subjective. We can always go faster. The questions come down to each person's personal budget, goals, planned usage, etc.

I'm saying this slightly tongue in cheek ... but we can shave about 10 seconds off his lap times by cutting that body off his production chassis & putting it on a cutting edge, Track-Warrior tube chassis. But where does it stop? I think each person has to make that decision. Sometimes money makes that decision for us.

As far as Lance's current package goes ... without making any major modifications (cutting up) the car ... it only needs a few things:
* Bigger front bar & matching rear springs
* A little more caster & a little less camber
* Scaled to be balanced with just the driver
* New tires to replace his current shredded ones :)
* Once he get's it running flatter, he may be able to reduce the ride height "a little."

You'll notice I didn't mention more front travel. He can't get more without making major mods to the car. Plus how far it travels now ... around 4" ... is pretty sweet.