Chris,

I threw the whole stack of spacers on there for two reasons:

1) Because James' car, as described, currently has .8" of spacers needed to correct bumpsteer on his particular setup. Though they (James & David) are in the process of correcting this with a potential solution that may be useful to me as well.

2) Because I wanted to see what the worst case scenario would look like so I know what issues I may, but hopefully will not have to address.

To minimize bumpsteer, you dont necessarily want the tie rods parallel to the LCA's. You want them create a line that passes through the instant center at ride height, and follows it for as much of the suspension range as possible.

hey the build is pretty sick your making some progress a lot more than i would get done. the car is going to be sick when its done. you rear deck spoiler and valence where am i to fiend some like that ?

Where'd it go?????
 

What happned to this project? I love this car!!!!! Jason

Went stagnant for a while due to family responsibilities. Back at it now.

it's been a while. Roughly 2.5yrs if my math is correct since I've touched my car. If you follow my blog at all the reasons why should be known. But if not have a look here:

http://thedamntrueexperiment.blogspo...ell-lived.html

here:

http://thedamntrueexperiment.blogspo...-you-suck.html

here:

http://thedamntrueexperiment.blogspo...-in-tears.html

and finally:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/mer...?pid=168113720

In the last 2.5yrs I've lost all my Grandparents and a dog. The last 2yrs have been spent caring for my Grandfather who had dementia/Alzheimer's. Dealing with other members of my family, various healthcare interests all while watching my Grandfather be slowly killed by his own brain. It's put a toll on me and my marriage and we are just now beginning to catch our breath and start thinking about resuming some form of "normal" life.

So the other day I remembered a conversation I had with my Grandmother about 4yrs ago when I shared with her what I was doing with her car. Couldn't stop thinking about it all day. When I got home from work I went into the garage, cried a bit and started clearing the space around the car and on the workbench. Wound up spending about 5hrs out there. The last 3 or so actually under the car with a grinder and the welder.

My welding is shaky...but damn it felt nice, cathartic and somehow right again to be working on it and doing something for myself.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]89382[/ATTACH]

Spent some time on the phone with some really great and helpful vendors over the last few days that I will call out individually as appropriate. I have quite a bunch of parts coming my way and the updates will follow.

Finished the mock-up of the rear suspension tonight and loaded the housing, x-member and various rods into the wagon to go to powder coating tomorow. It pains me to cover up all of Matts beautiful work.

Next up, finishing up the sheet metal portions above and around the upper link. Kinda kicking my ass as to how to do it cleanly.

Axles arrived today from Currie.

God bless True. Going/went through that with my Mom. In her better days she still remembered the Camaro.

It means something, so don't ever give up. :cheers:

Welcome back and hope to help you out as much as I can. Your grandfather was truly blessed to have you for a grandson. Sorry for your loss.


Let me know if you need a hand with the sheetmetal cover. Mi shopa Su shopa

Sorry for your Loss, I too have a dad that has dementia. It's a terrible disease. I hope things look up real soon.

Good to see you back here True. :flag2:

:thumbsup:

Glad to see you back on it True. My condolences on your recent losses. You're a good man for keeping your priorities straight through these tough times.

Looking forward to hearing about your plans for the front end, since you're selling off the modified stock subframe approach.

did they ship with the bearings on?how do them axles fit?

Yep, assembled. I'll let ya know when the housing gets back from coating next week.

Glad to know you're back working on the car again, True. Really sorry for your losses and tough time but good to know you made it through.

What's the front suspension setup going to be?

Picked up the Lateral Dynamics bits from the powder coater this afternoon and there's a big pile of boxes stacked in the garage.

Actual work...coming soon!

:clap: Yours is the first rendering I saved to my hard drive when I discovered Pro Touring.

For the newbs here...

Wow, thanks!

Still working on the sheet metal that encloses the area above the LD 3-link. Spent the better part of the afternoon cutting poster-board templates and whittling bits of new sheet metal to fit hunks of old, pink sheet metal.

Nowhere near done.

I'm certain that someone of greater skill than myself would have this segment whipped in a day but I'm still having fun doing it myself.

I've fabricated a solution to the above and hope to weld it in place on Sunday. Once complete, that will wrap up the chassis fabrication work that I will be doing myself (the cage will be done by a pro).

So...to the matter of protecting this hard fought tin work; Does one seam-seal before or after putting some primer on the bare metal?

Seam sealer is water based and its best to put on over etching primer. Can't wait to see the cage work.

Well, I'm hoping it goes straight to your shop for electrical & drivetrain after Alan is done with it.

Thanks.

Yep, you are on the roster.

I'm hopin Blaine will be a few weeks.

Do you have an engine yet? I have a nice 394 stroker that needs a home. :trophy-1302:

Nice to see someone else on here tearing up their grandmother's Camaro!

Definitely will enjoy following this one going forward. Good luck!

Things were progressing nicely this afternoon then the last two (on the right) welds exploded like a couple of zits...

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps1a8e81ca.jpg

...outta gas. Damn.

Good. Fast. Cheap.

Alan only offers the first option. I'm in line after Rob Zeiger's Fox body. I've got a fair bit to accomplish before the end of May.

I've not. When last we spoke you were going to get me some dyno info for the 500 & 550 options.

Oh, looks like I lost a few posts here in the great server meltdown of 2014. I'll have to add them back this weekend. Till then.....

Box-o-goodies arrived yesterday containing amongst other things this lovely hunk of metal:

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...psmfingyj0.jpg

The new Aero I presume?

Certainly looks light weight.

Ding-ding-ding!

Surprisingly so.

...the box that held the rotors though...ZOIKS!

what? you didn't get scalloped and drilled?

Drilled FTL.

You and I have been on these forums a long time my friend.


Brake system assembly began today though somewhat truncated by an insidiously progressive "honey-do" list.

Two steps forward and one step back in the form of a wheel stud shoulder that is .020 bigger than the hole in the Wilwood hat.

Thank God somebody besides me has this kind of luck.... only twenty thou? Bigger hammer! :twak:


Jeff-

Good step drill will solve that.

Yep. I'll be making small holes into slightly bigger holes tonight.

Such is the challenge of systems integration.

Yep, but it's enough to keep the hat from seating all the way down on the flange. The shoulder on the stud is ~.520 and the hole in the hat is .500 exactly.

The hats index to the ring on the flange so boring them out with a step-drill shouldn't cause a problem.

Forgot to put the posts back that were lost in the server debacle, this and the next are from about 2wks ago...........

So the last substantive fabrication/welding task was to finish the install of the Lateral Dynamics 3-Link. I had the front x-member in before work stalled.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps55d4bd8d.jpg

The remaining bits were installing the rear x-member, closing out the torque box, and installing the close-out panels/boxes to make room for the upper trailing arm.

Here's the rear x-member installed. I had it powder coated in a light gray. I hated to cover up Matt's welds, but the guy at the PC shop said a clear PC would discolor and look really lousy.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps95903836.jpg

For some reason, I really enjoy doing those rosette welds. They're just kinda fun. As you can see, I had to put a doubler on the frame to take up the gap between the length of the x-member and the width of the frame. James had to pound his frame rails out to make his fit. Yeah late-60's manufacturing inconsistencies!

Here's the torque box closeouts. I hadn't finished grinding the welds down when I snapped the pic. Kathy was calling me to dinner.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps96064539.jpg

Then I roughed in the trunk pan closeout and the doghouse that houses the upper link on the rear end housing.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...psd1073ff6.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps9ffbae7e.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...psff6c7ed8.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps7594a362.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...pse3a7445c.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps327d2017.jpg

Next up was to figure out a reasonably clean way to close out the area above the tunnel where the upper trailing arm will reside. The part that came with the kit was ok, but I didn't like the area around the fwd upper trailing arm mount. It didn't fit tight enough to the mount to allow the hardware to be outside the doghouse, and it was too narrow to access it if you put it inside.

Noodled around a bunch of ideas, including what James did in cutting a tunnel out of another car (t-bird I think) and I looked at using a Harley FL front fender. Almost did that, but once I cut the rolled edges off the fender it was way too flimsy.

So, what I wound up doing is what you see below. Pretty simple. I just struck a template off the fwd edge of the upper trailing arm mount, transferred that to the end of that 6" wide sheet and put a gentle bend it it to land it on the top of the rear doghouse.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...pse303eee0.jpg

As you can see, the sides aren't symmetrical. Because neither is the tunnel so that made forming the sides a bit troublesome. This presented another, among many opportunities to discover that my wife is much smarter than I am.

So I'm kneeling inside the cabin of the car, whittling away at a sheet of poster board trying to make a template that matches the nutty bunch of contours from the fwd x-member all along the pan/tunnel, and up onto the fwd face of the rear doghouse. Cut-curse-mark-cut-curse-mark-cut-curse-mark.... So Kathy pokes her head into the car and says "why don't you use a piece of wire and bend it to all those contours and then transfer that to the posterboard?"

In less time than I'd expended nibbling away at the paper, I drove to Lowes, bought 8' of solid core copper ground wire (a bit larger dia than coat hanger wire but more pliable, I forget what gauge) bent it, transferred it to paper and it fit pretty close to perfect.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps71bc7802.jpg

So there is the part tacked in place at the top & bottom, you can see a bit of light peeking in the gap, but it's tiny. A few nudges with a body hammer from beneath closed those up tight. BTW, the gizmo to the right is a "Gorilla Torch", it's made by a company called JOBY. The legs articulate and will wrap around almost anything and the feet are magnetic so it can be placed just about anywhere. Comes in really handy when there isn't enough ambient light to see what you are doing through the auto-darkening shield. Especially when welding under the car as you can focus the beam right where you are trying to weld allowing to to see perfectly before beginning the weld.

Quite a bit of yoga required to weld that part in, but despite that I was able to do some ok work.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps931f39cd.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps1a8e81ca.jpg

Adequate given my meager skill set and experience.

So. Up next is front suspension install (v2.0) and assembly of the rear end housing......

In this update I'm wrapping up (blessedly) the rear suspension install.

If you've not been following along, this is the Lateral Dynamics 3-Link System. Sadly, the company went out of business a few years ago so here's hoping nothing ever goes wrong with this damn thing or I'm hosed.

It's a really nicely designed system though. In use on James Shipka's "One Lap Camaro" http://www.onelapofamerica.com/image...hotos/3381.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T8y_Q5RKcw

....and Yancy John's (former owner Steve Rupp) "Bad Penny" Camaro.
http://www.speedhunters.com/wp-conte...c19_JjkP_0.jpg

http://youtu.be/Ay2w0OGDRpQ?t=34s

Both tuned by David and Mary Pozzi and both work spectacularly well. There aren't many of these kits in existence, Mike Kelcy recently got his on the road and that is all the ones that belong to folks I know.

Matt Rogers did all the fabrication on these and I'll be damned if I've ever seen better fitment and welding. Broke my heart to cover it up in powder coating.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps05ef93ef.jpg

As you can see, I had the housing powder coated in a light gray to aid in spotting any leaks or cracks down the road. The 3rd member is a Strange (iron) 9" with 3.70 gears and a Detroit TrueTrac diff. Should be plenty stout.

The hardware in the system is all really top notch as well. I sure wish the manufacturer was still around, I'd love to have a list of the rod end sources and PN's for replacements if needed.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps97f81376.jpg

The install of this system was the most challenging part of the build thus far. I went into it with my eyes wide open on that and thanks in large part to Matt, David Pozzi and James Shipka I got through it. Here's hoping the performance potential of this system over some of the more "plug-n-play" bolt in kits makes it worth it.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps03ab4aa3.jpg

As you can probably tell, the rear alignment is way off. Not worried about that right now. But I'll get it in the ballpark before it rolls out of the garage at the end of this month.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps6d051e85.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps4d733125.jpg

Next update with pics will cover the front suspension and shocks.....