ok, I think the car is playing hard to get! I moved it around the block a week ago, out of the garage to turn it around, construction in my nieghborhood didn't pave the street and left a 3 inch manhole cover sticking up! Guess what hit it? My front left lower control arm mount. Tweaked the subframe quite a bit. No shop in the area wants to touch it to try an pull it back. I got it close witha a longacre camber/caster meter but it's not were it was before. I autoX'd it Sunday and it was terrible! I redid the alinment, drove it around moved the body over the to make up for the difference and raised the ride height today and was going to redo the alignment but my jack decided to be a jackass and blow a seal! so no lifting the car in the garage tonight. So here's the newest decal in the car.

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps8cb3e5ac.jpg

on a good note, I did get to change the brakes and get the ducts installed, maybe next time I'll be able to stop before I take out a manhole! I'm not happy.....

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...psaac03114.jpg

A few more random pics from this week.

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps8b88582e.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...psaf4e776f.jpg

and the deal killer
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps042733bc.jpg

How awful! I feel for you I did the same with my 1 year old lowered S10 when I was a younger man. My fillings nearly popped out of my teeth when I clanked that thing.....those manhole covers don't move! Lucky for me, I had a buddy that owned a body shop. That repair was nothing compared to trying to get your custom subframe straightened. Really cool homebuilt hotrod you have there. Good luck with the fix.

As you can see from the pics, it took a direct hit on that front corner. From what I can see so far it did twist the k-member. The rear mount on that arm is about 3/4 higher than the other side and there is a buckle in where the cross member ties into the main frame. I think it would pull out, I just don't have any way to do it. None of the shops I talked to want to touch it. My Buddy at Maaco Hampton said he would do it, but I got to get it over there to him, he's about an hour from here. I'm going to try and do that tomorrow. As if it couldn't get any worse, it slipped off the jack yesterday and broke the steering rack! Autozone is cool about it though and is swapping one out for me under warrenty, just waiting on it to get here.
At least it's sunny and my garage got a lot bigger!
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps076090aa.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps250bbf3e.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps45fbf8dc.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...psa3b3c677.jpg

When it rains it pours
 

Should be able to put it on a frame machine and pull it back straight. Suprised no collison shop would help you out locally.

Ok, new rack is in and alignment redone with my driveway tools. gonna take it to the shop tomorrew to pull on it and see if they can make it better. Leaving it there till next week. I'll have all weekend to get the Backup car (WS6 is faster) ready for The Detroit Speed Slam at CMP. I'm going even if I have to drive my 4Runner ont the track!

My buddy came over yesteday and we spent most of the day shimming, moving, reshimming ect... to try and get the alignment spot on for the Southern Slam. At the end of the day we were able to get both sides set equal, and the fender clearence just about the same on both sides. Drove it around quite a bit and it drives better now than it ever did from the alignment shop. I think the guy at the shop just didn't want to spend as much time on it as we did. Final specs (track setup mind you) were -2.8 camber both sides on the front and 6.5 Caster on both sides. 0 Toe. On the back it's set to -1.8 Camber and slight toe in. All specs from Pfadt's web site for a track prepared C5/C6 Vette.

After today, I'm not touching it till I load it on the trailer Thursday night for the 7 hour ride down to South Carolina.

Good to here you gona make !!! Get some video.

Hey Guys I just got home and uploaded some pics from the weekend. Sorry I didn't update from my phone, but there was no service there for ATT. Had a great weekend, towed the car there and back with no issues and besides a leaky Header gasket nothing on the car let me down! Adjusted and tweaked a few things and chased a few Gremlins (not the AMC type) and ended up running pretty well all weekend. Since I wasn't on the Spec 200 TW tire I can't post any times and that's ok with me. I was just going for fun anyway. From looking at the times of the guys I know I could run with, I was somewhere in the top twenty and they put me in the second fastest run group out of 6 for the weekend! The car was fast! but not without it's issues. I had a really hard time putting the power down (and she's got some for a 125K LS1!) We made some adjustments to the rear end geometry and had Kyle Tucker (Detroit speed owner if you don't know) come over and give us some tips on how to adjust what we have and It was better today in the AutoX portion than yesterday on the Road Course. I'm very happy with the car and I'll get it were it needs to be this year. The best part of the weekend was when my good racing friend for as long as I've been doing this won the Invite to the Optima Street car Challange! (and the fact I didn't break anything on my car is a close second) Here's some Pics!

Unloading from the Trailer Friday night
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...psc5cfb11e.jpg
Oh Crap! JB's Atomic Camaro from the show is here!
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...psd89937c1.jpg
Waiting to go with Stacy Tucker from DSE
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps24d50d72.jpg
And Ron's Mustang (LS7 powered now)
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...psdda3714c.jpg
Putting the power down!
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps4039f0a8.jpg
I need more front swaybar and less rear
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps1df06d5f.jpg
Cooling off for a bit before I go again
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps5af0c7e7.jpg

Looks like a good time man. Glad to see you out having so fun after all the hard work.

I really like this car, the home built ones have a special place in my heart. Until you really lean on an old car at a road course, you can't appreciate what it takes to make an old car handle and work well. This car seemed to work pretty well and it left in one piece, that is a good weekend.

Thanks Ron! Means a lot coming from you. I feel your pain with the trailer woes, One trip I had 3 flat tires! I was very pleased with the car, ran times in the upper middle of the pack and there's plenty more to gain when I figure out how to get the rear end to bite a little harder. I had to pedal it through every turn and couldn't accelerate hard without breaking the rear end loose. I was also braking way early for the corners because I don't have confidence in the brakes yet, but she didn't let me down!

I got Media coverage! I made the front page of DSE's website and three shots on the southern slam recap page! I'm the goofy dude in the grey tee shirt looking the wrong way!

http://www.detroitspeed.com/speednew...recap-pg1.html

That was the first time I had run the full course, that is one track that I don't even try to pedal, lots of drifting and slipping and sliding. I think that is my favorite track so far.

I was spinning so much in 3rd gear down the back straight, that when the clutch started to go away in high gear, I thought I was spinning. Unfortunately NOT!!

Here's some update from the last couple of months. I've done 3 more AutoX days since I came back from CMP. I've been slowly dialing the car in and it's getting faster and I'm learning how to drive a 2900# car with 407HP! I swapped out the front springs to a little beefier 550 pounders and the car was better. So I decided to soften up the rear some by changing out the sway bar. Most people told me to just take it off, but I wanted to see if making it softer made the changes in the right way first. Problem I'm having is that the car is very loose in the corner and corner exit is really hard to put down any power. I'm taking the car to VIR in July for its HPDE3 debut.

I'm softening up the rear sway bar with a smaller one. 26mm down to 21mm. Since I had to pull the gas tank to change the bar, I'm fixing a small pinhole leak by resealing the tank from the inside. Dropped it yesterday and pulled all the pump assembly out and poured in some Eastwood tank sealer. Just pour it in and rotate the tank around and it leaves a nice liner when it drys out. then I painted it before I reinstalled it. after all the paint drys I'll put it all back together.

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps9f40a1c2.jpg

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps53074848.jpg

Sway bar is in
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps818642a2.jpg

Tank is back together and in
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps740720fb.jpg

Getting the car ready for VIR in July, I went back to the big rear sway bar and went down on the rear springs to 250#s The street trial seems to be much better. Now when I get on it the weight transfer to the rear is much more pronounced. I'm also upping the front bar to control some body roll. I also spent some time today to cross weight the car and realign it with the new ride heights. Cross weight is now an even 50%, perfect. all I need now is a 130 lb passenger and the car will be perfect! In race trim the car weighs in at 3150 with 12 gallons of fuel and me in the seat. I also finished up the brake ducts to tie in the frame rails to just under the bumper. It's pretty stealthy, you can't even see them from the front of the car.

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...psd410bdfb.jpg

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps8fe0804c.jpg

Also added some new grand sport stripes on the fenders just for effect.

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps50eb30df.jpg

Looking good Mills. How much longer till you start running time trials?

If all goes well with the car at VIR in July, I'll be ready to go to then next level. If I was still in the WS6 I would have already made the jump. But since I'm in a completly new car to me, I want some seat time in it first. As you know, track weekends don't come cheap, but I'm hoping to get it done by the end of the year as long as the car holds together. I pretty much spent all I had and more getting the car ready for the Southern Slam at Carolina Motorsports park and I'm in financial recovery mode at the moment!:G-Dub:

Well I'm back from a pretty bad weekend. On the first session the car was flying! It seems that I've finally got the suspension dialed it almost perfect. It keep getting faster and faster and I was passing people left and right. It really flys on the back strech too! So the gearing is just about right for VIR. (sucks for autoX though).
However... at the end of the first session I went into turn 10 about 120mph behind a Miata. He Breaked and so did I but the pedal went to the floor! Oh ****! I went to the left off the track to avoid hitting him, I tried to stay off track to the left because turn 10 is a left hand turn. Well turning in the grass at that speed with slicks doesn't work so well so I went back across the track in front of the Miata! (yeah, pass in the grass style) but I clipped his left front with the right rear of my car. No body damage to me though. I went off track on the other side and all the way down the hill to the Oak tree turn (Its a long ways) I finally stopped and still had no brakes. Smoke everywhere! started to hear the motor making valvetrain noises and I looked and had no oil pressure! Oh ****! So I get the motor turned off and gather my senses cause I was shaken pretty good. I'm not allowed to get out of the car until the track is cleared and the wrecker shows up. when I get out I look back and see about 200 yards of tire tracks with a nice oil slick in between all the way down to me! Oh **** number three!

After I got my Haul of Shame back the paddock on the wrecker and went through all the checks because there was contact I was able to figure out what happened to the car. I sheared a bolt on the upper swaybar link on the rear. The link fell forward and when the suspension compressed it Sheared the left rear brake line. Going across the track in front of the miata apparently got the Oil pan. My weekend was done at 10:30 on Sat AM. Oh well...

Heres the pan
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps49b44942.jpg

Here's the car that I just blew by that I could have hit.
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...psff7ca28f.jpg

Glad you and everyone else is ok. Sorry to hear about the damage though.

Glad to hear no one was hurt.

Think its time you step it up a level.....your passing way too many cars :poke: :thumbsup:

x2 - that had to have a 4x pucker factor! Hopefully an easy fix to the car.

Yes that was a Pucker moment for sure! Anyone that goes off left at VIR on turn 10 ends up in the tirewall, somehow I avoided it and no one got hurt. No warning at all, hard brake pedal at the last checkup spot, then nada! I was bouncing off the gators for the first time that session going up the up hill esses, that may have been what sheared the bolt because there is no braking from the 1st gator to turn 10. The fix is easy and cheap if the motor didn't get hurt while I was trying to gather my senses not realizing that there was no oil pressure or any oil in the motor and it was still running at the end when I finally came to a stop. I'm sure a picture or some video will surface within a week or two, if it's not to shaming, I'll post back up. no body or suspension damage to the car that I've seen so far so hopefully it's an easy fix. And the miata guy was cool, his car already had right front damage and he barely tagged me, not even hard enough to leave a scratch on mine, only some red miata "residue"

I'm wondering if there's a way to safety wire/harness the sway bar so that it can't drop down should you shear another bolt? I'm guessing no since the end needs to pivot and I bet it didn't have to move far at all to cut the brake line but I'm just thinking out loud.

Yeah, I'll look at that, but safty wire would not fix a sheared bolt. And no it didn't have to fall far things to go wrong. I'll take a picture of it when I put it back together. Parts are on order.

Gae, The sucky part is that I was in line for a TT checkoff ride on Sunday to move to the next level, but no car means no checkoff ride... :bang:

Thats alright Mills, I'm sure you'll have another opportunity to get into TT. Hope the motor is OK.

Some Really good Pics before it went away!

Running down some Nissans!
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps0153b141.jpg
Beat up by some Porshes!
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps9326bdbe.jpg
Finaly some clear track!
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps724e1313.jpg
Boogety Boogety!
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps9debae5f.jpg

I like that shot. That outside wheel looks flat and planted :thumbsup:

It looks good on the track.

What was the verdict on the engine?

New pan will be here tomorrow, been working on the rest of the broken vehicles that somehow piled up in my yard while getting the camaro ready.

It's Alive and well! Swapped out the new pan and filled it with oil and no bad engine noises! Yeah! It did do more suspension damage than I thought. The front alignment was all out of whack and I may have further bent the front lower control arm mount, but I was able to get it pretty close with garage tools. The rear took a pretty bad hit too, it managed to pull the rear toe control rods out of the differential housing and when I drove it to Cars and Coffee, I had a bit of a rear steer problem. Re tapped the holes deeper and put in some longer better bolts and problem solved! Also Ripped off the front spoiler, not a big deal there, I think I'm gonna build a metal spoiler with the ability to attach a splitter for track days.
I was able to make the VA autoX championships this past weekend with it. This is a big event with 150 cars from all over the east coast. This is the tune up event for the Nationals and is on some pretty nice concrete on the US Navy Amphib base at Little creek, in Va Beach. It's the best autoX site east of the Mississippi! take a look at the pics and they add another reason my screen name is Beach Cruiser!

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps6721c1c4.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps7bec809d.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps090adef4.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps4e599dbd.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps66e49afc.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps9bbbc6b2.jpg

About done for the Winter, time to fix some stuff and make a few mods while there's no racing. I'm going to concentrate on better safety equipment, I'd like a true racing seat for me and move the Sparco Adjustable seat over to the passenger side for ride alongs. Right now the pass side has some cheap pep boys seat and lap belts only. I'd like to upgrade the drivers side with new belts and move all that stuff stage right. I'm definately going to need to make the steering wheel removeable too. If there's still any money left perhaps I'll upgrade the gauge package to something a little more professional. Currently it has about 4 different kinds of gauges in it from what I had laying around the garage! All but the tach are located between the dash and the console area, hard to get a quick read while on track.

The last event I did was with TrackDaze at VIR on the Grand Course. That was a lot of fun! Until is started snowing... Put her on the trailer and took her home in one piece. I managed to pull down a 3:13 lap, which is pretty good from what people tell me, the Grand is 4.2 miles around. I found later that leaving was a good thing because the last session I apparently broke a shock. Snapped the rod right under the upper spring cup! I may redo my coil over design over the winter, I'm working on something really cool!

http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps72146065.jpg
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...psebda52b0.jpg

all my conquests this year!
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps6ef06564.jpg

Hope to be doing a lot more of this next year!
http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps9b9ff846.jpg

Thanks for the update......keep 'em comin' :thumbsup:

Tell me what it is, tell me, tell me...... LOL

Was the shock failure from the sway-bar mount/brake failure and resulting off road driving incident? Looking at the photo, it looks like there was an impact mark on the frame rail adjacent to the shock. Normally that only happens with the extreme force of an impact.

Keep the pics of the redesign coming, every design can be improved.

That impact may have contributed, but the shock actually broke about 4 months later. I think it was a result of the top cup being in a bind with that allen head bolt you see up top. I had it "Clocked" so the slot was in the interference area but it must have moved. I've now changed up the bolt and there's no way it can iterfere. Yeah that impact tore up a bunch of stuff! I keep finding them everyday! Car is in the garage for the winter, I'll comb through the whole thing before race season starts up.

I just finished going through your entire thread thanks to Brian Peacoe telling me about your car and build thread. I really, really like your car and your fab skills are impressive! I hate that we didn't meet at CMP this year...I'll be looking for you if you make it back down to CMP next year for sure. I'm looking forward to seeing your car up close!

Thanks Geoff, I can't believe we didn't meet up at CMP, after all we had the world's biggest beer cooler in our trailer! LOL Thanks for the kind words on the car, she's ugly but everyone seems to like it that way. I'll be at CMP for sure next year as well as a couple other AMSCS events. Only problem is BFG doesn't make tires big enough for my 17" street wheels and my 18" wheels are holding my Hoosier race rubber. So I'll be "cheating" again at CMP, thats why you don't see any times for me on the road course. Brian and I have become friends since we met at CMP and I'm "coaching" him through an LS1 build and instal into his beautiful silver car. Stay tuned for the winter updates, I have some cool stuff in the works!

Yes Mills and I appreciate all of the coaching. Geoff has been helping me as well. I have been trying to fill my brain with as much LS information as I can. There just isnt enough room in my tiny noggin. ha ha.

But I am sure between the 3 of us, we will have m up and running before long.

After all of you guys switch to LS, I may be able to win the "carburated" class......

So lonely.....

That had to be the best build thread I have read to date. I like the fact that you did this yourself and didn't pay a shop to do all of the fabrication work. I like how you mounted the IRS, I want to do the same for my 69 Camaro and this gave me good information on how and which year to use. Thanks for this great adventure:thankyou: