Got more info back from BOS and TCI. Both front wheels are back in the wheel well about 0.5" from dead center. That is also with 5.78* of caster driver's side and 6.27* on the passenger side as well as over 2.5* of negative camber.

So we are going to make the alignment match exactly the TCI recommended specs of 5* caster and 2* negative camber. This is expected to allow the tires to safely clear but will still be slightly back in the wheel well overall.

Since everything is powder coated already I'll consider modifying anything on the frame later if it is still warranted after dialing out some caster.

So TCI engineered it to actually not sit in the middle of the wheel well? Did I read/interpret that right?

Just a guess, but it prob wasn't the intent...just the fix.

Positive caster moves the upper ball joint to the rear of the chassis. My guess is that they engineered the chassis with the wheel centered at 0 caster. Has anybody looked to see if a wheel is perfectly centered on a stock subframe. I doubt it is.

Sounds to me like BOS tried to make the wheels equal in the opening on each side and ended up with two different caster dimensions to make it happen. Either the subframe has been installed out of square or the sub is out of square. Could also be the control arms aren't equal or the CA mounting points on the subframe are off.

TCI engineered their subframe to place the front wheel in the same spot as factory, which according to them is slightly back from center. I do know that my old factory subframe with 5.0* Driver and 5.5* Pass. of caster the wheels were not exactly centered, they were back in the subframe as well, it just wasn't as obvious as it the new set up which is apparently due to the radical amount of caster BOS's alignment friends added.

It is normal for any street driven car to have 0.5* more caster on the passenger side than the drivers side. So they didnt' do anything funky in the alignment. The only issue is that they put in a good 0.75* more caster per side than TCI recommends. New vette's and BMW's get run with 7*+ of caster so I think it would of been a good idea to allow folks to run higher caster rates but most first gen Camaro's consider themselves lucky to get 5*

This got me wondering if my fronts were ever centered. I never measured exactly but this side pic appears that they are slightly back a bit? Look similar to yours Chad either before or after?

My last caster numbers were 6.34 left and 5.26 right. Stock sub.

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...TTCII099-1.jpg

It's to bad they didn't use a wide angle lense. They may have got my bumper.

To me it's another one of those deals you will forget about once you start using the car again. These cars weren't perfect 40 years ago. They will never be perfect today. Factory cars aren't perfect. Finish it, beat on it, and all will be well. :D

I've got well over the 5* of caster you are talking about so I dont know what your talking about. I dont want to give up my alignment specs but lets just say it's closer to what the Vette and the Viper are running.
As far as unequal caster....good luck with that....I would never run unequal caster on each side but I will add my alignment is done while I'm sitting in the car.

Unequal caster is for road crown. It fights the pull to the right. Simple as that.

Thats great for a street driver but when your running 100 plus down a straight with uneqaul caster will cause instability in a straight line.

Last time I checked this was a street car website. :unibrow: And I disagree that a .5 degree difference would cause any stability issues. Low caster and toe out cause stability issues.

For how much longer :lol:

FWIW I run 5.75" (both sides) and my wheels are definitely aft of centerline.

Just until Flash finally gets fed up with Todd and bans him. :rofl:

Good point!

He wouldn't do that to me.:lol:

Like Todd said unequal caster for road crown.

for whatever its worth I've run the standard 0.5* unequal caster in every alignment I've done in my car so far. I certainly wasn't a mad speed demon but I did see 100+ mph on several tracks including 120 range at Big Willow. I never noticed any pull or instability.

Thanks Todd. I still have a lot of confidence in the results of the TCI parts and running 5* vs 7* at my skill level and level of build effort probably isn't going to matter anyways lol!!

The TCI car has the prototype subframe and it's mounting points are a 0.25" further back than the production and I've never heard anyone giving them grief about how their wheels look on the car and it certainly performs awesome at the local good guys and RTTC events I see it at! I got a lot less concerned once I figured out the issue wasn't specific to one side of the car.

As long as I can run 5*+ of caster and a 275 front tire I'll be pretty happy.

I decided to go through my cardomain pics and forgot I had a pic uploaded of V2.0 with a 275 up front.

So my old set up looked like this when trying to stuff 275 up front with about 5.5* of caster. NT05 275/40/18 on a 9" wheel with 5.5" of BS.
http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_...4043_large.jpg

R888 275/35/18 on a 9" wheel with 5.75" BS and 6.25* of caster with the TCI subframe.
http://carphotos3.cardomain.com/imag...1781_large.jpg

Looking at these pics it seems pretty clear TCI does indeed attempt to duplicate the tire position as a stock subframe.

5 degrees of caster and 2 degrees of camber will treat you fine. Alignment has a lot to do with the application. The middle road that pro touring dictates is tough for alignments. It's a compromise. 2 degrees of camber will wear the inside edge with a bunch of street miles. It really just depends on the amount of track time if tire wear will be a problem.

Forget all that, you are running R888's now. You won't have to worry about it. :lol:

I'd start this project all over again.

Wow that's tuff love... I thought you guys were friends.:rofl:

Chad, glad to see some progress on the car. Looks good.

Thanks Brett. Doug and I had lunch today so he got to hear all about the latest in person. And actually, part of it was me telling him how I seem to keep adding to my list of opportunities for the "I told you so" from you!!

Damn I'm feeling goooooooooood right now!!!

Fired up the motor for the first time today. Still a ton or work to do on the car but I definitely feel like I'm on the other side now :)

Was holding the phone the wrong way so this video looks lame but here is my first ever attempt to start my new Mast motor.



PS F*UCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's a huge step! Congrats!!

:captain:

Way to go Chad!!! :thumbsup: :hail: :thumbsup:

I say leave it uncorked for a while just to let the neighbors know who's boss...:D

There's nothing like your first "fire up" (OK there is but this is a G rated site )

CONGRATS!! :thumbsup:

Sounds like a winner Bobby! :unibrow:

So what's next?

:thumbsup: :lol:

Only thing I can think of when you rev that motor up is...

http://youtu.be/S06nIz4scvI

Awesome news----very, very happy for you! That's a corner turned right there for sure.

Thanks everyone!! I'm still have a high going from the car guy euphoria of starting a new motor.

ha ha. The "to do" list is still pretty long but I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

- enhaust
- Misc wire clean up in the engine compartment
- wire up the A/C compressor as well as get new ends crimped on the lines and charge the system
- Remount front bumper (I have to many paint blemishes that were hidden by the bumper before and I still like the look)
- Mount front spoiler
- grease suspension mounts
- Probably have to bleed the clutch
- clean up wiring under dash
- Figure out some miracle to route the heater/AC ducts with the new computer mount in the way (in place of glovebox)
- rewire the transmission harness (was cut from tunnel being fixed)
- rewire all the trunk stereo stuff (speakers, amps, etc)
- put the interior back together (possibly need to buy new carpet since the shifter moved)
- Take the car to TCI to get help sorting out the suspension.

You probably weren't wanting to see that detailed of a list and I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff but that is the general idea.

F yeah that sounds good, you don't need pipes. Loved the way the computer was trying to learn the idle, sounds like a big cam.

You know Im not sure you can handle all that.... you better let me take it for the first test spin. :D

Congrates.

Sound awesome! Major milestone achieved!

Good for you Chad. Big big step forward. I'm sure you have a renewed motivation to push to the end. Keep it up!

That thing sounds wicked :unibrow:

Congrats!! :thumbsup:

I love it! It sounds sweet !!

Way to go Chad!!!! sounds great.

Man what a week! Starting last Saturday night when I picked up my notched fuel tank from Brett, I've been working on this car like a dog! In the last 8 days I've put in over 60 hours of work while still working 40 hours at my day job. Several early am nights lol.

This weekend (over 20 hours) made it worth it.

Today the car left the garage under it's own power for the first time in about a year!! Man that felt amazing!

http://carphotos3.cardomain.com/imag...8590_large.jpg

Some of the little stuff I've been working on:

Getting the ECU mounted while still clearing the vintage air unit and allowing all of the ducting to fit was an extremely long process. The setup in the car now looks like a 20 minute install but it took me dozens of mockups and reinstalls to get it all to work. I really wanted to have a glove box but couldn't get this stuff mounted in the car any other way.

Took one of Joe Lutz's (PT.com member) aluminum mounting parts which I knew when I bought it that it wouldn't work out of the box with vintage air. Trimmed 2.25" off the left side which allowed it to clear my center vent as well as made room for the ducting.

Mounting part after cutting 2.25" off:
http://carphotos2.cardomain.com/imag...8583_large.jpg

After another 10 hours of trial and error fitting everything. This was like a jigsaw puzzle for me. Even after a bunch of mock ups I originally had the ECU about 1.5" higher and the fuse/relay box mounted laterally with the fuses pointed straight out. Everything fit and then I tried closing the glove box. Anyhow enough moaning about this simple part taking me forever.

http://carphotos.cardomain.com/image...8587_large.jpg

Though I don't have a pic right now I can confirm that I was able to get all of the AC ducts installed and working. Man it's TIGHT!

So after reading countless threads on LS steam vent solutions and then countless searches for the right size tee fitting (finally found the PN on a biodiesel site) I came up with my setup.

I needed to run an adapter in my return heater hose to go from 5/8 to 3/4 so since I needed a union no matter what a tee with a 1/4" barb was the ticket.

http://carphotos2.cardomain.com/imag...8578_large.jpg http://carphotos4.cardomain.com/imag...8581_large.jpg

After a tip from Dick at Best of Show I decided to flip my LS3 fuel rails 180* so I didn't have to run a fuel line all the way from the passenger side to the driver's side.

Before:
http://carphotos3.cardomain.com/imag...8573_large.jpg

Couldn't find my after pic but if you look in this pic you will see the supply side now comes out on the passenger side:

http://carphotos3.cardomain.com/imag...8575_large.jpg

I decided it was probably time to update my CID badges...

http://carphotos.cardomain.com/image...8584_large.jpg
http://carphotos.cardomain.com/image...8586_large.jpg

And lastly a random under shot I took when picking up the car from BOS several weeks ago
http://carphotos4.cardomain.com/imag...8567_large.jpg

No pics yet but today I got a lot of the interior reinstalled. Man it feels so good to walk out and see carpet and seats in the car again lol.

Really happy for you brother! It seems like awhile ago that we had the motor pulling party--the beginning of the long road---man, you really turned a corner today ---literally right? :lol: Congrats again!

Doug

X2......Man what a journey. Glad your back on the road. :thumbsup:

Love the new 4 on your fender badge. :unibrow:

Congrats Chad.... you've been workin your ass off lately. :thumbsup: