Thanks Steve. I really like the look of the Powerbond unit. Looks a lot factory like compared to ATI.

dam steve!! Everything looks soo tight and right. Nice job!!! Also, congrats on joining us in the jackstand class....

You going to paint it when the chassis is done? or just beat the snot out of it? either way, win vs win....

cheers, mike

Mike - its far from perfect but overall for my first dive into real fab work I'm pretty happy so far. An oh yea, its of jack stands in the shop. I don't have room for a lift so no choice.

Plan for now is to run car as is paint wise. I really want to reduce weight using composite panels of some kind and I want to add wider wheels all around which involves flares. beyond this I also want more aero enhancements. All of these would entail paint of some kind. I think for now Ill just run with current wheels, no flares, full weight and with as much aero as I can do without causing a respray. I just want to drive it again. I'm tired of seeing it in the shop.


On that note, I did put the rear suspension back together and put the car on the ground. I wanted to make sure everything is really aligned right...so far it seems good. The header tuck looks perfect too. Only small fear is the sway bar arms but I think since they are near the axle centerline that it will be ok. car is made to travel 2.75" and the x-member is now 3.25" off the ground, sounds pretty good to me assuming the body panels don't have any issues.

Attachment 61719

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Next steps are to clean the shop with the car out then tackle the rear suspension. Rear changes are a new pan hard bar mount to move the roll center down, adding an adj front mount for the trailing arms and installing adjusters for the coil overs.

Looks great, Steve! You're sitting lower than me but I bet you have way better suspension travel and articulation. Love the way it's shaping up.

Dang buddy! Looking pretty sweet! Looks fast!

Giddy up!

Well done!! I can appreciate the work you did on the trans xmember, looks awesome!!

I really like the work on the front subframe. Looks pretty close to what I would really like to do with my first gen, but I can't quite bite the bullet to pull it apart again.(or I'm just afraid to tell the wife)

It officially no longer rolling. The rear suspension has been cut out. Goals with the rear are to move the roll center down and make it more adjustable. Add a sway bar. Add an adjustable trailing arm front mount. I went with a full setup spec'd out per Sutton since it included everything needed. Ran into a few issues but have been able to work thru it.

First steps, cut out the old parts and clean up the frame rails... This included a lot of grinding and make a big mess... Pretty much sucked. I also got some metal in my eye. Advise for others, don't use cheap safety glasses.

Attachment 61951

Next I tacked the Axle side pan hard mount on the axle per spec

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Attachment 61953

Next was to install the X-member between the frame rails. Here we ran into the first issue. The trunk floor has a slope and interferes with the spec'd 2" tube. Lots of potential solutions were discussed. I decided to move to a 1 3/4 tub and to notch the ends so it hangs slightly below the rails. Main 2 reasons I wanted to do this was was 1 - I wouldn't have to cut the trunk floor. 2 - having the tube hang lower gave me more area to weld the x- member

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Attachment 61955

Next I wanted to ensure the coil overs fit without issue. I wanted to change from a static upper mount to a dog bone adjuster so I wanted to get an idea how hard this would be. Here I ran into another issue. Per spec the pass side coil over hits the pan hard mount on the axle. After discussing with Sutton we decided the best fix was moving the mount in 1/2" on both side of the car. Changing the Panhard length from 31-30"

Attachment 61956

After this I started to mock up the sway bar mounts. It took some time to get it 100% straight but I finally got it. By moving the pan hard mounts in the sway bar is extremely tight to fit but it did work. I don't have pics but the mounts on the axle were also tacked out. Main thing I checked were the angles in both the most extreme front and rear mounting holes on the arms. I measured the both to 27 degrees. its a lot of angle but at least they are equal.

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Last 2 things were to add the support for the pan hard downbar mount and to cut the pan hard itself 1" to fit in the revised position. Overall this was pretty straight forward but it took a lot of time to get the support gusset mitered for the perfect fit

Attachment 61960


In the next week or 2 I'll be focusing on the new trailing arm mount and then will focus on the new upper coil over mounts. The latter of the 2 looks like its going to be a real challenge... Hopefully I'm more nervous than I need to be.

Amazing!!

So Steve, any new updates on the car?

Tu