Thanks. They are simple but look much better than the log ones. They are also flat so there is room to add some lower bars on the roll bar I have as well.


I continued not he rear seat closeout today. I decided to grab some 1/2 sq tube and build up a structure to lay the ABS on. The whole structure will be bolt in in cans I need to access something. I'm pretty happy with the results so far. I wish the metal supply house was open today because buying steel at Home Depot is such a rip off For now the ABS will be flat panels using 1/4" cap screws with washers to add a little flare. If I decide to do the side exhaust the panels will stay flat. If I decide to exit the exhaust out the back I'm thinking the battery can go in the rear section and I can build out 2 storage compartments in the front.

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Now that looks great too. What ya gonna hide under there? :peepwall:

side exiting exhaust......:thumbsup:

at least that... :)

Yup :thumbsup:

Still not sure on the side exit, cutting out the floor and getting back together cleanly is my issue. If I don't do the side exhaust I'm thinking to raise the floor ~2" with a flat piece of steel (thinking 18 or 16 ga) for both muffler clearance under the car and also a clean place to mount the battery

Take it over to Eric and have him bead roll some pattern into it - or be sorry.... it will oil can if you don't put some structure in to a flat piece.

You think even the 16ga will flex/warp? I was thinking it was thick enough to not have an issue for the ~12"x12" piece that would go in the floors.

No 16 would be fine --- I thought you were cutting out more of the floor than that.


On my buddies '55 that I built -- I simply pie sliced his rear floor foot well --- and moved it up an 1" and welded it back together... gave me enough room and some clearance for his mufflers.

Steve,

Wheels, tires & stance look great! Thank you for choosing F43 wheels, enjoy!

:thankyou:

My pleasure. Thanks for the terrific support. Hopefully I'll be working on a new project in the near future and contacting you for another set of wheels.

Progress has been slower than expected on the car due to more focus than I thought on the interior. I ended up building up a new console as well to make it all look a little more complete. I'm using 1/4 20 cap screws to add some texture. Before starting I should have thought it thru more. I'm having to drill and tap ~150 hole. My hands are killing me but only 40 more to go.... Here are some pics of the progress.

Still no decision on where the exhaust is going. Hopefully I'll have it figured out by Sunday...


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Steve, is that the stock color? I think that is the oem color on mine

Interior is gonna be nice with that console and shelf. Keep up the great work!!

I`ve just read this whole thread and amazed at the job you did.

No idea. I bought the car already painted and haven't taken the time to check what the factory options were on the car. Only issue I have with the color is that I'm a UT grad and the color is very close to A&M colors.... I would paint it orange but then I'd be copying Hobaugh too much

Thanks a bunch. The car and overall work isn't up to par with many other builds on this site but I've learned a ton and had a great time doing it.

The week is not off to a very good start. I was close but ended up missing an autocross yesterday because the car wasn't ready. I'm now installed the exhaust, finished out 95% of the interior, started retuning the engine, set the ride height (I was overthinking this in previous posts) and overall have the car drivable.

Today I took the car to get aligned and the bad luck started. It's a shop where lots of the load autocrossers go so I decided they would be good. They put it up on the rack and start the measurements. Right way the tool slipped on the front wheel and put a 1/4 gouge in the lip. Not happy about that at all.......

Good news right away is that the rear of the car is perfectly straight. Bad news is they can't get the caster/camber to the required specs. To get one close the other is way off. I call Speedtech to ask what they usually do and see if there are any pointers. After talking to Blake I found the crossshafts in the UCAs are offset ground. Apparently I put them in upside down because it's not mentioned in the instructions. Blake tells me they are thinking to update the instructions in the future..... Hopefully for other customers they do. Between this issue and pictures you can't even see, the instructions are much more difficult than they should be. I am a little more worried since they UCAs were also incorrectly labeled when I received them. I had to put the one marked driver on the passenger side and passenger on the driver. If I didn't they completely bound when cycling. I hope my common sense is good and its just a labeling issue with speed tech.

I pulled the car back off the rack and put it in the trailer. Tonight I need to flip the shafts over and bring it back to the shop to try again. Nice waste of 4 hours of my life.. When I bring it back of the shop owners is going to do the alignment so there is no possibility for more scratches. I hope they can get the specs Speedtech suggests. If not I'm going to be pretty pissed after spending so much money on everything.

Well this completely sucks on all fronts! As one of the people that recommended that shop for the alignment, I really hate that. They weren't able to get my car perfect, but they did a quality job and seemed to take care of the car while I was there...

SorrLiuy to hear about your trouble, especially the shop scratched a brand new wheel. That's why I'm doing as much work as I can.

Btw I'm in town for work thru Wed so if you want to hook up, let me know. I'm staying near i35/sh45.

Oh man, that's no good scratching the rim like that. Are they going to pay for the damage?

Can you post up a picture of the correct way the UCA's are to go on the car? I haven't done anything more than look at mine. I've got a ways to go before I put them in too.


Thanks and I hope you're luck improves.

Overall they are nice and want to help. I think the issue was just a fluke. The tool slipped off


Guess I should have bought an alignment tool. Hopefully I'm more excited about the scratch than I should be. I'll look at like later and see


Not sure what will happen. I need to talk to him later this week.

I'll post up pics when I swap them over. I was going to do it tonight but have new problems. My fan clutch went out on my truck and I overheated it driving home towing the car. It pegged over 250 degrees and I now have a cyl 1 contribution fault. Pretty sure I cracked a head. Today is truly a ****ty day.

The moment I've been waiting for!
Any pics of the pipes?

Sorry but I'm afraid to touch anything right now. Everything I touch is falling apart today. I'll get pics later.

We all have those days....:bang:

You'll get it all sorted out, just takes time.

Sorry to read this Steve. Any progress or new info?

Steve --

Sometimes cars are just "like that".... Like the Mustang motor that lost a tip off the titanium valve -- no biggie just get it fixed (complete overhaul) -- next track weekend (a two day drive for me) - the head intake runner is cracked -- the motor comes our AGAIN -- Two days home -- Next track weekend -- I break a rocker arm... The motor comes out again... That's 6 days of travel -- 3 weekends of sitting around watching everyone else run... 3 weekends of entry fees down the tube. But HEY!!!
Think of the wear and tear I saved on the tires and brakes!! LOL


You'll get it... and then the smiles will come.

I checked the scratch again and it's really not that bad. I can most likely polish it out.

Are you still in town for the weekend? Week was a bit rough and I forgot to reply


Looks like the truck somehow managed to stay alive. I'm still nervous driving it but it seems after a fan clutch replacement and code clearing it's working just fine. I'm pleasantly surprised

This was the issue

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As far as the car, I finally started back on it last night. I flipped the cross shafts over last night without an issue. It's difficult to show the issue in a photo but basically 3 of the 4 sides on the shaft are concave in the center. My logic told me the one flat side should be the mounting surface... apparently this is not the case.... The flat surface of the cross shaft needs to be facing the engine, not the mounting surface.

I have not had a chance to check the alignment, I will try to have this done next Mon/Tues if work allows

here are some bad pics but maybe you can see the difference

Wrong - hard to see but there is a slight gap you can see near my thumb. When you feel the UCAs its much easier to notice

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Right

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Here are also some pics of the exhaust. I have some rubber isolators coming in today so will be pulling it off and taking better pics. I'm also going to cut the top of the pipe near the x-members to allow a little more clearance.

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Thanks for the pics. I hope things start looking up for you soon.

Glad to hear nothing too major with your truck. Great progress on the camaro. I'm still fighting with the wheels/tires issues with my car.

I'll be back in Austin Mon-Wed (driving back Wed after lunch).

I finished up a little more not the car today and confirmed there is a problem with the front suspension.

I previously flipped the UCA cross shafts based on guidance from Blake. Yesterday I took the car for an alignment. I found a shop that has a brand new Hunter machine using the sensors that mount to the tires and not the wheel. This was much easier to watch rather than fearing wheel damage.

Unfortunately even with the fancy new machine they still could not get the alignment to the spec Speedtech advises. Below is a shot of the screen with the final spec we set the car to. We removed all front shims but needed the front of the UCA to move even further to outside of the car. It seems either I need to cut and move the UCA mount or the Speedtech cross shaft is too thick and needs to be milled down. I left Blake and voicemail yesterday and will hopefully discuss the issue with him tomorrow. I didn't know what the best non-optimal alignment was so I decided to meet the caster spec at the expense of the camber.

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Good news for the day is that the truck is very much alive and not damaged by the overheat. I ended up replacing the fan clutch since the fan decided to cut the wire. Otherwise I added more coolant and cleared the codes but that's all. I was very excited to be able to pull the loaded car hauler up a very steep grade without issue. Huge relief.


It was also took the time yesterday to finish up the exhaust a little more. I added some clearance for the x-members and some isolator mounts to reduce the vibration.


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It was a nice day with the sun going down so a photo op was needed at the shop


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finally a full frontal!! Looks great man.

I hope you can just off set the upper shaft. That would be the easiest option.

I wonder if the support rolled in a bit when it was cut and rewelded. We usually cross brace the hell out of that when we modify them. Ive seen a bunch under pressure when you cut the top.

Nice!

New desktop until mine is worthy. :thumbsup:

Thank, that's a great compliment

There is an angled support on the car so I wouldn't have thought it would move but you should know more than me. Worse case I'm thinking I can use a cut off wheel to slice the support, push it forward and weld it up. This is by far the worse case. I'm hoping Blake simply has a solution for me since they know more of the complete engineering up the setup than I do.

I spoke to Jay and Blake for a bit yesterday and today. In general we are a bit stumped with the issue. We compared measurements with Jay's car in the shop. Overall the front UCA mount is the same measurement as Jay's car and to the factory specs. I had to measure from the engine side of the cross shaft since the car is together. Measurement was 28 3/4. Factory mount to mount is 30 5/8" and each cross shaft is .900" which equates to a .075" delta with rough measurements.

We also compared the ball join center to the cross shaft and came up with the same measurements. So it seems they are the correct arms/shafts. Blake is sending me more measurements to verify the arms are correct. He doesn't believe the arms are the issue.

Blake thinks something is wrong with the frame itself but we are both not sure where or why. He's concludes this since he has installed this setup on multiple cars without issue. The odd thing is that I have ~1/2" rear shims and 0 on the front while other cars he's build have 1/8" front and rear to get the setup.

Basically the solution we came up with is to cut the UCA support and push it outward ~1/4" then weld it back together so I can move the UCA out to add static camber. Other option is to raise the ride height or the control arm in the slotted mounts. Both of these can't be done because if the arms are raised I lose camber gain and because the ride height looks perfect as is...

I might also call around for a farm shop to get them to check the chassis just to make sure nothing is bent that I'm not aware of.

This car stuff is sure a pain in the butt sometimes. But I agree you can't change the stance it looks perfect.

Is the subframe squared to the car?

From the measurements I took it appears to be within a very close tolerance.

The car's stance is perfect. Good luck sorting out the issues.

Tu

Not sure if this helps but I had similar issues with my 68 subframe when I went to align the car. I'm running DSE parts but ran into the same situation. The factory tolerances apparently have a wide range. (Beyond 1/8", at least on a Friday). DSE uses a jig that mounts to the motor mount locations and the UCA mounts bolt to it to positively locate them for welding in place. The jig didn't want to sit in the car properly. It was raised up off the crossmember. I had to shim up the jig with multiple shims and slot the motor mount holes just to get the jig mounted. I made sure to keep the jig level and used the same number of shims and hole offset on both sides. DSE told me they haven't run into this before. I noticed the car was heavily shimmed on one side when I bought it but thought something in the ams on that side was bent from a previous owner accident. The frame itself measured out to the GM specs and measured square. Turns out my UCA mounts were off a 1/16 on one side and 3/16 on the other totaling a 1/4" difference between the two. The factory UCA locations were off as well as the crossmember itself wasn't centered. I couldn't get negative camber on one side and the other was in range. The 3/16 on the bad side had a huge impact on the static camber. I thought about machining down the UCA shaft as well but I didn't want to modify a good part to make up for another one out of spec. I would have had to take way too much off anyway so I bit the bullet and cut the UCA mount out and moved it to match the other side. I had to move it approx 3/16. I tacked and measured and checked hub angle what seemed like 20 times making sure my UCA mount height stayed in place and the camber matched with the same number of shims as the good side. This probably goes without saying but the mount can pull on you from the heat tipping it in or out so I went back and forth on my root pass to get it stable constantly checking before the final weld. Maybe both of our sub frames came from the same guy on the assembly line. He must not have built too many of them.

This is NOT YOUR issue -- but just saying that these old pigs have a lot of history and can be as wonky as you know what!


I had to make this "body shim" just to get the TCI subframe to bolt up to the car --- because the body had been hit in the driver front. The alignment came out perfect -- but I measure everything to the nth degree and have done this kind of work many times. I call this "cut to cure" hot rodding.



I cut this 1/2" plate and then milled it to the actual dimension (thickness) I needed.... Thank gawd I had the tools and materials to do this kind of work!!




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I agree there is no possibility to change the stance...

This is good to know. My issue does seem exactly like yours. Guess we are both lucky... I'm pretty sure I'll be taking the same actions you did but might head to a frame shop first just in case..

That's one hell of a body shim....





Today the weather was perfect so I took the car to the office. The engine tune is still not perfect due to my computer crashing and changing the intake/injectors but getting better. Overall the car was a lot of fun to drive. The turn in and rear grip in the corners was so much better. With the leafs the car was a little jittery (for lack of better words) and now it feels smooth and confident. The also rattles much less than it used to. I do need to add 1 more exhaust mount near the front but overall it work well. Even the interior panels didn't rattle nearly as much as i thought.

I'm anxious to see how the grip changes once the tires scrub off. As of now I was roasting the tires leaving lights pretty good even without pushing it all the way

I'm not too fond of the new exhaust tone at lower RPMs but I'm hoping the tune is causing it though it might also be removing he x pipe. It won't kill me with the current sound but was off to hear a difference.