After the test drive was finished Dennis mentioned a noise he has had for some time near the right front corner of the car. So we did a quick nut and bolt check and everything was tight. Therefore it appeared that the shock could be the culprit. We removed the shock from the car and mounted it on our shock dyno and wow.....
Needless to say the dyno results were consistent with a failing shock. The shaft seals seemed to be deteriorating and as a result the seal material was clogging the piston/valves. Over several years we have been in business the Konis have been a great shock, however the Bilsteins are a much newer design that is far more efficient. Additionally for the end user the Bilsteins are a fraction of the cost of Koni Shocks. Therefore, a shiny new set of Bilsteins was added to the list!
Dennis also wanted to put some new front disc brakes on the car, yet he still wanted to keep his 15" wheel. One of the only options at the time was the Dynalite 4 kit by Wilwood Engineering. The Cobra Automotive Kit is an awesome kit for this situation but Dennis is not vintage specific so he opted for the aluminum in the Wilwood kit. While looking at the front suspension we had noticed that the Shelby Drop had been done with his stock upper control arms, however the balljoint was in its stock location. By doing the Shelby Drop we have found that you can prematurely bottom out the balljoint on its own race if it had not been relocated on the upper control arm. Luckily for Dennis, Mike had just removed the upper control arms that were on Ol' Blue to replace it with one of the first demo coilover kits from Maier. These Maier Vintage upper arms that came off of Ol' Blue were not just any Maier production arm, but they had our new Delrin shaft kits, modified lengths to correct geometry, reinforcement plates, and finally 64 Falcon roller style spring saddles. So with all of this the first mods were on their way; New Wilwood front brakes, Mike Maier special arms, 600# Maier Springs, and a fresh set of Bilstein shocks.
All the while Mike wasn't thinking much of the new coil over kit because we had been doing great and winning races with the "old" Maier arms. However, Dennis had a spark that we had not yet seen. In his mind something that was brewing that would turn into a long journey that included tons of patience. He said that the vintage arms were "At the end of a product cycle". In his core he knew that he wanted to be at the cutting edge of the new cycle but we couldnt provide him with that yet
Demo Maier Vintage Arms
