66 Nova SS Project

[byndbad914]

Originally Posted by no go nova

How are you gonna mount your shock?

I am sure you are seeing the lower shock mount but will mention this anyway - if you look at the second image, with the tire, on the forward, lower control arm, you should see the welded on tabs for mounting a shock at the base.

I suspect you are asking due to obvious interference with the upper A v. a coil over shock. I am going to use a strut rod that will go to one side of a rocker which will be swage tube, probably 1" in diam so clearance won't be an issue. Once I have the forward down tubes in the car, I will weld up some bracketry to mount the rocker arm I designed. I will then mount the shock vertically, off the frame, up to that rocker arm.

I am sure that is about as clear as mud

[NorCal72]

This build is so impressive. I loved that video, I usually get bored watching a lot of the road race videos. Not yours! That motor revs hard! Thanks for sharing.

[Flash68]

This is a great build. Very refreshing. Keep trucking.

[byndbad914]

thanks guys!

Originally Posted by byndbad914

I suspect you are asking due to obvious interference with the upper A v. a coil over shock. I am going to use a strut rod that will go to one side of a rocker which will be swage tube, probably 1" in diam so clearance won't be an issue. Once I have the forward down tubes in the car, I will weld up some bracketry to mount the rocker arm I designed. I will then mount the shock vertically, off the frame, up to that rocker arm.

I went back thru as I recalled having a shot with my old Penske shocks laid in the front, here it is. Essentially I will get new Penskes and mount them roughly as shown here



hmm, not sure why it only links and doesn't just reshow the image... just click on the link then and you see the image.

[byndbad914]

Made some steel adapters on the lathe to mount Spicer U-joint plates to. I had made alum ones for 1350 adapters but it just wasn't working out as I wished. So I went to 1330s which I am told will be more than sufficient for a driveshaft with no torque multiplication on it. The steel adapters are a bit heavier, but everything thermally matches up so I won't have shear loads on the bolts, and I could weld the adapters directly to the stock Corvette driveshaft items which solved a significant, "How do you line a 4-bolt pattern up with an existing 3-bolt pattern?" issue. The main bummer right now is that the carbon fiber driveshaft will have to have steel ends as nobody seems to make 1330 ends in aluminum like the 1350s. Small price to pay to have something that actually will work tho' I guess

My friend (and actual machinist, I play one on TV) at work came in on Saturday to run the CNC (I haven't a clue of how to do that) and burn out an alum piece I need to make the mount plate for the front of the Mendeola. I am starting with a center piece that will hold the driveshaft adapter out of the C5 auto torque tube, which originates with a 7" diam piece of round bar. Our lathe only has 6" jaws so that is why we were going CNC on a round item. Unfortunately during rough in the tool went "inside" instead of "outside" to clean the diameter to 6.950". I was left with an .050" wall instead of only taking off .050" My friend felt really bad but as we all know, sh!t happens, especially if I am involved and it is your day off.

So I will need to get another chunk and we can start over. I am not a fan of one-off CNC machining because it either takes a foam run or five or a few wasted parts to get the program perfect, at least in my general experience. You aren't guaranteed a perfect first unit until you actually run it and get one, but we are stuck with CNC given the diam I need to start with. Again, not a big deal; I feel worse for my friend than my alum part as I have been there and you tend to beat yourself up if you screw up.

In the meantime I mocked the trans up in the car and got the susp pickup points welded in. Getting the axles thru everything is a total PITA and I will need to bend a cross tube for the upper As, weld it in place to hold the 6" spacing, then cut the straight cross tube out to get it thru but all pretty straight forward.

The good news is that it looks like once I have everything in the rear, I may not need to cut the driveshaft tunnel at all. If I ran a torque tube it would be different, but a 3.75" diam CF driveshaft should fit under the stock floor since I raised the body up off the frame center. Worse case I may just get a whole new floor and weld it in but raise it up a bit for final necessary clearance as necessary. If I could get damn near stock on the floor I would be stoked as the stock console will mount at normal height and keep that stock look inside.

[byndbad914]

have the mounting plate with driveshaft adapter just about finished up - took 4 hours last Saturday both having the C5 hub adapter running in the CNC and then running a vertical mill to layout the plate with the bellhousing pattern. Need to weld the two together then finish out the critical dims. Hopefully have that done and the trans in this coming weekend.

Talked to the rep at Penske that helped me with my Porsche shocks today and he set me straight about motion ratio stuff as I begin to consider setting up the rockers for the suspension. I figured 1:1 was optimal but haven't overlooked the obvious fact that late model supercars utilize large MRs to run very small shock/spring packages. They can work with that setup, but he said it was absolutely better to be as close to 1:1 to get the best range of possibilities to tune the shocks for specific use. Furthermore, I had tender progressive springs I messed with on the 914 and basically gave up on them - and again, I noted supercars aren't running that, just short main spring packages. He noted in general they remove them if a car has them and just run main rates now. So I don't have to bother with figuring that crap out It will be awhile before I pony up and get them as I will need to get the car built and on scales to know my corner weights but I will need to build the car out to run a specific length so I am expecting to use 18" shocks to have a +/- 3" range.

I found stub axles at a company in NC that adapt ZR1 33-spline hubs to 108mm Porsche 930 CVs which will allow me to run a straight forward axle package with my existing Mendeola 930 hubs so I have those on their way. Totally awesome - I was getting myself spooled up to design an adapter to weld to stock Vette stubs so the fact I can buy an off the shelf item for it stays with my goal to have as little custom as possible. I also ordered four ZR1 hubs from LG Motorsports.

Trying to get lined up with Unisteer to figure out a rack with center take off to fit in the car as well. I have ideas of how I want to offset the input and so forth, just a matter if they can get me what I want. I intend to use their electric power steering unit as well instead of a standard hydraulic setup to minimize plumbing and crap being driven off the crank.

Chugging along...

[byndbad914]

Trans is in the car and mounts are all welded into place. Getting the adapter all finalized that bolts to the front of the transaxle is, as I have mentioned before, what I consider the largest hurdle. All else from here should be time and money but not as difficult to figure out.

The stub axles showed up Friday as planned but unfortunately LG Motorsports never shipped out my ZR1 hubs. In fact, they had zero record of my order at all, so I have no idea WTF happened there, but they are on there way and should be here Tues. Sucks to lose a good 3-day weekend tho' (had Fri off) but will work on getting all four hubs placed, all four tires placed visually in the fenderwells, then drop a plumb bob from all four corners and start verifying crosses and wheelbase is as expected.

Sent a draft of what I need to a guy at Unisteer on Tues and then called the guy on Friday AM - hadn't even looked at it, said would get back to me, never heard back.

[rant]
What the Hell is with customer service in the car world? There are good shops of course but it seems for every 2 good I get 1 bad - 66% isn't exactly a good average unless you are in pro baseball. The ones that are consistent get my money every time; I have a short list of bad ones I still have to deal with but only if they are the only game in town on an item. I actually pay a little more going to some shops than others if they have been good to me, that is all that matters to me in the end.

The ones that are consistently bad are the "sell pretty much everything websites". I have ordered shocks for the truck, floor mats for my Vette and a cargo mat as well in the past 3 months and it took 5 orders at 5 places to get 3 things correct. One is so bad I basically paid for an extra cargo mat and will dump it on Craigslist v. try to get my money back at this point just to keep from shooting up the place.
[/rant]

Next on the list is to get the toe links figured out and then start figuring out how I am going to get the cherry picker swung around to start placing the engine.

[Payton King]

I am still upset that I did not try and buy the 914 from you.

Lookiong forward to more progress on this car.

[byndbad914]

thanks! I am sure the guy that picked it up will have a blast taking it over and hopefully taking it further. That car is more about the driver than anything - I know I never found the limit of its potential. One day I got mad as hell - which then turns into an attitude of either it wrecks or it sticks - and I picked up 2 full seconds in one section of the track and was my fastest lap ever. I had never had the huevos after to hang it out that hard again. I am sure a pro driver would have killed the Porsche cup record, I was only 1 second off of it that one lap.

As for the Nova, I have had to be patient to say the least the past couple of weeks.

1. The ZR1 hubs showed up but were "early" hubs and not the "late" hubs I asked for. While their is no difference in the bearing and fitment, the pre-09 cars are 30 spline like all Vettes and late cars are 33 splines. The sales rep didn't realize this so he got them swapped out no cost and I got the 33-spline items last Monday. Basically just trying to make things right works for me, so they are back on my "good list". Next time I will be specific to just order a specific year, as in, order 2011 ZR1 hubs.

2. I ordered a mid-mount for the engine from Summit that is listed as 3/8" thick which is basically perfect for spacing the LS bellhousing back when using an old-school SBC (technically the spacer should be .400" and is what I used in the Porsche before). It showed up last friday - 1/4". So I grabbed some .150" thick alum scrap I had laying around and quick fabbed up a shim to space the bellhousing correctly at exactly .400". PITA nonetheless and apparently my rant continues

3. I did manage to do some measuring and cut the firewall out a bit in preparation to start placing the engine, then found out my buddy with the "communal" cherry picker was on vacation and I didn't know he was to be gone. Not his fault, but caught me off guard.

So, I have been doing a fair amount of waiting