69 Camaro at Best of Show

[Vegas69]

Congrats Matt, it's definitely worthy of the award. It's good to see you out there using it!

[Matt@BOS]

Ok, so I figured I'd update this thread because cars are never done. In the last couple months I've learned a lot, and then realized how much I still don't know. First of all, after going to Del Mar I took the car up to Goodguys Costa Mesa and beat on it around their little autocross, got my times down into the realm of mediocrity, and really had a chance to learn the car. The following month in June, my dad and I drove up to Pleasonton with Doug, Chris, Chad and the Stig, whom I think I'll just start referring to as the Socal "mousepack." Long story short we had a great time and I really discovered the weak points on the car.

Now, here is what I learned that might be helpful for everyone with projects using DSE's frame and Quadralink.

1. Don't rush to go to sema reverse the power steering lines on your rack, you will probably destroy its internals, then go about driving it, knowing something in the front suspension, possibly even having to do with the alignment is off, but not knowing what for months.

2. If you have DSE's subframe don't put a 255 tire on the front because you want a low ride height, and are worried about rubbing/scraping. You can't pull off a ton of u-turns with 255s, so just buy the bigger tires and steering stops, or "rack limiters." On the autocross, the car understeered so badly, and had so little front grip that I had a couple runs where I just collected cones. In fact, everyone that's driven the car has overestimated its ability to turn. This leads me to the next thing.

3. It is probably a good idea to invest in one of DSE's rear bars if you have single adjustable coilovers, and plan on even light track duty.

4. Leaky rear axles suck! My passenger side rear axle was leaking so we pulled it. The whole setup is from DSE and uses Moser axles. Out of the box the only seal in the entire system is a tiny band on the bearing. We replaced it... it continued to leak. After that I found the issue to be pretty common, as Moser's bearings have a reputation for being crap. According to the internet folks Moser's bearing don't hold up to heavy abuse and side loading very well. Now, the bearing seemed fine, so I went and got the inner housing seals, which everyone claims solves the problem. These seals work on Mosers housings, and just about every other 9'' ever made, except apparently DSE's. I'm still waiting for DSE to get back to me, which isn't like them, so I suppose I'll call again. Ultimately though, I'm at a bit of an impasse. There was someone on camaros.net suffering from the same issue, and complaining about DSE's housing being out of round, and having a difficult time getting them to fix it. It wouldn't altogether surprise me if this is the case, because virtually all housing have to be straightened after welding. So, should I just find the right axle seals, which I've been looking for for two weeks, and hope it solves the problem, or should I bite the bullet and go big, meaning I'd take just the car up to Currie in Anaheim and have them rework the housing and put tapered bearings in, which hold up much better to abuse.

Oh, and I've done a couple other things like put a clear bra on the car and add a set of hideous mirrors, which I sort of want to get rid of now. I'll post pictures of that stuff soon. In the meantime though, what should I do about the rear axle if I plan on attending track days/driving events?

Matt

[GregWeld]

Matt -

Please don't take any offense at what I'm going to say --- because it's not personal -- it's just the way it is...

If you can afford to drive a car as wonderful as yours is... then you should be able to just "go get it fixed and fixed right" -- regardless of what the issue is.

So call Currie and go get it "RIGHT"!

No bandaids - that's for school age boys.

[Vegas69]

Dump the roller bearings and go to a tapered. You'll need new axles but it's worth the trouble. Once you get the leak fixed, you'll find roller bearings aren't meant for roundy round racing. That was one of the huge contributors to my brake pad knock back. Do you experience a drop in pedal when you race? Sounds like you've had better luck than most.

[DFRESH]

Mousepack member Doug R reporting in--LOL. Listen bro, you aren't the only one that found weaknesses with the road trip. Had to replace my waterpump--running the belts too tight--redid the radiator--it got a bit plugged up when I put the stopleak in it to see if it would help the water pump--and low and behold, my lr shock was blown--and the rr axle seal is bad. Do these things just hate us or what? I'd still do the trip all over again--no reservations. How else do you test these cars and get them road worthy? Trial and error. So I'm thinking there's another GG Autocross in Pleasanton at the end of Aug-----

Doug

[DOOM]

Matt....... I would have to agree with Greg on this one!!! Thanx for the info! I keep a little log one all the don't do's, just added yours.

[Matt@BOS]

Mario, I'm glad you can use some of the knowledge I've gained to build a better car the first time. I really wish I'd taken more notes from this forum.

Todd, I honestly have no idea if I was having problems with the pad knock back. I want to say yes, because I feel like I've experienced the problem several times, but I was running with uncentered rear calipers that had gear oil on them too, and were probably near worthless out at Pleasanton.

Doug, I just checked the good-guys site, and it doesn't look like they're going to have an autocross in August. They do have another show in November with an autocross, but it's a week after sema. I know the Rat Pack could pull off the two events, but I'm not so sure about the mouse packs ability pull off such a feat.

Also, thanks all for the advice. Looks like I'm going to look for a band-aid fix until the car can go in for "surgery." Damnit Greg, for a guy with a bunch of tools that claims not to know very much, you have some good advice.

Hopefully the Best of Show gang can get the car on the road for this weekend, provided I can find the right parts. I haven't driven it in several weeks and I'm leaning towards paying cars and coffee a visit. Are you in Doug? Did you get Rodger's panel gap spray or those sweet rear prototype Baer brakes yet?

Matt

[steve671]

Awesome car and build.
Can you tell me what the backspacing on the front 18x9's are?
Thanks.

[Blake Foster]

BCA BR20 bearings
they are a taper bearing with an external seal, i am not the biggest fan of the way they retain the axle with the seal (new design aln all) but i guess we will see how well they work the other advantage of the desigtn is that the bearing now gets gear lube instead of being sealed

[Payton King]

a problem with the sealed bearings until we started driving the poo out of our cars.

Here is my unsolicitated opinion. Todd and I had a bad knockback problem with the sealed bearings. Part of the fix was ditching the Wilwood retainer and using the thicker Currie. Solved some of my problem. Todd went all out and changed to a tapered bearing. Willwood has since changed their retainer.

We are putting huge tires on the back of these cars now and generating a pretty good side load. I think the axle itself will still flex with the tapered bearing. You are asking the axle to carry the drive and the side load.

Enter the full floater. Most all track cars running a solid axle are running this style of rear. Speedway Engineering can make a full floater with their GN aluminum hubs, 1/2 inch wheel studs, 31 spline axles on 5 on 4.75 bolt pattern. You will be able to use your present wheels as the center section only comes 1 inch off the hub face and is the correct diameter. Only problem is the rotor adaptor is 8 bolts on a 7 inch spacing...12 inch rotors are as big as you can run.

Make a custom rotor adaptor/hat to run the 13 inch rotor for the 12 bolt 8.75 circle and you are golden.

This is going to be my route anyway...thought I would pass the info along