Updating the OPTIMA Batteries OneLapCamaro for 2011 - Getting Down to Business

[James OLC]

We’ll update things as they come but to start things off we got the ball rolling with RideTech just before Christmas, sending them our old shocks for dynoing and looking for a base line with their shocks.

I’ll try to post all the graphs but here you can see a comparison of the old shocks and the new RideTechs and the range between full stiff and full soft. We had been running at the very soft end and had no more adjustment.



You can see that the RideTech shocks are quite a bit softer than the old shocks so a spring change is in order. We’re increasing the coil rates by 100 pounds up front and that should give us something that is not too far out from where we were. One of our goals was soften things up so we’re well on our way.

[James OLC]

We decided to start with some testing of the softer shocks – firmer springs using RideTechs single adjustable coilovers to make sure that we are in the ball park of what we need before committing to the valving on the triple adjustables.

Here is one of the mono-tube single adjustables right out of the box. Besides the one-piece impact forged body (which is cool as heck) you’ve got the upper and lower spring perches and all necessary hardware to do the installation.



What you can’t see (obviously) are the guts of the shock – Teflon seals and wipers, deflecting disk valving, and internal extension and compression bump stops – these are high quality, high performance pieces and should be perfect on the OneLapCamaro.



Top and bottom you have Teflon and Kevlar injected spherical bearings. At the top you’ve got the single adjuster and the coil mount that is held in place by a simple snap ring.





What you can see at the bottom of the shock is the forged aluminum pinch clamp that is (IMHO) a really creative alternative to the conventional setscrew style. Not only will it get away from damaging the aluminum threads and stripping the set screw but I can actually see the clamp and won’t be searching around with an Allen wrench in my hand wondering which hole has the set screw and which is just a blind hole.



Here is where the RideTech Mono-Bore is a bit different than most – you can see that body is a single piece… very cool.

[James OLC]

Fully assembled with the Hyperco springs we’re hopefully ready to go.







Another nice feature out of the box is that RideTech includes these aluminum spacers/inserts that allows you to use either 1/2” or 5/8” hardware. We had been using 1/2” bolts so the inserts ensured that we would have a hassle free installation.

[James OLC]

At least in theory…

Nothing on the OneLapCamaro is ever that easy and the first issue that we found was with the lower control arm mounts. Since we wanted to be able to do back to back testing with different shocks we wanted to keep the old mounting points to allow for a simple change. Unfortunately differences in the shock bodies themselves led to a clearance issue with the SpeedTech LCA. As you can see the first issue is with the actual mounting points for the shocks – the old setup was too close together to use the aluminum sleeves.



The second issue is that the shock wouldn’t reach the mounting point anyways. The old shocks had a 1” longer head on the shock and now we were hitting the LCA before we got close to the Chicane lower mount.



Before going any further I think that’s it’s important to say a couple of things – because this is going to look like a real pain in the butt…

1. This is not a problem with either the SpeedTech Lower Control Arm or the RideTech Coil-Over Shocks. The Chicane shock mounts were designed specifically for either a Bilstein or Penske shock – that’s it. Because I wanted to be able to run any shock we needed a slightly more complicated solution.

2. There is an easy solution that could have solved this problem in about 30 seconds… we could have simply kept the existing mount “as is” with no changes and used a stock style T-bar mount in the stock holes. Going this way allows the RideTech shocks to work with the SpeedTech LCA with absolutely no modifications.

3. David and I went the direction we did because we wanted to. This isn’t necessary for 9 out of 10 installations but we wanted to run the longest possible shock and by going this route we gained some much desired shock travel – probably more than we need. It also allows us to run the same shock front and rear which makes replacement and spares and all that jazz much simpler – again, not important to 9 out of 10 people but for the One Lap of America space it at a premium and the ability to have a single spare is a great benefit to us. (that sounds like a great justification now but at the time we didn’t know that – lol).

[James OLC]

Anyways…

We pulled the front LCA’s off



Fired up the mill and opened up the base of the LCA to clear the shock body…



Cut the shock mounts off and moved them out about an inch.



And just like that we were done.

[James OLC]

We installed the fronts





and the rears



and got ready to set ride height… which is when we realized that we needed longer front shocks. We quickly figured out that one of the rears would work so a quick call to RideTech had a pair of longer shocks on the way.

David got the fronts in yesterday so we’ll be doing some testing soon – we’ll keep you posted.

[Matt@BOS]

Thanks for chronicling the upgrades for this year. You guys are a real wealth of knowledge and it's great to see the thought process going on behind all of these changes.

I'm curious about these new Ridetech shocks, are they priced similar to Penskes? I've been starting to shop shocks for my next project and hadn't heard about these until you mentioned them. They sound like a good product that is engineered with solid performance and low maintenance in mind. I guess you're good advertising for Ridetech lol.

Matt

[GregWeld]

Originally Posted by James OLC

Anyways…

Fired up the mill and opened up the base of the LCA to clear the shock body…

James -- How many flutes on that end mill?

Looks like TWO... but I can't tell. If it's a two it's for ALUMINUM and a 4 flute mill is for steel...

Since I can't tell - I'm not making a "judgement"... and a two will cut the material... so doesn't really make any difference.

Great looking work and a great looking solution!

[onevoice]

Originally Posted by James OLC

James
I thought you were using Speed tech high clearance arms, and that they were only were available in a coilover configuration. The arms in the pictures have a normal looking spring cup. Are you only using upper high clearance arms? Do they only make upper high clearance arms? A few more pictures of your setup with a wheel installed and the tight clearance spots shown would be greatly appreciated.

[James OLC]

We'll have some more pictures later this week but in the mean time, Muscle Car John was over at the Pozzi's and snapped some pictures while the new Baer 6R brakes were being installed.