1969 Torino

[Ron Sutton]

Originally Posted by Ron in SoCal

Fun little road trip yesterday. Rob and I stopped at Speedway and we're like two kids in a candy store. Their finished parts warehouse was just so cool. Snouts, drive plates, dust covers, housings, crowned axles you name it.

I couldn't help but pick up and admire at least one of everything and you can see above the quality of finished products. And the people there are just great too.

Kenny & Joanne are great people with great product. We run a ton of their stuff. Love 'em.

[Wissing72]

Originally Posted by intocarss

Real technical advice, clear pictures of high $$$ race parts...... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE??

Wow Rob, there is sooo much going on here! It is great to see this big girl coming together. It is also great that Ron is passing along his info for us to read. I keep having to go back over it to absorb it.
I have a feeling when the car is ready you will be

[FETorino]

Originally Posted by Ripped

Wow, you are sure not cutting corners anywhere! I don't know how you sleep much at night, as all of this all comes together.

What is your projected completion date?

And then the fight broke out If I put it in print it will come back to haunt me. It will hit the road and track in shakedown mode. No new paint no finished interior just bare bones first to sort some things out. I will say that will happen within six months.

Originally Posted by Ron Sutton

Kenny & Joanne are great people with great product. We run a ton of their stuff. Love 'em.

Yes they are a pleasure to deal with. No need to go anywhere else if you are looking for real, usable, durable and beautifully made parts.

Originally Posted by gmtech921

Wow Rob, there is sooo much going on here! It is great to see this big girl coming together. It is also great that Ron is passing along his info for us to read. I keep having to go back over it to absorb it.
I have a feeling when the car is ready you will be

I have a car I wanted to build and knew in building it I had to overcome some obstacles. The biggest is my desire for the car to still be a Torino and not some hacked up rendition of one. Nobody take that wrong. Even the pedigreed race Torino dale posted is hacked up. Look at the wheel wells they just cut a big opening to clear the big wide tire for the front. A car can look very cool hacked if hacked properly that just wasn't my goal for this car. So the technical discussion of how to fit 10lbs of suspension in a 5lbs box is a great one that I am really enjoying, and learning, from.

Originally Posted by Ron Sutton

Rob,
And anyone reading along with us …

The following helps explain each suspension set-up or tuning item in more detail.

The “Soft Front Spring/Big Sway Bar - High Travel/Low Roll” set-up loads the front tires more on corner entry & braking … and therefore unloads the rear tires more … than “Conventional Stiff Front Spring/Small Sway Bar – Low Travel/High Roll” set-ups.

An additional benefit of the front end compressing more & is it acts like stored energy on exit … allowing more front end lift travel under throttle, for increased load & grip on the rear tires.

Utilizing this strategy for this application is based on the need to:
a. Assist this long 116" wheelbase car to turn better.
b. Overcome a 21% larger rear tire bias.


14. Having front wheels wider than the tread width will improve both initial turn-in responsiveness & front tire grip. Having the rear wheels equal to the tread width will help free up the car on entry & middle & help grip up the car on exit.

Make sense? Got questions?
Everyone feel free to chime in if you have relevant conversation.

...

Ron I am digesting. I sent you some more info and some more thoughts.

Your point on rim width was one I was getting at when this stared. I felt first I needed to determine the widest wheel I could fit on the front and then size the tire. I came up with the 18x10.5" wheel within my body, frame, suspension limitations. My feeling was the 285 35 18 on that wheel was a better fit than a 295 or 305 because of the slight stretch. I believe I was thinking along the lines you are stating. Correct me if I'm wrong.

• The stretched tire would actually have as big or larger effective contact patch due to teh treads flatter profile at the same pressure.
• The stretched tire would allow me to run more tire pressure allowing for more laod capacity while still maintaing the contact patch over a larger tire on teh same width wheel.
• The stretched tire would stiffen the sidewall (screwing up my ride) but improving the tires turn in and holding power.

To maintain my aesthetic goal of no flares the 10.5" wheel was my max. I can run a larger tire on that wheel but my feeling was the one I chose was the best fit for my car.

[Ron Sutton]

Rob & I calculated the motion ratios for the coil overs, so here are the final spring & ARB numbers ...

Springs & ARB's:
Front Spring Rate: 470# *
Front ARB Effective Rate: 1050#
Rear Spring Rate: 318# **
Rear ARB Effective Rate: 400#

*I would err on the stiffer side & go with 500# front springs ... and if during testing you are not getting the car to travel the front end enough ... and the car is tight or pushy in the middle ... then you can step down in front spring rate to 475# or 450#. This stiffer front spring will also give you a bit more confidence on corner entry until you get used to the high travel.

** I would err on the slightly stiffer side & go with 325# rear springs ... and if during testing the car turns well but needs more grip on exit ... you can step down in front spring rate to 300# or 275#.

[Ron Sutton]

Originally Posted by FETorino

Ron I am digesting. I sent you some more info and some more thoughts.

Your point on rim width was one I was getting at when this stared. I felt first I needed to determine the widest wheel I could fit on the front and then size the tire. I came up with the 18x10.5" wheel within my body, frame, suspension limitations. My feeling was the 285 35 18 on that wheel was a better fit than a 295 or 305 because of the slight stretch. I believe I was thinking along the lines you are stating. Correct me if I'm wrong.

• The stretched tire would actually have as big or larger effective contact patch due to teh treads flatter profile at the same pressure.
• The stretched tire would allow me to run more tire pressure allowing for more load capacity while still maintaing the contact patch over a larger tire on the same width wheel.
• The stretched tire would stiffen the sidewall (screwing up my ride) but improving the tires turn in and holding power.

To maintain my aesthetic goal of no flares the 10.5" wheel was my max. I can run a larger tire on that wheel but my feeling was the one I chose was the best fit for my car.

You are on track with all 3 points. The first point of the tread width being a little wider is a very minor gain. Points 2 & 3 are the bigger gains.

[65_LS1_T56]

Great stuff here, thanks for sharing Ron (in NorCal). Should this stuff be a sticky somewhere?

Torino's gonna be awesome when its out doing shakedowns in it's birthday suit... I also chose to build the car twice, once to get bugs out and tweak it, then tear down for cleanup and paint. After driving a couple of days, I'll stay that tearing it down will be a hard, hard thing to do.

Keep at it Rob!

[carbuff]

I'm loving reading this kind of detail! Thank you Rob and Ron for having most of this discussion 'publicly'.

I do have a question about the C6 spindle. I wasn't aware that the C6 ran that much caster. Can you explain a bit about the effect of running that much caster, or perhaps asked different, if you run less caster with the C6 spindle, what would the effect be?

My setup uses that spindle, but I've been told to target 6.5 - 7.0* of caster, and my recent alignment check shows 6.8* and 6.2* (I haven't had it aligned fully yet, but that is with camber dead on at the moment). While I realize my setup is different, it supposedly uses pretty close to C6 geometry points.

Keep the techie stuff coming! I'm learning from all of this too!

[FETorino]

Originally Posted by 65_LS1_T56

Great stuff here, thanks for sharing Ron (in NorCal). Should this stuff be a sticky somewhere?

Torino's gonna be awesome when its out doing shakedowns in it's birthday suit... I also chose to build the car twice, once to get bugs out and tweak it, then tear down for cleanup and paint. After driving a couple of days, I'll stay that tearing it down will be a hard, hard thing to do.

Keep at it Rob!

Thanks. If I had your patina I wouldn't have paint on my agenda ever.

Originally Posted by carbuff

I'm loving reading this kind of detail! Thank you Rob and Ron for having most of this discussion 'publicly'.

I do have a question about the C6 spindle. I wasn't aware that the C6 ran that much caster. Can you explain a bit about the effect of running that much caster, or perhaps asked different, if you run less caster with the C6 spindle, what would the effect be?

My setup uses that spindle, but I've been told to target 6.5 - 7.0* of caster, and my recent alignment check shows 6.8* and 6.2* (I haven't had it aligned fully yet, but that is with camber dead on at the moment). While I realize my setup is different, it supposedly uses pretty close to C6 geometry points.

Keep the techie stuff coming! I'm learning from all of this too!

I think the oddity of my build is a good thing. It lets me ask Ron his opinion out in the open without giving any edge to the other Torino builders.

At the same time if you follow along Ron is giving a good overview of suspension and handling dynamics and things to consider when setting up a car.

I'm sure Ron will weigh in on your caster question and it's relationship to camber.

I'm still confused why there aren't more Torinos They have been going round corners for decades.

[Sieg]

Originally Posted by DaleTx

Rob... I just checked the track width on my first gen Camaro and it measures 60-7/8" in the front, and 60-1/8' in the rear. The overall width of my tires are 10.35" in front and 10.91"in rear. I measured the track width from the center of the tread to center of tread.

This is great info here on wheel and tire sizing.

Ron - Here's my track width data:

Measured outer sidewall to sidewall front and rear. Tire width is sidewall to sidewall. Nitto NT-05's IIRCC - Dale's running Nitto NT-01 255/40/17, 275/40/17.

Front: 69.0625" 245/40/18 tire on 8" rim measures 9.5"
Centerline Track = 59.5625"

Rear: 70.875" 275/40/18 tire on 9.5" rim measures 10.875"
Centerline Track = 60.00"

[Ron Sutton]

Originally Posted by FETorino

I didn't want a 1" or 1.5" outer lip on my front wheel. To me that give a Jiffy POP look of the center popping out of the hoop.

It also gave me a 2" outside lip with my backspace measurement to avoid Jiffypop.

I really need to expand my terminology. I’m behind.

Does “Jiffypop” mean the wheel center is crowned out … or flush with the outer edge of the wheel … or both?

...