The 14 Car Performance Therapy Project Rushforths, Baers, Yokohamas, and more

[NOT A TA]

Oh no, it'll get raced!


This is my shameless self promotion post about Laboratory Fourteen "Lab-14", a company I started earlier this year. There's no budget for advertising yet so I can't sponsor any of the forums this thread is posted on so if a mod feels this post isn't appropriate or it conflicts with forum rules just delete it and I won't be offended. I'll get back to the regular project posts after this one.

As mentioned previously I started a new company named Laboratory Fourteen "Lab-14" based primarily on parts to repair and reinforce the 2nd gen F body sub frame and also including some restoration reproduction pieces. I 'd been making "one of" pieces for repairs and builds on other peoples cars and mentioned the pieces I'd made for my car in this project thread (which is on several forums) asking if anyone else wanted them. After selling through PM's and emails for a while making small batches of products I figured I should just form a legal business and expand the product line. I've owned several successful businesses I built from scratch and operated for as long as 25 years before moving South, so I've got some experience. The concept of Lab-14 is simple products based on repairing and reinforcing factory chassis to provide a solid footing for all the modern suspension and tire technology we have available today. To make this concept work I realized it's gotta be cheaper, easier, and quicker to just buy my products than to try and copy them yourselves.

Thanks to all of you who went through PM's and emailing back and forth to purchase products before I finally got the onlne store set up. Here's a link to the store for anyone interested in checking out the products. https://www.lab-14.com/ Most products are for the sub frames and some are G-brace accessories but there's also some restoration sheet metal pieces that have not been reproduced till now.

By offering a number of different things that can all be purchased from one place a person can get everything to beef up a sub frame designed to work together from Lab-14 with just one shipping charge. Saves time driving around buying materials and hardware then trying to find items not available locally online. It's easier because the material choices, pattern making, and metal fabrication work is done, plus all the correct hardware has been figured out and included. You can just order everything in one shot from the online store at WWW.lab-14.com rather than trying to make your own stuff buying metal from here or there then fabricating etc.. and figuring out what hardware is needed then purchasing from multiple places. It's cheaper because you're not spending money driving around trying to source materials and hardware, paying shipping from multiple vendors, and buying materials and hardware you don't need because you can only buy in quantities greater than what is actually needed. After all, most people want to just build the car not spend all their time fabricating, sourcing, etc. It takes long enough to complete projects already.

Since we all like pics, here's a couple pics of products taken during small batch production to get the company going.

[gofastwclass]

Originally Posted by NOT A TA

Oh no, it'll get raced!

Excellent!


Cool stuff. I wish you well on your new venture.

[Doug1]

I'll have a few pics for you in the next day or so. Have the underneath stuff installed, with the exception of the sway bar braces. Installing the G-Brace add-ons now.

[NOT A TA]

Thanks guys!

Doug, I didn't send you instructions for the upper cowl sandwich plates when I sent the others but they should be up on the website by this weekend.

[Doug1]

Originally Posted by NOT A TA

Thanks guys!

Doug, I didn't send you instructions for the upper cowl sandwich plates when I sent the others but they should be up on the website by this weekend.

I've got the passenger side drilled out and coated yesterday with sealer. Will be ready for the drivers side soon. Hopefully, I got it right. :-) I used every hole so I'm short a couple of 1" bolts because of that but no biggie. I'm going today to see if the supply house here has shouldered bolts in stainless so I can use those.

[NOT A TA]

Originally Posted by Doug1

I've got the passenger side drilled out and coated yesterday with sealer. Will be ready for the drivers side soon. Hopefully, I got it right. :-) I used every hole so I'm short a couple of 1" bolts because of that but no biggie. I'm going today to see if the supply house here has shouldered bolts in stainless so I can use those.

Narrow plates on passengers side and holes are slightly off center so you can flip them end to end or top & bottom for better fit against the short right angle lip on various cars. Wide ones on drivers side. The one notched for the wiper recess there is only one way it fits. Note bolt pattern for top plate in pic below so it lines up with the notched bottom plate. And be careful not to drop a nut down the side of the cowl. If you're short bolts I fear you tried to put a wide plate on each side. They're designed to get the most support we can without interfering with the stock plastic cowl screen or the 70-76 hood/cowl gasket.

[OLDFLM]

Originally Posted by NOT A TA

Narrow plates on passengers side and holes are slightly off center so you can flip them end to end or top & bottom for better fit against the short right angle lip on various cars. Wide ones on drivers side. The one notched for the wiper recess there is only one way it fits. Note bolt pattern for top plate in pic below so it lines up with the notched bottom plate. And be careful not to drop a nut down the side of the cowl. If you're short bolts I fear you tried to put a wide plate on each side. They're designed to get the most support we can without interfering with the stock plastic cowl screen or the 70-76 hood/cowl gasket.

Man, I need these... I still have my orginal (non-adjustable) G-braces.
GREAT products you've developed my friend!! Filling a much needed niche for our cars!

[NOT A TA]

During the past couple months I haven't worked on the Firebird itself as much as I'd have liked to. I've been busy with the Lab-14 stuff and got involved in replacing the trunk pan, trunk drop offs, inner splash pan, frame rails, and torque boxes in my 67 Camaro that started with the intention of a much smaller project replacing the rear springs. However I did do some deflection testing of the 2nd gen sub frame using various parts from PTFB and Lab-14. I also did some baseline tuft testing on the highway for aerodynamics using a customers car with the same body, ride height etc. as my car (with the owners permission of course).

Pic below was taken during deflection testing. The front foot wells and cowl area were filled with a few hundred lbs of weight while the body was supported on wood cribs. A piece of right angle was bolted to the pinch weld on the body and an indicator bolted to the front of the frame horn to note deflection. Solid body mounts were used and I've boxed the rear body mount area of the subframe. I could get almost 3/4" vertical deflection of the sub frame alone when using a floor jack to apply pressure straight up under the frame horns until the body started to lift off the wood cribs. Not sure if more weight in the body would allow even more deflection but I was surprised to see how much frame deflection there was. I would expect similar deflection in the opposite direction would be possible and may test for that when I do some torsional testing. With a combination of the PTFB G-braces and Lab-14 parts vertical deflection was reduced to less than 1/8 " which appeared to be caused by the deflection of the floor pan where the rear body mounts on the sub frame attach under the front seats.



The availability of a car with the same body, ride height, and tire size as a baseline test mule prompted me to do some tuft testing at highway speeds to get a good look at whats going on with the stock body configuration I started this project with. I'll do similar testing after my car's back on the road to see if I can note any differences due to all the aero changes and modifications. I'll post a couple still pics here and if anyone's interested there's some 360 degree VR videos we made I'll put links for . Those with certain phones or other devices may be able to pan around 360 but you'll need a headset to see full 360 3D VR. Sound is mostly wind noise since the 360 camera was out on a stick held out the window at 60-70 MPH so just turn it down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KQA9BzpN50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6pxo5eh7Zw

By being able to put the videos up on the big screen with the projector I can watch small areas or even individual tufts. So for those who always wondered if there is a ram air effect influencing the air for a 2nd gen TA shaker scoop created by the high pressure area at the base of the windshield, the answer is no at up to 70 MPH. I'll test that again with my own car at much higher speeds on track but I doubt there will be any noticeable air being forced into the scoop. If anything there's a possibility air may actually be getting pulled out at high speeds.

[WSSix]

Nice to see a quantitative deflection difference. Sure, the testing conditions may not be exact or ideal, but it still proves the parts work.

For what it's worth, I've always heard the shaker scoop on the TAs are too far forward to have any benefit from the low pressure area in front of the windshield. I'd be worried if your testing can show it's pulling air out of the scoop at high speeds.

[gofastwclass]

I love the real world testing. Even if it isn't lab grade testing, it is good enough to get you going in the proper direction.