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  #101  
Old 02-17-2012, 12:32 PM
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It's all looking great Ben. Keep at it.
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  #102  
Old 02-18-2012, 04:43 PM
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Thanks Sam! Unfortunately I will be finishing it up and heading back east shortly after. I won't be able to show it off on any cruises here this year.

Got my rear bracing finished up Friday. First I started by doing some measuring and with the table plasma cutter cut out some rectangular 1/8" thick plates. I tack welded them to the frame rails and then drilled some bolt holes.

Right side then left side...





Then I took some 1 5/8" tubing and bent it according to a design I've been working out. Got it welded in and started on the bars to connect the control arms. Again I started with cutting out some mounting plates and used the control arm bolts to hold them in place.





I used the tubing bender to slightly curve some 1" tube, then flattened the ends in the press, and then welded them all together. Here's the end result. The smaller tubes on the cross tube go to holes that are pre drilled in the frame. I'm patent pending working out mass producing this brace so hopefully I can sell some in the near future.









And I tried out some orange paint on them. On a black frame with orange suspension parts these should look pretty cool.





My last little bit Friday I started on the heavy trailer hitch brackets. No school Monday so I'll wrap them up Tuesday and start bracing the front. By the time I'm done this car should be one rigid bad doggie.
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  #103  
Old 02-28-2012, 09:31 PM
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Looks like you've making some good progress Ben! I'm really digging that rear brace. The Sprint might need something similar if it ever gets to this stage.

Don't know why I didn't think to look for you on this forum before now. Good to see the updates.
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  #104  
Old 03-08-2012, 02:01 PM
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Got some updates-

I picked up a couple new used items. Mark at SC&C gave me a great deal of info when we talked the other day. One of the things he talked about is how ineffective the g-body rear sway bar is and how a link style bar is way better. To keep it budget minded I went to the wrecking yard again and found a 7/8" bar (same as the largest factory g-body bar) on an early 90's f-body. I also bought a pair of Cutlass Salon grilles off ebay. I like them because they're deeper than my originals. Unfortunately they're beat up a little more than the seller led on. He said there were "light scratches" but forgot to mention one of the bolt tabs was broken off, one of the grilles is cracked front to back, one has been melted, the chrome is peeling in areas on both, and both are warped as seen in the photo. Why can't folks just be honest? At $55 "buy it now" I pretty much think I paid too much. Oh well, I'll try to salvage them.






I finished up the trailer hitch brackets. I bent a couple small lengths of 1 5/8" tubing and used some angle iron to make the bracket. To keep it sturdy I welded a 1/2" pipe through the frame for the 1/2" grade 8 bolts. It may not be suitable for a lot of tongue weight but it should pull (flat tow) just fine.





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  #105  
Old 03-08-2012, 02:07 PM
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Got the frame notch knocked out. The plasma cutter made quick work of cutting it out. The cut out side was trimmed down just enough to slip between the top and bottom of the rail to help with support and to get a better weld. Again these are 274-40-17 on a 9.5" wheel with 5.5" of backspace and a 1/4" spacer between the wheel and drum. Before there was just a hair of clearance, now it has a little over an inch of extra clearance. While I was in there I beefed up the factory weld area on the top too.















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  #106  
Old 03-08-2012, 02:12 PM
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Got some good and bad news...

First the bad- my professor has had some hereditary heart issues for most of his life but he never told any of us. After a recent check up the docs told him he needed a heart valve and part of his aorta replaced like yesterday. Sounds like it's common procedure but we may not see him for the rest of the semester. We're all praying for him that all will go well. On a side note the sub we have is there more to cover Cris' notes in lecture time and open the shop for us. They don't have Cris' knowledge and the shop now closes at 12:00 instead of 3:00 so I'll be dropping my weekly shop time by about 15 hours. As a result there will be a couple things, such as narrowing the 9" rear, I need to hold off on until I get out to Georgia and start working at Bulldawg. Joe has stepped up and has assured me that all the help I may need is waiting for me there. It's nice knowing I'm going from one shop to another, otherwise finishing my car would take a whole lot longer. I guess I just got a reminder of what it's like to build a car on the side as a hobby instead of basically full time. That's a bit humbling and a big pat on the back for all you guys who are persistent and get the garage builds done.

Now the good news...

More chassis work completed. First off I took a break from the rear half and fixed a common G-body problem: LS headers hitting the right frame rail requiring the header tube to be modified. For now I have a set of cheapie used Flowtech headers I got for next to nothing. I really didn't want to bang them up and cause potential flow issues and eventually I will switch to Pacesetters, so I opted to fix the issue itself. With the motor out, a cut off wheel, a 5lb sledge hammer and a welder anybody can do this simple mod. First I used the plasma cutter to cut a triangle shape from the frame. Notice I cut a vertical line to make room for the two sides to come together, and I scored the rail with the cut off wheel on either side to control the bending motion and make sure I didn't affect the control arm mount position at all. Once to this point I simply banged on it a bit with the small sledge hammer which closed up all the gaps and created about 1/2" of clearance.



Next I did some preliminary welding and repeated the process to get a little more movement inward.



Here's the end result after welding all gaps, score lines, and grinding it all smooth. It made quite a difference.



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  #107  
Old 03-08-2012, 08:25 PM
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Slick fix! Nice work.
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  #108  
Old 03-16-2012, 04:28 PM
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Thanks!

Updates- I have had this week off for spring break and I'm going through withdrawal symptoms for not being able to work on my car. I am taking this time to get caught up on a bunch of client's car renderings though so it's been a good thing.

I did make a little progress on the car, sort of. The rest of my parts finally arrived from SC&C. I got the first shipment last week, in this photo you can see the Spohn adjustable rear upper control arms I ordered from them. I could have gotten them direct from Spohn but Marc assured me that when I buy from him it's a full package- not only do I get parts but I get tuning instruction / coaching. He encouraged me to set it all up, beat on it, call him and get some feedback and fine tuning instructions, and then repeat process until the car is doing what I want it too. We chatted for 2.5 hours on the first phone call and he filled me with knowledge and advice so I wouldn't doubt he meant that he'll be there to help dial the car in. You can't beat that type of customer service so I feel good about sending the $ his way. Spohn is still selling parts so it looks like a 3 way win here.



This week my front upper control arms arrived, they're the Stage 2 Plus kit, SPC adjustable arms with tall screw in upper ball joints and tall lower ball joints. These, besides the wheels and tires combined, have been my most spendy expense, over twice what I paid for the car itself, lol! They also weren't what I had wanted to buy when I called Marcus but after talking to him he obviously knows more about my car than I do so I eagerly accepted his suggestions. According to him these arms should bring my old lousy geometry pretty close to a new Vette, Camaro or Mustang. At this point I'm leaning more and more to make this thing a serious contender on the track rather than just a mild P-T car so as thrifty (read cheap and empty pocketed) as I am I'm feeling like the expense was worth it. At the very least I won't be spending more later on to upgrade from the less expensive upper arms I originally wanted.



I also ordered a pair of these progressive rate control arm bumpers. As you guys know I first lowered my car about 3-3.5" by cutting springs. Eventually they sagged and they were resting on the now squashed rubber bumpers. Every decent bump in the road the car would rebound and bounce upwards. Marc said these absorb the bumps rather than rebounding and making the suspension bounce. The way it drove before got a little scary at speed so really that was a major factor in deciding on tearing everything down and starting fresh on the wagon rather than finishing my street-strip Nova.

I'm really excited about this project. I've had fast cars in the past but never have I done a build to this caliber. I think the day I parked the car in the shop at school, even then I didn't realize just how bad this car will be when I'm done. Recently I got a call from a friend that owns his own design agency and mentioned he had another friend that needs a graphic designer for his agency and asked if I was interested. I told him about school, my car project, and going to work for Joe at Bulldawg in a couple months. All he could say was, "wow, you're living the dream." I think it really hit me then how much my life has changed since last August and I got a real feel for what the future holds. Yeah, to say I'm stoked is an understatement.
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Last edited by SRD Art; 03-16-2012 at 04:34 PM.
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  #109  
Old 03-17-2012, 03:43 PM
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Last night on date night my wife and I stopped by a store to pick up a few T-shirts for my son. I saw one there I couldn't resist so I grabbed it for myself. Although I have a degree from BYU and soon to be a degree from UVU, in honor of all my new friends in GA (and to try to somehow, when I move there in May, blend in with all those folks that talk funny)...



If any of you guys are around the Atlanta area, I'll be in Acworth, NW of Atlanta, and I look forward to meeting "y'all" at events.

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  #110  
Old 03-30-2012, 01:16 PM
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Today's Friday March 30th. Last day of classes is May 19th, so I have roughly 3 weeks, or around +/- 52 hours to get a car that's completely disassembled back to a driveable vehicle. I'm scheduled to head to Georgia around May 15th, so I have a couple weeks at home to finalize things but I have a ton of other stuff to do to get ready for the move so really not a lot of car time. My hope is to get it to the point that last day of school everything will be ready to hop in and drive cross country, only the alignment needing to be set will be left for outside of school. I'll trailer it from school to a friend's garage where he'll knock out the alignment and then I'll start driving it a bunch around here to make sure everything is working the way it should. The countdown begins Monday...

My latest updates are with getting the frame and associated parts sandblasted, FINALLY! Cost was $198 for 2 hours of blasting. Spendy but worth it, the frame was pretty rusty and a bit scaly before. Now I get to start with a clean slate. I first coated the frame with gray POR 15 undercoat. Most folks like black but I figured if I did gray, I could see if I missed any spots when I top coat. It worked out perfectly and helped ensure everything was coated. My professor swears by Rustoleum for frames, so following POR's top coat directions I saved the cost of of their top coat by using 3 rattle cans of Rustoleum semi-gloss black. It turned out really nice.



Next was the sway bars and chassis bracing. I had just a little black Por-15 left over from another project so I painted all these items with it. A little paint goes a long way.



Once they set up I sprayed them with the VHT "Burnt Copper". This paint is metallic but also has a semi-gloss sheen. This is the closest rattle paint I could find to the Dodge Toxic Orange. The end result looks great and on the black frame they look way cool! Pics of the complete frame coming soon...



Finally a few more parts I will be painting at home next weekend, the bumper mounts, hitch, and rad support. More soon...

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Last edited by SRD Art; 03-30-2012 at 01:21 PM.
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