mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

Since the six speed swap was completed a little over a year ago i spent several outings this year trying to get the car sorted. i learned a lot and went from my first pass spinning hard and running a blazing 17 second pass, to my current best with the six speed of a 10.87 @ 127. However, even with the success, the clutch has really managed to reveal some weak links in the setup, so i will be updating this thread throughout the winter with details, pictures, and hopefully video of installs of the pieces, as well as maybe some explanations as to why i'm doing one thing over another.

got my k-member in the mail last week from PA Racing. all the quality is top notch, and Jason worked with me said he'd do any color i want.

details:

-chromoly k-member setup for ls1 mounts and coil overs
-chromoly a-arms, no spring perch, delrin bushings
-12" long 175# springs
-translucent purple powdercoat

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

Did you get it in purple to match your metering plates?

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

Lol, i don't have purple metering plates.

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

But you used to.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

lol, it was actually a fuel bowl block off fitting that was purple, not the metering blocks.

anyway, i ordered a set of Viking rear double adjustable shocks friday also, hoping to see this late this week or early next. PA Racing is also sending me some billet aluminum ls motor mounts and transverse shock mounts hoping to have this thing hookin' and bookin' next year.

NagleMac

iTrader: (1)

Definetly interested in this. I need to start the suspension mods also now that the 383 swap is done. Is there a dedicated drag car? No autocross or road racing?

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

this is a purpose built street/strip car. my plan is to do dragweek for 2014. no autocross or road racing.

as of right now, the car is ~3450-3500lbs with me in it. i'd like to get that number closer to 3200 by the time next season comes around. i'm a big guy and am working on taking weight out of the driver's seat too. i will be sure to weigh everything i have and compare it to the stock stuff....this kmember is silly light

Jay_rich

iTrader: (4)

Looking good! Im diggin the purple. unsure why but it should look nice with the white engine bay etc.

Jason at PA is very helpful I must add also!

Jay

TEDSgrad

iTrader: (4)

I'd like to see pics of that install. Do they have a 1" longer option - gives a little more piston travel (in my bucket list)?

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

to be honest, just call him and ask, i bet he'll make you a set in whatever dimension you'd like. He didn't even know what i was talking about (transverse mount that is) till i said something about it. He just said "yeah, i can whip those up" and next thing i know, they're on my doorstep, lol. i'll get pics of the brackets this evening.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

TED, i just spoke with Jason on facebook, he said he could do anything you wanted. 1" drop would be no problem. pricing with hardware and all would run something around $45 for the brackets.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

More goodies showed up today! PA Racing billet aluminum ls1 motor mounts


ViKing double adjustable rear shocks:


These shocks come with all the hardware shown. If using the factory layout, you would use the big shank style bolt. because i am using a transverse shock mount, i will be using the thinner of the two included bushing inserts.

the transverse shock mounts in it's purest prototype form:



i will probably put a slight bend in the upright so it will lay flat on the shock mount, then drill a hole in the top of the upright to keep it from trying to move around.

TEDSgrad

iTrader: (4)

Thanks Matt!
Yeah, I have the big shank style now. With lowering, it limits the shock travel too much and I think I can gain that back by extending the mount 1" (direction of arrow) from my stock mounts - which I never felt were all that rigid for what they are called upon to do!
Here's a pic of Spohn's QA1 style:


Will be watching to see how you attach them.
Thanks again,
Brian

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

i can't imagine that bracing or gusseting these would be tough to make up for a 1" drop on the shock. if you keep the spring in the stock location (my suggestion) then there isn't terribly large amounts of force on that area anyway. going to a coil over in the factory shock location introduces loads that those brackets aren't really designed for in the first place.

TEDSgrad

iTrader: (4)

Totally agree! I have a mounting plate (slathered in POR-15) welded in the rear location around the spring pockets, and another plate under the fender in front (even though I do not have coil-overs in front) for strength and shock load disbursement.


I'm not a drag racer, but I think the suspension concerns at attachment points are the same concerns.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

today i had to see how the purple looks against the white....so pumped about this combination



and i had a buddy asking about the underside of the strut mounts, so here's a picture of that for future reference:

t-top89

iTrader: (3)

Nice thread!
What were your 60's before? And what is your 60 goal?

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

with the auto it went 1.49 once and would average 1.50-1.52. with the new to me six speed, i've been 1.54 once and average in the 1.59-1.62 range. the goal is 1.38-1.42 once i got it dialed on kill.

should be updating this thread this weekend with install pics

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

Today started out as many past Saturdays have for me since I moved up to MD. I got up early and headed down to my uncle's place to get to work. I must say that I'm very grateful for him allowing me to keep my car/trailer and tools/junk at his place. Today however, I realized the bad side to parking my car on the trailer in an old garden bed



I spent two damn hours getting that out of there....ugh....

On to the good stuff! Once the car was finally unloaded and in the driveway, I made sure to get a measurement of ground-to-fender on the front so I had a baseline for setting ride height. The trimmed trick springs were really too low, and made for loading/unloading on the trailer a real booger-bear.

24 7/8"


Since I'm at my uncle's house, I'm trying to take up as little space as possible, so I didn't want to get an engine hoist and have to take the engine out. Found this little gem on Craigslist for $35...money well spent as it worked like a champ!


45 mins later and the kmember is out


Here was the SINGLE interference issue I had. The motor mounts had a radius machined into them and it hit the pedestal saddle before it allowed it align. A little grinder action had us in business.



billety-goodness


coil overs


all put back together and ready to go on the ground


beautimous strut mounts. i gotta get some more purple in the bay now (but not too much)



back on the ground after a quick little run around the block. 25 9/16".


a couple of things worth noting:

-this kmember places the engine/trans in the EXACT SAME SPOT as the spohn swap mounts on the factory k-member
-my factory stuff weighed 118.9lbs
-as optioned, my kmember setup weighs 49.8lbs

total weight savings of 69.1lbs

i will be putting in an s10 manual box for more weight savings, and i'm still working (slowly) on getting more weight out of the driver's seat.

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

The driver's seat weight always seems so easy to get rid of... but then you realize someone has to actually drive the car for it to be fast.

Looks great, man!

STREETDEMON

you make it look so easy! do your rocker covers in purple, that should add enough.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

lol, easy is relative. it would have been awesome had i not gotten the car stuck in the backyard first. i'd have probably got the rear shocks in too, lol.

been thinking about the valve covers, not sure yet.

STREETDEMON

if it makes you feel better. my dad is here for Christmas and we just had 8" of snow dumped on us, with more coming today....looks like my car is stuck in the garage for a few weeks, no joyriding for us!

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

itemized weights(lbs):

Stock:
A-arms (ea): 14.7
kmember with spohn stands and homemade solid mounts and triangle braces: 57.2
stock strut mounts (ea): 4
cut trick springs(ea): 12.3
total: 118.9

Pa Racing stuff:
coil over (ea): 3.3 (includes adjuster sleeve and top spring locator
a-arms (ea): 5.7
kmember with mounts: 20.4
strut mounts (ea): 5.7
total: 49.8

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

got some more purple

STREETDEMON

that's some pretty good weight savings.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

yessir! and manual steering box is coming this weekend or next so that's another little bit. would love to go ahead and pull the trigger on some nice front brakes. i could see a total nearing 125lbs lost if that was the case.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

i got the transverse mounts and rear shocks in the car today. to begin with these mounts were a first run from PA Racing, something that Jason and his fabricator spun up for me after looking at a picture without any real dimensions. the mounts were made with a strange shock in mind, which use a 1" side bushing. my shocks use a 1.130" wide bushing, so i had to trim my bushings down. not really a big deal. here's a picture of the shocks, one bushing trimmed, the other still stock.



I tweaked the brackets a little bit to follow the lines of the shock mounts, then drilled holes for 7/16" hardware to keep them from rotating. then gave them a shot of satin black paint and torqued them on.



and i spun up a little video to kind of give an overview on what these things do for you

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

also got some purple stuff mounted

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

this isn't really "suspension" related, but is going to help with the overall package of what i'm doing as this is normally good for 15-20lbs. got a GREAT deal on this s10 manual box. gonna do the astro steering shaft swap too i think.

STREETDEMON

i love my astro shaft, really firmed up the steering response. i probably need to rebuild my box to go along with it, just for the complete package.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Picking up from your other thread about your cousin's car with questions about yours:

Why Super Street over Street Race? I don't think the front coil overs put you in there (if you had rear ones it would). What are you running for a TA and are you running lca relo brackets?

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

it's got a jegster shorty non adjustable torque arm at the moment, and i'm running a set of BMR lca relocation brackets in the "middle" hole.

i think super street had a little more better et range and i would like to be competitive. one of the classes was a mid 10 second class, the other was a mid 9 second class. honestly, these classes look nearly the same to me.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

The SpeedMu11et got some love yesterday! started early and got the oil changed out. oil came out fairly clean. Made the switch to amsoil in everything else i own, so this car gets some too.



got it fired up, great oil pressure and i let it run for a minute or two to get things warmed. i pull it up into the driveway and noticed i had a coolant leak...yup, right out of the weep hole. i guess the 15 year old factory water pump didn't like the cold winter...now to figure out if i'm going to just swap out the water pump for another factory one or save my pennies for an electric pump.

of course today wasn't just an oil change day...that's not really worth making a post about. but installing THIS guy is:



with launch speeds increasing, and et's dropping, i am well passed needing this bellhousing as NHRA/IHRA rules mandate it at 11.49. It's a heavy mother too. 30lbs compared to 9lbs of the factory cast housing.

Of course the block saver plate has to fit flush against the back of the motor, otherwise the flywheel will rub it, and generally push things out of alignment. i knew that there may be some interference issues with the oil pan, and there was infact interference. the area under the rear main seal where the oil pan meets the rear cover needs to be ground down to clear the plate. What i didn't anticipate was that the rear cover bolts hit it! grrrr. figuring out a mod to the plate that wouldn't decrease integrity of the plate took some time. at first i started to grind down the bolt heads. i quickly realized that was going to take a very long time and abandoned the idea. next i hit the back of the plate with some spray paint and placed it onto the motor and smacked it with my hand some so the bolt heads would mark the paint. of course i'd already had ground the heads down a little bit so only a couple of the bolts transfered to the paint. i ended up finding another cover to get the bolt pattern and transfered it to the plate. as my luck would have it, i didn't center every bolt hole and ended up having to open up or elongate most of the bolt holes. here's the end result of that debacle.



I'd never indexed a bellhousing before and it took a little bit of playing with before i felt comfortable with the accuracy of the readings from the dial indicator. once i got the indicator setup, i found that the housing was offset to the driver's side of the crank centerline about .030", or about .015" off center. i had some .014" offset dowels already ordered and was able to get it straight. the dowel removal was a pain all in it's own. i tried vicegrips to pull them out at first and quickly discovered that wasn't going to work. i was able to get the driver's side out with a center punch and a hammer from the front side driving it backwards. the passenger's side was a different story though. i had to pull the header off to gain access. then i got in there with an alignment punch was able to push it out.

while this was all out, i also swapped the pilot bearing to a solid pilot bushing. i've read they're a bit more forgiving in the event that the bellhousing isn't quite indexed right. this resulted in a broken pilot bushing removal tool that i rented from autozone...guess i won't be getting my deposit back, lol.

whew...all installed and in the home stretch, right?



wrong...

the new bellhousing and block saver plate are approximately .050" thicker in overall stacked height than my factory one. i took this into account and ordered shims for my slave in the event that i had an issue. the measurement here is taken from the fingers of the clutch diaphragm to a straight edge across the transmission mounting surface of the bellhousing. you then compare it to the compressed height of the slave in relation to the front mounting surface on the front cover of the trans. this measurement differential is supposed to be .090"-.200" depending on where you read or who you believe. mine with no shims was right at .090". which means that it was less than spec with the factory stuff. this is good, i can resell or inventory the shims i bought, lol.

what's bad though is that i have a custom driveshaft that is really a bit too long to begin with. i mean, it's an EXTREMELY tight fit. to the point where pulling the driveshaft is a real pain in the butt. i have to pull the ujoint caps off to get enough clearance to get the shaft out. well...with this increased stack height, my transmission was moved just enough to now be a problem and now i have to have the driveshaft shortened. we had a stock driveshaft laying around. interestingly enough, the factory 3R u-joint was a near direct bolt in to the 1350 yoke, and was good enough to drive it out of the driveway and onto the trailer.

after all this opposition, i get into the car and hit the button to move the car and have no starter. i had managed to pinch the wire going to the starter solenoid and my guess was it fried the relay. i swapped out the relay and nothing. i had power in, ground, and even switched power from the button, and still no action. i jumped across the relay to get the car started and put it on the trailer. electrical gremlins be damned, i'll look at that next weekend when we are rewiring my switch panel. ugh.

STREETDEMON

i feel your frustration. looks like you are making great progress. i always have to remind myself when things don't go as planned that aftermarket parts require massaging to fit. haha, never really calms me down much though!

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

Haha, yup. I had taken into account all things but the driveshaft, mainly cause I forgot mine was such a tight fit. Bolt ons never are!

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

For whatever it's worth, and whatever it means, my old pilot bushing came out with nothing more than tugging on it with my pinky. So it may be easier to remove than a pilot bearing too.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

I doubt it. It took a good bit of effort to put that guy in there.

1st-third-gen

quick question, about the k member. have you had a chance to drive it yet to feel it? I just ordered my front end kit and I got it with out adjustable bushings on the a-arms do you think it would matter much with alignment and such?

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

i have not had a chance to drive this very much, but did take it for about a 10 mile spin shortly after everything was put in. mind you, i have not done an alignment yet, just kind of eye-balled it. this is a drag oriented car, and i don't through the car into corners very hard, but it all feels very solid. i will have more feedback as the warmer weather begins to creep in on us and we are able to finalize some other projects on the car. This k-member is top tier man, you won't regret going with PA Racing.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

Last week i fought with the electrical system kind of out of nowhere. it was one of those situations that had been compounding and i knew i was going to have to take care of it eventually. So...this weekend i pulled the dash off and spent a solid 10 hours or so getting it all sorted. here's what i started with:



here's where it is now (well...the dash is back in actually but this is where the wiring is now). it's still not perfect, but it's way better than it was and i think it's something a little more workable in the event that i need to chase something down.



here's the new switch panel. i took the time to build a harness with some weatherpacks on it this time. only the first 3 switches are being used at the moment, but they're all wired to the connectors so i can easily add 3 more circuits.



next weekend i'm pulling the wore out grey front carpet out, pulling the rear seats out, and pulling all the superfluous tubes in the roll bar out. i have 5 bars that are unneeded (for slower 10.00) and i intend to remove them as my guess that's 25lbs that i don't need. i also have to thank member jbenge for the water pump. he sent it to me for basically the cost of shipping. real stand up dude there. it'll get painted and installed next weekend also. we only have 2 weekends left to work on the cars before our Mu11et Militia race on 4/13 at Capitol Raceway.

STREETDEMON

fantastic job on cleaning up the spaghetti! you will be glad you did next time you have to work on it.

i've become a stickler for wiring and making things more modular with connectors in well thought out places. planning on a better quality soldering iron next time i make a tool purchase.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

i've definitely come a long way since i first did the dash swap. i was looking and i swapped that dash out back in 2010. it was definitely time to go in and do a little house keeping as it's pretty messed up, lol. i wish the relays were a bit more modular, and i'll address those things as time goes by. it is forever easier to work with now than what i had though, and adding circuits now should be infinitely easier, lol!

i made a hard decision today. i do not believe the SpeedMu11et will be making a DragWeek14 appearance....just too much on our plate as we continue our transition from GA to MD. There will be many local races and possibly an NMCA/LSX race in the cards though.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

how about a little good news? today i dropped off my driveshaft at A1 Driveshaft in Baltimore on my way to work. The guys there were really cool and willing to work with me. since i go to work before they open and get off after they close, they gave me a secure drop-off area, and then were willing to hang around long enough to get my shaft shortened. when we spoke about the driveshaft, they said they'd try to salvage the weld yoke, but they weren't able to. so they welded a new one on, and installed a new u-joint, all at no cost! they got a customer out of me!

STREETDEMON

what did they charge you if you don't mind me asking matt? i will be shortening mine here soon, and am trying to decide if it's worth it to send it back to pst.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

Should have been $160 since the weld yoke and u-joint was also replaced. since he was going to try to salvage mine and wasn't able to, he threw them in for free. i paid $120 for it. he told me a complete shaft just like that one would run $270. much cheaper than what i paid for mine originally from PST and he is local

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

today was not as bad as it could have been. it rained all day so working generally sucked. the driveshaft went in easily but since i pulled an inch out of it the yoke hit the driveshaft loop. out it all came again to mod the loop. that added about 2 hours to my day i hadn't anticipated. otherwise it wasn't bad though. i finally pulled the power steering off, as well as installed my astro van shaft. i also got the switch panels all finished up. here's some pics from today

STREETDEMON

i like the new setup for the switches, very clean.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

i got a LOT done today. unfortunately i didn't get many pictures because i was staying so busy. i'll try to get some tomorrow as i'll be down by the car again.

i was able to pull ~ 60bs out of the car today. 31lbs in this pile:



these are all bars from the roll bar that i put in cause they looked cool. they had no other structural purpose, lol. the roll bar is now as basic as it can be with just 5 pts. i also painted the bar with hammertone paint. overall i'm happy with it. i brushed it on with a foam brush and it ran in a couple spots i got over zealous with. i'll try to get some pictures of it tomorrow.

i also spent a little time and whipped up some plexiglass headlight covers. i'm going to make a grill cover next weekend i think.



overall i'm pretty pleased with the project made today.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

today was not a work day, but i went down to where the car was for a baby shower so i figured i'd take a couple of pictures of what i accomplished yesterday since the sun went down on me before i could take pictures.













don't mind the lack of rear carpet or the scratches on the interior plastics as this thing is an ever going project. i'm going to try to either repaint my interior plastics, or come upon some decent black plastcis. also going to redo the rear carpet in ozite like we did my cousins car. next week i am going to make a dzus rail for the front of the hood, so hopefully that will tighten up the hood gap. i also have a handful of other small projects that need to get tied up to be ready for the MM meet on 4/13.