71 maverick doing it all better than stock.

[bryant]

thanks tom. i wont make it sunday. going to the ford show at knotts. ill be at practice on saturday.

[JTC85]

always loved mavericks, good build!

[bryant]

Update.
I placed 2nd overall last year in cam-s (only 4 cars and only 2 of us ran most of the whole season), but I got a trophy so that was cool.
In the beginning of the year I was around 10 seconds slower than the leaders. By summer I had gotten down to 2 seconds behind the leader. The only real change to the car sense the last update was changing the stock wilwood pads to racing pads. That really helped with the braking. It also makes a big mess. I tried 3 different sets of racing pads over the last half of the year. Thanks to Tobin, I have a set on that dont dust as bad as the others and work just as well.
My falcon tires started going away in october. I took another autocross school in noverber and learned a few key things that really helped.
This year with the rule changes I'm in cam-t class. So far we have had up to 15 entries for a race. The first two races I was still on the near slick tread depth falcons. At the last race I had 2 new bridgstones on the front and the dead falcons on the back. Wow what a crazy set up. the front end was glued and the rear was on ice. Talk about a difficult car to drive. the mismatch of grip really taught me a lot about how having equal grip front to rear is important. I would have been faster with the dead falcons all the way around.
I should have the rear bridgstones by the next event. I cant wait to drive with the fresh tires. These bridgestones are incredible. just driving down the street you hear them sticking and ripping from the road surface.
I have some plans for my motor this year. Ive decided to not supercharge it. The motor was built with low compression to be supercharged. Im going to swap the pistons out to get the compression back. The current motor did throw down 350hp on a chassis dyno that I suspect reads high. I expect the compression bump will get me around 50 more hp.
Also about 3/4s of the way through last year, I fried my gear set. I figured that the turns were pushing the gear oil out into the tubes and when I would apply power out of the turns, I had no lube. I welded in baffles to keep the oil in the center section. I changed the gear from 4.10s to 3.89s. The new gears are better on the freeway but the 4.10s were perfect on the autocross. I have a close ration g-force gear t5 that really works well with the 4.10s. I have the standard ratio g force gear also and Im thinking about trying when I do the motor piston swap.
So that where Im at right now. Im extremely excited about the up coming year. I plan on going to the cam challenge at fontana.

[Tomswheels]

Looking good Bry!

[bryant]

So, I have not updated this thread for 2 years it looks like. 2016 was a year of mostly driving and working on driving skill. Then in 2017 I codrove a friends 69 Camaro with full DSE suspension and an LS7 motor. I also got to drive a lot of other cars throughout the year. It was a fanomenal year of learning driving, and suspension tuning skills. I was lucky enough to have been choose for the spirit of the event award at the CAM Challenge, west which came with a gift certificate to EVO school. I took Phase 1 and phase 2 in the end of October and then went to Ron Suttons workshop in november. Then I ran the maverick again for a fun run. Wow how did I ever drive this car with its manual slow steering!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I started a power steering upgrade project. Being a Maverick, I like to try to do my own thing vs buying off the shelf proven stuff. I had seen some stuff on line of a DIY rack and pinion conversion using a an 80's Cavalier rack. The Maverick is a rear steer car and the Cavalier rack is for rear steer and moves the center of the rack and is supported by the ends. I spent a few days building bracketry to mount the rack, hooking up the steering shaft, modifying the steering column to work with the u joint steering shaft, building a custom power steering pump, creating a custom serpentine drive system to work with my electric water pump and a Cavalier power steering pump.

Well, I had crappy sloopy power steering. I had basically welded a bracket to the stock center link and bolted it to the two bolt holes in the center of the rack. I pulled those bolts out pretty quickly.

So, I got the borgeson power steering conversion box for Ford midsize cars. Now I have power steering but it is slow. So I got the pro motor sports mustang bump steering kit which shortens the length on the steering arm, quickening the steering.

Now the car steers great!

Also the Chris Alston coil overs keep breaking the lower mount. Its a bad design. I have upgraded the hardwear they used and It seems to be holding up but I fear it breaking again. Also Their upper control arms do not give me the range of caster I want. I am maxed out at 5.3 degrees, and want a lot more than that. I will be modifying the arms to do what I want them to do.

The pan hard bar works great. I have done some tuning on it with its height and have had some dramatic results with it.

So the biggest change was to power steering from before, and a lot of tightening of the extremely loose nut behind the wheel.

[slimjim]

awesome build, I just asked you about it on fb but here's all the info I was looking for

[wfo guy]

bryant, I understand what you are saying. After my last build, I think I will build my own suspension components. It may not be better than what I've purchased in the past, but I have to see if I can improve on older designs.

[mbheinz]

Bryant let me drive the Maverick last January while my car was in paint jail. I can attest to how slow the stock steering is. When the rear end would step out there was no way you could catch it and just had to let it run it's course. It took a few autocross laps to figure it out. It's great to see Bryant driving his own car again! He has helped me tremendously on my car and the San Diego Region Cam T group is an awesome group to run with!

[67cougnut]

great thread and great choice on car, looking forward to seeing the progress!

[bryant]

Heres some videos of the car from the last couple of weekends.

This is at NMCA autocross at Fontana last weekend (2/24/2018)


This is from the SCCA Champ race in San Diego at the stadium on 2/18/2018


This is slomo of the the above run and run before it. I really like how I can see how the tires are contacting the surface in the turns and transitions.

[bryant]

Update

So at the San Diego Match Tour a few weeks ago, I plowed the parking lot with the front air dam due to a rough shut down area on the practice course. The parking lot won!

The air dam has had many hard damaging hits that I have repaired and reshaped. This time it was too much. So I decided it was time to make a spliter. I scrounged around my shop and came up with some plywood, 3 different types of all thread, nuts, washers, and scrap metal.

SCCA Cam rules say spliters cant protrude past the perimeter, so I took a bumper and traced it out on the plywood and attached it to the car.



I raced this last weekend and the results were way beyond what I was expecting. The downforce it created really unloaded the rear of the car. So I am now working on what I want to do to balance the rear.

Here's pics of the spliter.

[OctaneRiot]

Awesome thread and great job on the car. Been a really good read.

I've just picked up a 71 Maverick and hoping to follow in your footsteps in the UK.

Autocross doesn't exist too much over here, so hill climbs will be the main goal!

I'll be keeping an eye on your thread.

Cheers,

Ralph

[RMMiller]

Awesome thread and great job on the car. Been a really good read.

I've just picked up a 71 Maverick and hoping to follow in your footsteps in the UK.

Autocross doesn't exist too much over here, so hill climbs will be the main goal!

I'll be keeping an eye on your thread.

Cheers,

Ralph

I would love to run a hill climb in mine if I ever get it rolling. There is one in our area that would be a blast and not too terrible for a novice to take a shot at.

[bryant]

Awesome thread and great job on the car. Been a really good read.

I've just picked up a 71 Maverick and hoping to follow in your footsteps in the UK.

Autocross doesn't exist too much over here, so hill climbs will be the main goal!

I'll be keeping an eye on your thread.

Cheers,

Ralph

Thank you. The biggest parts mistake on my car is the Chris Alston chassis works upper control arms and coil overs. At this point, the Ride tech upper control arms and coil overs are my top choice.

[Project Bike Truck]

Thank you. The biggest parts mistake on my car is the Chris Alston chassis works upper control arms and coil overs. At this point, the Ride tech upper control arms and coil overs are my top choice.

Hey, killer build. my buddies all ran Cam-t. I would love to hear about what is breaking on your coilovers? I have the same set up in my ranchero in building. I'm concerned, to say the least.

[bryant]

Hey, killer build. my buddies all ran Cam-t. I would love to hear about what is breaking on your coilovers? I have the same set up in my ranchero in building. I'm concerned, to say the least.

The mounting tabs for coil over to the upper control arm snap the stud that they screw together with into the coilover. Also the range of adjustment on the upper control arms sucks for caster. They built them symmetrically so the range for caster adjustment is only half of what it could be. I had to make some major modifications to them to get more than 5 degrees of caster into my car. When I did get the caster I wanted, the handling, and tire wear got way better. I had lots of communication with Chassiworks over the years about these issues and they always give me the we have not heard of that before or you tightened the coil over mount to much. Recently they upgraded the failing coilover mount. I i have had it in my car now for about 5 autocrosses and so far it seems to be holding up. ridetech has a better design on their upper control arm. Ridetechs coilovers are leap years ahead of Chassiwork varishocks.

[LERM]

Hey, killer build. my buddies all ran Cam-t...

Those CAMT guys are not to be trusted... shady characters at best.

[Project Bike Truck]

The mounting tabs for coil over to the upper control arm snap the stud that they screw together with into the coilover. Also the range of adjustment on the upper control arms sucks for caster. They built them symmetrically so the range for caster adjustment is only half of what it could be. I had to make some major modifications to them to get more than 5 degrees of caster into my car. When I did get the caster I wanted, the handling, and tire wear got way better. I had lots of communication with Chassiworks over the years about these issues and they always give me the we have not heard of that before or you tightened the coil over mount to much. Recently they upgraded the failing coilover mount. I i have had it in my car now for about 5 autocrosses and so far it seems to be holding up. ridetech has a better design on their upper control arm. Ridetechs coilovers are leap years ahead of Chassiwork varishocks.

Hey i have all of there stuff on my car and the service is sub par. im not going to talk a bunch on here about that. we could talk in person, its only been like 15 years. can we go back to street racing and hanging at the sports arena complex?

[Zspoiler]

Nice to see these old cars back on the road again.I bet people ask you "what is it"?

[OctaneRiot]

At this point, the Ride tech upper control arms and coil overs are my top choice.

Thanks for the heads up! I'll check out their setups.