Project Weak Link by Maier Racing

[Maier Motorsports]

Project Weak Link By Maier Racing
A Long term relationship between the Maier & Brinson Family


Dennis Brinson has been a long time customer of Maier Racing. Mike can remember playing in his car when the guys were gone; pulling gears making race car sounds. Mike ran atleast two full virtual seasons of Trans Am in his car at 8 years old. Not only was this going on but Mike's dad, Bill Maier was a work out buff just like Dennis. Dennis is the owner of Olympic Health Club in Vallejo, Ca. Pops was able to chat it up about working out, while Mike was able to compete in his virtual racing series, while most importantly Dennis was able to build up his love.


Background of Dennis and the Red One
Dennis' father bought their 1964 Mustang brand new back in 64' from Wilson Russel Ford in Vallejo, Ca. It was a green, 2 barrel automatic Mustang Coupe. In 1969 Dennis' dad upgraded to a 69' mustang and sold the 64 to Dennis.
Then Dennis started to drive this car with pride. He ended up driving the car to Reno to go to college. Back and forth he logged time as well as some great memories. Dennis then heard about Maier Racing in 1980, jumping in with both feet he started upgrading his coupe. Bill let Dennis work out of the back of the old Quonset hut installing and fitting all of his new parts.
He installed the following;
GT350 style hood
Gravel shield w/ molded spoiler
Rebuilt motor; hipo ported heads, tri-y headers, F4B manifold, hipo cam, 4 barrel carb
9" housing with locker, 10x2.5 drums, 3.70 gears
Close ratio top loader
Hydraulic clutch
6 Point roll cage
Racing Seats
Maier full suspension kit
and finally a shiny new red paint job....




A copy of a few reciepts
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Now that his car is looking good he started tearing up the scene. He was on the cover of the Maier catalog, the Car Craft Nationals Winner, Fabulous Mustangs Feature; the list goes on and on.


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Sadly after all the fame it had recieved the car was put away.... Dennis looked at it here and there, drove it sometimes. This went on and on for years until it had finally lost the spark and enthusiasm that was once so great. He then started noticing some dated items and it just wasn't as enjoyable to drive anymore.


Fast forwarding to early 2012; So.... Lets take this thing for a drive back to Maier and see what he can do to fix a few small issues that the car was having.


Dennis: "Hey, can you check out my water pump?"
Bill then goes up to Mike and asks him to look at it.
Mike: "But Pops we dont do waterpumps.."
Bill: 'Its Dennis, just do it."


Mike had not seen Dennis in over 20 years, but he definately had not forgotten the fond memories of the car. In fact much of the inspiration for Ol' Blue was based off of Dennis' car. FYI 20 years ago put Mike in the 15 year old range, so he had never had a chance to really drive the car, knowing this all of the memories have gotten a bit fuzzy and a little blown out of proportion at the same time. Upon first impression it was very cool to see the car. "Oh wow... I remember this, blast from the past for sure!" Mike said. We then sealed up the water pump and a few other small odds and ends then Dennis let me drive it around the block. Holy cow this is going to be awesome Mike thought. Mike let the clutch out and everything was working perfectly, A well preserved time capsule with tires so hard you could shoot sparks when the tires slipped. The wicked little hipo 289 was a terror in a brown lightening kind of way. He started realizing that this car was "kick ass" back in 1980. We tend to forget how far we have come from the days of 15" Euro T/A tires and ported stock iron heads.


He gets out of the car and the first thing Dennis asks is, "How was it?" Mike thought for a moment on how to delicately drop the hammer.
"Kinda like an old pick-up truck. Stiff, slow, and a bit skatey. Other than that really cool!" with a smile on his face. Mike didnt know Dennis very well and didnt know that when Dennis wants to do something he does it right, rather a bit over the top.


Mike had just completely opened a huge can of worms and didnt even know it.


Dennis' car when he arrived back at Maier Racing in 2012
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[kmdracer]

Awesome back story.

[Maier Motorsports]

After the test drive was finished Dennis mentioned a noise he has had for some time near the right front corner of the car. So we did a quick nut and bolt check and everything was tight. Therefore it appeared that the shock could be the culprit. We removed the shock from the car and mounted it on our shock dyno and wow.....

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Needless to say the dyno results were consistent with a failing shock. The shaft seals seemed to be deteriorating and as a result the seal material was clogging the piston/valves. Over several years we have been in business the Konis have been a great shock, however the Bilsteins are a much newer design that is far more efficient. Additionally for the end user the Bilsteins are a fraction of the cost of Koni Shocks. Therefore, a shiny new set of Bilsteins was added to the list!

Dennis also wanted to put some new front disc brakes on the car, yet he still wanted to keep his 15" wheel. One of the only options at the time was the Dynalite 4 kit by Wilwood Engineering. The Cobra Automotive Kit is an awesome kit for this situation but Dennis is not vintage specific so he opted for the aluminum in the Wilwood kit. While looking at the front suspension we had noticed that the Shelby Drop had been done with his stock upper control arms, however the balljoint was in its stock location. By doing the Shelby Drop we have found that you can prematurely bottom out the balljoint on its own race if it had not been relocated on the upper control arm. Luckily for Dennis, Mike had just removed the upper control arms that were on Ol' Blue to replace it with one of the first demo coilover kits from Maier. These Maier Vintage upper arms that came off of Ol' Blue were not just any Maier production arm, but they had our new Delrin shaft kits, modified lengths to correct geometry, reinforcement plates, and finally 64 Falcon roller style spring saddles. So with all of this the first mods were on their way; New Wilwood front brakes, Mike Maier special arms, 600# Maier Springs, and a fresh set of Bilstein shocks.

All the while Mike wasn't thinking much of the new coil over kit because we had been doing great and winning races with the "old" Maier arms. However, Dennis had a spark that we had not yet seen. In his mind something that was brewing that would turn into a long journey that included tons of patience. He said that the vintage arms were "At the end of a product cycle". In his core he knew that he wanted to be at the cutting edge of the new cycle but we couldnt provide him with that yet

Demo Maier Vintage Arms
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[andrewb70]

Great thread…I am looking forward to seeing what you guys do…I have a 67 Cougar waiting…

Andrew

[Dave B]

I'll be following along, I've always admired your work.

[Maier Motorsports]

Great! This is a project that has been taking shape in directions we would have never guessed. It should be entertaining to follow his path.

[Maier Motorsports]

We were discussing how and what to write this time about Dennis' car and after writing a whole entire bit on the parts he was going to put on the car it sounded tacky and salesy (Yes we created a word) The purpose of this build thread is to give a perspective from the customer to the shop and back. How this project grew and blossomed from what it was to what it will be we will go over small decisions from a 50 foot view and then look at it from a distance.

Dennis: We now have upper arms, Wilwood brakes, fresh coils & new shocks (We never took pictures because we werent too impressed. It was a means to an end for him with his 15" wheels.) How about my leafs?
We took a look at his leafs which were Maier 200# leafs from the first time he built his car. Since the car was stored on jack stands there was not a need to replace them. They still looked pretty good after all those years. Dennis also had custom delrin bushings made for most of the car back in the day by the same lathe that is used in the suspension shop today.
As awesome as those old bushings were we recommended front urethane bushings and a rear rubber bushing with shackle kit. This lets the leafs float and flex so the rear of the car wasn't so chattery. Then we regained control of the back with a panhard rod kit by Maier.

We mentioned that power steering might be a good upgrade from his manual steering with a shelby quicksteer kit. With this setup he was able to keep good Ackermann characteristics while still allowing the thing to turn without being too slow of a ratio to respond when the chassis gets out of shape. Not to mention a solid feeling in the steering wheel that wasnt too hard, yet didnt float down the road like a caddy. Added control when sliding around a corner and also parallel parking is always a win-win situation. We created a homebrew kit with an ABS box that has a 14:1 steering ratio that is powered by a KRC pump.

Dennis then asks, "Anything else?"
Mike replies with, "No more until you get rid of those wheels and tires off the car, then roll them off a cliff. No matter what I do, the money will be wasted with those tires as your contact point."
It seemed like I just told him that his favorite hunting dog is a terrible hunting dog. He looked like I had just kicked him in the gut. This was the first time we believe he saw there had to be a large change to achieve what he was looking for.

Dennis then called up a while later and said, "Lets order some wheels and tires..."



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