Its 5:30 am

[vanzuuk1]

Its 5:30 in the morning and I just got out of the shower.The thermometer in my kitchen window say 27 degrees, forecast is light snow and rain. I have to go to the garage next door where I keep my car, start it without waking the people upstairs, drive around to warm it up,then pull back in and load all my front suspension parts from my apartment.My wife is going to wake up and help me.Then I drive an hour to my friend Johns house whos gonna lower the rear and install the front end /brakes /springs/upper and lower control arms/swaybar and springs, drive it to the shop where he works and align it. Today is also his wifes birthday. We plan to treat it like a long pit stop, maybe have the car aligned by dinnertime. Factor in murphys law and some paint-it-while-its-apart time, not sure if we will make it.



I think this is a little more than a hobby, more like a obsession.


And thanks to those mentioned above, and sorry to the woman who sleeps above where I store my car!

[vanzuuk1]

The ride home should be fun, from a worn out stock front end to;
DSE upper/lower c/a's
front end rebuild
675 springs
Powerslot rotors hawk brake pads, new lines and fluid
1 1/8th swaybar
g mod
qa1 shocks.


Not the trickest setup, but a big step forward.

[indyjps]

its 6 am and im just finishing the night @ work, your day sounds pretty good, hope all goes well with the install.

[Rick Dorion]

Think of the space you're freeing up! Have a safe trip back home. I'm putting on my newly powdercoated home-made closeout panel for the core support/headerpanel gap. Then I'll stare out the window at the weather. You have a great plan for today.

[Steve68]

We want a drive report before and after, yes, sounds like a lot of work, but you'll get it done,

[mpozzi]

Sounds like some cool stuff is going on your car and we definitely want a progress report when you're done.

Dress warm . . .

[shmoov69]

Congrats man!! I am sitting on my arss in front of the computer while the 69 sits in the garage with the rear suspension out of it! :hammer:

[Colin Frolick]

i love days like that.

[69Nova]

Good luck.

[Damn True]

Crossing my fingers that you get it all done in one day. I know how stuff like that goes for me.

[69rs]

Good luck! Let us know how y'all did with the timeline. I have a similar day planned before too long, but I'm not sure if it can all be done in one day!

[vanzuuk1]

Well, that was a long day.

[zbugger]

Well, that was a long day.
And????

Speak up before someone bans you!!! :evil:

[vanzuuk1]

Sorry I forgot to follow up.

A little bit of trouble with the install, I thought we could do the springs and arms first and put the carrera shocks up through the lower arm like the stock shocks, oops. The shock body wont fit through the hole in the LCA and I didnt want to remove material in the arm to make it fit. Also would be tight reaching the adjuster this way. After some head scratching we mounted the lower shock mount from above and tested it with no spring to check the shock didnt bottom or top out.

The adjusters work great, we took a guesstimate and ran them an inch from their tallest setting and that put the car at about 25 1/4 inch to the lip of the front fender, 281/2 inches to the point at the header panel.

Did the front brakes, gmod,swaybar and some other misc. and took the car to the dealership where he works for alignment. The bolts that the control arm were only long enough to get one degree of caster, I guess longer bolts will help? Two degrees of caster and 1/4 of toe in and we called it a night. My friend resisted me on more aggressive settingso I agreed to try it for a week or so.

The car feels awesome, I went as fast as I was comfortable going after seeing ice on the road and the car feels like comparable or better than a brand new IROC, if you remember them. I want to get more feel in the steering, I guess a new steering box and more aggressive alignment will help.

Interesting side note , the car used to pick up the inside rear wheel and spin the tirearound any turn, the front would dive and unload the opposite rear tire. Now the rear is planted unless you bury the throttle, then it steps out. Its a great example of how anything you do at one end of the car affects the other.

With all the trips to the autoparts store and assorted setbacks it took 15+ hours. Yikes. The second side took a third as much time as the first. If we had to the whole thing over it would take half the time.

No "after photos" , but "before" was pretty bad.

[Damn True]

Very cool. I'm psyched and it wasn't even my car!

[gsxrken]

Sounds great Dirk. Getting all that done in one day, regardless of how long a day, is a coup. Murphy's law must have been thwarted by all that visualization.

[CarlC]

Yep, the learning curve is steep.

Try setting the ride height so that the center of the sphere in the lower ball joint is 1/2" lower than the center of the front lower A-arm bolt. Dic k Guldstrand made that recommendation to me.

I too had to open up the lower A-arm shock hole for clearance. No biggie, just take your time. You will also have to widen the shock mounting bolt hole pattern.

[David Pozzi]

Are those coilovers?
Make sure they are equal height.
You need way more caster, get 5 deg positive in it. 1/4" toe in is way too much. As you increase positive caster and neg camber, you need less and less toe-in because the tires are leaning inward and causing "camber thrust". Imagine which direction the tire would roll if it weren't connected to the car but leaning at the angle it's set at. It would roll in a circle the two tires would cross each others path in an "X" and make a big circle. Some toe out would be good to try with lots of neg camber.

Positive caster has weight jacking effects, this changes the rear end feel/stick, in a good way...

[vanzuuk1]

The only way I can get the tires in more at the top is with longer bolts, I have as many alignment shims as we could fit without running out of bolt.Is it safe to use a longer bolt?

To get more caster I just need to swap the dse spacers around a little, no biggie.

I still feel like the landrum adjusters are going to thread/unthread them selves, I guess the pressure from the coil prevents that?

When I saw the hole on the engine compartment side of the spring pocket, I wanted to drill a matching hole 180 degrees across and then tack welds would hold the adjuster in place.

Carl , the carrera shocks were pretty big, I would have to chew into the bolt holes on the dse lower arm.

[HILROD]

Global West - 1967-69 Camaro/Firebird Cross Shafts for Stock Arms

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif Try these or you can get them from napa or others. FRANK :naughty:

[Rick Dorion]

I have those and was able to get 3* caster.

[vanzuuk1]

I dont think the global west shafts work with the dse arms.

[Rick Dorion]

They won't. We got off on a tangent :) I currently have stock arms with GW delalum bushings and their offset shafts. However, I'm maxed out on shims too.

[YoungGun]

Man, I finally saw this post. That is awesome Dirk! I know you have been waiting a while to make those changes, glad to hear it worked out smoothly.


Tim

[vanzuuk1]

Thank you Tim. Smoothly? I hit my head on the alignment rack so many times i stopped feeling it.

[vanzuuk1]

PS thank you carl, dennis and dave for the info.

[Ralph LoGrasso]

Just seeing this now--very cool on the upgrades, Dirk! The long day will definitely be worth it come Pocono.

[CAMAROBOY69]

Dirk, Im glad you were able to get as much done as possible. You will like your car a lot more when you hop onto a track or local autocross event. Should be a huge improvement. :drive1:

[vanzuuk1]

Thanks Adam, autocross season starts soon.