1964 Corvette Coupe

[C Presley]

Bitchin Car Dude

[Dave Pratt]

My favourite year/favourite colour! Great work on the car...now drive the hell out of it!

[FLYNAVY53]

So a little back story....when I was initially deciding what I wanted to do to the suspension while I was doing the disc brake retrofit, I leaned heavily on Herb Adams' article about how to make the C2/C3 chasis handle like the then new C4, and the Corvette Handling book. Both sources recommend trimming 1/2 coil off the front springs to lower the ride height slightly, and increase the spring rate slightly, app. 10%. Factory small block springs at 280 lb while the Corvette Handling book recommends 300-350 lb springs. I never trimmed my springs when I put my suspension back together, but after putting 500 break in miles on the car, I wished I had. The performance and handling are exactly what I was looking for, but the ride height is too high in the front (personal opinion) and the factory small block springs are a nightmare to deal with if you have to do any sort of maintenance requiring their removal.

Ride height adjustability and ease of installation led me to start looking at some of the hybrid coil over kits. The hybrid set up is nice because it doesn't require any modification to the frame...the spring and shock mount in the factory locations. The key is that the bottom of the spring rests on a perch, threaded onto the shock body. This allows precise adjustment of the ride height. I ended up going with the set up from Viking. They have been around a few years and are well known in the C5/C6 and Pro Touring communities. I like the fact that they are made in the US, and if you call to ask questions, the tech guy may very likely be the owner of the company. The other selling point for me was that they offered a 350 lb spring....the lightest you can get from QA1 is 450 (which coincidentally is what Viking recommends for big block cars). Additionally, there is a roller bearing collar that fits in between the spring and the spring perch, thus making ride height adjustments a relatively easy affair. Viking only offers double adjustable shocks, which is overkill for my street car, but because they only offer double adjustable shocks, they're at a similar price point as most performance single adjustable shocks. As a point of reference, the Ride Tech shocks I had on the car were $785. The Viking front semi-coilovers with double adjustable shocks front and rear were $960...made in the USA out of billet aluminum. I was quite pleased with the quality of the set up, and the directions include a very comprehensive guide to getting the double adjustable shocks dialed in....I'm always leary of unnecessary adjustability, but the guide is a very good starting point.










The switch to the semi-coilover did necessitate a change in lower control arms. Global West sells a lower control arm, similar to their factory replacement arms I had on the car, that has a reinforced mounting pad specifically designed to handle the load of a coil over. The minimum recommended thickness for mounting the coil over is 3/16 and the mounting surface on the Global West arms is 5/8.





It took about 4 hours of total work from the time the car was on the ground, until everything was buttoned up and bolts torqued and striped. (yes the lock collar is backed off in this photo as I anticipate having to make some adjustments to the ride height after I see the car on the ground for the first time.)

[FLYNAVY53]

I finally got a break in the weather this morning, so I decided to take the car out for a test drive....actively looking for the bumpiest roads in Norfolk, and to get a few side shots to judge the ride height from a distance.









The ride quality is perfect....pretty much the same as the set up with the factory front springs and the Ride Tech shocks, so I'm very happy with those results. I gained the adjustability in ride height, while maintaining the ride and handling quality I already had. As far as the ride height at the moment, I'm inclined to leave it where it is.....at least for the time being. I have the factory castle nuts in the rear backed down as far as I can get them, while still getting a small cotter pin through the hole in the bolt. I did order a set of 7" bolts and nylock nuts from McMaster Carr in the event that i want to go slightly lower. The front still has plenty of adjustment in the coil overs, but I think the current setting did a good job of taking the gap out of the fender and bringing the nose down to level with the rear. Eventually, I may go down an additional half inch in the front and rear, but nothing more aggressive than that. For now, I plan on just driving it, and I'll reevaluate in a month or two.

[_BQ]

I recognized your username and car from CorvetteForum. Good to see another midyear here. I joined a few weeks ago and posted my twin turbo build...figured it might not be appreciated so much on CF...

Your car looks great. I’m hoping to do front coilovers soon...maybe they’ll tide me over until I can do a full chassis swap.

[FLYNAVY53]

Yea, the crowd over there can be a bit stuffy, but you can get a lot of good info from those guys. I've found that the purist/NCRS types are actually in the minority, they're just the most vocal on the forum. Theres a good contingent of us on there with varying levels of modified builds, and everyone enjoys seeing each others progress.

[_BQ]

I may post something more general over there. Probably not as in detail as here.

Your car is turning out awesome. How do you like the Sniper? I was using one until we converted to a conventional EFI setup for the new build.

[FLYNAVY53]

I may post something more general over there. Probably not as in detail as here.

Your car is turning out awesome. How do you like the Sniper? I was using one until we converted to a conventional EFI setup for the new build.

Haven't gotten to the fuel injection yet....still running the original Holley 4150. I am running the Terminator on my LS swapped C20 Suburban and really like it. The integrated trans controller for the built 4L65E really does a good job of keeping the engine and trans in sync, especially at part throttle driving and down shifts.

[OLDFLM]

I've got the Holley Terminator TBI on my Firebird now with a Rick's Restomod tank and drop-in GM fuel module and love the super clean install... along with proven GM engineering and parts availability.

[FLYNAVY53]

I've got the Holley Terminator TBI on my Firebird now with a Rick's Restomod tank and drop-in GM fuel module and love the super clean install... along with proven GM engineering and parts availability.

Is that GM fuel module returnless?

[OLDFLM]

Yes, it's returnless! ACDELCO MU1959 includes the regulator, filter and fuel level sender... just get the Gen4 fuel pressure regulator and adapter from Carl at vaporworx and you're all set!

[FLYNAVY53]

[David Sloan]

That's a cool picture
I wonder how old that establishment / building is ?

[andrewb70]

Very cool Corvette! I think the ride height is perfect. I would not go any lower.

If I can be of service with any Holley related tuning or wiring, please let me know.

Andrew

[FLYNAVY53]

Very cool Corvette! I think the ride height is perfect. I would not go any lower.

If I can be of service with any Holley related tuning or wiring, please let me know.

Andrew

Andrew, agreed completely....as you can see, it settled a bit in that last picture compared to those from March. The ride height is exactly where I wanted it. I will definitely give you a shout when/if I get to the fuel injection. Right now, Ive got the motor running so well with the rebuilt carb, I'm tempted not to mess with it. I've got a dyno tune scheduled for the 28th of the month with a wide-band O2, so I'm hoping Abacus Racing will be able to dial in the carb and timing well beyond my rudimentary skills.

[68EFIvert]

That is a great picture and stance. Good luck on the 28th. Always a fun day when the car is on the dyno.

[C Presley]

2 words describe this Car... Bitchin Corvette

[_BQ]

Love it.

[FLYNAVY53]

Thanks guys, I’ve had this “European influenced” Corvette build kicking around in my head for years now....it’s been fun to see it finally come together. Next up will be figuring out how to mount a Tilton or Wilwood pedal assembly to fix the terrible ergonomics and provide a brake pedal with a correct manual brake pedal ratio.

[FLYNAVY53]

Another small update...as I like to get the car on the lift and give it a good once over every couple hundred miles, just to make sure everything is functioning as intended. I've made a point of specifically not babying the car...full throttle short shifts up on ramps, full speed over railroad tracks, etc. I want this thing to be as reliable as possible, so I'm not opposed to breaking things in the short term.

To that end, it was clear on our last drive that we banged a bump stop at least twice that I can remember....and the stops told the tale...



The good news is, they are functioning as advertised....and no longer clipping any brake lines, or other parts of the suspension. The bad news is, we didn't really hit anything terribly aggressive. The fact that I kissed the bump stops twice, combined with the oil line on the shocks showing how far they compressed, seems to be a good indication that my shock settings are a little soft, even for street use.



Going into the double adjustable shocks, I knew I had set them up on the soft side of things. I wanted to get a feel for just how soft, "soft" was. Compression and Rebound both have 16 clicks of adjustment. 1 being the softest, and 16 the hardest. Viking does a very good job providing you initial settings, as well as general rules for tuning the shocks.

For a street set up, they recommend:

Front 1-4 compression/ 4-8 rebound
Rear 0-3 compression/ 2-5 rebound

They also state that generally rebound should be 2-6 clicks stiffer than compression. My initial set up was 2/6 in the front and 1/3 in the rear. Based on the bump stop contact, and the fact that the car has a tendency to bounce a lot when coasting in neutral at low speed, it was relatively apparent that I needed to stiffen things up a bit. In doing some research on how to tune double adjustable shocks, I found this very general chart from the guys over at Grassroots Motorsports. It seems to agree with my findings.



Most guys I could find running the Viking shocks on other forums said that 2 clicks in any direction was minimally noticeable, and 4 clicks was a significant change...so I split the middle and went up 3 on compression and rebound at all 4 corners. I'm looking forward to getting some more miles on the car this weekend to see how it responds.