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    1. #401
      Join Date
      Dec 2010
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      709

      Just wait . . .

      I had a 1968 Firebird in the mid-90s. Overall, it was a ridiculous hotrod that was too much for daily street use, but I drove it anyway, because I was 17/18, and gas was cheap. These days, that car would be an easy 10 grand; back then, it was $1700.00. Being a Mustang guy, there were some things I hated about that car, the major one being the GM front suspension. It was like they took a freaking steel girder and stuck some obese control arms on it, with no regard for necessary ground clearance. For reference, I had a 1965 Mustang before the Firebird, and clearances, to say the least, were considerably better, even with lowering. In the Firebird, with a front weighted down by a stupidly cammed 400-inch engine and nearly 30 year-old coil springs, it was quite easy to hit a parking block in the college parking lot in the worst way (with the suspension crossmember--like a Mike Tyson punch in the chest/ego). For that, I hated that front end. Just sayin'. Consider getting/making longer links and putting that tube on top of the frame rails. With hotrods, do-overs are the point, aren't they?

      Quote Originally Posted by andrewb70 View Post
      What's the logic of mounting the sway bar so low?

      Andrew

    2. #402
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
      Posts
      1,758
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      Quote Originally Posted by andrewb70 View Post
      What's the logic of mounting the sway bar so low?

      Andrew
      It's not so much about want to as it is need to. The swing arms needed to go under the tie rods to get them shorter to help with the rate. In order for everything to play nice and not bind, the bar has to be lower as well. It's okay for me though as this meant I get to keep the UMI triangulation bar which it really needs and I really like.
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    3. #403
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
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      1,758
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      Well, it's all tacked into place for the last time...Uh...this time anyway. If I happen to knock it off on a speed bump at any time, I do have a plan B. For now it all fits and the suspension travels full extension to full compression without any bind of the end links which is huge. Once I burn in all of the welds I'm pretty confident it'll all stay in place and function great.

      Finished cleaning the LCAs up from Plan A, needed a fresh place to start again.





      This is the only picture I took of the new tabs secured to the LCA in the new location. They are in closer to the car centerline by 3 Inches or so and canted a bit more than before. I am able to get the lower rod end into either hole in the swing arm without taking the top end loose which is nice.



      Here is the tube, bar and swing arms hanging in their final spot.



      The tube is about an 1/8" below the UMI bar tubes and the bottom of it is about 3/4" lower than the bottom of my cross member.

      This is what it looks like from the side at ride height. I "think" it's going to be all right there. I know it'll be fine on any track I race on, my only concern would be any real steep and tall speed bump I may encounter. Going on the trailer will be no issue.



      Once I sleep on it and am sure I'll leave it this way, I'll pull the swing arms and rod ends, drop the lower ball joints for better access to both sides of the tabs and I'll burn everything in and give it a coat of paint. Then one more assembly and it's off to the races to see how it drives.

      I'll have to put the springs back on the front shocks while it's apart and I'll take some pics of the new bump stops and shims to show then. They worked out perfect.
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    4. #404
      Join Date
      Apr 2001
      Location
      The City of Fountains
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      15,971
      Country Flag: United States
      Man, that seems really low to me for street driving. Can't you bring it up an inch and shorten the links to the control arm?

      Andrew
      1970 GTO Version 3.0
      1967 Cougar build
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      "You were the gun, your voice was the trigger, your bravery was the barrel, your eyes were the bullets." ~ Her

    5. #405
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
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      Peoria, AZ
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      1,758
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      Quote Originally Posted by andrewb70 View Post
      Man, that seems really low to me for street driving. Can't you bring it up an inch and shorten the links to the control arm?

      Andrew
      The link on the passenger side is as short as it can go, the splines in the bar aren't cut square so the driver side arm hangs down lower than the other. Once I get it all set at ride height and with driver weight I'll work on the arms on the splines and link length to get them up as high as I can get them.



      The tube can not go any higher without loosing or heavily modifying the UMI brace and I really don't want to do that. I will if I have to, that is plan B...but I really don't want to. I think it's going to be okay though. We don't see too many potholes out here in Phoenix.
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car


    6. #406
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
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      1,758
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      So it made it's first test drive around the neighborhood yesterday...nothing fell off!!!






      First big test was making it out the driveway without scraping, tons of room there. Made first run around with shocks on full soft to fully travel the suspension...no issues. Put race setup in shocks and made another round...really feels good, seems to stay VERY flat up front and rear seems to follow where the front goes which is also good.

      Here are the bump stops and shims I put on the front shocks to limit the travel.





      Basically the new ATS spindles were a bit of a drop spindle from the metric G-Body spindles and I needed to limit the upward travel to keep the tires off the fenders. These bumpstops worked like a champ. It took 3 snap in shims to get to where they stopped the tire right before contact.

      This Saturday I'm registered to race in Tucson with the Border Region SCCA. Friend is co-driving and we are doing time only fun runs after so should get about 20 runs total to tweak on the new setup.
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    7. #407
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
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      1,758
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      So, Barney passed initial post race inspection just fine, no issues shown anywhere sway bar related or anywhere else...and we beat it like a rented mule making 17 runs (half back to back) on a long slalom intensive and fast course.

      I'm going to share the video of our very first run...completely untested new setup, massive front bar change and completely new shock valving starting with Chris's recommended settings and new bumpstops on front shocks. I basically didn't have a clue what it would do when we headed into first gate. Check it out...

      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    8. #408
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
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      Peoria, AZ
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      After our first initial runs, Mike and I debriefed about what changes we thought it needed. Because we were co-driving in the same heat in run group 2 and run group 3, shock changes were really all we had time to do between runs.

      The back was hopping in the two sweepers and we wanted to work on that first. Basically the inside rear tire was lifting which de-cambered the outside rear which would slip and loose grip setting the inside rear on the ground again where it would then lift again, rinse and repeat. It wasn't step out and spin loose but it was unsettling especially to Mike since he'd never driven the car and wasn't sure what it was going to do.

      We started by taking 4 clicks of rebound out of the rear shocks and each made a run. It was better, maybe 60-70% better... After the next runs I took 2 more clicks of rebound out of the rears making it very comfortable.

      Here were my fastest timed run and Mike's fastest time run.





      We then decided that it was pushing a bit if we didn't get completely off of the brakes before turning in after the one big braking zone...so we took 2 clicks of compression out of the front shocks and that helped some. In hindsight, I should have put more rear brake in as well...that would have helped to keep from locking the inside front tire up. Will try that next event.

      Here are my fastest Time only run as well as Mike's. I didn't get a time on that run and that was disappointing because I felt it was a good one. Mike's was the fastest of all of our runs and later on I'll lay them side by side in a video just to see if I was close to his blazing fast time.





      Overall the car did great. Mike's last run was a half second faster than Tommy's Camaro which regularly is 1 - 1.5 seconds faster than me. I was only a few tenths off Tommy in the fastest scored run and possibly faster in my run with no time.

      I can't wait to tune on it a bit more at one more local event before hitting Good Guys and then changing everything to try to make it work on that style of course. I know this...it won't have the body roll that it had there last spring, that's for sure...

      - - - Updated - - -

      So, at SEMA a week or so ago...I stumbled across these and had to have them.



      They are ridetech's new R-Joint cartridges that press into the axle housing ears on my 9" (which still had rubber bushings in them. I'm not sure why I never upgraded the axle bushings but now is as good of a time as any I guess.

      Here is a picture showing the rubber bushing on the left and R-Joint on the right.



      I must say that after putting these in the rear end articulates MUCH easier than with the the rubber bushings. It HAS to be better now right?

      ridetech also has a new rear sway bar setup for A-Body cars with this slick adjusting collar to let you dial the bar rate in easier.



      Bret mentioned it would also work on a G-Body with a few adjustments so they made me up one and it's on the way to me now. I should have it in time to get it installed before heading to Good Guys on Thursday.

      When I've run rear bars in the past (tried several times) I had a lot of trouble with the bar picking the inside rear tire up in turns. This had a LOT to do with the outside front tire compressing so much and the resulting diagonal roll lifting the inside rear. Now that I have basically doubled the front sway bar rate, the inside rear has way less tendency to want to lift the tire which has me wanting to try a rear bar once again. This means that I'll have to soften the rear spring rate considerably as well.

      I'll have a trunk full of parts and tools with me to make changes at the track if needed, but I think we have a pretty good idea of where to start with the setup. Worst case I can quickly put it back to where I know it works by changing springs and disconnecting the rear bar...but I hope that won't be necessary and I can just work on fine tuning the new setup with way more ways to adjust it now.

      Hope to see a bunch of you there at the Duel in the Desert...should be a hoot...
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    9. #409
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
      Posts
      1,758
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      So I've had a day or so to decompress after the Goodguys 21st Southwest Nationals and thought I'd share my feelings. Last spring I attended my very first Good Guys autocross and loved it, but I knew I had to make some changes to my car so it would handle this kind of course better. With a much stiffer front sway bar to control the roll better, bump stops to limit front suspension travel to keep front tires off the fenders, and steering stops to keep the front tires off the frame...I felt we were ready. After watching the first run, Chris Smith suggested a major shock change, then we made another major shock change after the 2nd run...picking up almost a second on each subsequent run. Before the 4th run we made one more major change going to the stiffer front bar setting and it woke the car up. That run got me within 0.162 seconds of making the top 32 spots and the Duel in the Desert and I'm pretty happy with that. I'm certain that if I had a few more runs in the heat with that last change, I could have gotten into the show.

      I have to talk a bit about my StopTech big brake kit on the car. I still run a 1985 master cylinder and booster along with a 1985 disc\drum distribution valve aided only by an add on rear brake proportioning valve and the Stoptech brakes. With the rest of the car now very sorted, I can adjust the front to rear bias with about a turn and a half on the prop valve, going from locking the fronts first to locking the rears first...or somewhere in between. And this brake pad\rotor combination works perfectly...ice cold to last lap on a 20 minute road course track session including low dust street driving. I've had them on the car for a year now with a LOT of events under my belt and the pads and rotors still look almost brand new. Stoptech is adding more and more muscle car application brackets to adapt their big brake kits to the cars we love...and I highly recommend them as a fantastic all around brake package.

      The new R-Joints from ridetech in the rear suspension really helped tame the back down. I had zero issues with lifting the rear tire last weekend. In fact, I never touched an adjustment on the rear of the car all weekend...it just flat out worked. The new valving in the ridetech shocks worked out great as well. I now have a base setting to make them perform great on both big SCCA style courses as well as tight tough Good Guys style courses...with just a slight twist of a couple knobs.

      The rest of the car just did what it does...horsepower is good, all systems held up to the abuse, FORGELINE wheels look awesome, and the car seemed to be right in line time wise with the rest of the owner\driver cars in a stacked field of competitors from across the Country. The driver actually needs more work now than the car does in order to really be competitive.

      Here's a video of my fast lap of the weekend.



      Thanks to Allison for taking the picture below, can't wait for a few more on track pics to make their way to the web for viewing since I know there were several great photogs there snapping pics.



      Now I'm on to getting ready for the next event...once I rest up..
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    10. #410
      Join Date
      Aug 2008
      Location
      jacksonville,fl
      Posts
      970
      Country Flag: United States
      Would you say the ridetech r-joints give solid control arms some of the effect an arm with articulating joints would have? I got some billet aluminum metco arms I never installed.

    11. #411
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
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      1,758
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      The R Joints have more than enough articulation in them to work very well with solid arms...

      - - - Updated - - -

      Local SCCA race today. Course was way more sweepers, more speed and less slaloms. I left the Proven good Good Guys setup in it just to see what it liked, stiff setting on front bar and front shocks full still low and high speed compression. Car liked it but was loose mid sweeper. Ended up taking rebound out of hte front and adjusting my line to put down a pretty good time.

      Here are initial raw results, I'm B18. Time should PAX pretty well with only the best of the best below the high 44s.

      http://realtime.azsolo.com/

      And my third and fastest run of the day.

      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    12. #412
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
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      1,758
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      So, we had a local SCCA Autocross here last Sunday...and it was awesome! Really fun fast course that was really Barney friendly.

      Ended up 14th overall PAX and 15th overall in Raw time out of 118 drivers, my best showing so far with this Region. I haven't turned a knob or bolt on the car in two full events now...just working on driving it better.

      Here was my fastest run in the TO fun runs.



      The front bar on it's stiffest setting really has the rear tires planted on the big fast sweepers, something the car has NEVER had before. And there isn't even the slightest hint of a push anywhere.

      These pictures were taken entering the right hand showcase turn about mid point in the run.











      To say I'm happy with the performance would be an understatement. I had a very accomplished autocrosser ride in and drive the car Sunday and he had good things to say about the car as well, saying it handles well and is very balanced. He gave the driver some pointers which helped me set my fast time on my last run and he mentioned a couple of things that felt strange to him about the car. Most were "analog" deals vs the "digital" cars he is used to driving but one of them is something that I'm aware of and will be dealing with next. It's not crucial but it is near the top of the list for future enhancements.

      Meanwhile, I'm going to just keep driving it into the ground and enjoying the heck out of my winter racing season.performance would be an understatement. I had a very accomplished autocrosser ride in and drive the car Sunday and he had good things to say about the car as well, saying it handles well and is very balanced. He gave the driver some pointers which helped me set my fast time on my last run and he mentioned a couple of things that felt strange to him about the car. Most were "analog" deals vs the "digital" cars he is used to driving but one of them is something that I'm aware of and will be dealing with next. It's not crucial but it is near the top of the list for future enhancements.

      Meanwhile, I'm going to just keep driving it into the ground and enjoying the heck out of my winter racing season.
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    13. #413
      Join Date
      Feb 2012
      Location
      Central NY
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      240
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      That awesome and you should be very proud!

    14. #414
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      Sep 2014
      Location
      Sun City West, AZ
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      672
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      Lance, you looked very good going through the showcase turn and entering the slalom. The essentially looked very flat.
      --
      Kenny Mitchell
      [email protected]

    15. #415
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      Aug 2012
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      Peoria, AZ
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      Quote Originally Posted by Streetbu View Post
      That awesome and you should be very proud!
      Thanks!!


      Quote Originally Posted by nokones View Post
      Lance, you looked very good going through the showcase turn and entering the slalom. The essentially looked very flat.
      Thanks Kenny! Was good to finally meet you in person. That last timed run you made was a flyer!! Nice pickup in time...

      Your car looks awesome and puts down laps even faster than it looks.

      - - - Updated - - -

      Did a little bit of photo editing this morning. Gotta thank Chris Niemeyer for grabbing these great action shots.







      Look at that contact patch!!
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    16. #416
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
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      One of the best testaments to a well setup car (besides great handling) is even tire wear.

      I put new tires on Barney in October 2018. Since then I've run 2 SCCA Autocross events (one with a co-driver plus fun runs\20 long slalom intensive runs), 1 Good Guys event, and 4 more SCCA autocross events. I haven't rotated the tires once during all of this.

      Today I took them off the car for inspection and was impressed enough with the even wear across all four tires that I thought I'd share.

      You'll have to look close at these pics and know what to look for but if you pay particular attention to the center rib on each of the four tires, you can see how all 4 of them are wearing very VERY evenly...










      I'll probably rotate the rears to the front as there is just a bit more wear on the rears (probably just from the Good Guys event) and these should last me thru most of the summer at this rate.

      If I really wanted to extend the life of these, I'd pay to have them flipped on the rims...and that's probably not that bad of an idea either.
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    17. #417
      Join Date
      Mar 2005
      Location
      Phoenix,AZ
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      495
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      I could not believe tires look that good for the past 4 months
      James W.
      1987 Oldsmobile

    18. #418
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
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      So this autocross thing can be a fickle bitch sometimes... I like to think that I'm getting pretty good at it and then I have an event like Sunday where I think I'm doing okay speed wise...and I end up 41st in raw time out of 130ish drivers. It wasn't just me though, a lot of the drivers I typically run similar times to in different cars were also way down on the time chart while others were way higher than normal. I'm still trying to process why and one of the things that helps is to watch videos from those that went faster on the same course.

      Here was my fastest timed run in Group B (the one that counts). 46.243




      Later in the Time only runs, I used the data from my solostorm and new 8" tablet to find ways to pick up speed.

      E20 CAM-T TO Lance Hamilton 1985 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS 45.763 45.471 45.263 45.068

      Here is my 45.068 run with data




      Now, to totally blow our minds...here is Brian Peters in a 2018 1LE putting down a 42.879 in the cool run Group B I was in...

      https://www.facebook.com/brian.peter...6247955797333/

      He later ran a 42.562 in time onlys...

      The full results are here http://www.azsolo.com/backup/index.p...s-info/results

      You can sort by fast time, PAX or class...

      The car ran great and it's ready for Good Guys this week...and I got to share my hobby with a couple of our new neighbors that had never experienced autocross before. So it's all good.
      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

    19. #419
      Join Date
      Aug 2005
      Location
      Bellevue, NE
      Posts
      14
      Runs look good. But you definitely looked more aggressive on the 45.068 run.
      DaveZ
      Updated CP Camaro
      No such thing as too much power or too much traction

    20. #420
      Join Date
      Aug 2012
      Location
      Peoria, AZ
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      1,758
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      So, that was a pretty fun weekend overall. This was my third Good Guys event and my first one with the new Street Machine rules which limit front tire size to a 285 max. Overall car count was down a bit because optima was at Vegas this same weekend, but we still had a full crowd in SM which made for a lot of fun. Late in the afternoon on Friday the grid thinned out, the temps came up and those of us that stayed were treated to some hot lapping under great conditions. This let us get some heat into the tires and really cut our times down. At one point there were 4 of us from 2nd place to 5th place all within 3 tenths of each other and each of us kept getting faster on every run...it was a blast. haven't had that much fun racing with competitive speed cars and drivers in a long time. Mark Allen, Chris Hall, Adam Watkins, Rob Crosswhite and myself were all neck and neck and I luckily squeaked in a 43.047 late in the afternoon to secure second place. Tim Molzen had all all covered for first in his 63 Dodge Dart and ended up winning the class and having a very respectable showing in the shootout on Saturday.

      This was an early run my Cousin Dale shot from the back side of the course. So thankful to get great on course video like this of the car...




      Basically on this course, one had to time everything just right to carry the most speed into the corner, get the car whoa'd down and turned without sliding the fronts or the rears...then get back on the gas ASAP without blowing the rear tires off of it. Early on data showed I was slowing way too much on corner entry which was killing my corner speed. I put my tablet and GPS in Tom Kammans car for a run then compared his run data with mine and it showed me exactly where I had to go faster to pick up the 1-2 seconds I was leaving on the table. Thanks to Tom big time for the help and camaraderie all weekend long, he killed it in his C4 making it to the final two in the shootout Saturday afternoon.

      Here was a later run where I was starting to put it all together.




      This run was from inside on my 43.047 which was my fastest time of the weekend.




      I was also helping Mike Hitt in his big beautiful blue Chevelle to find speed and even took a run behind the wheel of it. Me and manual brake cars just don't get along on an autocross course...eventually I'll talk Mike into putting a booster on his car. :D Had a blast in it though and he really picked up time even on Saturday morning before a part failure ended his day early.




      Here are some pictures of some of the other cars we raced with as well of some of Barney. Again, shout out to Dale for the great shots. Had a great weekend, car came home pretty much in one piece...and the driver\crew chief came home with some new ideas to make it run better at the next show.





















      Lance
      1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car

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