Blooze Own: An F355 Six Speed N* Build Thread (Page 67/126)
el_roy1985 APR 10, 11:30 PM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:

Thanks Charlie & Guru.

For El-Roy, if you go back to page 16 about 1/2 way to 2/3rds down, you'll see that I designed a completely new rear control arm set-up. You're right... they are considerably shorter than the 3" extended arms I bought from HT Motorsports, but my analysis shows that the extended arms actually hurt suspension performance in several key areas. The performance of the new design is shown higher up on the same page in the graphs. The new design follows the reddish brown curves which show an improvement in every area over stock or any other modification I've studied previously, as depicted by the other colored lines in the graphs.



Wow, can't believe I missed that. I've even drooled over those schematics a few times quite a while ago. Was just checkin through a few threads again the other day and didn't quite put the two together I guess. Nice to see some more work go into this car, you've done an amazing job with it so far.
NoMoreRicers APR 11, 02:06 AM
You are quite the inspiration! I have never seen the attention to detail that you have and I would die just to have one tenth of your ingenuity.
no2pencil APR 11, 11:01 AM
By page six I had completely forgotten that this was a F355 project.

You have inspired me to obtain & rebuild a 'gently used' alternator. I was going to just buy one 'done up' on eBay. This would be more fun.
Sage APR 12, 09:33 AM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:
I did a bit of research on the internet to get a better understanding of the considerations that go into the design of modern engine mounts and was sorry I looked! It seems it's an entire field of it's own with designers calculating the engine's CofG, bending and torsional characteristics of the block(!), anticipated stresses in fore and aft, vertical, and torsional planes, vibration characteristics of the engine at various RPM's, the characteristics of the rubber in the mounts, and on and on and on! Then, a whole slew of other factors are considered with transverse engines since all the differential loads are transmitted to the mounts as well. Whew! My head was spinning.



Well......that's about how some of us here feel after reading/looking over some of your own posts/drawings/plans! That cradle looks incredible, and regardless of how much info is out there pertaining to all the ramifications of ANY install from the mundane to the ethereal, we know that you will get it worked out so that it not only looks great, but functions exactly as it should!

Nice progress, and that mount looks pretty good to me!

You are providing inspiration to more than a few of us.
Bloozberry APR 14, 10:29 PM
Thanks el_roy... I've posted so many different versions so far that I don't blame you for not noticing the latest design.

For NoMoreRicers: attention to detail, anal retentive, OCD... either way, it's a curse! Thanks for your kind words nonetheless.

no2pencil: You FORGOT it was an F355 project?! Meh... that's OK...I won't hold it against you.

Sage: LOL... you crack me up.

OK so I posted a tech question in TD&Q looking for anyone with access to the cradle drawing for the Caddy's that used Northstars (Seville, Eldorado, Seville) between 1995 - 1999, but so far no luck. I'll zip on down to the dealership tomorrow to see if they can help me out. I'm not sure how relevent the measurements between the engine and tranny mounts will be, but it's a start.

In the meantime I decided to work on cradle mounts that attach to the cradle side rails. The first stop was to make some more sparks and perform some surgery on the Fiero cradle:



I can't believe how much faster and easier it is to slice through the metal now that I've discovered the super thin cut-off wheels that attach to my angle grinder. I forget exactly how thin they are (something like 3/64") but they work like a hot knife through butter as compared to the 1/8" wheels I was using before. I lopped off both rear mounts taking as much of the stock part as possible.



Next I needed to chop the rear mounts down to get my new cradle to sit 25 mm higher up in the chassis than the stock cradle. Since the lower edges of the mounts were uneven and difficult to get a clean reference line, I turned them upside down and calculated that I needed to mark a line all the way around the mount at a distance of 106 mm up from the table top. Once righted, that line would become the new bottom edge of the mount that would sit on top of the cradle side rail. I could have lopped everything off below that line but I decided to leave a couple legs that hung down to make aligning the mounts to the side rail easier.



Once I remeasured everything twice, I fired up the angle grinder and shortened up the OEM mounts:





The legs that I left on the mounts actually serve two purposes: the first is to add a little reinforcement, but the second is to align the center of the bolt hole to the correct offset (14 mm further inboard than the inner wall of the cradle side rail). The notches are such that when held tight against the vertical wall of the side rail, the bolt hole at the top of the mount is exactly 14 mm further inboard than the wall of the rail. Here's the passenger side rail seen from the inboard side looking out... it's just mocked up and held in place with a magnet.



And here's what it looks like as viewed from the outside of the car looking inwards. Note that they're reversed from the stock Fiero config since the rounded part of the mount now faces inboard.
doublec4 APR 14, 10:52 PM
Extremely impressed as always!

One of the build threads that I'm really excited to see completed one day.
RCR APR 16, 07:38 PM
Great as always. I cannot speak for the Cadillac, but I do have a 96 Aurora cradle, FWIW. I know that there are only two cradle mounts, front and back. The belt side of the engine, and the trans, are mounted directly to the chassis. This is how I installed mine. If there are any measurements you need off of it, let me know.

Bob
Bloozberry APR 16, 08:34 PM
Thanks Bob... I saw a similar set up while scouring the net (I think it was PFF member Ajxtcman's car). While I thought it was interesting, I don't think I have the room vertically under the lower frame rail for mounts like that, now that I've "raised" the cradle. I'll almost certainly need to use a more traditional mounting system.
exoticse APR 16, 10:16 PM
Blooze the project is really looking good !

You mentioned fiberglass changes, what do you have in mind ??

Do you plan to seperate the rockers on the door to make them independent like on the real car ?

[This message has been edited by exoticse (edited 04-16-2013).]

RCR APR 17, 06:52 AM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:

Thanks Bob... I saw a similar set up while scouring the net (I think it was PFF member Ajxtcman's car). While I thought it was interesting, I don't think I have the room vertically under the lower frame rail for mounts like that, now that I've "raised" the cradle. I'll almost certainly need to use a more traditional mounting system.



No problem... I'm not suggesting something like mine. I have no idea how it will ultimately workout. I guess what I'm getting at is that most Cadillacs will probably be similar, though. You're doing such a great job, I'm sure you will come up with something. Charlie made some real nice mounts for his Aurora/Isuzu combination. Probably closer to what you will need than mine.

Bob