ecotec swap (Page 80/98)
wftb JUN 08, 08:30 PM
Today I got another allignment done now that I have the ride height and camber where I thought I wanted it .But when we got the car on the rack , the numbers I thought I had were not there .The left rear was only at - .4 degrees and the right was at - 1.1 degrees .I should have adjusted both sides but we managed to get the left to -.8 degrees so I called it close enough .I wanted about -.8 on both sides but it is close enough for this year anyway .The front left has slightly less negative camber than the right side as well but it is close enough because over the winter I am going to modify the rear upper arm mounts to make them stronger and get rid of the shims .And to get a bit more adjustability as far as camber is concerned .The car feels really good over our bumpy roads now and the only other thing I am going to try this year is a lighter (350 lb.) rear spring .I think it will make an improvement in the ride as the 450 lb springs really do not let the wheels move up and down a lot . The ride is not terrible but it rode a lot smoother with 350 lb springs .The reason I cant get the camber on the left rear where I want it:

I have simply run out of room .But if I make a new mount that rotates the arm mounting bar 90 degrees and is on the wheel side of the old mounting arms, I can get the arm where I want it and have slotted holes for up and down movement .Getting rid of the shims will mean a different way to fine tune camber .Since I have room between the ball joint and tires:

I can use 2 eccentric bolts on the stub adapters to adjust camber .I new starting out that the first try was not going to be the final design .For me , I always try something and then more ideas develop while fine tuning things .I am happy with the way it works , but now I can make it better .
wftb JUN 11, 04:36 PM
I got some 10" X 350 lb springs and put them on today .I wanted 9" springs but Summitt was out of stock .My shocks are designed to use 9 or 10" springs but it is ackward to put on 10" springs because you have to compress the spring about 1/2" to get the keeper collar in place .A large ball joint pickle fork did the trick after fighting with a set of spring compressors for about 10 minutes .Not enough room between the shock body and the spring to get the spring compresors to work .Anyway , the 350 lb springs made a world of difference .Amazing how much better a suspension works when it can actually move up and down . I really thought the 450 lb spring would be a good fit , but it just did not let the suspension move enough .It is now smoother , quieter and still corners really well .So that is all I am going to do for this season , time to just drive the car and enjoy it .
wftb JUN 15, 10:36 AM
Ever since I put the car back on the road I have been having problems with boost control . I thought I had it licked with the new boost controller , but the max boost started climbing again .I disconnected the boost controller and that seemed to drop it a bit but within about 20 miles of driving , it was going north of 10 PSI .That level is not too bad but it was causing timing reduction and the car would not develop any power above 6000 RPM in 3rd gear .I thought maybe it was high intake temps because of where my air fiter was so I did this:

Went for a short ride and did not seem to make a difference except the boost jumped up to 12 PSI .So I figured the culprit had to be my waste gate actuator .I crawled under the car and hooked a tube directly to the air signal tube and put 10 PSI from my air compressor in to the tube and all i got was a small opening of the waste gate and a lot of hissing .Took the actuator off and found a corosion hole right in the metal body .What was happening was the hole was getting bigger all the time .I adapted the actuator from my old turbo and hooked everything back together and with the controller set to 0 I have a 6 PSI max .I hooked up the laptop and went for a drive and everything was good but I was getting 6 degrees of KR . I remembered that I had turned the water meth injection way down thinking the problem was too much spray .Set the controller to 4 to 10 PSI range and my KR dropped to 0 .Shows how effective water meth is on a turbo car .
wftb JUN 22, 07:04 PM
I drove the car down to the SVRA races last thursday and then back on sunday .I 69 between Pt Huron and Lansing MI was a real torture test for the new rear suspension .There is a long stretch that can be best described as shallow moguls .Huge up and down mvement as you hit the little crests in the concrete .Everything held up really well but it did expose some deflection movement of the rear wheels .When I hit a big bump doing highway speeds , it causes the load to be transferred to the rear control arm bushing that then compresses and causes the deflection .The deflection does not cause any loss of control , just a bit of squirming that you can feel .So I need to figure out how to eliminate the deflection .I could modify the lower controlarms to use rod ends but that is a lot of work and I do not want the extra noise .I realized then that it will be easy to make a new link to go from the spindle bracket directly to the frame .This arm will have a rod end at each end and a swedged tube similar to the existing link .The inner mount will go here:

Using a rod end similar to this:

The other thing I have to do is redo my turbo tuning .The wastegate I now have on was supposed to give a max of 6 psi but it is putting out 10 PSI .It is controlling at that level unlike the old wastegate with the hole in it .The new exhaust and intake is causing a lot higher flow of air and now in third gear at RPM above 6000 with the throttle wide open , the power drops off rapidly.Do the same thing with 3/4 throttle and power is strong right up to 7K .So I cant push enough fuel to use full throttle in third gear .I have some 42 lb injectors to put on and some work with HP tuning should fix this problem .

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 06-22-2016).]

wftb JUN 28, 09:14 PM
Got my new swedged tubes and rod ends from speedway motors today .I decided to try it on the drivers side and so far so good .


It is a bit of a hack job at the moment but I will clean everything up and weld in a vertical brace next winter .It really will be just for looks , that area is really strong even hacked up like it is .Took it for a ride and you can feel how planted the drivers side is compared to the passenger side .You can feel the back end squirm when the right rear tire hits a big bump but nothing when the drivers side hits a large bump .This was so easy to do , I wish I had thought of it in the first place . It took less than an hour to do the drivers side .

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 06-28-2016).]

wftb JUL 05, 08:57 PM
I was looking at the way the coilover angle was and I thought that was an area that could be greatly improved . Member Lunatic suggested a more upright position for the coilover and while I agreed with him at the time I did not think it would be worth the work .After modifying the tie rods , I decided to go ahead and move the upper mounts .The old angle caused a lack of freedom of movement .If I tried to bounce the car by pushing down on it ,about a half inch of movement was all I could get .With the new perchs I can bounce it up and down and see the coilover moving while I do it. To get the same ride height I also backed off the spring preload by over an inch .While I was doing the changes I noticed that the ball joint was binding against the shock body on the passenger side .Probably why the passenger side was never as smooth .A little clearencing of the ball joint hosing solved that problem .So here is what it looks like now:



And I figured out that my fueling problems are being caused by the fuel pump .Again .It is starting to do the odd stumble like it did the last time it failed .Did a little research and I found this pump :

Supposedly about double the flow that I need and the right pressure .Very similar in size to the old pump so I am going to try to put it into the OEM housing that I kept when the first pump failed .And this time I will finally get my fuel guage to work properly .I hate dropping the tank .
Lunatic JUL 06, 04:15 PM
Hey Steve.

Thanks for the part number of the axle seal a while back. I'm going to need to get some soon. I see that you bought some swedge tubes and rod ends. I offered you some for free the last time you were here. Once you get it dialed in and the fuel pump replaced, I'll try to make a special trip out there. I'd like to check out all the progress and new parts in person. Gotta run, I have some tubing to cut this afternoon.

PS-We all hate dropping the fuel tank.

[This message has been edited by Lunatic (edited 07-06-2016).]

wftb JUL 06, 05:51 PM
I should have taken you up on those tubes and ends .These are only 9" long though and I got the PTFE lined rod ends hoping they will last a long time .Good to here from you Shayne .
wftb JUL 12, 11:21 AM
So it has been a lot of drive and change in my quest to make the suspension work and feel like it came with the car .Moving the coilovers vertical made a huge improvement .But on larger bumps the car felt like it was bouncing over the bump instead of absorbing it for lack of a better term .And it really was not responding to changes in the shock settings .I drove the back of the car up on ramps and I crawled underneath and looked it all over with my flex handle mirror .I found marks where the ball joint housing was getting jammed against the strut adapters .I took the adapters off and ground off about 1/8" off the coilover mounting arms down near the ball joint mount .

I also took a little off the ball joint mount housing as it was still tagging the coilover:

This slight mod made all the difference . I now can drive and not even think about what is going on with the suspension .It is smooth and handles all the bumps now .And I can set the shocks and feel the changes .Right now , I am at setting 9 for both compresion and rebound at all 4 corners and it feels really good .Anything above 5 was brutal before .This was the breakthrough I have been looking for .The next step will be to make nicer upper arm mounts .I am going to use the old coilover mounts for a bolt in brace to go to the new arm mounts .Then I might even paint everything .

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 07-25-2016).]

wftb JUL 13, 11:01 PM
My first attempt at a video with my new Gopro .If you are interested in what kind of sound the car produces.
short version https://youtu.be/9Oo8CZ8cBHs

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 07-14-2016).]