Thanks for the reply , I was just catching up on your thread .Looking good! My hope for keeping water out is to use most of the inner fender liner .It looks like I can just cut an opening for the shock and arms to go through .After I get the shock mounting set up done , I can see what I have room for .There is going to be a lot of sheet metal boxing up to do so maybe I will be able to make some splash shields too . Everytime I work on this car I am amazed at how much dirt and gravel I pull out of the lower cradle .Wish there was a way to keep that stuff out .
Getting some work done again .Tonight I welded in the cross brace that will be the base for the upper coilover mounts .I am also going to weld a mount on the brace for the upper motor mount , as I do not have room for the old frame any more .Now I am at the stage where the cradle is going to have to go in and out multiple times so I can check clearances and decide on a new charge pipe and exhaust design .Time wasting but better in the long run . No pics , camera wont download to my computer right now .
New upper motor mount .I had to weld in more bracing at the bottom rail to stop it from swaying but it is really stiff now .Lighter than the old mount and takes up less room .Used a part of the old Held bumpsteer kit .
Putting the cradle in again .I have cleaned up a lot of the plumbing rats nest and got rid of a lot of extra wiring .I have ordered all the pieces I need to make a new exhaust and intake and charge piping .Aluminum pipe will replace the stainless steel in the old intake and charge piping , and I am going with a smaller diameter in order to get quicker spool up and hopefully more torque in the lower revs .The exhaust is going to be smaller diameter as well , I know that will not be an improvement but it will be easier to install with less clearance issues .
The suspension is now basically done .I have been busy relocating and mounting the clutcth hydraulics and the wiring and mocking up the new charge piping and intake .When i was cutting the frame at the start of this project , i managed to cut the F23 hydraulic line .I was going to get a new one , but I had a compresion fitting handy .5/16 with a nylon ring fit perfectly .This also gives me an easy way to make a fitting to get rid of my two slave cylinders if I want.some pics :
Starting to make the new charge and intake piping .The air filter will end up over the transaxle but under the rear hood away from the rain . The charge piping is going down under and follow the routing that the OEM exhaust takes .The intercooler is going to be where the stock cat used to be , and then the pipe will go up to the intake . Quite a bit longer , but I was tired of having pipes in the way whenever I had to do any work on the car .
Big box of goodies from frozenboost.com for the new intake and exhaust .All the intake stuff is aluminum , exhaust is stainless .Still another order coming with some nice T clamps and more silicone reducers I need .
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 11-18-2015).]
Starting the new exhaust , going to do a single outlet , no muffler .If it is too noisy I can add a muffler later .All the hangers are going to be on the cradle to make dropping easy .
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 11-20-2015).]
Welded up a new tailpipe with a bung for the downstream O2 sensor .If I find this setup to loud then the long pipe will get cut and I will weld in a muffler .Or I may get another coupler collar and make a seperate muffler assembly that can be put in and out whenever I want .These couplers are really slick but they are 25 bucks a pop so I only bought 2 so far .
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 11-26-2015).]
Got one of the rear calipers rebuilt .I nearly gave up on it because I broke the bleed screw , but I finally managed to get most of the threads out .I had to drill it out and then drill a 1/8 hole through the remains of the old screw and then make a seat for the new screw with a 1/4 bit .It seems to be holding OK but I wont know for sure until I get it all bled .One of the other calipers looks to be fairly new and in good shape so I am just going to clean it up and use it as is .The little yellow plastic button valve on the piston is a giveaway as to condition .If it is really old , it will be brittle and hard to the touch .Bought the rebuild kits from the fiero store and thanks to Dodgerunners rebuild thread in the how to section .
I got the new to me calipers on and connected .Had one leak , turned out a fitting was still just finger tight .The brakes are all bled now and seem to work fine .The parking brake is not working yet as the seized adjuster broke while I was backing it off to be able to join the cables together .So now I am waiting for the 2 short cables and a new adjuster from the fiero store .The cables that are on the car are original and pretty chewed up .
Looking good my friend. I can't wait to go for a drive in your car and see how the suspension upgrade works. If I had known earlier that you were going with the SLA on the rear, I would've offered you my C4 suspension. All aluminum and you'd get the bigger 12" brakes as well. Keep up with the good work.
Thanks .The reason I decided against using something like the corvette suspension was that I did not want to try building a cradle .Using the stock configuration lower control arm gave me an easy starting point even if it doesn't have the best geometry .Not too worried about the stock brakes on the back , I have found that the rear brakes on my car don't contribute that much any way .Very little pad wear and even with the 11" rotors and Willwood calipers you could not lock them up .And that is the way I like my rear brakes to work .This project has taken way more time than I planned on .Once I dropped the cradle I did way more updates than I thought I would .I believe it will be a much improved car so it will all be worth it .I just hate doing what I am doing now :waiting for parts .
After correcting a big mistake(pistons reversed) and spending hours adjusting and getting rid of leaks etc , I finally have rear brakes that work with working parking brake .
I have dropped it down on its wheels on the storage dollies to finish the engine compartment wiring and the upper part of the charge piping .Also have to finish the intake and PCV vent hookup .But first a massive garage cleanup , what more fun can you have while on holidays.....
Got the garage all cleaned up so now back to working on the car .Elecrtics are reconnected and I fired it up .Sounds like I am going to be able to do without a muffler .Got the passenger side nuts and bolts all tightened down and got the coolant system filled and burped .I have heat again yahoo .Tomorrow I am going to tighten everything on the drivers side and set the toe on both sides .I set the camber at-.1/2 degree on both sides at ride height today .Pretty crowded on the passenger side , you can see the charge pipe and part of the intake plumbing and heater lines. All tightened up:
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 12-26-2015).]
My high tech device for checking bumpsteer .Took both shocks out and then just move the car up and down with a jack under the cradle .No toe change measured with a tape .Does not mean there isn't any , but it is minimal at worse .
While cleaning up the tops of my strut mounts , I discovered that I had welded the cross brace in too high to get the trunk to close .Not by much but an 1/8" might as well be a mile in this case .I made the brace even with the top of the strut mount hole trying to get the max travel on the coilovers .But that is an eighth too high .Rather than grind it all out and lower it , I notched the bar and boxed it back in .Trunk closes now without a problem .I am a little concerned that the top of the strut tower may flex under load so I may yet add some bracing up there to make up for the metal I have removed .With the way it is shaped and welded the strut tower is one of the strongest areas of the space frame so adding bracing there might be just adding unneeded weight though.
I understand that a shock absorber functions best when perpendicular to the the control arm. If there is no clearance issues, this is ideal. Was there a reason for mounting your shocks on such an angle relative to the upper control arm?
Funny , when you mentioned that , I thought , why did I do that? So I had to go take a look and then I remembered .Because of the high mounting point created by the strut stub and adapter , there just is not enough room to get it almost verticle .And there was length of travel issues to consider .The way it is mounted it is at an angle of 20 degrees , not really that bad especially with the coilovers I am using . I have figured out another way to mount the top of the shock to reduce the angle .That would be to make a set of extended top hats like the civic guys like to use .I don't know if there is enough room to do that yet . But I am going to have a serious look at that because it would also add some strength in that area and allow the box up of most of the hole I cut .Thanks for the reply Shayne , have a great weekend .
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 01-09-2016).]
So there is room to run the coilover straight up through the strut mounting hole .It will be simple to make a mount there. There are disadvantages : The shock will have to be mounted with the body down, increasing unsprung weight and putting the adjustment knobs out of reach(tire off to adjust) and total wheel travel will be less than 4 inches . Kind of reminds me of the Whack-A-Mole arcade game: I might make a mount in this position and use it for track days.The lower wheel travel wont be a factor on a track .I never have time to get to a track day now but next year I get to retire and I hope to do about 4 days a year .
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 01-09-2016).]
In order to see how solid my upper shock mounts were I took a 5 foot length of heavy wall 1" pipe and put it beside the shock mount and pried with the pipe hitting the wall of the trunk .Revealed that the strut hole could be seen moving up and down as I pried on the pipe .So I added this brace : And it did not make a difference at all as far as I could tell .So I figured I needed something to come up from undrneath: And that made a huge difference .Now there is 0 flex, I can bend the pipe and nothing moves now .On the other side , I am just adding the lower pipe because of the double layer of steel that I have stitch welded together makes it already fairly stiff .The upper weld looks worse than it is , got a bit of bubble gum going there but underneath it is real solid .Whenever I weld in to a covered space like that , I get flashed a lot and end up with the odd extra blob .I should have cleaned it up with the grinder but no one will see it anyway .
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 01-10-2016).]
I put the post in to the other side and gave it my pipe test and it still flexed .What happens is , without the small beam welded in above the post like I have on the drivers side , the strut tower will tip back and forth .So , I added a a small beam on the passenger side and now both sides are rock solid . The beam is nothing without the post and the post is nothing without the beam in this case . But I am very happy with the results . The coilover mount has to be stable for the shock to work properly . Tomorrow I will put the coilovers back in and then I am going to see about boxing in some of the strut tower and try to fit the inner fender wells .
Cut and painted some sheetmetal to bridge the outside of the strut tower : Glued it in place with structural adhesive and rivets : And now I have the inner fender installed .It only needed a slight trim so it will not interfere with the new control arm .The white stuf you see in the pic is RV caulking .My inners have seen better days and I used the caulking to fill some cracks and holes .Unfortunately , cold weather adhesion is not one of its strong points and I will probably have to do it again when it is warm out .
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 01-14-2016).]
This is the strut tower filler for the other side .It started off as a flat rectangle .I did this one by holding it in place with screws while I hammered the shape out .The drivers side has similar curves but you cant see it in the pics .
Strut housing sheet metal painted and glued and screwed in place .I used the big screws cause they are easy and they pull really tight so the glue will bind better .I had a small hole in the trunk sheet metal so I glued and riveted a sheet metal patch there too .You can see a bit of it in the left hand side of the picture .
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 01-19-2016).]
So now the rear suspension is done for now .I may add a sway bar after I do some testing if it needs it .A job I needed to do was to get my reverse gear to work again .Over the last couple of years it got more and more difficult to get it in reverse and when I went to try it recently it would not work at all .My shifter is not stock as most of you know but it gets adjusted the same way.Take the console out and loosen the mount bolts and slide the shifter back and forth untill you find the sweet spot .I had to manually find reverse by disconnecting the rods from the shifter and then put the rods back on after sliding the base of the shifter to suit .But that did not work so I snugged the base plat down and pried it back and forth until I could select reverse .All the while I had the car up on jackstands so I could turn it on and off and see which way the wheels turned to make sure I actually had reverse .Took a couple of hours and now I have to clean the mess and put it back together .It now snicks in to reverse just like a new car .Here is a pic of the shifter and linkage : This time iran the cables under the transmission .The stock cavalier mounts are used .Stock fiero cables are joined to the rods that go to the shifter : I put a long bolt in to one of the many threaded holes on the F23 and tie wrapped the cables in place to keep them away from the axle .Running the cables underneath keeps them clear of the exhaust and eliminates some ugly shielding that I had :
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 01-20-2016).]
