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95naSTA's Bonneville Progression


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I had some time this week to do some thinking and research on what I'm going to do to finish up my front suspension.

Now that I have the taller ball joints figured out, that leaves the tie rods and top mounts.

Tie rods:

The plan is to flip them so that they are on the bottom vs. top (stock). Since the knuckle is higher in relation to the p/s rack, the tie rods are pointed up at an angle. Flipping them will bring them closer to the stock angle and the new lower control arm angle. Some people just reverse ream the tie rod hole in the knuckle and effectively use half the surface area to seat the tie rod. I would maybe consider this with a cast iron knuckle but not a softer aluminum one.

I found a few different sleeve kits and once I get home and check out a stock one, I'll be able to see if any one of those matches stock taper.

Top mount:

The issues I have currently..

-Spring meets at an angle, contacts strut body, and eggs the 2.5" pipe I welded to the bottom of the mount to position the spring.

-If I go any lower, the top of the strut body contacts the bottom of the mount.

-The passengers side top mount is nuked from the wheel ruining accident.

I had the idea yesterday that I might be able to modify the stock top mount to raise where the strut bolts, use the stock bearing and rubber isolator, and possibly a 2nd flipped and modified upper mount as an adapter between the coilover spring and the isolator/bearing.

I've been trying to figure out what to do about the top mount for a while now.. I do not want to go the common aftermarket route of putting all the vertical load on a spherical bearing. I know it can work for a while but spherical bearings are not meant to be loaded axially and I don't like doing things the wrong way.. This makes it a lot harder to figure out how I want to distribute the load of the spring, have it at the right angle as the strut turns, and mount the strut shaft but I may have that all figured out..

In other news.. I'm hoping to finish the engine bay work/prep with two more free days and I'm trying to make that as soon as possible.

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  • Founders

I haven't learned much on suspension so I'm not going to be much help in that area but if the "common" way leads to problems as you said then it might be smarter to try and come up with something else that will be a better solution.

Be good to see everything as it comes along!

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' date='Apr 24 2011, 09:51 PM' post='53093']

The win just keeps coming...

winfinity. :)

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' date='Apr 25 2011, 12:51 AM' post='53093']

I can't wait for to be sittin' pretty on those BBS RS's again.

Dude. It's killing me I'm not driving it already.

Unless something comes up I'm using some comp time and taking tomorrow off to work on it.

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I took a comp day today to get some more stuff done.

The short list:

-Finished drivers side bay bodywork

-Mounted battery terminals

-Drilled hole and tucked passenger side body harness.. (the easy side)

-Drilled hole and started to tuck drivers side body harness

I'm going to get in touch with my painter buddy and figure out when he can come by and spray the bay. I still have some prep left but it's not much.

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Lol this is much better than what I get from most people.

They ask why isn't the engine in yet, I try to explain, then just get.. wtffff?

I'm going to go with the same black as the outside for the bay. (black onyx 202)

Edit- I'm picking up the anodized stuff Saturday. :rofl:

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Lol.

I guess I'll list a major hit list anyway.

Paint, wiring, brake lines, coilover top mounts, finish control arms, install subframe, repolish stuff, build engine, install engine/trans, more wiring, trans/oil cooler lines..

I've been hustling, so all I can continue to do is that.

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Tell em when your building a custom car from the ground up the engine always goes in last NOB! lol

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haha.

Once I get the glazed look, i just hit the eject button and get out of the convo asap.

Last night I ordered all the rest of the stuff to redo all the brake lines in Cunifer and to do all the re-routing.

There are 3 lines that have to get from the master cylinder to the ABS distro. I'm running them from the MC, through the unibody behind the strut tower, and through or outside the unibody rail that goes over the wheel well to where I relocated the ABS distro.

I'm using grommets where the 3/16ths lines go through the unibody on the drivers side. And I got a -8 AN 90* bulkhead with 1/2" barb adapters to run the rubber, non pressurized, ABS reserve line through the unibody. I have cushion clamps to mount all this too.

I was able to get a whole firewall grommet set for $20 on ebay and I'll be using those for the electrical going through the unibody as well.

This weekend I would like to get futher with the wiring, do the heater core, prep the bay 100%, and get my new engine partially disassembled and on the stand.

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Did the heater core, got further with the wiring, had painter buddy come over to talk about when he can paint the bay(hopefully this week), degreased and cleaned everything in the bay that will be sprayed, , picked up the anodized stuff, stripped down the spare engine on the stand only to find rust.. FML. Water obviously got in there sometime within the last 3 years..

I did technically get the engine for free.. When I sold engines for a bit I made a few hundred and got this engine for free. So, it's not a complete loss I guess.

I'm going to give a good machine shop in the area a call and ballpark a couple options.

I may just opt for a new engine.

I probably could just get away with honing the crappy cylinders out but that just seems halfas to me.

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The machine shop wanted 1200 to rebuild the short block.. so new engine it is. I found one with the same mileage (17k) on ebay and bought it.

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