Gimp wrote: Randy, if you see this when you pull the car out of the trailer, could you take a photo of how close your tire is to the frame, front and rear at full lock?
Sure, I might have it out this Saturday, or next weekend for sure (next autox event).
No rush at all!
My car is just loosely assembled for mock up because I'm modifying things so I can use an 81 subframe in a early 2nd gen car. I can easily remove the swaybar and my steering limiter bolt to take pics, check stock max steering angle or measure anything. If you need anything just post here, I check this thread regularly anyway and I don't get PM's on this forum for some reason.
Rad_Capz wrote: My car is just loosely assembled for mock up because I'm modifying things so I can use an 81 subframe in a early 2nd gen car. I can easily remove the swaybar and my steering limiter bolt to take pics, check stock max steering angle or measure anything. If you need anything just post here, I check this thread regularly anyway and I don't get PM's on this forum for some reason.
If it's not any trouble that would be helpful, but I don't want you to go out of your way. Knowing max angle forward and aft would be awesome. Thanks!
My issue finally arrived today. Thanks for the coverage! GRM is the best.
In reply to Gimp:
You be a super star now! Nice write up! Motivation to to keep at it for sure. 
Stang_guy03 wrote: In reply to Gimp: You be a super star now! Nice write up! Motivation to to keep at it for sure.
yeah, this one time i went to his house and the many year old GRM mag was open in the guest room downstairs to the page with his old hyundai as the reader's ride of the month. his head is big enough without artificial inflation 
This car is awesome. Late second gen F-bodies, wide fives, a Jerico box.. it's got it all!
patgizz wrote:Stang_guy03 wrote: In reply to Gimp: You be a super star now! Nice write up! Motivation to to keep at it for sure.yeah, this one time i went to his house and the many year old GRM mag was open in the guest room downstairs to the page with his old hyundai as the reader's ride of the month. his head is big enough without artificial inflation
I do have an issue finding hats.
Kate and I took the holiday to run up and work on the car. My buddy Larry met me there and we modified the lower control arms by replacing the wide lower shock mount with one almost 3/4 of an inch narrower. This got us a bunch more steering angle, with even more available with a few more simple tweaks.
Looks like you have plenty of steering angle now. Plus you always have the right foot steering as well. 
I did forget at the last autox to take pictures of mine, but I will this weekend. Even wrote myself a note. Getting the car ready for the Match Tour in Moultrie so it will be out of the trailer.
Sounds great Randy! Go kick some ass.
I'll try, but with Robert Lewis there (and a couple other good drivers), I will most likely fighting to not be DFL in class.
Good to see the spindles are working out for you, since they may be the next spindles I get. Still trying to decide if I want to stay with Wide 5 or go GN, especially since I don't have a Wide 5 rear axle yet. I would like to try running A6s just to see how it does, but 17" Wide 5 wheels are very expensive.
As cool as the wide fives are, I'd go GN. If you want one of the fancy super cambered axles later, you'll have to go GN to get the most camber.
So I took another trip up and knocked a little more out...
When I arrived at Mikey's garage I made a new friend. I hope it's not an indicator of the car's performance.
I named him "Dick" because he wouldn't eat the broccoli I gave him.
First order of business, which probably took the longest, was to finish clearancing the frame for full suspension movement. The car will use about 4 inches of travel in the rear (2 in compression, 2 in droop), but I wanted to give myself some wiggle room. I managed to get 6 inches total travel, which will be plenty and keep metal things from touching other metal things.
A little side-by-side of full compression and full droop.
This shows the articulation possible, not that I hope to ever rock crawl.
After a lunch break, I got the down tubes for the rear of the cage fit (ugh, what a pain) and tacked in.
I had been putting off those two jobs as they are time consuming, but I'm happy to say they are done (enough).
Mikey also made a new purchase recently - a 2002 Corvette that he and Andy Thomas are going to race this year in B-Street. Maybe it was the fact it was 4th of July weekend, or maybe we had heatstroke, but we decided to use my adaptors and the wheels from the Camaro just to see how badass the Vette could be.
The answer? Really badass. I gotta say, the C5 looks good with 16x12s.
Steering next.
Getting closer!
Looking good. Vette looks interesting too. Massive wheel flares would be in order though.
The hardest part about the car being some distance away is that those days when you work on stuff but nothing seems to go right sting that much more.
We went up to get a little more work done. My goal was to get the front suspension back together with mock up coilovers, get the drag/center link, pitman arm, and inner tie rods on, and get several weights for the car. We didn't quite hit it.
When we arrived and settled in I noticed that the stock drag link I had was in really bad shape and we couldn't use it, which pretty much killed that goal.
So we moved on and I got the front suspension together, which took forever because I didn't put bolts where I could easily find them.
Once that was together, and Kate cleaned a month of spiders and eggs out of the car and the various bits attached to it, we lowered it to the group to get ready to scale the car. When the back end touched the ground we heard a couple pops and the sound of a bolt or two hitting the ground. Turns out some of the tacks I put in place to hold the rear suspension together were total crap and failed. So the car went back in the air and I proceeded to grind and re-weld the failure points. Because things wanted to suck today, my welder was acting up, but I tried to push through. When I finished making a bunch of crummy welds I checked the welder and realized I didn't have the gas on. Out came the grinder once again, and everything was redone for a second time that day.
We did mange to get the sucker on the ground and get an initial weight, which was a bit of a positive. The car was much lighter in it's "bare bones" state than I expected.
1215lbs (ignore the cross weights) for what is a basic rolling tub. You can see in the picture that none of the fiberglass body panels (including the doors) are installed. There is no drivetrain other than the empty axle housing, no fuel system, and no brakes or steering bits along with a few more cage bars that need to be installed.
I know it seems silly to weigh the car like this, but I wanted to get an idea of how much "room" I have, weight wise. That will help me make decisions related to the motor size, and other component weights/costs. Long story short, I'm pretty happy.
We thought about taking all the parts and tossing them inside the tub to get a weight, but we were so beat, mentally and physically, at that point that we called it a day.
I spent the morning ordering some new parts for the steering, so I hope to knock that out in about two weeks. I'm hoping to finally have an oversized, steering, soapbox derby car by the time my friends get back from SCCA Solo Nationals.
If we can make it stop, Mikes place is on a big hill you know... Wonder if you could catch air over the train tracks?
So you took the trans out for the scales too?
I think 2750 will be no problem. Biggest question is where can we find enough lead to ballast you up?
Apexcarver wrote: If we can make it stop, Mikes place is on a big hill you know... Wonder if you could catch air over the train tracks? So you took the trans out for the scales too? I think 2750 will be no problem. Biggest question is where can we find enough lead to ballast you up?
Getting air won't be a problem, but the landing is going to suck.
Yeah, I took everything out to get a "tub weight." I know what many of the individual components, like the trans and doors, weigh already, so I can do the simple maths and figure out where I'm going to be.
I think the min weight is now 2700 (no more 50lb penalty for wheels) with a sub 310ci motor, and 3000 with over. I saw a decent looking recipe for a near 500hp 4.8 LS build, but there is something so very tempting about going real big motor wise.
Ballast will be an issue, but I think this car is basically me before college. It's about to put on a bunch more weight.
Getting a weight like this now, for example, makes me think I'll do stuff like use Lizardskin on the tub for heat and vibration control.
Car is looking good. If you want to see some interesting Camaros go to the CAM Challenge East FB page and check out some of the cars that ran in it. Granted they weren't CP cars, but still all the same some bad ass machinery.
I don't know what your min weight is, but I know enough about cars to now you are going to gain weight like a fat kid on a chocolate binge. Engine wise depends on your weight break and money! I think I'd go with a big cubic inch NA LS. They make nasty horse power with little work. I also give you big ups on doing your welding work yourself. You've inspired me to get off my ass to start learning to do my own welding. Finding somebody to do it is such a pain.
Keep the updates coming.
High hp 4.8 sounds awesome! High rpm, and low weight sounds like a winning combination
Stang_guy03 wrote: Car is looking good. If you want to see some interesting Camaros go to the CAM Challenge East FB page and check out some of the cars that ran in it. Granted they weren't CP cars, but still all the same some bad ass machinery. I don't know what your min weight is, but I know enough about cars to now you are going to gain weight like a fat kid on a chocolate binge. Engine wise depends on your weight break and money! I think I'd go with a big cubic inch NA LS. They make nasty horse power with little work. I also give you big ups on doing your welding work yourself. You've inspired me to get off my ass to start learning to do my own welding. Finding somebody to do it is such a pain. Keep the updates coming.
If I remember correctly, sub 310ci the car can be 2700lbs. Go over 310ci and min weight is 3000lbs.
I totally expect her to start packin' on the pounds, but it's cool to see it's lower than I thought.
chiodos wrote: High hp 4.8 sounds awesome! High rpm, and low weight sounds like a winning combination
It certainly is an option. It does mean some of the parts I have now won't work, but that's okay.
You are correct on the weight/displacement breaks. It is interesting to talk with some of the CP guys on the small vs big engine choice. Many like the lighter car weight but would like to have more torque like the bigger engines provide. It probably is a six of one/half dozen of the other thing anyways. Pick your poison and run with it.
While a high rpm screamer sounds like fun, I would rather go with a larger displacement for more torque in the midrange, where it is needed. You could get a LS7 and drop it in, plenty of power and torque, it just takes money. Only thing in my mind on the 4.8L is you are giving up cubic inches that you don't have to. Not sure if there is any combination of LS stuff that will get you close to 310 cid though.
81cpcamaro wrote: You are correct on the weight/displacement breaks. It is interesting to talk with some of the CP guys on the small vs big engine choice. Many like the lighter car weight but would like to have more torque like the bigger engines provide. It probably is a six of one/half dozen of the other thing anyways. Pick your poison and run with it. While a high rpm screamer sounds like fun, I would rather go with a larger displacement for more torque in the midrange, where it is needed. You could get a LS7 and drop it in, plenty of power and torque, it just takes money. Only thing in my mind on the 4.8L is you are giving up cubic inches that you don't have to. Not sure if there is any combination of LS stuff that will get you close to 310 cid though.
For sake of cost/simplicity/reliability I'm likely to go the bigger motor route and ballast up.
I did look into building a 310ci LS motor, and it is possible, but costs a lot more than it would likely be worth.
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