Project "independence day"IRS and 3500 swap

[Purple pit]

Nice work as always. To me the tank is sitting a bit low. Pot holes, dips in the road and speed bumps bring a fear of the tank smashing into the ground. A skid plate could help, but I don't like sparks near fuel. If there was room I'd go with a shorter fatter tank. If it hits the body is going to have to eat alot of force. Hard enough and the back glass could blow.

[Driver_10]

With the suspension sitting pretty, I got to work mounting the fuel cell. The cage that I had built for the cell interfered with the toe bar when mocked into place. I made alterations to the cage to allow an extra 3 inches of space between the cage and the toe-bars.

Here's the cage as it was. The middle bar was almost touching.


The protuding parts were cut, and the profile was slimmed a bit.




For some reason, one little spot ended up a little tight, But it was enough of a concern to warrant me cutting it up and re-welding it. The cage was good to go!


I installed the cell into its cage and welded on some mounting tabs. After that, there was nothing left to do but install the assembly and weld it into place.






It still needs a few gussets here and there, but its structurally strong enough to be a lifting point for a floor jack. You can see the tank peeking out from under the car.


It looks pretty menacing just resting under the rear glass.


And with that, there will no more updates for the next month or so. I leave town tomorrow morning to go to work in Alaska.

When I return next month, there will be nothing left but to do but some finishing/ panel work and engine install. I cant promise to have it fully drivable, But I will say that I WILL have the engine running!

Everyone here have a merry Christmas. Ill see ya later!

[Driver_10]

Today I've got the car sitting on its suspension. The last job that was needed to get the suspension load bearing was making brackets to link the pushrod to the vette spindles.

I started by removing the sway-bar links to make a place to mount the push rod.


Those 13mm bolts would be reused in for the construction of the mount. The end link will be saved for future re-use as well.


After removing the endlinks from the spindles, the pad was the first piece drawn and cut.


The design is made to mount solidly flat against the sway-bar pad where the spindle is its strongest due a gusset thats cast into the beneath it. I designed the pad with two holes to weld the bolts in place, making the bracket a true one-piece design.

Now, The two small bolts alone are not robust enough alone to take the sheer loads from road travel, so in addition, I made eyelets to brace the other end of the pad to the upper control arm boss.


pre-fit assembly


And welded...


The car is now full load bearing!


With the adjustable brackets, I have lower the car quite a bit and still retain good trailing arm position. That ride height looks just right! :


Ive got one and a half more days me before I leave the lower 48 states. If the rain lets up, Then Im going to try to get the fuel cell installed before I leave!

[Driver_10]

Time is running out on me this month. Ive only got 2 days left before I have to take off for Alaska again. So Im pushing to get this car sitting on its own shocks before I board the plane.

I started the design process of staggering the shock mounts on the levers. The first thing I did was to cut the uneeded sides off.




The lever design needed to transmit linear force without bending due to torsion. I also needed clearance for the bolt that connects the push-rod.

For clearance, I used a 1 3/4 piece of tubing that had been cut along its length to make a clearance spacer. It would also provide a good degree of simple reinforcement.




I welded the tubing section into place and then used 3/4 od/ 1/2 id spacer to center the shock ball joint, and welded it into place. I also welded in a reinforcement bolster the mount.






With the technical details satified, the rest was just a matter of filling in the area needing reinforcement.






Here it is with the coilover shock for final fitting.


Im satisfied with this side. I have the other side left to do, but its too cold to work out here, so Im putting it all up for tonight.

[Driver_10]

That was last hitch... and they didn't want to fork over the OT.
Iv'e been home since Nov. the 19.

[bszopi]

I thought you were going to work on an oil rig for like 6 weeks?

Brad
via Moto X

[Purple pit]

That is wild looking! Better to over build than to under.

[Driver_10]

Ive gotten some good work done in the last week. With the hard part out of the way, the fun can now begin.

After setting up the cantilever and making the final measurement for the shock perches, I went ahead and welded in the cross-bar.


With the bar in place, I cut and tacked in a piece of 13cm, 2x4 steel rail to make the base of the pedestal. The shocks are too long to fit inline, so I went about making a staggered pedestal to fit them beside each other.




It took two attempts before I could get the eyelets for the shock perches correct. Ill also say that my hand is getter steadier with the plasma torch. (The eyelet on the bottom is the first attemp). The shocks fit well without binding throughout their movement range.






With the final measurements set, it was just a matter of filling in gussets and completing reinforcements.








Starting to look exotic! (aside from the copious amounts of surface ruse everywhere else)




You can see the circular portion that has been cleared to make way for the coils. The coil-overs will sit together snuggly.


Plenty beefy, and a touch over-built :P
Im very satisfied with the overall design. It should be quite the attention grabber for people walking by. Ought to be quite a scene under the rear glass.



If Im lucky, I can get the push-rod mounts done by tomorrow!

[Driver_10]

Getting damn good with that plasma cutter. What are you using to hold the tip from the part and as a straight edge? I need to find something for my setup.

Im just using an carpenters aluminum "square-edge" ruler. The tip is being drug the entire cut. I just keep a lot of fresh tips and electrodes around to insure good cuts. I go through about 1-2 tips a months.

[3400-95-Modified]

Getting damn good with that plasma cutter. What are you using to hold the tip from the part and as a straight edge? I need to find something for my setup.

[stargaazer7467]

Love the casntilever!!

[Driver_10]

I had some fun with the family this thanks giving in San Marcos texas.

Had some fun fishing, lit some bon-fires for the kids, and even ended up taking an unwanted swim in the freezing 45 degree waters of the San Marcos river to recover my Smart phone that fell into 6 feet of running water. (Galaxy s4 active: waterproof)

I made it back to Houston in time for things to have dried up enough to roll out my equipment and get back to work in the car. I had drew up templates for the cantilevers that originally had a 25 degree split and a 5 inch radius. The design was altered to use poly-bushed pivot and a thicker body for longevity and strength. It went through two revisions before the final design was rendered.


(one of the first attempts)


Final design


The hole cut at the top would accommodate the 3/4 od spacers to center the shocks while the hole at the bottom would fit the 9/16 bolt for the bushing.


The rest was a matter of setting spacers and welding the bushing sleeve into place.


Next, the pivot brackets were fabricated to mount the levers to the frame. Using some simple geometry, I calculated that a lever with a 5 radius would produce around 1-inch of pushrod travel per/ 10.002 degrees of articulation (or something close. I suck at math).

The afco manual said the that 60 percent of the rod needed to sticking out of the shock to leave the remaining 40 percent for rebound. Im using a 7-inch, stroke, shock, so I needed to have about 4.2 inches of the shock ram sticking out while at ride height, This meant that the lever needed to have around 65-68 degrees of full articulation to cover the full sweep of the shock (actual suspension travel will only be around 5-inches total. It just good practice to have a bit extra for a nasty bump)

The cantilever needed to rest at around 30 degrees from parallel at ride height to ensure that there would be no binding at any point in the lever travel. After doing the math to find right height, I designed and cut the lever pivot mounts to weld to the frame.




The lever fits snuggly under the rear down-tubes of the roll-cage and with the shock mocked into place, is quite pretty to look at.




There is a considerable amount of reinforcement that is needed, as well as staggered shock mounts that will be needed to fit the oversized shocks. Still though, I'm quite happy with how its shaping up.

[Driver_10]

Well... November seems to be the new rainy season here in Houston. So theres no real work going on with the car. On the other hand, my back-ordered set of Koni double-adjustable shocks finally arrived along with my Ground control coil-over kit.

I was lucky to get the shocks during a 50% off sale last summer. I paid $710 for both shocks straight through Koni. The "Ground Control" conversion kit came with bump stop bushings, adjuster tool, and all of the front & rear collars, adjusters, and springs. (The two rear springs and adjusters not pictured will be used on the 3rd Gen)



Now its time to void some warranties! First, the abs plastic shrouds had to be cut off and discarded.


Next... In order to remove the stock spring perches, the flange housing the the rebound adjustment has to be cut down. There are some o-rings inside and a rubber bushing underneath, so the flange CANNOT be overheated while it down.


I decided to use a good, sharp carbide and an angle cut-off tool to trim the flange since it would "cut" away metal rather than grind it and produce less heat.


After a bit of touch up sanding, the results were surprising clean. They almost look machined.


The perches simply slide off of the Koni's and the Bilstein's. The supplied adj collars that come with the "Ground Control" kit simply slide over the shock to mount the coil spring.


These aren't needed anymore...


Notice the inner step. These mount against the snap-ring that retains the spring perches.


Ready for the spring! In this case, Im using a set of 500lbs eibachs. Well see how well those work later.


(Just an important side-note: Koni advertises their conversion kit for use on KYB's as well. This is an error. If you have KYB adjustable shocks, you're shit out of luck, because those are have welded spring perches and aren't removable)

The kit also comes with a pair of spring retainers to install on the top of the coils, but I also used the heavy washers that came along with the shock kit to help spread the load when installing the coil-overs. The final result is pure money.

[Driver_10]

Most work like that does... more power to ya man! Have fun!

Thanks, I will.

When I get back home, Ill have this thing started and running by Thanksgiving. (hopefully, drivable too)

[carbon]

I work on a drilling platform. Its dick-breaking work, but it pays well.

Most work like that does... more power to ya man! Have fun!