Asphalt_Gundam - G body that turns

$200 transmission is now repaired, upgraded and a ready to go spare for less than half of what a rebuilt costs. I got lucky with the disassembled basket case transmission being so cheap. Upgraded input shaft, bronze shift pads, new seals, repaired threads and old questionable repairs dealt with. Just needs a starter notch cut out of the bell housing and it'll bolt up.

Nice work!  Did you weld and tap or use a threaded insert for the thread repairs?

In reply to MNIMWIUTBAS :

Welded the one in the shifter pocket because it was really messed up and needed the OD of that area for locating the spring. Did thread repairs on the others. 

After weeks of seriously looking I scored a lathe today! And big steel table yesterday.

South bend lathe. 3 chucks, collet adapter, live center, and it's just been refreshed. Little way wear but not bad. Got from an old guy that had it for a couple decades and upgraded but decided to clean it all up first. Gears look perfect still.

This worked out great as I was the first person to see this get posted right after another deal fell through late last night. 42 people had messaged by the time I got to take a look this morning. Wins for me, it's 13"x24" which is the smallest that meets my needs, it was over a grand less than the one that fell through, more attachments, and probably in nicer shape too.

Table is 30" x 10' with 1/4" top. Plan is to drill some of it into a fixture table.

Got the lathe up and running. Cuts nice...better than my dad's lathe that I've been building stuff with.

Pull the car out of the garage for a wash and to free up some space to knock out house projects next week. 55 degrees today. This is the earliest I've had a car outside. 

Loving the new lathe. And knocking out some new brake brackets for the spindle upgrade.

That's a nice swap!  I did the tall spindles years ago on my Buick, and used some A body parts, but I like the way you've figured out the details here, the ball joint swaps, etc.  Very nice!

Thanks. 

I've been working on this setup for months now. It's not as easy as it should be to figure out what fits what sometimes. My goals were raising the roll center and stronger ball joints/less failures. This accomplished both and opens up another tuning window

Went on the Track Walking Podcast a few weeks ago and the episode posted today.

I talk about cars, snowmobiling and starting over after everything burns to the ground.

Spotify link to the episode 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Wqhh6EdoBq64hFeLYYNi1?si=l9LLSsSwRvKJITx8MmuGGQ

In other news, now offering a brake bracket for using a Corvette rotor and Superlite style calipers on a blaser spindle.

Getting closer to finishing up this spindle swap. Got both sides assembled Friday and the front end of the car removed yesterday. I do have some welding to finish up related to the engine bay brace. At this point I've decided to modify the control arms for the new ball joints vs building complete new ones to save time and money

Both sides are converted now. But first i made sure to take measurements and figure out exactly what's changing.

First up was the metric spindle side. Then the AFX side without any changes to ride height and finally AFX back at current ride height.

As you can see the AFX added some drop. Only around 3/4" despite it being a 2" drop spindle thanks to a STD length Chrysler lower BJ vs the +1" metric I have been running.

I'm not a 100% on the math being correct or measurements being exact but its i good ball park IMO.

Seems lowering the CG (via lowering the car) has a larger affect on the leverage length between roll center and CG than the drop spindle at normal ride height (which is higher roll center).

This seems to be because out the very shallow angle of the lower control arm. It just doesn't allow for big roll center changes. Pretty much stuck at specific height. If the car was at stock height that would be a different story but raising the CG up isn't going to help me either. This car is at least 4-5" lower than stock.

The lower pivot point is the only one i haven't changed from OEM yet and it sure looks like its going to have to if any more raising of the roll center is going to take place while keeping close to the current geometry that's been so easy on tires the last year.

Drawings today just to get a real visualization of what's going on.

Then discovered problems....

Lathe belt upgrade while waiting for the steel to show up so I can make billet hubs.

Billet hubs in the works!

We need more! What are the changes/benefits on the new hubs?

In reply to Shavarsh :

Biggest thing is stronger/safer and hopefully a long term solution. As pictured above the 5 years of abuse original hubs are cracked. I cut down new ones and they cracked just putting the studs back in. So they went right in the scrap bin.

Billet hubs came out pretty nice. I made two sets so i have spares and can experiment with a larger outer bearing with one set.

They get kinda boring looking once dome paint is on them. Especially because all the cool stuff is on the back side. They are heavier than the original cast ones but not as much as you might think. Plus they're hopefully WAY stronger.

I thrashed to get the car put together last Friday in order to make a couple autocross last weekend. Several setbacks happened including, bump steer bolts hitting wheels due to the spindle change, way worse bump steer than before (was near perfect before), finding things I had forgotten to tighten, getting distracted with small things to improve assembly. The bump steer was the worst of it because i couldn't get repeatability on the gauge. Found several issues that needed fixing/will need to be fixed.

I did get it back together though and then stressed about if i should drive or trailer to the event. Decided to drive and glad i did just to prove the functionality to myself. Didn't even pay attention to results all day. Took a few runs to knock the rust off but i remembered what the heck i was doing behind the wheel. 

Took 2nd in CAM C (which later realized was the wrong class) would have been 2nd in CAM T also.

Sunday I only ran morning before the rain came. C1-CAM T (combined classes for car count I guess?) 2nd again, only beat by a Miata....

Weather was just miserable so I headed home but damn was it sketchy. Standing water, slick bridges, poor roads, and last years used up tires made for a super sketchy drive home. I need new tires asap.

Overall the car felt good. Turn in might be the best its ever been as it didn't waste time changing directions. I really wish I could have A/B tested the spindle change but bare minimum it's not worse. I know there's refinement there for more potential too.

I have a list of new maintenance items to take care of before i can really see what its capable of. Next event is 2 weeks out so I'll see how much i can get done by then.

Those old hubs look scary!

Beautiful work on the hubs! The whole spindle swap is looking super professional.

Been a while since an update.

Got out to do more testing. Second successful autocross with front wheels not falling off...hubs maintain perfect score!

Car however developed a lean misfire. Thinking it was just a clogged injector or something simple I dove into more front suspension refinement and maintenance. Engine and gear oil changed, power steering fluid changed, fresh brake fluid (some was BLACK).

Also discovered a reduced turning radius because the wheel was hitting the sway bar end link bolt because of the spindle change and 2" drop. This was pretty easy fix flipping the arms side to side and going above vs below. Was just enough room to clear all the potential problems with doing that.

Fresh calipers, pads and rotors on the front. Further roll center changes via raising the lower control arm mount holes by 3/4". This turned into more difficult work than expected but when is that not the case on a big change? 

While doing that I found why my rack and pinion input was loose, fixed now, much less slop in steering. Also put new rod ends on since they were getting a little sloppy too. Then had to do a little clearancing because they're now lined up great with the lower control arm pivots. Went through my bump steer again and its much better. However....to get it right required a different height at the steering arm which wanted to occupy the same space as one set of wheels but not the other. Had to give up some Ackerman by spacing the arms inward to clear both sets of wheels. There were other options but this was the least expensive at the moment and I believe the best compromise considering what geometry would have changed with the other options.

Now after cleaning the injectors and reinstall it got better but not fixed. Just pulled it apart to put new injectors in and a pig tail wire falls out ...

I have an event in less than 2 days...

Well, I got to the event but after only a couple autocross runs the first day the fuel problem cane back...then a run later 2nd gear blew up.

Terrible luck, weekend wasted.

I have since swapped in the spare transmission and finally sorted out the fuel problem. Turns out that the lever arm that opens the secondaries is worn and wasn't opening them even though fuel was being added. So I had lean mix air going in the front barrels while liquid fuel was dribbling through the rears.

Reflashing the ECU to the correct opening of the TPS and its way better...the street driving manners haven't been this good in a long time....so its been a growing issue for a while. 8 percent.... that's when they actually start opening instead of immediately like its supposed to. 

No events since but I am teaching Autocross for beginners at Black River Motorsports Park on Saturday.

I've been wanting to do this one for a long time. I lost count of how many times I was asked to step on the brake to verify my tail lights work only for them to ask again before realizing that they in fact were on when the asked. This was also the excuse I needed to do a full LED bulb conversion to the whole car. Which inevitably went down a rabbit hole of GM factory wiring in order to figure out why everything would work fine with the headlights off, but with them on, no blinker function.