Enablers... Assemble

Definitely interested.  Taking obsolete quality race cars and giving them a new lease on life with commonly available race-industry parts as a dedicated track car compared to using a modern high tech daily is project-worthy.  Plus, loud stompin V8.

DC/MD Grm meetup to help load up the trailer?

I think this would make for a lot of great editorial content.  Starting with the "what does it cost and what's involved in  building a tube frame car" stuff.  Once the car is up and running you can look at racing costs and talk about the differences in the driving experience between a "real" race car and one that's converted from a street car.

Once you've covered all of that you've got the simplicity and ease of modification of a tube frame car provides a great platform for answering all kinds of questions.  You can stuff pretty much any engine and or transmission in there and the engine is easy to work on.

• Torque or HP.  Do some cam swaps and see how they effect lap times
• Paddle shifter vs conventional, what's the effect on lap times?
• Dog ring box vs. syncros
• turbo or NA at the same HP levels

The chassis is easy to modifiy as well

• Roll centers what are they and how do they effect the car
• Cross weight, should it really be 50%?
• You can put just about any suspension known to man in the car and see how it works.  Rear IRS, satchel link, leaf spring, 3 bar,  4 bar...
• Heck you could put a strut front end in it and compare it to the SLA

This would also be a great platform for areo testing

• splitter vs spoiler
• wing vs decklid spoiler
• Canards
• Vortex generators

Yes, do it. 

dean1484 said:

1. You don't turn every article  into "We wanted to fix this so we took it to this shop and they installed these pars and they are excellent. IE we got free parts and in return we publish that they are good. That is getting old.  

I'm glad somebody said it.

My $.02 is that I'd like this to be an example of explaining when and why it might be more cost-effective to spend $ for a superior piece/assembly rather than go with the least expensive alternative.  

APEowner said:

I think this would make for a lot of great editorial content.  Starting with the "what does it cost and what's involved in  building a tube frame car" stuff.  Once the car is up and running you can look at racing costs and talk about the differences in the driving experience between a "real" race car and one that's converted from a street car.

Once you've covered all of that you've got the simplicity and ease of modification of a tube frame car provides a great platform for answering all kinds of questions.  You can stuff pretty much any engine and or transmission in there and the engine is easy to work on.

• Torque or HP.  Do some cam swaps and see how they effect lap times
• Paddle shifter vs conventional, what's the effect on lap times?
• Dog ring box vs. syncros
• turbo or NA at the same HP levels

The chassis is easy to modifiy as well

• Roll centers what are they and how do they effect the car
• Cross weight, should it really be 50%?
• You can put just about any suspension known to man in the car and see how it works.  Rear IRS, satchel link, leaf spring, 3 bar,  4 bar...
• Heck you could put a strut front end in it and compare it to the SLA

This would also be a great platform for areo testing

• splitter vs spoiler
• wing vs decklid spoiler
• Canards
• Vortex generators

 

You'll even have enough engine compartment to toss a V12 in for comparison. 

JG - did you really expect an argument?  

Sounds awesome!

I especially like the blackboard for core suspension principles part.

And the Buick works for me, even if I imprinted on the Capris.

I think an Aussie Holden "body"  or whatever body "Mad Max" used would be cool , 

Just something thats a head scratcher :)

I'm 100% for this. Largely because I'll be doing something similar myself in both small scale and large with both of my 80's cutlasses.

Articles of "we build a thing" is cool but not enough IMO. I'd like to see in depth coverage of topics like Roll centers, Ackerman, Spindle king pin angle, Bump steer, Anti-dive, etc. And not just the same old regurgitated basics that can easily be found. Anyone can figure out how to measure those things and what the theory is behind them but never is there any real world application of why and how. They never talk about the fact that if I change my roll center by moving the upper control arm for example, That the entire system is now different! Ok...so now all the other things need to be checked and if excessive bump steer is found at the upper limits of suspension travel because of that change...well now perhaps the rack location needs to be addressed, or the change reversed and another approach taken to achieve a similar result. 

I regularly search for that kind of in depth information and it just doesn't get covered or it goes so far down the technical rabbit hole after theory that it just gets confusing. What I want to learn is the how all this can be "applied" to chassis X. What chassis X is... is irrelevant. All these things can be measured but its what you do with them that makes a setup better or worse. Chassis X might have a class rule of OEM pickup points (like I deal with) so which of these things takes priority? I'd say what ever keeps the tire flat through suspension compression travel is a good start but for example installing those tall ball joints for fix the camber curve (in my case) has now not only altered the camber curve but the ride height, instant and roll centers, and bump steer (if not more). It handles better but its not suddenly as good as possible.

I see great articles coming from this is written in a format as follows: Identify a problem/or item to improve, discuss options available to achieve that (pros, cons, secondary affects), go about making the change and go through the measurement process of checking that it did or didn't do what was expected and what secondary affects came into play, A/B testing on the track or Auto X.

For the technical info I'd be most interested in full explanations like this in depth coverage of rack placement and its affects on Ackerman and bump steer from Woodward. Cat05 63-79 Basic Rack and Pinion Tech.p65 (woodwardsteering.com) I consider this the best info I've found on the subject and now understand the process enough that I'm willing to dive in and convert from a steering box to a rack and pinion with the goal of better steering, better geometry, and significant weight savings.

This type of tech isn't limited to just a tube chassis car or double A arm either. Any car can have the measurements taken and apply this. I've seen all kinds of spacers, extended or offset joints, parts swaps, etc that have been done on all types of cars in the pursuit of making it better....whether they worked as intended for not is up for discussion. For example rack spacers on an S2000 "because its lowered".....ok First off, is there even a problem? At what amount of lowering does a problem exist? Are rack spacers even the correct fix? Is this part even going to fix the problem or was it designed for a 5" lower car and yours is only 2"???? Having quality articles the help the average enthusiast understand how to locate, analyze and fix or improve would be a huge plus.

Seems super cool and in for the "loading" g2g.

Count me in the do it category; for years I've been saying this is the way to go.

Naturally as a typical GRMer I have caveats.

First the whole point of these is that they can be had cheap.

If you're going to spend 30-50K building it then I'm not interested.

I'd much rather see a build up that encompasses parts scored on the cheap. Years ago I spotted a roller for $2500, at the same time there was a wrecked Mustang for sale with a fresh motor for $1500 locally...............that's the kind of thing I'd like to see. 

One of these cars with 350-400hp would be cheap to do and plenty fast. I also bet you could build one for cheaper than a Spec Miata / track day Miata.

frenchyd said:

APEowner said:

I think this would make for a lot of great editorial content.  Starting with the "what does it cost and what's involved in  building a tube frame car" stuff.  Once the car is up and running you can look at racing costs and talk about the differences in the driving experience between a "real" race car and one that's converted from a street car.

Once you've covered all of that you've got the simplicity and ease of modification of a tube frame car provides a great platform for answering all kinds of questions.  You can stuff pretty much any engine and or transmission in there and the engine is easy to work on.

• Torque or HP.  Do some cam swaps and see how they effect lap times
• Paddle shifter vs conventional, what's the effect on lap times?
• Dog ring box vs. syncros
• turbo or NA at the same HP levels

The chassis is easy to modifiy as well

• Roll centers what are they and how do they effect the car
• Cross weight, should it really be 50%?
• You can put just about any suspension known to man in the car and see how it works.  Rear IRS, satchel link, leaf spring, 3 bar,  4 bar...
• Heck you could put a strut front end in it and compare it to the SLA

This would also be a great platform for areo testing

• splitter vs spoiler
• wing vs decklid spoiler
• Canards
• Vortex generators

 

You'll even have enough engine compartment to toss a V12 in for comparison. 

I like it!  Let's finally lay this BBC vs Jag V12 debate to rest!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

dean1484 said:

1. You don't turn every article  into "We wanted to fix this so we took it to this shop and they installed these pars and they are excellent. IE we got free parts and in return we publish that they are good. That is getting old.  

I'm glad somebody said it.

Me too. Here's my two cents: if a vendor wants to give you parts for an editorial, pick a car from the build thread subforum and do it with their car in their garage.

I love it!  I've been following Jack's thread and his car is a beauty!  Is he related to Ed, I assume?

I'm also in the "Do it!" group, although I also agree with the sentiment about keeping the build more on the DIY side.  Even if this means you have to let the project sit for a bit.  That would be more realistic to how most project cars go (¯\_(ツ)_/¯ being the exception to that rule).

Granted... I can also accept JG might have a C5Z engine sitting on a stand not doing anything? 

Since we all like it, let's start speculating...................

Stupid cheap chassis mated to engine and transmission that was lying around.................they were going to use the Buick body but found a a different make that bolted on so went with that. 

They were going to paint it white but found a gallon of yellow paint for $20 so yellow it is.

It turned faster lap times then the Corvette project.

Why put a full body on it at all? I love the exposed wheels and bits.

Lof8 - Andy said:

I love it!  I've been following Jack's thread and his car is a beauty!  Is he related to Ed, I assume?

Older brother, I believe. 

The core premise of buying a car like this is to go ridiculously fast for (competitively) cheap. Part of what made the C5Z build so disappointing was the sheer cubic dollars thrown at the thing from the start (all-new high dollar crate motor, all new high dollar transaxle, all new high dollar adjustable suspension, etc, etc) that just made it unrelateable (even as a C5Z owner at the time). 

So buy the car, and then show us how to maximize the plethora of used NASCAR parts out there. Show us scrounging speed parts from other series on the cheap and putting them to work in this menagerie of a car that exists only to set TTOD. 

Put a fresh crate motor and sequential in this thing and I'm out. Put in a used Busch motor and a refurbished 4-speed and I'm in. It doesn't have to be Challenge-budget cheap, but it certainly needs to be bought smarter than the last few projects have been.

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :

I'm going to defend the crate motor for the C5 as we just couldn't build something similar for the same money. JG and I did the math. Several times. And then we sold the original engine, offsetting a chunk of the cost. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Maybe you should have called the Nelsons!

JG, looks like you're working with the Nelsons on this one. 

WRT the engine, no matter what you do, don't do the Hot Rod thing and just put a carb on it.  That's so lame, especially if you do any computer modeling of any kind (aero, suspension, structure, etc).  

It would be interesting to run a topic search, but it seems that EFI questions out do carb questions by a lot.