Really Should Stop Modifying my Daily Driver into a Track Car

[Mycooking]

Good God man in the past 4 years you have put some serious custom fabrication work into her. Sweet FiST and awesome skills dude loved reading all this and I am in love with that radiator shroud.

 

[Fusion Works]

Thanks. The car is a ton of fun to drive, when I am not working on it. HAHA

 

[Fusion Works]

Little update after Nashville last week. For anyone that didn't see:

Yeehaw.

I slapped the new suspension on the car right before it went on the trailer. I had no time to finish the struts housings properly. After I got back I pulled the fronts back off to wrap up the coating and new springs. Fresh back from the platers with a nice zinc plating. Did a silver zinc and I think it looks really nice.

New Eibach springs, starting with 250s front and rear. That should give a good balance all around while keeping the ride reasonable. Then when I head to the track I can pack spring rubbers in the coils and up the rate to make a quick track rate change. That should let me dial the rear springs in to help balance the car on track.

Also sent my tow point out for plating and it turned out nice.

Its so stout. Probably a bit overkill. Its a 1.25 diameter hunk of 11L44 I had laying around. The thread is a M24x2 since its the tap I had. Would have done a M22 but didn't have a tap. Plus the hole in the strap is almost .625. I used a .500in bolt that should be fine. The strap is rated at 12Klbs. LOL
https://racequip.com/product/racequip-race-car-tow-hook-strap-with-soft-eye-loop-end-12000lb-rating/
A friend says the Tow point is 30Klbs. HAHA. I bet something fails before the bumper does. I think it will safely pull the car onto the trailer and out of the sand trap.

Onto the rear camber shims and the setup.

 

[Fusion Works]

On track I was running 400lb fronts and 450 rears. Car felt surprisingly well planted until it wasn't. HAHA. I forgot to tighten the rear shock bolts before I pulled off the alignment stands. I wanted to tighten them with weight on the car but forgot and they were just finger tight. So at the end of the day I noticed the passenger side was missing the bolt completely and the schraeder valve on the rear shock had come loose and the shock had no gas in it. Not my finest moment.

Lesson here, Don't cobble the car together the morning it needs to go to the track. I hate that. Life gets in the way sometimes.

 

[Fusion Works]

Now some rear camber shims. I bought these from a forum member. Nice quality. One thing I didn't like was the OE bolts would be in bending with the shims installed. I found some leveling washers that could correct for 3deg of angularity on the underside of the bolts.

Of course I couldn't just do bolts like normal person, so I bought some high strength steel studs and nyloc flange nuts for maximum strength.

Had to paint the shims because they were raw steel and I forgot to send them out to the platers when I did the struts.

I will see what these shims give me and if I need more negative camber I can make some new shims up with more angle.

Should have the car up on the setup stands this weekend. Need to re-charge the two rear shocks with nitrogen and install one of them, (other is still on the car). Maybe I can drive it soon. Looking forward to seeing how the new springs feel

 

[Fusion Works]

Ok knocked out the setup today. Whoooo Boy she has so much grip that even my stupid street driving shows how much grip this car has.

Set the ride height, camber, and tow, the corner balanced the car. Now ya'll will freak out that its not 50% on cross. Yes I know and I did that on purpose.

Before hooking up the front sway bar. I am using the stock end links. Need to make one adjustable end link to remove the minor amount of preload.

This is with the OE end links hooked up at ride height.

My setup is 6in at the pinch welds. I don't want to run the car any lower as the suspension geometry will go to hell.
-3deg front camber
-2.25 rear camber
.062 toe out in the front,
.125in the rear (not adjustable)
Set the car up with 180lbs in the driver seat and 39/36 tire pressures.

Splitter is 4in off the deck. I think I may make an adjustment to lower that down slightly, it will make removing it much easier. SCCA Max rules limit me to 3in so I am gonna probably make another splitter for full track use.

I still have the BP30 pads on the car currently and they are really aggressive cold. So agressive even in sport mode, I could feel the torque vectoring making the car "wobbly" in the turns. They are WAY too grabby cold. They felt fine on track, but I need to pull them off tomorrow. Maybe I will pull the splitter off tomorrow and see about lowering it and redoing the trim to match the lower height.

 

[Jabbit]

Is your car caged or are the scales just off? Wondering why it's showing as so heavy.

 

[M-Sport fan]

^^Fusion claims to have put 180 lbs. in the driver's seat (to equate him being there for the balance purposes), in the explanation above.

 

[Jabbit]

Still seems a tad high but I guess not too far off.

 

[Erick_V]

Still seems a tad high but I guess not too far off.

FWIW I have the same car, Recaro w/ Sunroof. My car with me (165lbs) and half a tank of gas is 2,845lbs. If him and I were the same body weight his car would only be around 75lbs heavier. He also still has back seats, I do not.

 

[Fusion Works]

Splitter is 20lbs, battery is stock, FULL interior.After market radiator, heavier intercooler, etc. No Spare, but jack and such is still in the tire well.

I had 185ish lbs in the car for driver (weight plates , 40, 40, 80, 40ish lead block, also had my leather welding jacket to protect the seat). Think I was slightly over half a tank of fuel, I can look tomorrow, but it is what it is. I don't intend to spend a bunch of time getting weight out. Its still my daily driver and I have three other race cars that are in no way streetable.

I swapped the BP30 pads out of the front and put my BP20s back in. Braking is much better now for a street car. I don't feel as much weirdness with the torque vectoring. Even with the traction control fully off, the light on the dash is going batshit crazy when I loaded hard in some really long sweepers. HAHA. That poor little computer was in no way prepared for the grip this car has now. Need to work on the shock valving. 250lb Front and Rear Springs ride extremely stiff. Most of that is in the valving. (I have a friend with Swift springs and I am sure his car doesn't ride this stiff)

 

[MauiRoads]

Now some rear camber shims. I bought these from a forum member. Nice quality. One thing I didn't like was the OE bolts would be in bending with the shims installed. I found some leveling washers that could correct for 3deg of angularity on the underside of the bolts.
Of course I couldn't just do bolts like normal person, so I bought some high strength steel studs and nyloc flange nuts for maximum strength.

Thanks Fusion Works, that's great information! I just received my shims from DPro (and painted them with POR15). Nice looking pieces.
I also wondered about the angle of the shims in relation to the bolts. Would you please provide any specs and sources you have for the "leveling washers", studs and flange nuts?
Why did you go with 3 degrees of angularity? Is the stock rear camber 0, and you were going for 3 rather than 2 degrees washers to work with your 2.25 rear camber?
Appreciate any information you can provide.

 

[Fusion Works]

The 3 degs was the amount of correction built into the washers. The studs and flange nuts are standard parts. Nothing special. I think I used grade 12.9, 116K psi steel studs. Standard McMaster parts.

The OE rear camber was -.5- -1.0 I think. Don't think I bothered measuring before I did the shims.

My shims came from Dpro as well.

 

[MauiRoads]

Thanks Fusion Works. I'm about to install springs and the rear camber shims, and then do an alignment on my hubstands. I may have time to get the car on the stands to get baseline numbers before the install. If so, I'll post the numbers. BTW, the Paco Motorsports hubstands are terrific: accurate and repeatable.
I don't have good sources for fasteners here on Maui, so, I may have to find some thick washers for the shims and file them down a bit. It won't be accurate, but it'll be better than nothing. Now if only DPro would grind a slight relief into the shims to match the angle of the bolt heads, or provide angled washers...

 

[Fusion Works]

https://www.mcmaster.com/

I am sure they ship to HI, just won't be cheap.

Theoretically, the angle isn't a big deal (as its minor), but I don't like theoretically.

 

[Fusion Works]

Pulled the car in for an oil change and popped the splitter off. After running it for almost 6 months, its in pretty good shape. I could bring it down a little. 90% of that front wear on the leading edge is from the approach to my driveway entry and exit.

Once I reset my ride height for summer tires I can lower it down a bit more. Probably should make my brackets a little deeper, but the ride height for the splitter is probably safe for the street.

 

[Dialcaliper]

https://www.mcmaster.com/

I am sure they ship to HI, just won't be cheap.

Theoretically, the angle isn't a big deal (as its minor), but I don't like theoretically.

It’s not as small as you think. 2 degrees is about where the bolt life drops off dramatically. Its even worse for a nut on a threaded section, but fortunately we’re not dealing with that.

https://www.boltscience.com/pages/nutfaceangularity.htm

It’s not a dire as in the diagrams, which are for relatively high loading - hopefully Ford put a lot of margin in (But choosing to use torque to yield bolts and the yielding seen in the front balljoint bolts don’t leave one with the warm fuzzies.

Many of the big nasty bolts on crappy surfaces you might be thinking of where it doesn’t matter are so oversized or see so few cycles that this sort of thing doesn’t come into play, but in the penny-pinching automotive world, things get designed closer to predicted loads. Go look at a similar sized car from 30-40 years ago and you’ll find slightly larger bolts used everywhere.

I’d say it’s just enough to give you an upset stomach, and the spherical washers or angle shims under the heads aren’t a bad idea as long as there’s enough thread left

 

[Fusion Works]

It’s not as small as you think. 2 degrees is about where the bolt life drops off dramatically. Its even worse for a nut on a threaded section, but fortunately we’re not dealing with that.

https://www.boltscience.com/pages/nutfaceangularity.htm

It’s not a dire as in the diagrams, which are for relatively high loading - hopefully Ford put a lot of margin in (But choosing to use torque to yield bolts and the yielding seen in the front balljoint bolts don’t leave one with the warm fuzzies.

Many of the big nasty bolts on crappy surfaces you might be thinking of where it doesn’t matter are so oversized or see so few cycles that this sort of thing doesn’t come into play, but in the penny-pinching automotive world, things get designed closer to predicted loads. Go look at a similar sized car from 30-40 years ago and you’ll find slightly larger bolts used everywhere.

I’d say it’s just enough to give you an upset stomach, and the spherical washers or angle shims under the heads aren’t a bad idea as long as there’s enough thread left

There is nothing wrong with angle shims and spherical washers as long as they operate within the design boundaries. You are correcting the bolt contact surface angles, especially if you use them on both side of the component, though I don't think they are necessary on both sides.

Older cars didn't use larger bolts, in fact for the most part they are smaller, because older cars could generate no where near the loads a modern high performance street tire can generate. Mustangs for example used a 12mm or 1/2in wheel stud for decades. Now they are using a 14mm stud. The lower control arm bolts on those cars were dinky compared to what a modern Mustang uses. Older control arms were bolted in with 1/2in bolts max, cuz those old junkers were never designed to last for 10 years. They were meant to last 5 years maybe before they rotted out.

Bolt science is nothing new and novel. Its been used commonly for the last 100+ years. It hasn't changed a whole lot either. We have just gotten better at simulating loads for a better understanding of application. They cut corners on things like paint coverage, blend door actuators, and plastic quality, not the size of the bolts required to resist a 45G impact from a chuck hole..

 

[Dialcaliper]

There is nothing wrong with angle shims and spherical washers as long as they operate within the design boundaries. You are correcting the bolt contact surface angles, especially if you use them on both side of the component, though I don't think they are necessary on both sides.

Older cars didn't use larger bolts, in fact for the most part they are smaller, because older cars could generate no where near the loads a modern high performance street tire can generate. Mustangs for example used a 12mm or 1/2in wheel stud for decades. Now they are using a 14mm stud. The lower control arm bolts on those cars were dinky compared to what a modern Mustang uses. Older control arms were bolted in with 1/2in bolts max, cuz those old junkers were never designed to last for 10 years. They were meant to last 5 years maybe before they rotted out.

Bolt science is nothing new and novel. Its been used commonly for the last 100+ years. It hasn't changed a whole lot either. We have just gotten better at simulating loads for a better understanding of application. They cut corners on things like paint coverage, blend door actuators, and plastic quality, not the size of the bolts required to resist a 45G impact from a chuck hole..

What I meant is that without the washers, it’s borderline. With the wedge or spherical washers you’re much better off.

For the record, I really like the stud and nut approach - sticking thick washers under the stock bolts, plus the shim eating up more thread length never sat well with me.

I’m just amused that it so happens 3 degree washers are ubiquitous and other angles are more specialized - because they are designed to be used on the top and bottom flange of structural I-beams, where the inside of upper and lower flanges are tapered by about that angle. They’re also malleable iron, which helps correct for additional misalignment (basically a crush washer)

 

[esp_martin]

Now some rear camber shims. I bought these from a forum member. Nice quality. One thing I didn't like was the OE bolts would be in bending with the shims installed. I found some leveling washers that could correct for 3deg of angularity on the underside of the bolts.

Of course I couldn't just do bolts like normal person, so I bought some high strength steel studs and nyloc flange nuts for maximum strength.

Had to paint the shims because they were raw steel and I forgot to send them out to the platers when I did the struts.

I will see what these shims give me and if I need more negative camber I can make some new shims up with more angle.

Should have the car up on the setup stands this weekend. Need to re-charge the two rear shocks with nitrogen and install one of them, (other is still on the car). Maybe I can drive it soon. Looking forward to seeing how the new springs feel

hey ummmm, you got any of them details on those sweet sweet leveling washers and stud and nut??? *scratches itchy skin like a crack addict*

i'm waiting on installing those same plates/shims in the spring and never though about the contact angle changing after install. thanks for documenting!