Suspension/Brakes Build... Adjustable, low, raceeeee

[joshuagore]

More Progress...

Ok so ball joints are in, bushings are mostly in, and coilovers are fitted. I then did a test fitment. I am waiting to program a machine and run my bigger brake kit adapter.

[azygoustoyou]

Looks good Josh!
I have a question for you. I got a powder coating gun from Eastwood. I found an oven. Now all I need to do is make sure I have it hooked up right. Are you using anything inline from the compressor to dry or filter the air before it gets to the gun? Are you using a flexible line straight from the comp.? I have a 33 gal comp. and it seems to have a lot of moisture. I don't want to find out I should have done something after I already did it. Thx

[joshuagore]

Looks good Josh!
I have a question for you. I got a powder coating gun from Eastwood. I found an oven. Now all I need to do is make sure I have it hooked up right. Are you using anything inline from the compressor to dry or filter the air before it gets to the gun? Are you using a flexible line straight from the comp.? I have a 33 gal comp. and it seems to have a lot of moisture. I don't want to find out I should have done something after I already did it. Thx

I use a dryer at my regulator, but I have never seen a drop. I am also on shop air with a massive dryer to protect some massively awesome high speed machining centers. Darn those high tolerances tools of metal destruction with there pesky hatred towards condensation.

I run a flexible line from my regulator. I have 125 coming into the regulator, I normally regulate down to 60, then at the gun I have an inline which brings it down to low low numbers such as 10psi.

I feel powder coating at first has a slight learning curve, but only if finish is critical. For wrinkle, or suspension bits I lay it on heavy and often times I pre bake on heavy parts, like the spindles. I also bake parts ahead of time if there is any risk of oils in porous metals this way they off gas ahead of time. ColumbiaCoatings.com has a great forum where I lurk.

Josh
p.s. Don't listen to me to much Im still a noob.

[Daniel]

Hey Josh

Your doing a great job and nice photos as well ! i noticed that the Bilsten Shock was longer then the KYB
is that just me or was it the camera angle ?

I was wondering how you come up with this mod since its for a mustang 2 ?

Looking forward to seeing the finished product good luck !


Daniel

[joshuagore]

Hey Josh

Your doing a great job and nice photos as well ! i noticed that the Bilsten Shock was longer then the KYB
is that just me or was it the camera angle ?

I was wondering how you come up with this mod since its for a mustang 2 ?

Looking forward to seeing the finished product good luck !


Daniel

No your right the Billy is way longer than that KYB, because for some reason when taking the pictures I grabbed the front KYB The rears line up perfectly. Even the body is similar length.

The shock mod was stolen from Halg, although I put the mustang twist on it. That was done mostly because the Mustang kit is $50 more but comes with aluminum bodied adjustable dampening shocks which are rebuildable by me or you or whoever.
Thanks for the compliments.
Josh

[azygoustoyou]

Hey Josh,
How much do you think the whole mod is going to cost? What functions is the mod going to do for you?

[joshuagore]

Hey Josh,
How much do you think the whole mod is going to cost? What functions is the mod going to do for you?

Lets say I wasn't replacing every ball joint, bushing, and steering component. Lets say I was simply removing the lower control arm, modifying the mount to be stronger, and obviously mounting the shocks.

Up front The modification costs $400, out back it costs $230 In the rear I am not using an adjustable coil over rather a spring on the stock perch. An off the shelf rate/length/diameter, which will compliment both my shock, front suspension, and get the ride height I am looking for. My only hope at this point is that I don't have to shorten my panhard rod to get my axle in the middle Worst case I make it adjustable.

If I were to sell the kit including modified control arms and all the little stuff I can't say I would sell it for much less than $1000.

With that in mind my current control arms are based on stock arms, but it seems likely in the future that I will replace those control arms with tube style control arms. Why? Well I don't like the shim adjustment method, and I don't like the stock bushing design. The idea of mounting both the upper and lower control arm on 4 eyelets has a great appeal to me. The uppers of course would be fixed, the lowers would be adjustable. These control arms would also give me some shock adjustment as well. They would likely use the same ball joints at the end connected to the stock knuckle. This is a dream, I am not doing this now, or anytime soon. I want to test the setup, see how it goes, and if I feel daring I yank a side, 3d scan it, model it, bend, weld, etc...

Josh

[engineerted]

Josh, I had some discussions with Jason Miller about custom control arms some time back. http://www.millersmule.com

One thing I would like to do is replace the lower ball joint with an extended length mono ball, thus moving the spindle up and keeping the lower control arm parallel to the ground for those of us that like the lowered car look, or in this case the race car.


Ted

[manoa matt]

Lets talk more about that big brake kit.

I'm trying to develop something similar. I too did not like the cost of the Whoa kit and still having stock rotors. I can get the Wilwood calipers and make the mounting brackets and save about $250 vs buying the kit.

There are some members on Mirafiori.com that are developing a kit that uses the Fiat Uno Turbo discs which are 240mm diameter, 20mm thick vented discs, 46mm tall and have the 4 x 98 bolt spacing. You can find the rotors in drilled and sloted versions, the only problem is there are only a few places to get them, all in England and by the time they are shipped its about $80 per rotor. Their kit also uses Fiat Uno Turbo calipers. The calipers are of the sliding pin design and have the same piston diameter as the stock Fiat calipers and use the same rebuild kit. Here is a link to the kit: http://www.performancefiat.com/catalog/ ... cts_id=253

The Uno Turbo caliper has the same clamping force as the stock Fiat caliper, so the extra stoping power comes from the larger diameter rotor. I can also get some Wilwood 4 piston calipers that will fit the Uno turbo 20mm thick rotor, but I wonder if that would be too much brake effect for the front vs the rear.

After checking some shop drawings I found that those Honda Civic rotors are almost the same dimensions as the Uno Turbo rotors. You can get them in 240mm diameter with 21mm thick discs, or 242mm diameter with 19mm thick discs. The hub hole and the rotor height are pretty close too. The Honda rotors are also a 4 bolt pattern, but I could not confirm that it is a 4 x 100 spacing. I'm guessing I would grind the bolt holes out 1mm. Considering the loose tolerances with the stock Fiat rotors I don't think the modification will be an issue. The best part about the Honda rotors is the local auto parts store have them in stock and they are about $20 each.

I guess if the Honda rotors will work I don't mind the extra money for the Wilwood 4 piston calipers, but wonder if it will be overkill. I like the idea of using a more stock caliper for the maintenance and cost considering the Wilwood pads are $50 a set. I have not looked yet, but I figure there is a wide selection of pads for the Honda calipers, and relatively cheap too.

I'm pretty sure I can get the 240mm rotors and the calipers to fit in a 13 inch rim. This will be for a mildly modified street/daily driver car.

Any thoughts?

[joshuagore]

Lets talk more about that big brake kit.

I'm trying to develop something similar. I too did not like the cost of the Whoa kit and still having stock rotors. I can get the Wilwood calipers and make the mounting brackets and save about $250 vs buying the kit.

There are some members on Mirafiori.com that are developing a kit that uses the Fiat Uno Turbo discs which are 240mm diameter, 20mm thick vented discs, 46mm tall and have the 4 x 98 bolt spacing. You can find the rotors in drilled and sloted versions, the only problem is there are only a few places to get them, all in England and by the time they are shipped its about $80 per rotor. Their kit also uses Fiat Uno Turbo calipers. The calipers are of the sliding pin design and have the same piston diameter as the stock Fiat calipers and use the same rebuild kit. Here is a link to the kit: http://www.performancefiat.com/catalog/ ... cts_id=253

The Uno Turbo caliper has the same clamping force as the stock Fiat caliper, so the extra stoping power comes from the larger diameter rotor. I can also get some Wilwood 4 piston calipers that will fit the Uno turbo 20mm thick rotor, but I wonder if that would be too much brake effect for the front vs the rear.

After checking some shop drawings I found that those Honda Civic rotors are almost the same dimensions as the Uno Turbo rotors. You can get them in 240mm diameter with 21mm thick discs, or 242mm diameter with 19mm thick discs. The hub hole and the rotor height are pretty close too. The Honda rotors are also a 4 bolt pattern, but I could not confirm that it is a 4 x 100 spacing. I'm guessing I would grind the bolt holes out 1mm. Considering the loose tolerances with the stock Fiat rotors I don't think the modification will be an issue. The best part about the Honda rotors is the local auto parts store have them in stock and they are about $20 each.

I guess if the Honda rotors will work I don't mind the extra money for the Wilwood 4 piston calipers, but wonder if it will be overkill. I like the idea of using a more stock caliper for the maintenance and cost considering the Wilwood pads are $50 a set. I have not looked yet, but I figure there is a wide selection of pads for the Honda calipers, and relatively cheap too.

I'm pretty sure I can get the 240mm rotors and the calipers to fit in a 13 inch rim. This will be for a mildly modified street/daily driver car.

Any thoughts?

I dig wilwood calipers, but I can't justify them especially knowing that in reality, diameter, and cooling are going to be more critical in such a lightweight car. The stock calipers for me could lock the tires, especially with crappy tires. That being said the Honda has more clamping force, but may require some sort of bias adjustment. For the bias I am considering a normal bias knob attached to the stock bias adjuster rod.

If I take the risk and buy some liability insurance I would have no problem selling a kit. That being said the only real thing worth selling are adapters, and rotors, as everything else can be bought at autozone, or a honda dealer

Long story short, let me finish this up and get some performance numbers down and maybe there will be interest.
Josh

[joshuagore]

Josh, I had some discussions with Jason Miller about custom control arms some time back. http://www.millersmule.com

One thing I would like to do is replace the lower ball joint with an extended length mono ball, thus moving the spindle up and keeping the lower control arm parallel to the ground for those of us that like the lowered car look, or in this case the race car.


Ted

This is exactly my reason for making control arms. As it is I am going to have to extend the ball joint to reduce bump steer. Mono ball is a great idea.
Josh

Picture Update:







Center needs to be painted black, but instead of having a machined lip I decided a powder coated one would be easier to maintain.

[manoa matt]

I see you machined out the center hole and re-drilled the lug holes. How much machining of the center hole was necessary? The Honda rotor has a center hole of 61mm while the stock Fiat rotor has a center hole of 61.5mm - 62.23mm acording to drawings by Brembo and Jason Miller. I know the stock Fiat rotor center hole is loose when installed on the hub.

Lots of ricers out here and I should be able to pick up some used Honda calipers and rotors pretty cheap.

[joshuagore]

I see you machined out the center hole and re-drilled the lug holes. How much machining of the center hole was necessary? The Honda rotor has a center hole of 61mm while the stock Fiat rotor has a center hole of 61.5mm - 62.23mm acording to drawings by Brembo and Jason Miller. I know the stock Fiat rotor center hole is loose when installed on the hub.

Lots of ricers out here and I should be able to pick up some used Honda calipers and rotors pretty cheap.

I actually didn't machine the center hole, its way to big
I am making a hub center which rides on the hub, locates the disk, spacer, and then finally the wheel. This way my layered bolt setup will have some 'center'. I trust the bolts, and spacer to hold strong, but I don't trust the layers to be aligned.
Josh

[azygoustoyou]

Hey Josh,
I finally got some items to do some powder coating. I got a industrial air filter with regulator. I also purchased the 4 stage air management filter and powder coating gun from Eastwood. I found on Ebay an old pizza oven to do the baking. The inside dimensions are 12"H x 38"w x 29" deep. Now all I have to do is pick up the oven.
One question though. When I hook up the lines from my compressor to the filters and and then to a quick connect, do I want those lines hard or will a flexible line be sufficient? I thought I heard somewhere that the hard lines will give me more pressure than the flexible ones.

[pope]

I want a large cheese and pepperoni with pineapple, and crazy crust before you powder coat.

Brady, Hard lines will give you better pressure over a long line run,in a shop where several people are using the same source to plug into. Your just using it in a garage and I dont see any problem with less than 35 ft.