Ever since the 2001 Daytona 500, when we witnessed the tragic death of legendary Dale Earnhardt, Sr. from a basilar skull fracture, head and neck restraint (HNR) systems have been commonplace in racing. Sure they were around before, but the loss of one of NASCAR’s all-time greats forced many sanctioning bodies to mandate the HANS (Head and Neck Support) device rule.

In the dozen years since that horrific February, we have seen many new safety innovations within motorsports. We’ve seen drivers survive crashes that would have easily killed them, 15 to 20 years ago. Full containment seats are now the norm. Today, the majority of drivers won’t step inside any race car without an HNR device. Many believe driver fatalities are on the decline, as a result. However, a study by the Charlotte Observer might surprise a lot of readers, and race fans.

While driver injuries and fatalities are on the decline within the top three NASCAR series, the Charlotte Observer released a study that took a look at accident related deaths within motorsports during the 10 years prior to Dale Earnhardt’s death, and the 10 years following. What they claim to have found is a surprising increase in deaths after Earnhardt’s death. The study not only measured circle track, but also drag racing. The results showed that 211 drivers died in the 10 years before that tragic day at Daytona. Yet unexpectedly, this number grew to 235 driver deaths in the same time period following.

Many look at Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s death as the awakening of the safety age, but a study by the Charlotte Observer has pointed to the fact that since Sr.’s death there actually has been more driver deaths in motorsports.

So where is the discrepancy with this study? Many have called the death of Earnhardt Sr. – the awakening of the safety age - within motorsports. Drivers across the nation started to realize that if something this tragic could happen to Earnhardt, then it could happen to anyone. With new safety measures in place, the real question is why haven’t we seen a dramatic decrease in motorsports fatalities?

Expanding on the Charlotte Observer’s study, we turned to Jim Downing, President of HANS Performance Products, which were recently acquired by safety leader Simpson Performance Products. Downing shed some light on the increase in fatalities, “This increase in fatalities escapes many people involved in motor racing, because they mistakenly believe all the safety improvements from the major series have trickled down to the sportsman competitors who race on weekends. That is not the case.”

In 2001, NASCAR required the use of HANS devices in all of its touring series. Since that time, they have not had a single death behind the wheel. If you consider some of the accidents we’ve seen over the past 10 years, this is a very impressive feat! However, many short tracks and drag strips still do not require an HNR device in order to drive on their track.

42 MPH Is All It Takes To Kill You

Downing explained that a lot can be learned from studying Dale Earnhardt’s death, “In its detailed two-volume study of Dale Earnhardt’s fatal crash at Daytona, NASCAR consultants determined his car hit the wall at 160 mph and was suddenly slowed by 42 -44 mph in just 80 milliseconds. The 42-44 mph difference from when he first hit the wall and the ensuing sudden deceleration is known as the Delta V.”

Downing then related that 42 mph decline to drivers at the local short track and drag racing levels. “A short track driver can quickly go from 90 mph to 48 mph in a split second if he’s turned into the wall, causing a Delta V of 42 mph and enough to cause a fatal head and neck injury. If a drag racer hits the wall and drops from 120 mph to 78 mph in a split second, that’s enough to cause a fatal head and neck injury; again, a Delta V of 42 mph.”

Based on the information they gathered from Earnhardt’s death, it’s a wonder we didn’t see more deaths in the years prior to the HANS era. The research from Downing proves that it isn’t necessarily the speed you are carrying that you should be concerned with, but rather protecting yourself from the sudden stop.

Notice the difference between a driver using an HNR, and a driver without during a Delta V collision

In December 2012, Downing worked with the Center for Advanced Product Evaluation (CAPE), based out of Indianapolis, to determine how much safer it really is for drivers to wear a head and neck restraint device. Through numerous crash tests they determined that without an HANS device, the head and neck will experience 40-gs of acceleration, resulting in 5800 newtons (N), or derived units of force in neck tension. These test results exceeded the standard for a fatal accident by45%.

When the same tests were conducted after attaching the HANS device to the same crash dummy’s helmet, CAPE found that the neck tension was reduced by over 90%.

When the first HNR device made its way on the race circuit, drivers complained about not having the range of motion, or side views that they had before using them. Since becoming compulsory for many race car drivers in 2001, the early design has undergone many new developments. And, many new manufacturers have developed HNR and HANS devices to correct the movement and visibility problems, while providing drivers with critical life-saving technology. 

The HANS Improvements

The first HANS device was developed and patented by Dr. Robert Hubbard (HANS Performance Products) in the early 1980s, and included a tether system that driver’s felt limited the visibility of their side viewpoints. The device had a left and right side tether that attached the HNR device directly to both sides of the helmet. Drivers, especially in the dirt markets, were quick to complain that they couldn’t turn their head very far right like they were used to. This led a lot of drivers to disregard the HNR, letting them sit idle in their trailers unused. A scary thought when you consider that no dirt track in America has safe barriers. Some tracks still use tractor tires that have been concreted into the ground.

What companies like HANS Performance Products eventually did to solve this problem was use a solid tether, connecting both sides of the helmet to the HNR device with one tether that floats. Now when the driver turns his head to the right, the tether will shorten on the right and lengthen on the left, without compromising his safety.

Since acquiring the HANS line, Simpson Performance Products has debuted three new styles of HANS devices to accommodate even the pickiest of drivers. Simpson introduced a new design that allows the angle of the restraint to be adjusted to one of six different positions, adjusting to the seat angle changes between cars. “The adjustable HANS features five different adjustments in 5-degree increments. This is a range of 10 to 40 degrees to fit all cars and seat designs for the ultimate in driver comfort,” Debbie Bishop of Simpson Performance Products explained to us.

The Hybrid Pro HNR Device available by Simpson offers a low profile design for drivers to get in and out of their rides quickly.

The other big complaint drivers have had about HNR devices is the cost. A typical setup will cost you anywhere between $500 and $900. The folks at Necksgen now offer a certified SFI 38.1 HNR device in three sizes for $599. While Simpson’s HANS line starts at $645, the high-end HNRs are also more affordable now, at $795. 

Simpson also offers drivers a hybrid line of HNR devices. The Hybrid line is an extremely low profile device that is SFI 38.1 certified, as well. Many dirt drivers that have extremely tight spaces to get in and out of their cars prefer this option to the standard HANS device design. Drivers like Scott Bloomquist, and Joey Saldana both utilize the Hybrid.

Conclusion

The fact that there still are fatalities and injuries within racing, speaks to how dangerous our beloved sport still is. The time is long gone to just assume that you, or your driver, are safe within the confines of the cockpit. Drivers aren’t invincible. Don’t let the greats in our sport, who tragically passed away doing what they loved, have done so in vain.

Ultimately, with all the innovations and advancements in the HNR line of products over the past three decades, there is just no good reason not to wear an HNR device, regardless of your race venue. Protect the ones you love, while they enjoy the sport they love.

We first got a glimpse of the new full frame system for 1967, 1968 and 1969 Camaros from Chassisworks at the 2012 Specialty Equipment Market Association. While we only had a brief time to look over this fantastic new item, we knew right from the start that Chassisworks was really on to something great with this product. But then again, what else would you expect from one of the leading chassis companies in the industry?

For those high-horsepower, big-tire, pro-touring Camaro builders, this full frame system offers the ultimate bumper-to-bumper chassis right off the shelf at Chassisworks. This means no more time and stress on your part fabricating your own chassis solution. And because it’s an off-the-shelf product, Chassisworks can get it to your front door a lot quicker than if you were to order a top-tier performance vehicle.

So what does this system actually give you as a pro-touring Camaro owner? Well, first of all, the frame is manufactured to support 1,000hp performance setups. That means this full frame system is perfect even for you elite competitors.

With a double A-arm front suspension system, featuring g-Machine adjustable upper control arms with polymer pivot bushings, g-Machine 1 ¼-inch crossbraced lower control arms with polymer pivot bushings, adjustable rate anti-roll bar, and rack and pinion steering the Chassisworks full frame system touches on every detail of supporting high-performance pro-touring Camaros. These front suspension components are supported further by billet aluminum uprights and an infinitely adjustable bump-steer kit.

A variety of VariShock shock absorbers come as options, from 4-way adjustable remote reservoir shocks and double-adjustable coil-over shocks to coil springs with choice of spring rate double-adjustable air-spring shocks, to complete your front suspension package. Brake system options consist of 14 or 15-inch cross-drilled rotors with black E-coat finish, Wilwood W6A 6-piston radial mount calipers and Baer 6S 6-piston forged-monoblock calipers.  

Out back you have a choice of a canted-4-bar or torque arm with watts link rear frame system. This comes with choice of g-Link lower tubular steel arms, billet aluminum g-Link lower arms, and billet alloy steel g-Link single or double-adjustable upper arms. The same shock options are available for the rear as the front, as well as added single-adjustable coil-over shock and single-adjustable air-spring shock options. Adding to the rearend’s performance features are a ball-end anti-roll bar with billet aluminum arms, billet shock mounts, and an FAB9 rearend housing.

What’s even greater is that this system fits perfectly with beefy P305/30/R18 front and P345/30/R20 rear tires for that amazing stance and pavement gripping power. The rear will also accommodate larger tires as they become available.

Available in full-frame, firewall-back and back-half configurations, this new system for first-generation pro-touring Camaros also comes with optional features like an Exact-Fit Camaro Roll Cage, a factory-welded seat mount assembly, and a prefabricated floor and wheel tub kit. Basically, this new system provides anything you could need for your pro-touring Camaro setup.

What’s even greater is that this system fits perfectly with beefy P305/30/R18 front and P345/30/R20 rear tires for that amazing stance and pavement gripping power. The rear will also accommodate larger tires as they become available.

The full-frame and related firewall-back and back-half systems by Chassisworks for the first-generation Camaro has upped the caliber of pro-touring creations once again. For more information or to order your own pro-touring system, check out Chassisworks’ website here.

In many ways, Project BlownZ is a car of contradictions. We have no intentions of driving our black 4^th Gen Z28 on the street, but yet we plan to use a stock style suspension and small 275 radials to hook up nearly 1,300 ProCharged ponies from our race-bred 388ci LSX at the drag strip. Some folks might think it would be easier to do a full tub job and fab up a triangulated 4-link for our race-centric purposes, but we say where’s the fun in that?

Ultimately, choosing to go the drag radial route with a stock-style suspension means we’ll be on a constant mission for traction. In our last installment we discussed how we plan to set the weight transfer to the rear tires in motion with our front suspension, and this time we’ll focus on the area where most of this time and effort is aimed – the rear of the car. Squeezing every ounce of traction from our 275 M/T’s will be a challenge that calls for some super strong and infinitely adjustable components, and will test all the suspension tuning tricks we know.  

Moser M9 Fabricated Rearend Housing

We’ll start with the foundation for the rear half of BlownZ – the Moser M9 rearend (Part # 9M). The reason we went with the fabricated M9 housing is a simple one: unmatched strength. Regular stamped Ford 9-Inch or Chevy 12-Bolt housings weren’t designed to take a direct blow from well over 1,000 pound feet of torque. So, we needed a rearend that was up to the challenge. Jeff Anderson, from Moser Engineering tells us, “Typically any fabricated housing will offer greater resistance to distortion and flex than a stamped unit because of the geometry that goes into countering the flex of a heavy torque load.”

From the triangulated one-piece center can to the fully welded back braces, the M9 just oozes with toughness.

Moser fabricates the M9 starting with a single piece of 1/8-inch thick mild steel, that is triangulated and laser cut to form the center can. “Instead of welding several parts together and hoping for the best, you have a perfect geometrical design from the very beginning,” says Anderson. “This means that the housing’s strength hasn’t been affected by weld depth or over-heating in the way a multi-part center can could be.” From there, Moser adds a 3/8-inch thick faceplate, 3-inch O.D. seamless tubes made of ¼-inch wall steel, and back-bracing to the M9 for even more rigidity. To say that the M9 is “beefy” would be a huge understatement.

Moser sent us our M9 all welded up and with the necessary suspension brackets already in place.

Moser Nodular Ford 9-Inch Center Section

For the center section, we had Moser build us a nodular iron 9-inch (Part # 3M) with a lightened Pro Steel 40 spline Spool. “Not only is a spool an economical and safer way to lock the axles together, it will also save rotational weight over a more traditional or modified carrier,” says Anderson. “Depending on the carrier and type of rearend you could be looking at dropping nearly 20 or 30 pounds of rotational weight. It’s the strongest and most reliable way to deliver power to the ground effectively.” For gears, we determined that Moser’s Pro/Comp ring and pinion in a 3.50 ratio would be a good match for our TCI Pro-X  Powerglide, our rear tire height, and the characteristics of our 388 LSX.

Our 9-Inch center section consists of a nodular iron case wrapped around Moser's light-weight Pro Steel Spool for 40-spline axles and a set of 3.50 gears. The pinion yoke is a 1350 series held in by Moser's aluminum Daytona Pro/Street pinion support.

Moser 40-Spline Axles

Our axle choice was dominated by two major factors that are inherently linked; safety and strength. We picked a set of Moser’s 40-spline alloy axles (Part # A40CST), which feature a huge diameter of 1.705-inch on the working end, and an oversized bearing seat diameter of 1.774-inch for even more strength. By using these large diameter axles, we’ll be increasing our torque capacity and moving the any potential failure point further along the driveline to the next weakest link.

We weren't messing around when it came to the business end of our M9, so we had Moser use a set of their massive 40-Spline alloy axles.

 As you might have already guessed, these axles don’t use C-Clips. “The C-Clip is a common failure point in production cars,” Says Anderson. “Once it does fail, the axle can and eventually will start exiting the housing.  In fact, the use of non C-Clip axles is mandated by most sanctioning bodies when cars start exceeding certain MPH marks.”

You’ll also notice some very serious wheel studs poking out the flanges of our axles. Those are 5/8-inch chromoly studs, because when we’ve gone this far, why would we take a chance on the only hardware that keeps the wheels bolted to the car?

We've got plans to be trapping well over a buck-fifty in BlownZ, so no puny c-clip axles for us.

Moser Rear Drag Brakes

Unlike a street car which does most of its braking with the front brakes, the rear brakes in a drag car are the real work horses. The brakes slow the motion of the wheels, but the friction from the tires is what actually slows down the car. The front skinnies do wonders for reducing rolling resistance, but they won’t do much if we try to use them to haul down BlownZ from 150-plus miles per hour. So, the brake bias has to be shifted to the rear tires, where the slicks can do the vast majority of scrubbing the top end speed.

Moser's Perfomance Dynamic drag brakes use 4-piston calipers constructed of all t6 billet aluminum. Purty, ain't they?

We elected to use Moser’s new Performance Dynamic Drag Brake Kit (Part # 2600-12500-B) with a set of Hawk Black brake pads. The four piston calipers are made from 6061 T6 billet aluminum for high strength to weight ratio and use stainless pistons. The rotors use a cool new dynamic disc and hat design which uses a keyed hat that holds the rotor on with a snap-ring. “We not only designed them for safe and repeatable braking but also for ease of service for racers,” says Anderson. “A key to this kit is the ease of maintenance if you need to change a pad or rotor. The dynamic mooting literally makes it a simple operation because you don’t have to worry about frozen bolts sticking a rotor and hat together at the track. We also don’t have the warping common to other kits because of our dynamic mounting design.” Check out our full install tech article on the Moser Drag Brakes here for even more info. 

Rather than bolting the rotor to the hat like most drag brake kits, Moser uses unique keyed hat with a snap-ring. No bolts to freeze up means easier servicing.

Moser Torque Arm Suspension and Pan-Hard Bar

Once we had our bomb-proof M9 all sorted out, it was time to focus in on how we’d keep it suspended under BlownZ, and get our smallish 275 drag radials hooked at the same time. We went with Moser’s fully adjustable torque arm for our M9 (Part # 737009) along with their adjustable lower control arms (Part # 737100), and adjustable panhard rod (Part # 737101). Hopefully you can see a common pattern among the Moser F-body rear suspension parts, because adjustability is the name of the game. “We actually developed this kit around a Pro Mod style setup for the radical applications and horsepower tuning combinations being utilized today,” says Anderson. “This setup will give a drag radial car so many options for setting up the suspension that it is literally possible to not only tune for the power, but also for the tire manufacturer and compound types.”  Suspension tuning takes a lot of time to build data for a car, and we’ll be keeping plenty of notes, but it’s nice to have an almost limitless amount of options for tuning and adjustment.   

Of course, all the suspension tuning in the world won’t do us any good if our parts are distorting and flexing off the line. Anderson tells us, “All these components are constructed form 4130 chrome-moly material that is pretty much indestructible and isn’t going to flex. You will damage something else long before the torque capacity of these parts is surpassed.”

Just because all these parts are “stock type” doesn’t mean that we just bolted them in the OEM locations and called it good-enough. Our fabricators took the extra time making sure everything was just right, including really strengthen the panhard mounting box ensuring that we had the optimal geometry to keep the rearend as centered as possible. We also had to clearance the floor pan a decent bit to clear the torque arm under full compression.

The Moser torque arm suspension is configured in essentially the same way as the stock F-body suspension. The torque arm bolts to the rear end housing on one end, and an adjustable crossmember at the other. Besides being made of indestructable chrome-moly, the biggest benefit is the vast amount of adjustability that is built into every component.

While we had the welder out, we installed our double rear sway bar from Wolfe Racecraft (Part # FWOL102). The Wolfe sway bar is made of chrome-moly tubing, and the arms ride on machined aluminum bushings that won’t bind. The Wolfe unit is welded between the stock frame rails, and attaches to the rearend with two adjustable spherical rod-ends on each side.  

Our double rear sway bar from Wolfe Racecraft will allow us to put as much preload as we need on the rear suspension to give a drama-free launch.

Even though it doesn’t look like a stock sway bar, it still serves the exact same purpose: to eliminate body roll. For BlownZ, this will mean straighter, flatter, and more consistent launches. By welding in the Wolfe sway bar and using spherical rod ends, there is absolutely no slop, and a good bit of preload can even be applied with the rod-ends. In fact, the biggest advantage of having two connections on each end to the M9 is that we can use the adjustable rod ends to work against each other and completely eliminate body roll.  

We spent quite a bit of time welding in the Wolfe double sway bar, as well as strengthening the panhard rod box.

Afco “Big Gun” Double Adjustable Shocks and Springs

It’s nearly impossible to over-stress the importance of having the right shock and spring combo in a drag application. This is an area where we’ll also need a great deal of adjustability, so we picked up some of AFCO’s double adjustable shocks (Part # 3870-RBG), with their “Big Gun” valving. Eric Saffell, Drag Racing Product Manager at Afco tells us, “The term ‘Big Gun’ references the valving, which is specifically designed to control high horsepower applications, especially those still using a stock-type suspension.”

The nitty gritty of getting the car hooked is in the shock valving. There are a lot of movements taking place in the rear suspension and rear axle as the car launches, and the shock’s extension and dampening rate have to take all of them into account. If you watch a drag car launch, you see the front end lift up, the back of the car squats, and the car launches. To our eyes this all seems to happen at roughly the same time, but there’s more to it. Saffell tells us “What we’ve observed during data acquisition is that as the rotation occurs, the rear suspension linkage tries to plant the tires down, and lifts up on the chassis. The shock’s first motion is actually extension. We aren’t so much trying to stop that initial extension as we are trying to control it. We want to control he amount of separation and its speed.”

Afco designed their Big Gun shocks for cars just like BlownZ that are making big power and still using a stock based suspension.

As the weight transfer from the front of the car is applied, it’s vital to properly dampen the rear suspension movement.  If we get greedy and apply too much downward force to the tire, we’ll find ourselves victims of physics; every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The tire will bounce back like a basketball snapping back to your hand after you dribble it too hard. Ultimately, we want the tire to take the initial hit, and be able to absorb it through sidewall flex as it grips the track.

We kept the stock configuration of a separate shock and spring rather that using a full coilover, but the adjustable spring top still gives us plenty of ride height adjustment. Because BlownZ will be so much lower than stock, we used a an Afco shock that is also 1-inch shorter so we still have all the shock travel we need without bottoming out.

For the rear springs, we used a set of Afco’s adjustable ride-height springs, since 4th Gen F-Bodies don’t really use a true coilover set up. Ultimately they are there to just hold up BlownZ’s weight. We used a spring with a low rate to keep the rear suspension soft enough to let the shocks and suspension do their job, and be more forgiving on any irregularities or transitions on the track’s surface.

Mickey Thompson Pro-5 Rear Drag Wheels

We’ve worked our way through our entire rearend and rear suspension, now it’s time to put some rubber on the road. For wheels, we picked up a set of 15 x 12 Mickey Thompson Pro-5 drag wheels (Part # 5125547) that are a trick one-piece design constructed out of T6 forged aluminum. In addition to being ultra-tough and light weight, the Pro-5 wheels are 15.1 SFI certified for drag racing. “We went with a one-piece design because we could make it stronger and lighter on a molecular level than a two or three-piece wheel because there are no intersect points, welds, or hardware,” says Carl Robinson, designer at Mickey Thompson behind the Pro-5.

The one-piece forged construction of the Pro-5 wheels means less weight and even more molecular strength.

 A cool feature of the Pro-5 wheels is that they are designed to use both a Double-D lock and wheel screws. The lip on the back of the wheel comes pre-dimpled from M/T in the exact locations for the wheel screws used with M/T tires. Finally, at the receiving end of all that power and torque produced by our ProCharged 388ci LSX, is a set of tried and true Mickey Thompson drag radials.

No need to guess where to drill for your wheel screws. M/T already has dimpled the Pro-5 wheels in the right spots for their tires.

We knew this wasn’t an easy path when we started down it. We knew that physics would be working against us every time we tried to feed 1,300 horsepower through a stock type suspension and some barely wider than stock drag radials. Our mission for traction and high 7-second ETs is going to mean long hours at the drag strip, dialing in and fine tuning the chassis, but we know we’ve got the right parts in the right places to get us exactly where we want to be.

Here you can see all the components welded in and all buttoned up. So far, our M9 and all the rest of the parts in the back end of BlownZ have performed flawlessly no matter how hard we beat on them.

Nailing a launch at the drag strip all starts with getting the right amount of weight transferred from the front of the car to the back at the exact moment when the rear end needs all the help it can get to plant the tires. That weight transfer all begins in the front suspension set up. It’s a vital task that can make all the difference in how well BlownZ will perform at the strip. So, we went to the experts at Spohn, Afco, PA Racing, Strange, and Mickey Thompson, to help us put together a front suspension combo that can keep things nice and straight through our passes, and help us drop plenty of pounds off the front of the car in the process.

Spohn Front K-Member/Control Arms/Pinto Steering Rack

Here's the basis of our front suspension - the Spohn Performance tubular K-member, chromoly control arms, and Pinto manual steering rack with bumpsteer corrected tie-rods.

We needed a solid foundation for BlownZ’s front suspension; a K-member that could help us drop some weight, gain more alignment adjustability, and still be tough enough to handle the forces that serious drag racing will be putting on it. Based on our prior experiences, we knew that Spohn’s tubular K-Member package with their tubular control arms fit the bill perfectly. The Spohn K-Member is made of 0.120 wall DOM mild steel tubing that weighs 25 pounds less than the stock K-member. “Our k-members are not designed as a ‘drag only’ unit.” says Steve Spohn, owner of Spohn Performance. “We build them to also handle the demands of a daily driven car. We gusset our K-member at every intersection, a total of 20 locations, using 1/8-inch and 3/16-inch steel.”

The Spohn K-member was a breeze to install, and uses all the factory mounting points.

In addition to dropping a good chunk of weight from the front end of the car, Spohn designs their Camaro K-member to open up a ton more room in the engine bay. Anyone who has ever worked on one of these cars will appreciate the fact that Spohn engineers these K-members to give you more room for headers, power adders, and piping. Since we are using a motor plate, we elected to go with the ‘no motor mounts’ option, and freed up even more room on the sides of the engine block.

Our control arms from Spohn are constructed of light-weight chromoly, and we opted for a set of their precision ball joints.

Now we can’t just bolt up those ugly, heavy stamped steel stock control arms to our high-tech K-member, so we also got a set of Spohn’s upper and lower control arms. Both the upper and lower arms are made of 1.25” x .095” wall 4130N chromoly tubing to drop even more weight, and add bullet-proof strength we need at the drag strip. The upper arms have a set of Spohn’s Precision ball joints and have a 3-degree negative angle build in to help lowered cars maintain the correct suspension geometry.

The lower control arms are really where the additional adjustability really comes into play. Spohn tells us, “The lower a-arm alignment slots on our k-member are longer both ways than the factory k-member so you have more front end alignment adjustment available. Also, the rod ends or Del-Sphere pivot joints thread in, so you can change the length of the a-arms for track width changes if you need to.”

Here you can see just how much additional adjustment the alignment slot in the Spohn K-member allows.

In a car drag car like BlownZ, every ounce counts, and we knew there were still more pounds to be dropped from the front end by using one of Spohn’s manual Pinto rack and pinion kits. By ditching the stock power steering pump and all that goes along with it and adding the overall lighter manual rack, we were able to cut a huge 40 pounds of sprung mass. However, since we are using a dry sump oiling system, our pump gets right in the way of the rack. Luckily some billet steering rack brackets from Chris Alston Chassisworks solved our problem in no time and gave us the additional room we needed. Finally, we finished off our steering system with Spohn’s bump-steer corrected tie rod ends to keep the front end geometry right where it needs to be even once we’ve lowered the car.

Spohn 4th Gen Camaro K-Member Kit Features and Benefits

• Weighs 25  pounds less than stock K-member
• Direct stock replacement
• Increased alignment adjustability
• Strong enough for both racing and daily driving
• Frees up more room in the engine bay for power adders, headers, and piping

Afco Front Coilover Shocks and Springs

There’s an old racers adage that says “Going up isn’t going out” and since we won’t be using wheelie bars on BlownZ, we have to take that saying to heart. It’s important that the front suspension apply just the right forces at just the right time to minimize the likelihood of a monster wheel-stand, but also have some features built in to help us land safely in the event that one does occur.

In a drag car like BlownZ, the front shocks and springs have a big job to do. It’s up to them to get things moving with the weight transfer process by extending quickly and compressing down slowly. We knew the exact timing of our suspension travel would be anything but a ‘one-size-fits-all’ application, that’s why we went with a set of Afco’s double adjustable coilover shocks, so we could dial them in as we needed.

The Afco Double Adjustable Coilovers will allow us to independently set our compression and rebound according to what's best for track conditions and available traction.

These shocks (PN 3870F-BNC) are a twin tube, shim-stack design with independent settings for the rate of extension as well as rebound and compression. “With the double adjustable shocks we can stiffen up the extension rate and we can control the rate of the wheelie with the dampening curve as well.” says Eric Saffell, Drag Racing Product Specialist with Afco. “We can control both the ‘attitude’ and ‘altitude’ of the wheelie.”

Afco's shocks come with everything we needed to put together our coilovers with the 14-inch chrome springs.

We want to minimize the likelihood of having to ride out and land a big wheelie, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t occasionally happen. If the track conditions are perfect, and those skinny M/T drag radials bite the track just right, we’ve got more than enough power on tap to send BlownZ’s nose reaching for the sky. The problem then becomes landing safely. “BNC Valving was designed to allow the cars to come down soft after a wheelie, so that the front end doesn’t bounce.” says Saffell. “I’ve seen guys crash from this, and the front end geometry can really change. What often happens is the car does a big wheelie, and when it lands the front end will come down so far that the weight is unloaded from the rear end. Then there’s the possibility of a second wheelie once the tires grab again.” Not exactly a good situation to be in, especially considering you can’t steer with the front wheels in the air. “What we like to happen is for the front end to come down, the valving get really aggressive to stop all that mass, and then you can really start feeding in the power and make a clean pass.” Saffell tells us.

Afco's coilovers allowed us to simply bolt in a ton of adjustability in BlownZ's front suspension.

On the spring side of things we are using a 14-inch long chrome coilover spring also from Afco (PN 24275CR), with a rate of just 275-pounds. We went with a longer spring with a lower rate to really help get the front suspension moving. “The main job of the spring in a drag car is just to hold the weight of the car, and it’s the shock’s job is to control weight transfer from a timing perspective.” says Saffell. “But we can also put some stored energy in the front end of a car by choosing a longer spring and a softer shock. You’ve now got a spring with some preload in it and it will explode up when the car is launched, and will help get the weight transfer process get started.”

Afco Twin-Tube Double Adjustable Coilovers and Springs Features and Benefits:

• Independently control the rate of extension and compression, improving weight transfer
• Longer 14-inch springs pre-load the front end
• BNC Valving acts as a safety net for landing wheelies

PA Racing Light-Weight Drop Spindles

To tie our front suspension all together we called up PA Racing for a set of their light weight chromoly drop spindles. We went with these spindles for several reasons, but we’ll start with the big story: weight loss. The PA Racing spindles are significantly lighter than the stock units that our F-body was born with. “They are mainly designed to take weight off of the front end of the car.” said Jason Smith, owner of PA Racing. “That’s one of the biggest problems with the 4th gens is that they are so front heavy. You can save about 60 pounds just by swapping from the stock spindles.”

The biggest advantage to PA Racing's F-body Drop Spindles is that they helped us drop weight off the front of BlownZ.

Next, the built in 2-inch drop allowed us to get the bad-ass drag car stance we were after without having to get our drop from the spring and shock combo. If we lowered the ride height with the shock and spring we would lose upward travel since both the shock and spring would have to be shorter. So, a drop spindle was the right way to achieve a lowered stance and still allow us to take advantage of the longer shock and spring we need for weight transfer. Additionally, the PA Racing spindles have a repositioned steering arm to help further eliminate bumpsteer from the lowered stance.

The built in 2-inch drop of the PA Racing Spindles will give us the stance we are after, while keeping our spring and shock combo nice and long with plenty of travel.

Finally, another huge benefit to PA Racing’s spindles is that they utilize brake kits from 1st Gen Camaros, which ultimately means more cash in our pockets. Smith tells us, “Our spindles are also meant to save you money on brakes since they are set up to use a brake kit from a 1st Gen Camaro instead of 4th Gen brakes. It comes out to be almost $400 cheaper than a 4th Gen brake kit, so that’s money that you can use on something else.”

PA Racing Drop Spindles Benefits and Features:

• All chromoly construction
• Pair weighs 60 pounds less than stock
• 2″ drop gives better stance without lowering springs
• Repositioned steering arm for reduced bumpsteer
• Uses 67-69 drag brakes for lower cost

Strange Engineering Drag Brakes

Strange Engineering's Drag Brake Kit for 67-69 Camaros helped us drop weight, gain stopping power, and save some cash at the same time.

Drag brakes are a different animal from the binders in a street application. In a street car, the vast majority of the braking is done with the front, but in a drag car the skinny front tires limit the amount of braking force you can apply to the front. The last thing you want to happen is to lock up the front tires at a buck-fifty going through the traps. So it’s necessary to shift most of the braking force to the rear tires, so the slicks can slow the car down.

Strange incorporates these slots to give the rotor's metal somewhere to expand to when it gets super-heated after hauling down a drag car from 150+ MPH.

The brake kit we used was Strange Engineering’s 4-Piston Drag specific set up (PN B4110WC) for a 67 to 69 Camaros – perfect to use with the PA Racing spindles. The Strange kit uses one piece 11.25-inch slotted rotors made of forged steel. J.C. Cascio from Strange tells us, “Cast-iron is actually better from a wear standpoint, but the forged steel rotor can take the thermal shock of drag racing – going from cold to very hot, very quickly – much better. Cast iron is also very heavy, but that is where you start to see some of the tradeoffs in longevity versus weight.”  The Strange front brakes weigh just 17.5 pounds per side, helping us drop another nice chunk of weight.

Installing the Strange brake kit involved pulling the chomoly wheel studs into the hubs, packing the bearings, and bolting up the billet caliper brackets.

BlownZ’s Front Suspension
 
Spohn Front K-Member with A-Arms – PN 704-AKit
Spohn Pinto Manual Rack and Pinion – PN MR
Spohn Bump-Steer Kit – PN BS-4-MR
Afco Double Adjustable Coilover Shocks – PN 3870F-BNC
Afco Chrome 14″ Springs – PN 24275CR
PA Racing Drop Spindles – 2″ drop, for ’93-’02 F-bodies
Strange Engineering Front Drag Brakes- PN B4110WC
Mickey Thompson Pro-5 Drag Wheels– 15 x 3.5 Front: PN 5351547, 15 x 12 Rear: PN 5125547

No doubt you also noticed the fancy looking slots in the rotors, but they are designed to do more than just look cool. First, the removed material from the disc means less weight. Second, the slots wipe brake dust from the pads and keep the friction surface fresh. And finally, and most importantly, the slots give the rotors somewhere for the material to expand to when it gets super-heated after hauling BlownZ down at the top-end. “If you think of a cross-drilled rotor with a lot of circular holes drilled in it, you can’t really collapse a circle down.” says Casico. “That’s why you get a lot of heat cracks around the holes, because it is trying to crush those circles down. The slots will actually collapse down and will prevent the rotor from warping for a longer period of time.”

The pads we used are Strange’s soft organic compound, since they provide great bite in situations where they are still cold, like staging, but aren’t so aggressive that they will over power the tires when braking after a pass. “It is not a good idea to run a metallic pad on the front of a drag car because it would be too easy to lock up the skinny front tires.” says Cascio. “The metallic pads are a very aggressive, and we run them on the rear of any car going 150 MPH or faster. However, on a car trapping under 150 we recommend using soft all around.”

The calipers in Strange’s kit are forged aluminum, staggered 4-piston units, teamed up with billet aluminum brackets and hubs for a combination of low weight and high strength. As a testament to their effectiveness, these same Strange 4-piston calipers and rotors are the heart of the drag brake kits are standard equipment on the Cobra Jet and COPO Camaros.

Strange Front Drag Brakes Features and Benefits:

• Forged steel rotors for improved thermal shock resistance and lower weight
• Slots in rotors give material room to expand when heated quickly
• Forged aluminum calipers with staggered 4-pistion design for improved pad wear
• Billet aluminum hubs and brackets for low weight and high strength
• More common kit for 67-69 Camaro means less cost than 4th Gen kit

 Mickey Thompson Pro-5  Wheels and Drag Tires

For rolling stock, we went with a set of Mickey Thompson's trick 1-piece forged Pro-5 drag wheels.

With the rest of our front suspension in place we knew it was time to get things rolling, literally. So, we called up our friends at Mickey Thompson and ordered a set of their new light weight Pro-5 drag wheels. For the front rolling stock we went with 15 x 3.5 Pro-5 front wheels (PN 5351547) and a set of M/T ET Front tires (PN 3006) with a small contact patch to minimize the rolling resistance and keep the weigh down to a minimum. In the rear of the car, where all our planning is directly aimed, we picked up a set of Pro-5 wheels in 15 x 12 (PN 5125547).

To get the “skinny” on our bigs-n-littles we talked with Carl Robinson, the designer at M/T behind the Pro-5. “The Pro-5 drag wheels are a unique forged 1-piece design. We did a 1-piece wheel because it allows us to make it lighter and more robust on a molecular level.” says Robinson. “There are no intersect points, no welds, and no hardware – meaning that we can produce wheels with a much more true lateral and radial runout.”

Up front, the 15 x 3.5 Pro-5 wheels weigh just 7.5 pounds each. The rears feature both Double-D locks for drag radials and pre-drippled dimples for screws if you plan on using slicks.

On the rear wheels, M/T uses an integral, one-piece Double-D Lock for radials, but also has pre-drilled dimples on the back of the wheels if you plan to use wheel screws. Just one benefit of buying your drag wheels from M/T is that they know exactly where to put the screw dimples, since they are the ones who actually make the tires.

The wheels are 15.1 SFI certified, and when we asked Robinson about the weight versus strength dilemma in wheel manufacturing, he laughed and told us, “These wheels are as light as they need to be, and as strong as they have to be.” Sounds good to us.

Final Gear…

Getting all the power from our ProCharged 388ci LSX to the ground effectively at the starting line is a group effort. That effort starts with the front suspension setting everything in motion to get the weight to the rear tires, and getting them planted with just the right amount of force. We’re confident that we’ve put together a serious stock-based front suspension that will help us transfer weight the way we need to, maintain the proper geometry, and even drop more than a few pounds in the process.

Next time, we’ll move to the back of the car and examine the other half of BlownZ’s suspension equation. In the meantime, check out the other BlownZ tech articles here, and stay tuned!

Most race cars are required to have one. Most street cars don’t. Get on your lid and you’ll wish you had one. It both keeps you safe and keeps your car stiff.

We’re of course talking about roll cages, and in this featured tech piece we’re going to take a look at the in’s and out’s of the basic roll cage, from the materials they’re constructed of, to where you can have one installed, what it will cost you, and what NHRA regulations you need to know before you chop up your prized vehicle and start bending and welding.

To really get a good understanding of the business of roll cages, who better to sit down and chat with than some of the veterans in the industry who make their living building race car chassis and chassis components? Below, you’ll hear from the likes of Chris Alston’s Chassisworks, Wild Rides Race Cars, Alston Race Cars, and Ridetech (for the street and muscle car inclined) as they share their knowledge and experiences in this pseudo beginner’s guide to roll cages.

The Basics

At the surface, a roll bar and a roll cage are designed to accomplish one very critical goal — to keep the driver safe should they be involved in an accident;  particularly a crash that involves the shiny side down. But as chassis builders found early on, there’s more function to that puzzle of bars than just safety, which we’ll get into later. As most of our readers know, a roll bar and a roll cage are not the same thing. Same purpose, different execution.

Shown here is a visual difference between your basic 4-point roll cage and an 8-point roll cage from the Chris Alston's Chassisworks catalog. The bars shown in blue are optional.

The basic, 4-point roll bar consists of a main hoop behind the driver, two rear struts, and an optional cross brace on the main hoop should you need it or the rules require it. From there, you can go with a 6-point roll bar that includes a driver and passenger side door bar, while an 8-point setup includes a pair of rear-facing side bars for extra support of the main hoop.

Moving on to roll cages, you first get into the 8-point roll cage, which includes a main hoop, cage sides that route along the A-pillar, a windshield brace across the forward section of the roof, a back brace bar, roll cage gussets, and subframe struts. A 10-point cage includes rear struts and commonly an X-bar through those rear struts for torsional support.

Once you go beyond the basics, you start getting into 12-point and 14-point cages and on into full tube chassis cars with Funny Car cages that fall under the SFI 25.X certifications. Today, however, we’re going to focus on your first roll cage — the basics.

NHRA Regulations You Should Know

Vehicles running 11.00 to 11.49 in the 1/4-mile or 7.00 to 7.35 in the 1/8-mile (including those with T-tops), convertibles running 11.00 to 13.49 (7.00 to 8.25), and dune-buggy-type vehicles running 12.00 and slower are required to have a roll bar installed in the vehicle.

Stepping up the performance ladder, a roll cage is mandatory for any vehicle running 10.99 (6.99) or quicker or exceeding 135 mph. In any full-bodied vehicle however that maintains an unaltered firewall, floor, and body running between 10.00 and 10.99 (6.40 and 6.99) a roll bar is permitted in place of a roll cage.

In these two photos, you can see the comparison between a frame and unibody car. On the left is a unibody car with the NHRA mandated 6 x 6 x .125

Despite the regulations, nothing says you can’t overdo your setup and run a full 12- or 14-point cage on a 12-second car. Fact is, you can never be too safe. “Our philosophy has always been that in the case of a rollover, the roll cage that protects the top of the windshield is much stronger and provides a lot more protection,” explains Jim Wright of Chris Alston’s Chassisworks. “So even though the rules say you don’t have to run it, we really suggest you put at least an 8-point in any car that’s going to be raced.”

If you’re working with a car with an OEM frame, the roll bar/cage must be attached to the frame, while in unibody cars (which make up most late model cars), a 6-inch square steel plate measuring 1/8-inch thick must be welded to the floor as a base for each bar that makes its point of contact inside the car. Bolted-in bars require a pair of 6-inch steel plates — one underneath and one above, with four 3/8-inch bolts through the rocker sill to hold the two plates together.

Digging into materials, all tubing has to measure 1-3/4-inch outer diameter, with mild steel .118-inch thickness and chromoly .083-inch. Swing-out side bars, popular for many cars that will be driven on the street and climbed in and out of, are permitted on cars running 8.50 and slower, with a number of caveats in terms of the clevis, bolts/pins, and more.

The NHRA, in conjunction with the SFI Foundation, has put in place mandates for welding processes that must be used on both mild steel and chromoly. As well, plating and grinding of the welds is expressly prohibited.

All roll bars/cages constructed of 4130 chromoly tubing must be welded using an approve TIG heliarc process, while mild steel must be done with an approved MIG wire feed or TIG heliarc process. Grinding and plating of the welds is prohibited, so keep these points in mind if you’re a do-it-yourselfer.

The 2012 NHRA Rulebook has 12 pages in the General Regulations section that pertain to frame requirements, which is far more than we could ever outline here in detail. If you’re considering building a roll bar/cage yourself, we’d suggest if you’re not already an NHRA member, to either get yourself signed up or pick up a copy of the NHRA Rulebook, which is available for $10 from the NHRA Store online.

Moly Versus Mild

Your choice of material for a roll bar/cage comes down to one of two options: mild steel or chromoly. Each one, when built within the specifications of the NHRA rulebook, offers the same amount of strength and protection. What it really boils down to then is a tradeoff between cost and speed. How fast do you want to go?

The Weight Debate

By nature and pound for pound, chromoly is a stronger material than mild steel, and that allows for chromoly to be a thinner wall tubing (.083″ compared to .113″). This gives chromoly a distinct advantage in terms of weight, but that advantage comes at a cost that customers must weigh (no pun intended) before they build.

“The only reason to use chromoly is if you’re building something that the class requires it or if weight is a real big factor, because it will be lighter,” explains Wright. “Technically they’re the same strength, and chromoly is an upgraded material that will certainly save you some weight, but 99-percent of people buy the mild steel because of the price.”

For comparisons sake, using a 12-point roll cage from Chassisworks as an example, the mild steel version will tip the scales about 50-60 pounds heavier than the chromoly, according to Wright, but is nearly double the price.

As pointed out above in the NHRA regulations, the minimum wall thickness on mild steel is more than that of chromoly to achieve the same result, and that is because, by nature, chromoly offers more strength pound-for-pound, so to speak.

“Some people say ‘well chromoly is stronger’, and it is stronger on its own, if you took equal tubing of the same wall thickness and tested them side-by-side, but they’re allowing you to run a thinner wall thickness with chromoly to save some weight and still equal the same structure, strength-wise,” explains Gene Giroud of Wild Rides Race Cars.

Two Birds With One Stone

The primary means of a roll bar or cage is to protect the driver, but barring such an incident, those bars will serve a daily purpose of stiffening the entire vehicle up and creating less body roll and twist. Each bar added to a roll cage adds another dimension of structural support and rigidity. For example, the X-brace shown here is not only stronger than the straight rear struts, but also provides added torsional strength to the car. The downside, however, is that the X-bar essentially eliminates your back seat.

The benefit of a roll cage is really two-fold. It’s designed to protect you first and foremost, but the every day bonus to the existence of a roll cage is improved stiffness of the vehicle, and that’s a big plus for drag racers planting the tires to the ground.

“On the surface, the primary purpose of a roll cage is crash protection, but in reality, you only use the cage in that context one time,” explains Bret Voelkel of RideTech. “But every time you start the car and drive it, the roll cage offers a lot of structural and torsional strength, and that gets applied every time you use the car.”

“The more points you put in the car, the stiffer the platform of the car is going to be. And if you put an “X” in it for example, that’s going to make it even stronger,” says Mike Ruth of Alston Race Cars. “And the more horsepower and torque you have, and the better ‘bite’ the car gets, the more it’s going to try twisting on the launch, so more bars you add the more rigid the chassis will be.” By maintaining that stiffness within the body and chassis, the shock and suspension tuning adjustments that you make will deliver results you can truly see.

Buying A Cage For The Street Versus The Strip

Something to keep in mind when you’re in the market for a roll cage is the fact that what’s designed to save your life in a dedicated race car isn’t necessarily optimum for a car that spends all or most of its life on the street. Most chassis builder, including those we spoke with in this article, generally build their roll bars/cages to NHRA specifications regardless, but these chassis builder also know there are safety discrepancies between a street and a race car.

What's designed to keep you safe on the track can be your worst enemy on the street. Imagine getting broadsided and striking the cage seen here without a helmet on. For this reason, many chassis builders will shy a customer away from a full roll cage if the primary use of the vehicle is street driving.

Said Giroud, “The roll cage that’s designed to save your life on the track is meant for an environment where you’re using proper safety gear — a helmet, harnesses, and everything else. You don’t want to put a person in unsafe situation by putting too many bars in it, because it presents what I would consider a more unsafe situation than too few bars on a race car. You don’t want to put a bar by the drivers head and then they get broadsided and hit their head on that bar and not have a helmet on. What’s there to save your life at the track can be your worst enemy on the street.” There’s no specific rule of thumb for track versus street split time, but if you’re doing a considerable amount of street driving, a roll bar might be your best, and safest, bet.

This Ain’t The Zoo’s Tiger Cage

Though not currently NHRA legal, RideTech offers a bolt-in, stainless steel roll cage known as the Tiger Cage that's easy to install and form-fits a number of specific and popular early and late model muscle cars. Shown here is the complete Tiger Cage system, with a seat brace bar and door bars.

For the muscle car crowd amongst us or for those looking for affordable and easy-to-install alternatives to the weld-in roll cage, the folks at RideTech offer their Tiger Cage stainless steel roll cage system. These bolt-in cages are pre-engineered and designed for specific makes and models, with patented clamp collar components that tie the cage to the structure of the car for safety and rigidity. And the best part is, you can install these at home in 4-6 hours using just three simple tools found in any basic toolbox. “The Tiger Cage is basically a modular, bolt-in, stainless roll cage system for muscle cars,” says Voelkel.

Here, you can see the clamping system used to hold the Tiger Cage together. Although geared toward the muscle car and street crowd, this kit is in fact NHRA-legal for cars running 10.99 and slower.

“We used stainless for a number of reasons,” continued Voelkel. “Beyond the aesthetic benefits of it, you don’t have to paint it or worry about scratching the paint. The stainless that we used actually has a higher tensile strength than mild steel and approaches that of chromoly.”

The Tiger Cage is sold in modules, beginning with a base 4-point roll bar containing a main hoop and  two rear struts that will allow you to retain the back seat. Additions that include a door bar that are situated down low on the door can also be added for more structural support. Tiger Cage’s are currently available for 2005 and later Mustangs, ’67-69, ’70-73, and ’74-81 Camaros, as well as ’64-67 and ’68-72 GM A-Bodies and ’68-74 Novas.

How Do You Find A Good, Quality Chassis Shop?

The world wide web and magazines are your friend. Publications like National Dragster feature extensive ads for chassis builders and chassis manufacturers, and the use of web search engines like Google and Bing will turn up plenty of builders in your area.

But chances are you don’t buy many things without trying them out first, or at the very least, finding out everything you can about the product beforehand. And the same applies to a roll bar/cage. So, if you really want to find a good, quality chassis man in your area, the best thing you can do is to visit the local track, take a look at some of the cars, and ask questions.

Here, you can see a number of different roll cages installed in a variety of cars out of the Alston Race Cars shop. In addition to complete in-house chassis service, Alston also sells complete roll cage kits that are ready to notch and weld.

“Without a doubt, going to the track and talking to people and asking who did their chassis or cage is the best way to go about it,” says Giroud. “If you see something you like, you can ask who did it, and how their experience was. Word of mouth is the best way.” After you’ve talked to the racers and asked the questions you’d like to ask, a visit to the chassis shop will often give you tell-tale signs of the service you’ll get.

“I always tell customers to come to our shop, and then visit some others, and make a mental note of the cars that are in their shops, and then go back three weeks later and see how much work has been done to those cars. If they’re covered in dust and in the same condition as the last time, chances are your car is going to sit a while,” says Ruth.

Manufacturers like Chassisworks, which make and sell components but don’t construct/install them, do have networks of chassis shops that use their products around the country, and in the example of Chassisworks, Wright relayed to us that they can generally find a customer a shop within 100 miles of their location. But again, the rule applies that asking questions at the track is always best case. With decreased racing budgets and an influx of tools commonly used by chassis shops more readily available these days, many racers today are taking on the project themselves in their own garages in increasing numbers.

With easy and affordable access to tools used by chassis builders these days, more and more people are going the DIY route for installation of their roll cages. Alston Race Cars' Mike Ruth cited a $49 tubing notcher available at Harbor Freight as a prime example of a tool plenty capable of doing the job at home.

According to Ruth, the DIY route has become more popular for entry-level customers looking for a roll bar/cage. “Our pre-bent roll cages come with great instructions, and it’s really not that difficult to install a roll cage,” says Ruth. “The average guy that’s out there hot rodding has used carpenter tools and knows what a level and all that is. You can buy a very inexpensive tubing notcher that hooks to a drill press and after a few cuts, you could make a cut as good as anybody.”

What Should You Pay?

The cost to have a roll bar/cage varies widely from region to region, and a lot depends on which shop you have it done at. A one-man band that does chassis work in his sop on the side may be much cheaper than a full-time shop with dedicated welders and fabricators, with overhead costs and insurance. But don’t be fooled by presentation, as there are countless part-time chassis guys out there that do exceptional craftsmanship.

As Wild Rides Race Cars' Gene Giroud stated, I always tell people to keep in mind they're not buying tires here, so don't go price shopping." The craftsmanship and level of service you'll recieve will always play a pivotal role in how much you'll pay for a roll cage, and as always, keep in mind that you do in fact get what you pay for. Seen here is a roll bar with a swing-out drivers door bar in a '55 Chevy out of the Alston Race Cars shop.

Like anything else, you get what you pay for in a roll bar/cage. Go to the track, check out the quality of the work you see, and compare prices amongst those shops. The ones that charge more may not always deliver the better product, and vice versa, the cheap shops aren’t necessarily rolling shoddy jobs out, either.

“I always tell people to keep in mind they’re not buying tires here, so don’t go price shopping,” says Giroud. “You don’t get the same product from everyone.”

Whether you’re on the hunt for a quality chassis shop to install your roll cage or you’re diving into the project yourself, the best thing you can do for yourself is take the time to do your homework. Consider how you’ll use the vehicle, both now and several years down the road. Weigh the cost versus weight debate, and decide what meets your needs. Again, the primary goal here should be keeping you safe regardless of your driving habits, and remember, you can never be too safe.

Living in the internet age, hot-rodders have no shortage of aftermarket suppliers to turn to when they need something for their latest projects. With a huge array of companies in the area, it can be difficult in choosing the correct part for your application. If you’re not up on all of the facts about the specific part you’re looking for, you could find yourself bolting on a component not intended for your goals.

Wild Rides Race Cars

Enter Wild Rides Race Cars (WRRC). Being directly involved with producing some of the best chassis components for most popular vehicles since 1993, Gene Giroud founded the company in the late ’80s in Corrado, New Jersey. Since then, Giroud relocated to a new facility in Farmingdale, New Jersey in 1993.

He’s made a name for himself. Giroud’s fast-growing operation builds the highly recognized S-Box systems for Fox body and SN95 Mustang owners, among many numerous other offerings for the Blue Oval crowd. Giroud has recently expanded his operation into the GM A- and G-body departments, and is in the process of developing products for the F-body foray.

For those of you who follow along with our sister publication, Stang TV, here's the S-Box kit as installed into our "Project 666" Fox Body

Wild Rides Race Cars owner, Gene Giroud, discusses how to obtain increased traction through the use of its various products for GM A- & G-bodies.

We can’t say we blame him – with those vehicles being of particular interest to a majority of gearheads from all walks of life, from drag racers to autocross aficionados, you would be foolish to think there wasn’t a market for those vehicles.

However, before we do, it should be pointed out that Giroud generally does not use part numbers, but relies solely on website orders, emails, or phone calls to fulfill his customer’s needs. It’s how he has operated since day one.

Some parts in his inventory do carry unique SKU numbers, and we’ve included those where applicable. Also, Giroud openly admits to building one-off parts for customers frequently, so if there’s anything out of the ordinary a customer needs, he can usually make it for them as well.

Not one to discriminate, Giroud & Co. have no quarrels getting their hands dirty on anything from funny cars to imports.

WRRC 8-Point Rollbar

When it comes to building a quarter-mile drag machine, it’s not that different from anything else. Just like a house, starting with a solid foundation is where it’s at when putting together a strong race car and that begins with a roll bar. Lucky for GM fans, WRRC offers several for the aforementioned classics, available in either mild steel or 4130 chromemoly steel.

If you aren’t aware, the difference between mild steel and chromemoly is in the strength, weight, and ease of welding. Chromemoly is lighter and stronger than mild steel, however, more expensive and difficult to weld together. There’s definitely a tradeoff between the two, and it all comes down for what’s best for you and your application.

The WRRC high-strength roll bars are pre-fitted to clear arm rests and the rear seats (for those of you who are actually concerned with bringing passengers along), and arrive at your door ready to assemble and install into your car. To ensure this, Giroud notches the tubing with an end mill for a perfect weld joint, so there’s no cutting or grinding necessary. Let’s be honest, less down time in the shop means more fun on the dragstrip.

WRRC roll bars are available in six and eight-point varieties, along with offering the customer an option of having a swing-out bar. These meet all NHRA safety regulations, of course, up to a 10:00 ET. These cages are available for not only the GM intermediates, but for the ’67-69 F-bodies too (SKU16160).

It’s also worth mentioning that in the event that a customer needs additional sheet metal to patch up any holes that may have emerged while installing a cage or the roll bar, Giroud is happy to comply in that department as well with either of the available grades of steel.

The exact fit, pre-fitted 8-point rollbar as installed in a G-body. This one has the optional swing-out bar.

WRRC A- & G-Box

Once you’ve gotten your in-car safety and body rigidity under control, you can focus on other aspects of building the perfect street/strip ride, and that’s in the chassis and suspension. The most common problem you hear from a drag racer, or any kind of racer really, is traction. It’s a beautiful thing if your car can produce massive amounts of horsepower, but what good is it if you can’t put all of that power to the ground?

Giroud initially designed the S-Box kits for the Fox body Mustang boys nearly ten years ago, and little did he know how hugely popular they would become. Now these kits are found underneath some of the fastest Mustangs.

A & G-Box kit for GM intermediates.

Recently, Giroud has created the new A-Box and G-Box systems (SKU16222 ) for you guessed it, the ’64-88 A- and G-body GM vehicles, and we have to say that we’re impressed with the quality of the craftsmanship.

While both of these kits are designed to let those who run a stock suspension/small tire car to have a huge amount of instant center adjustability, it’s also a great way to repair a car with broken stock upper mounts.

The ability to adjust your center on the quick is perfect for those of you guys who like to tweak their setup in between runs at the track. This way you can tune it to your launch technique, and the track’s conditions. These kits can be used with the stock springs and shocks, or an aftermarket coilover kit as well.

The G-Box kit after installation.

What’s more, WRRC offers a coilover shock mounting kit with billet aluminum bushings for your rearend horns as an available option for this kit for those of you who yearn for perfect traction. Best part is, A- & G-Box systems have no horsepower limitations; allowing owners the luxury of multiple instant center changes.

This means better hook for owners who desperately need it, and it will give you multiple levels of adjustment, so you can increase hit or create squat just like you could as if it were a 4-link system.

Additionally, the center hole in the mounting plate is in the exact location of the body hole for owners who race in “stock” classes, in the process they’ve managed to improve on the factory geometry by moving the stock mounting bolt locations forward. This reduces pinion angle change during rearend travel.

The A- & G-Box mounting plate features multiples levels of adjustability for the racer looking to fine-tune his/her suspension. Also take note the mounting locations, and the reinforced, welded-in mounting brackets.

WRRC Upper and Lower Control Arms

To guarantee better traction and handling, Giroud recommends using his severe duty custom length double adjustable upper and lower control arms, lower adjustable mounts, and anti-roll bar to perfectly complement the A- & G-Box sets.

WRRC's heavy duty adjustable upper control arms pictured with the CNC billet bushings.

That’s right, not only does WRRC offer roll cages and the A- & G-Box sets, but they carry a whole host of other products for GM vehicles. Starting from the top, the severe duty custom length double adjustable upper control arms (SKU16178) and lower control arms (SKU16171, SKU16217) are constructed from a custom box welded design for strength. The uppers are built to handle anything you throw at it, while the lower control arms are designed to do just the same, consisting of a 1 ¾ x 0.120-inch wall of chromemoly tubing.

Double adjustability offers the ability to adjust the pinion angle and preload without removing the arm from the car, which is obviously a nice feature. Furthermore, Giroud recommends the installation of the A/G lower control arms for additional adjustability.

The WRRC lower control arms.

WRRC Moly A- & G-Bar

He’s just as confident when it comes to his antiroll bar as well. Dubbed the “Moly A- & G-Bar” (SKU16176) appropriately enough, WRRC now offers these to his growing A- & G-Body clientele who demand less body roll during hard-launching off the line.

The WRRC Anti-Roll Bar for the A- & G-bodies.

Constructed out of the same 4130 chromemoly as the roll bars, these anti-roll bars not only eliminate body roll, but help keep tire shake at a minimum as well. Not only that but it improves down-track stability and traction, which some of the single-digit guys can really appreciate.

This is a weld-in unit and usually installs in about an hour, and according to WRRC, it also strengthens the upper control arm mounting frame cross member and with it being mounted in front of the rearend, it never interferes with the factory fuel tank.

WRRC CNC Billet Control Arm Bushings

Like the saying goes, the devil is in the details, and WRRC’s aforementioned CNC billet aluminum upper control arm bushings is a classic case in point. Not only are they solid-looking units, but they come complete with Moly steel sleeves to prevent binding.

Giroud is adamant that installing these into your GM 10- or 12-bolt upper ear housings is an easy task, and they are CNC machined with a starter step to improve the ease of installation. Guaranteed to help eliminate wheel hop and improve traction, they’re a must have for any serious performance enthusiast, and come with easy to follow instructions for installation as well.

The WRRC CNC billet bushings for the GM 10- & 12-bolt rear axles.

Are these parts right for you?

So by now you may be asking yourself, “Ok, do I actually need any of these parts, and if not, at what point will I?” Giroud claims that these components aren’t for everybody. If you’re still rocking the stock 305CI. small-block in your Monte Carlo, you probably couldn’t really benefit from any of them. But if you’re currently in the 12-second zone or faster, then you should probably look into what WRRC offers.

So if your GM A- or G-body is in dire need of some suspension attention, do yourself a favor and look into the hardware that WRRC has to offer. While their components may not be inexpensive, you can’t really put a price on incredible traction at the dragstrip where every hundredth of a second matters!

Everyone that races on an oval track and many that race on drag strips, road courses and even in the desert, have purpose built race cars that are not street legal. Getting these cars to the track is the same now as it has always been. You load ‘er up on the trailer and haul it to the track.

Think of all the money and time you spend on your purpose built race car. The last thing you want to have happen is to miss an event because of an accident or show up late because your tow vehicle’s inability to carry that weight properly. We’ve heard of cars coming off the trailers and a couple of cases where the trailer started fish-tailing till it turned over.

A tow vehicle that sags in the rear has a direct effect on the front suspension and handling. Leveling the load improves driveability and safety, especially with the tongue weight of a trailer on your hitch.

Thankfully, we haven’t seen it happen, but we have witnessed tow vehicles so weighted down that the headlights pointed up to the sky as if searching for incoming aircraft.

We decided to check in with Hellwig Products, specialists in load and sway control, about safety benefits and better towing performance by controlling the load and sway with your tow vehicle.

Load Control

Hellwig Products suspension engineer, David Wheeler, explained the issues relating to towing by saying, “it’s true. If you hook up your trailer and the headlights point up in the air, the front end of your tow vehicle is very light and the alignment is off. This throws everything out of whack. Your caster, camber and toe adjustments are off so much that you can’t be sure what the vehicle is going to do.”

According to Wheeler, “the biggest thing you need to worry about is getting the load level. The tow vehicle will improve it’s ride comfort and more importantly, the vehicle will be predictable and stable. It’s a safety issue. Our primary goal with load control and sway control products for tow vehicles is to help racers get to the track, where they can have some fun, and then help make sure they can return home safely.”

Using Your Family SUV as a Tow Vehicle

Many grassroots racers have attempted to use their family daily driver as a tow vehicle on Saturday nights, only to discover that the factory suspension was not built for handling a three-thousand pound car on a thousand pound trailer. It’s not uncommon to see a racer attempt to use the family’s Tahoe or Avalanche as a tow vehicle.

Most of the time, the rear suspensions on these type SUVs are compressed to the point where the chassis is riding on the bump stop. While it may seem obvious, Wheeler repeated the basic rule in towing, “The tow vehicle’s suspension must be strong enough to support the trailer’s weight. When the trailer’s tongue weight lowers the rear end of the tow vehicle and lifts the front end, you’re gonna have problems. The vehicle will not handle well and many of the suspension and steering components will wear out at a quicker rate.”

Hellwig's Power Lift system makes it practical to use the family SUV as a tow vehicle without the hassle of wearing out suspension and steering components. Plus... it's cheaper than paying the registration and license fees on a new tow vehicle.

We asked Wheeler about using the family SUV to haul a racecar to the track. “That’s a tough proposition for a factory chassis with rear coil springs. You don’t have many choices, but we engineered a Power Lift kit specifically for this situation. When you’re options are limited to buying a new tow vehicle or stop hauling to the track, our Power Lift air spring kit costs less than the registration and license on a new tow vehicle, and it gets the job done.”

The Power Lift kit comes with everything you need to upgrade your suspension in about 8 hours of work. It's self adjusting and will automatically adapt to varying loads.

Upgrading to an air suspension that is adjustable for loaded and unloaded conditions while providing stability, control and the ability to level the load automatically, spreading the tongue weight across the vehicle’s axles, seems like a very smart investment to us. You can find out more about Hellwig Products Power Lift kit for truck and SUV chassis with coil springs by clicking here.

We noticed a huge difference between the smaller factory sway bar for Ford Super Duty pickups and the Hellwig "Big Wig" sway bar for the Super Duty Fords at this year's PRI Trade show in Orlando.

Grassroots Racers

Weekly Saturday night racers tend to operate more with a limited budget than any other type of racing. Knowing this, we asked Wheeler where a tight budget racer could make a difference in his tow rig. “A sway bar change will make a big difference in the way your tow vehicle handles and greatly improve the safety aspect. At a bare minimum, changing the vehicle’s sway bar is recommended,” he stated.

The diameter, wall thickness and material type are noticeably different between the factory Ford sway bar and Hellwig's Big Wig sway bar.

There are a lot of positive rationale for upgrading the sway bar on any vehicle that will be carrying a load or towing. “Changing the sway bar is a very easy task and once it’s installed, there’s virtually no maintenance. You set it and forget it, but the improvement in ride comfort and control is greatly enhanced,” said Wheeler adding, “even if you are installing an air bag kit, a sway bar is a great compliment to the system.”

Sway bars can help control the body roll of tow vehicles as pictured above.

Wheeler also pointed out that Hellwig Products offer a complete line of sway bars for lifted trucks. “There’s nothing to modify. They are a bolt on component that is designed to work with trucks that have been lifted and still offer the same quality sway control and ride confidence.”

Adjustability is another consideration that Hellwig takes into account. Adjustable end links and a three position forged mount at the end of the Hellwig sway bars allows for fine tuning the body roll movement.

It’s important to remember that sway control and load control work together. If you’ve added a sway bar upgrade to your tow vehicle, check how the load is affecting your suspension. Even on a budget you can level the load with helper springs. Wheeler dismissed any question of helper spring effectiveness by saying, “adding a helper spring can dramatically assist controlling the load because they tend to be mounted more outboard than other types of load control. By design, these helper springs spread the load out to the axles evenly and have the advantage of adjustability.”

How a Sway Bar Is Hot Formed

Sway Bars. “I Love This Bar!”

If there was ever an appropriate segue with intro music, Toby Keith’s “I love this bar,” is the perfect chorus for a sway bar segment. When Wheeler explained that the minimum upgrade every racer should consider was upgrading their tow vehicle’s sway bar, we felt that it was important to understand the function of this component and what to look for in an upgrade.

“Essentially, a sway bar is a torsion bar,” explains Wheeler. “It doesn’t come into play until a vehicle tries to take a corner.” Take some time to think about how many corners, bends in the road, lane changes or even gusts of wind against the trailer take place from the start of your haul till you get to the track. “When the body tries to roll, the sway bar pushes back against the body which keeps the body flatter and improves the handling performance,” added Wheeler.

The adjustable end links on Hellwig's Big Wig sway bar for Ford Super Duty trucks adjusts from 8-11 inches.

Melanie Hellwig White, Marketing Director at Hellwig Products is extremely proud of the Hellwig sway bars, and she has a right to be. As the fourth generation Hellwig family member to become involved in the family owned business, Melanie grew up learning all there is to know about sway control. “Our sway bars are heat treated, 4140 chromoly steel which is 50% stronger in fatigue strength than non-heat treated sway bars,” she proudly states.

Both Wheeler and White reminded us that Hellwig’s sway bars are 100% American made in their ISO9001 Certified facility in Visalia, California. “We offer solid, tubular, and heat treated sway bars to match any suspension requirement,” said White. Wheeler added, “depending on what your requirements are for the vehicle… what you want to get out of it, we can match up a sway bar to help you get there.”

Hellwig forge forms the sway bar ends and adds adjustment holes for suspension tuning. Compare the Hellwig sway bar mount end to the factory sway bar mount end behind it. The Big Wig sway bar is a beefier, adjustable component that you just don't get with factory components.

The bottom line on sway bars is performance. The right sway bar on your tow vehicle will improve the drivability and traction, help with better cornering and less body roll. When you have your pride and joy racecar and trailer in tow behind you, better performance from your tow vehicle can be the difference in getting to the track or not.

Scratching the Surface

Hellwig Products has been developing Load and sway control products for everything from golf carts to Class 8 trucks, like Kenworth and Peterbuilt tractor-trailers, and they’ve got over sixty years of experience and research behind them. We’ve barely begun to scratch the surface on understanding the dynamics behind setting the suspension on your tow vehicle but one thing is abundantly clear in the basics: all the horsepower in the world isn’t going to make towing your race car more stable or safer. Getting the available power to the ground equally, with all corners of the tow vehicle working together, will make a dramatic difference in getting to your next race.

We started by saying “think about all the money in time that you have invested in your race car,” and we are going to end by punctuating that point. Is that new cold air intake going to help your tow vehicle get your race car to the track or will that new sway bar? In our book, our race cars are not worth the risk. A safer and more stable haul wins out over the handful of potential horsepower.

With wheels up, our shocks were extending to the bump stops, thus we needed a travel limiter kit from Team Z.

427 cubic inches of small-block Ford power rests between the framerails of this car, our Project 666 machine that we’ve been building up over the last three years.  We performed a mad thrash in an attempt to squeeze the car into the 9’s at the end of the season, with a 9.94 at 134 MPH, the result of the hard work we put in with this awesome Team Z Motorsports-equipped rocket.  The mad thrash taught us a few things, however, as you can see from this launch photo from our test sessions.

With those lessons in mind, we went right back to our friend Dave Zimmerman and his group of craftsmen at Team Z Motorsports in Taylor, Michigan.  Zimmerman and his team have built some of the most awesome cars on the heads-up circuit today, and his suspension parts are installed underneath numerous additional NMRA and Outlaw champion vehicles.  Read on to see what he suggested for our project!

Travel Limiter Kit

“When you reach a certain level of performance, you need to start worrying about locking the front end of the car down,” explained Zimmerman. ” What happens is that when the power is applied to the rear suspension, the rotation of the pinion and driveshaft attempt to pick the nose of the car up rather than having the car move forward in one smooth, fluid motion. By installing a set of our front-end limiters, you gain the ability to tune the front half of the suspension just like you can with the rear.”

Zimmerman continued, “When you adjust the rebound on the front struts, you can slow down the rate of rise on the nose, and then when the car reaches the predetermined height of the limiter system, the rest of the car acts as if the nose is dead weight, rather than the sprung weight it has when the front end is not tied down.  This makes it more difficult for the car to lift the front end on launch past that predetermined point [which you need to figure out by testing], and will instead help to move the car forward and lower ET’s, along with making chassis tuning more repeatable.”

On the chassis side of the equation, the frame needs to be cleaned off in order to accept the new Team Z Motorsports limiter tabs. The tabs get tacked into place until their final position is decided upon, then the final welds are laid.

Since we already have a set of Team Z’s front A-arms installed, we were already provided with a great place to mount the arm-side of the limiter brackets. We used the hole that Team Z welds to the arm for the front sway-bar mount, installed their 90-degree bracket, and were in business. The pins are then used at the top-side of the chassis bracket to provide a quick and easy way to adjust front end travel. Now we’re ready to get back out to the track and convert that upward motion into forward motion and decrease our ET’s!

Weld In Radiator Support

While we were adding the front-end limiters to the car, we also decided to take out some weight in the nose of the car and replace our lower radiator support in the process.  It just so happens that Team Z Motorsports offers a nifty weld-in tubular replacement support that comes with optional brackets to capture your stock-style radiator.  The replacement requires that you cut out the old unit using a cut-off wheel or plasma cutter in order to position the new one in the correct support.

This process was very straightforward – we just followed Team Z’s instructions and had the new one fully-welded in and the radiator replaced in a short period of time.  We removed two pounds and ten ounces of weight while cleaning up the underside of our project in the process.

Weld In Fox Body Radiator Support PN# TZM-FOX-RS

• Lightweight tubular construction
• Replaces rusted or damaged lower radiator support
• Can be ordered without radiator tabs
• Weld in design

While our old radiator support wasn’t really damaged in any way, we took this opportunity underneath the car to install one of Team Z’s tubular lower mounts. Our mount came pre-installed with new radiator mounts to accept our Flex-A-Lite fan/radiator combo. Once we finished up with the welding of the radiator support, we re-mounted our radiator and existing parts back into the car. A flawless installation of a quality part – and we were able to lose 2 pounds, 10 ounces of nose weight!

Following the Team Z instructions, we removed the old radiator and set to the task of removing the factory sheet metal. We used our plasma-cutter to make quick work of the old tin, then cleaned up the area and prepared it to receive the new lower radiator support. The old support weighed in at 5 pounds, 14 ounces. Once the old sheetmetal was tossed in the garbage, we set about the task of installing the new piece. It was a straightforward process – we just held it up against the spot where we removed the old one, squared everything up, and tacked it in before final fitment. The new support even came with brackets to re-attach the nose cone of the car.

Mustang Aluminum Race Wing

Mustang Aluminum Race Wing – PN# TZM_WING

• Laser cut from 6061 aluminum
• Application specific wings for Fox, SN95, and New Edge
• Chrome-moly adjustable struts with billet stands
• All stainless steel hardware
• Powder coating optional

We performed the installation of the wing and in the process snapped plenty of photos to show you the install. As with any other aftermarket component that needs to be fit prior to assembly, we suggest that you measure three times before drilling once, because if all of the wing hinges are not in the correct alignment, the wing will not sit properly on the car.

The leading edge of the wing where it rests against the decklid should be even with the trunk surface in order to minimize airflow disruption as the air passes towards the back of the car.  In addition, when you install the struts, make sure to drill enough holes in the support so that you can adjust the wicker (back) side of the wing up or down to add or subtract downforce as necessary.

Team Z Motorsports offers this unique wing design for the Mustang from model year 1979 to 2004. It features a curved wicker area that juts out to the top of the parachute to help airflow inflate the canopy. All hardware is included, and they can even powdercoat the wing to your specifications if you’re looking for a particular color or finish!

As we discussed before, measure three times, drill once! The hinges mount to the decklid on our coupe model, and some clearancing is necessary on the underside of the lid for the hinges to mount flush. The same process takes place on the bottom-side wing mounts. Mock up the wing on the top side with the hinges, measure for your strut mounts, mark the positions, and start drilling. All of the hardware is also supplied for this product, and it’s just a matter of making it all bolt together in the end.

The process of installing the wing can be tedious, and it’s very helpful to have a second set of hands for this portion of the install. Once all of the mounting pad holes are drilled, mount the wing landing pad and then move on to the strut installation process. One thing we found helpful when installing the wing was to bolster the underside of the bumper cover with some wide, flat fender washers. This will help to prevent the bolts from tearing through the urethane bumper cover when under pressure.

Better Front End Control, More Downforce, and Less Weight!

All of Team Z’s parts are made from the best materials and designed to work perfectly for our Project: 666 Fox body Mustang. The installation of all the parts took us one full day, and it will pay off in the end with the additional adjustability we have to tune with. The front end limiter will help with our wheels-up launches while the rear spoiler will make the Mustang more stable throughout the run. 

We ordered some extra tubing as well as some gussets. More on that later.

Project MaxStreet, our blown, big-block ’66 Chevy II, is full of cool stuff—850 ProCharged rear-wheel horsepower, Detroit Speed rear suspension, Chassisworks front clip—all  good parts that ensure this rig will be a fun ride down the quarter-mile. That ride could, however, be our last if not for some necessary safety gear, namely a 10-point roll cage. Without the cage, MaxStreet won’t even make it to the staging lanes. You never plan to crash, but you should always build the car around the idea that you might. Never scrimp when it comes to protecting yourself.

With the Nova sitting in the middle of the PowerTV shop, we ordered up a 10-point roll cage kit from Chris Alston’s Chassisworks and got to work. Because this is a street car, we made some alterations to the door bars to make them clear the arm rests, yet remain permanent (not swing-out) and therefore  stronger. Often, when installing a cage kit, some minor modifications may need to be done to suit personal tastes, and our taste dictates that our left arm is not flopping around between the door and the seat while we cruise the car on the street.

Chassisworks PN 7011 Roll Cage

• 1-5/8ths x .134″ mild steel tubing
• Kits designed specifically for popular chassis configurations for proper fitment
• Fits with stock interior installed
• Bent rear struts (further modified in house) to clear rear seat
• Front down bars converted into 4-link support bars
• Good up to 8.50 second ETs

It is always better to have a full roll cage in the case of a crash. A full roll cage is pretty hardcore for a street car, requiring some yoga moves to get in and out of the car, so why did we install it in our dual-purpose, street-strip Nova? The answer is simple: the NHRA rulebook says so. Specifically, the rules say that any vehicle running between 11.49 and 11.00 in the ¼-mile (and convertibles as slow as 13.49) must have a roll bar (minimum 5 points of attachment). Running 10.99 or faster, or any car exceeding 135 mph, must have a roll cage.

Full-bodied cars get a pass on the cage from 10.99-10.00, as long as the firewall is unaltered, meaning they can be accepted with just a bar. For convertibles running 10.99 or faster (or exceeding 135 mph), the full cage is mandatory. Getting into the sub-9.99 range requires a 3-year chassis certification with a serialized sticker on the cage. All cars running 9.99 or faster must also have SFI Spec 45.1 padding on the cage where it may come into contact with the helmet. “It is always better to have the full roll cage in the case of a crash,” said Jim Wright of Chassisworks. “If the car would roll over the top of the windshield will collapse on the driver so the cage protects the driver from this happening.”

First, the main hoop is trimmed and fit to the car. This is typically set flush or just behind the B pillar or door jamb. Next, powerTV fabricator Dean checks the fit of the front down bars. You don’t have to remove the windshield at this point, but it makes it easier. The tubes are always left long so that you have room to trim them, since every car is a little bit different.

There a lot of details inside the rulebooks that must be adhered to, such as tube diameter, floor plates, and even the angles of certain bars in certain situations. The point is that if you want to get serious, buy the rulebook before you build your cage—we can’t stress that part enough. This story only covers the process of installation of the Chassisworks kit, not all the technical details of  cage design itself.

Here you can see how tight the bars fit to the structure of the car. The closer the fit, the better the final look of the car, comfort of the driver, and safety. There are several ways to notch the tubing to mate up to each other. This is a tubing sleeve from PipeMaster (right). If you don’t have a tubing notcher, this is what you want. It gives the perfect line to cut.

Clockwise from top left: Dean cut the tubing to length with a chop saw, then cut the tubing at an angle to facilitate mating up to the round tubing. The upper bar was then tacked into place. You don’t fully weld anything until the whole cage is tacked into place. Next, we measured between the main hoop and the front down bars. MaxStreet will get a set of rocker bars because the factory subframe does not run outside the driver’s legs. With both sets of front bars set, the cage is starting to take shape.

Left to right: There are four bars in the main hoop—the hoop, the center crossbar, and two rear bars. These four bars intersect in the middle for strength. The center bars must connect to the frame, subframe, sub connectors, or the driveshaft tunnel (with floor plates). These are called “D” bars by the NHRA, and connect to the subframe channel on MaxStreet. This is where the D bars will be welded to the floor, at the subframe channel in the OEM floor. Dean bent us a pair of rear down bars to connect to the rear subframe. The rear bars fit snug to the roofline and drop right over the rear wheel tubs. By running the rear bars this way, there is more room for rear passengers, provided they can get over the center bar.

Think To The Future

A mechanical tubing bender was used to bend the bars. It is complicated looking device that performs a difficult task. In order to keep the tuning form kinking, there is a die on the inside of the bend (not inside the tube, that is mandrel bending) and the tube stretched against it.

Fast cars have a tendency to get faster, due to the owner’s greed for speed, so when planning your hot rod’s roll cage, it’s always a good idea to build it to the next level of performance. In other words, let’s say your combination should go 10.50s in the quarter. You might as well build the ‘cage to be legal for 9.50s, since you may soon bore of going tens and step the combination up with more motor. If you do that in a car with a 10-second-legal cage, you can’t legally drive the car to its full potential. And that’s a drag. Even if you’re running slower than you want to, build the car for how quick you eventually want to run.

Once you have figured out the basic requirements, the placement of certain bars is critical for passing tech. All roll bars (main hoop behind the driver) must be within 6 inches of the rear of the driver’s head, extending 3-inches above the helmet in while in a seated position, or within one inch of the roof/headliner. It must be at least as wide as the driver’s shoulders or within 1 inch of the driver’s door.  The driver’s side must have a forward sidebar that intersects the driver midway between the shoulder and elbow.  There must be a crossbar in the main hoop that is no more than four inches below and not above the driver’s shoulders.

Cage Specifics

This bender is powered by a hydraulic ram, but you can get a tubing bender that is hand-operated on the cheap, and it is very effective. You can over-bend a tube pretty easy, so the work is done slowly, checking progress along the way. If you are bending manually, watch out for spring-back, which is when the tubing unbends as you release the pressure.

When it comes to mounting the bar or cage to the chassis, there are several ways of doing it. OEM full-frame cars must attach the bar/cage directly to the frame either with bolts or welds. Unibody cars may be welded to the floorpan via .125-inch-thick, 6×6 (inches) steel plates bolted top and bottom through the floor with at least four 3/8-inch bolts or be welded to the rocker sill area with .125-inch-thick reinforcement plates, and must be fully welded. Chromoly bars must be TIG welded, mild steel may be TIG or MIG welded. Roll bars must be made from 1¾” diameter, .118-inch (wall thickness) mild steel or .083 chromoly tubing, while roll cages can be 15/8-inch, .118-wall mild steel or .083 chromoly tubing.

There are some other attachment rules for the cage; Unless you are mounting the cage to the OEM floor or frame, there are minimum requirements for the attachment points. Each roll cage member must be connected to at least a 1 5/8, .118-wall mild steel or .083 chromoly round tube or 2×2, .058” mild or chromoly rectangular tubing. This is particularly important for unibody cars where the cage runs through the floor and is welded to the subframe or subframe connectors.

Clockwise from top left: Gussets are not required for most roll cages, but they are a good idea. A gusset can be added to provide additional support when at least 75 percent of the seam is welded. This is applicable in situations where the top of the bar can’t be reached, but the lower ¾ can be. A gusset will make it legal. What you can’t do is weld half the tube and then add a gusset. The rocker bar was bent to follow the rocker and then curve in to reach the front down bar. Here you can see the door bars. These must intersect the driver’s arm, between the elbow and shoulder, other than that, you have some room for adjustment, as long as it attaches to the base of the front down bar. We made our own door bar so that the stock armrest will clear, MaxStreet will have a nice interior, it is a street car after all.

Designing a roll cage can get very complicated, working with a professional is highly recommended. Chassisworks’ technicians are available on the phone to  get the parts you need to make it happen with less work. With the right specs, they can design the correct cage to fit your car and make it an easy installation, and even provide custom tweaks to fit your particular plan. ” We offer customer cages bent to the customer’s measurement using our custom worksheet. We also offer the swing-out side bar kit that can be used in cars that do not have to meet a SFI spec,” Wright told us.

Left to right: You need a few tools to install a pre-bent roll cage kit: a chop saw, a grinder, a welder, and lots of clamps. The main hoop and front bars were dropped through the floor so that it can be welded up top. If you don’t drop it, you can’t reach the top of the bars. You could choose to connect it through the floor to the subframe connectors as well. With the bars dropped, you can see how much easier it is to get to the top of the bars. Your welds must be clean, free of slag and porosity. If you are MiG welding and it starts popping, laying down porous welds, adjust your settings. You can’t grind roll cage welds.

Installing a cage is not that tough, as long as you follow the rules. TiG welding is required on chromoly bars, and is actually easier than MiG welding (assuming, of course, that you have a TiG machine), since you have more control, plus the TiG torch is much smaller so you can get better access to the top of the cage.

Clockwise from top left: At the front of the car, the floor plates were bent to follow the shape of the floor. This is required by NHRA rules. The rocker, door, and front down bars were all welded together at the floor plates. Dean also added some floor bars to the D bars for extra strength along the floor. The rear floor bars were welded to the floor pan at the differential hump.

Finally, the floorpan plates for the main hoop were welded to the floor, along with the main hoop and rocker bar connections.

TiG welds are also naturally cleaner, and NHRA rules strictly prohibit grinding roll cage welds. That doesn’t mean you have to TiG—mild steel can be MiG welded with excellent results, but the welds must be free of slag and porosity. The rules even dictate how you painting the cage. Wright told us, “Any paint is allowed as long as the welds are fully visible during tech inspection.”

After chatting with Wright and getting all the details hashed out, we ordered up a 10-point cage for MaxStreet. Since we needed to add some custom touches to the cage, we opted for some extra straight tubing and bent our own side bars and rear down bars to keep them as close to the rear frame as possible.

Patience and planning are the keys to a quality cage. Measure everything ten times, then once more to be sure. Once you cut, you can’t put it back…

And there she is, an NHRA legal roll cage for our Chevy II. Before the car goes down the track, however, we'll have to have an NHRA inspector certify the cage.

The battle has been waged for decades—full-frame or unibody? Unibody chassis are lightweight, which makes them a no-brainer for performance, but that lightweight design comes at a cost. Stability in a unibody is less than optimum, hence the need for things like subframe connectors and stiffening bars, where the 79-04 Mustang is no exception in this area. While they are well known for being easy 9-second candidates, to get there you need some suspension work. One key weak spot are the rear torque boxes, which is why we turned to Wild Rides for our Project 666 Fox body Mustang.

Launching on slicks or even drag radials puts an incredible amount of stress on the factory torque box, more than what it was designed for. Eventually, the cracks appear in the fatigued sheet metal and the mounting holes stretch out. Initial signs of torque box damage include separation of the metal panels, broken welds, and distorted sheet metal.

The Advantages of the Wild Rides S-Box

Both upper and lower torque boxes can (and should) be reinforced before bolting on a set of slicks. If your car has already been thrashed at the track, that is OK, the Wild Rides S-box components will repair the damage and prevent it from happening again. In addition to the bulletproof design, the Wild Rides S-box also gives you adjustability; with 3 control arm mounting holes, you can change the instant center of the rear suspension to match your engine/transmission combination.

When paired with the upper S-box kit, you get the same adjustment potential as a true 4-link, while utilizing the stock suspension components for stock classes. “When asked, ‘do I need both the Upper S-Box & Lower S-Box’, the answer will vary depending on how much power and what some ones intentions are with the car,” said Gene Giroud of Wild Rides. “Both boxes give you more structure and adjustability.”

One look under 666 and you will see that it has been beat on. The factory torque boxes have been welded up; each seam fully welded to the body. If you cruise the forums, you will find that one of the most common solutions to the stock torque box problem is to weld up all the seams. Some of the Fox-body “forum experts” suggest seam welding on any car that has not seen any damage; that the welding is good enough.

Prepping for Disassembly

The factory torque boxes are made of fairly thin stamped steel held to the body with a series of spot welds. While suitable for a stock Mustang, this is less than ideal for drag racing. You can see the band-aid fix of welding all the seams. In the end, it just makes more work for you to replace it.

There are a few key areas that you need to address before you start any disassembly. If the stock boxes are in good shape, you should make some reference measurements to ensure the new S-boxes are in the correct locations. This is done by pulling a string across the bottom of the frame rails, even with forward edge of the two 1-inch holes to about 10-inches back from the rear edge of the control arm mount hole in the torque box. Secure the string in position. Next, measure the center of the control arm mounting hole to the string on both sides. This will give you your factory reference point. The same procedure will be used to verify the new S-box location once it is set in position.

Disassembly and Installation

Before cutting out the original box, the mounting hole was measured and notated on the frame for reference.

Next, we used a plasma torch to cut out all the twisted metal. If this had not been welded in, you could use a sawzall and an air-hammer. With the metal cut, the boxes will come right out. There is a fair amount of leftover welds and steel, this has to be ground away.

The Wild Rides S-box is considerably nicer than the stock pieces. The biggest advantage here is adjustable mounting points allowing changes to the instant center. The S-box is a fully-boxed torque box, unlike the stock setup which is just a stamped panel spot welded to the floor. “Our S-boxes are constructed from 1/8” steel base materials and 3/16” steel for the actual bolt holes. Our design of the box and its install procedure has proven itself to be a bullet proof combination,

We spent a fair amount of time cleaning up the torque box location. There is a plate that installs above the S-Box on the interior floor, where the stock seat belt mount is. This needs to be lined up with the seat belt bolt, bolted to the car and then welded in place. The S-box slipped into place and we used an adjustable stand to hold it in place. C-clamps work too. They should be bolted to the car using the seatbelt bolts. We measured the location, using the center mounting point and adjusted the boxes until they matched on both sides to the original measurement. With everything lined up, a few tack welds secured the box

Then we used the MIG to lay down some nice, clean welds. Even thick metal warps when heated, so don’t just weld one big bead, space your welds no more than ¼” at a time 2-3 inches apart until the entire section is welded. We also welded the boxes to the frame rails as well.

With everything finished, we hit the new parts with some fresh paint. This looks so much better than the twisted stock torque boxes.

Finally, we bolted in the control arms using the center bolt to start off. Once we get to the track, this can be changed if needed.

While installing Wild Ride’s S-boxes is not super complicated, it is not a bolt-in procedure. You have cut, grind and weld many of the components in precise locations in order for everything to be square and correct. That means that if your welding skills are not up to the task (would you bet your life and the lives of others around you on them), then get some help from someone who is an experienced welder. By taking your time, checking and re-checking the fit, the end result will provide a serious advantage of an otherwise stock chassis Mustang. Though the advantages of this cost-effective piece will pay off in the long haul, helping us reduce chassis flex and adding adjustability!

If you have been following our Fox body notch project dubbed Project 666, you know that the car is already very fast. So far the car has a new TCI rugged C4 transmission and a 700+ HP Dart 427ci small block. While going fast is fun, we also need to update some of our safety devices. This time around we bolted in a pair of Kirkey’s 41 Series seats into the car with Holcomb seat brackets, a Holcomb bolt-in light weight steering column with quick release, and a Grant steering wheel.

The biggest eye catcher for 666 was shedding those old and very tired OEM seats and steering wheel. You can look at that flat factory seat and tell at a glance that it offered very little in the way of safety and support. This is why we choose the 41 Series Pro-Street Drag seat for our project car. These seats range in price from $175 for a 15-inch seat to $235.50 for a 20-inch seat. For our project, we used 16-inch seats.

Kirkey 41 Series – PN 41500:
• Constructed from MIG welded .100″ thick 5052 grade aluminum
• MIG welded on the inside for added strength
• Offset aluminum extrusion around perimeter of seat for added strength and safety
• Contoured high-density foam bottom provides complete leg and thigh support
• High-density foam on rib supports for added comfort

Kirkey seats plus Holcomb's seat brackets and light weight column were on the plate for this tech article

Kevin Derochi from Kirkey Racing said, “Our Pro Street Drag seat has been one of our most popular seats for the past ten years. It provides the driver with a safe seat that doesn’t break the bank that they can use on the drag strip as well as on the street.” The seats come as an aluminum shell with no cover. Kirkey makes the seats out of MIG welded .100″ thick 5052 grade aluminum. The seats are welded on the inside for additional strength and it has an offset extrusion around the seat perimeter for even more strength and safety. Should 666 ever get into the wall, we want all the protection we can get.

The bottom of the seat is padded with contoured high-density foam for comfort and to provide leg and thigh support. The same foam is put in the rib area as well to pad things a bit. We also opted for a couple of the black cloth seat covers at $110 for each piece. Derochi said, “We build all our seats and covers entirely in-house. The covers are die cut so each one fits the way it was intended. Each seat has been designed and engineered with CAD-CAM and built using the latest in CNC cutting, forming, and welding technologies.”

Holcomb Aluminum Front Seat Bracket – PN HMI60000-AL
• Aluminum construction with multiple mounting points
• Works with most seats except RCI
• Not for street use
• Includes Grade 8 hardware

The larger left bracket is designed for the passenger seat while the left two brackets are designed for the driver.

Holcomb Kirkey Adjustable rear Seat Bracket – PN DRC-60000-K
• Mounts to OEM seat mounting points
• Integral crotch strap attaching point
• Includes seat to roll bar brace

“The Holcomb aluminum seat bracket makes installing poly or aluminum seats in 79-04 Mustangs a straightforward affair,” said Ken Holcomb, owner of Holcomb Motorsports. “Multiple front to back mounting points allow seat placement to fit individual driver requirements. We also recommend a seat-to-roll-bar brace with these mounts, but is not included.”

Kirkey makes seat brackets for their seats, but they are not specifically made for use in Mustangs and we wanted a better bolt-in fit. Mounting the Kirkey seats to our Holcomb brackets is something specifically designed to work for Fox body Stangs like 666 – only requiring a drill, a marker, and measuring tools. For the passenger bracket, we followed along and measured a few times to be sure we had the seats correctly aligned for center before drilling. After marking the spots where we needed to drill to mount the seats to the brackets front and back, we drilled the holes and the preparation of the seats was complete.

The Holcomb brackets are very well made and are for racing use only. Holcomb does not recommend these brackets to be used in a street car. The front brackets have multiple mounting points so you can get the seat into your car perfectly and the hardware used in the bracket is grade 8 for strength and longevity.

When you start running fast, NHRA rules require a five point harness, and the integrated crotch strap allows for easy mounting.

The Holcomb Kirkey rear seat bracket is designed for the driver. This bracket has an integrated crotch strap holder provision and mounts into the factory holes on the floor. Holcomb said, “The bracket allows for an up or down adjustment of seat for better driver comfort. The seat-to-roll-bar brace is required by NHRA rules when mounting in an aftermarket seat, which is why it is included in the kit.” The installation of the rear bracket required drilling the aluminum seat shell after copious measuring to be sure we had the seat aligned just right. The rear bracket also includes a roll bar brace that must be used. We welded the rear section of that roll bar brace to our roll cage and attached the other section to our Kirkey seat making our install NHRA legal, not to mention safe.

Shedding Weight with Holcomb’s Column and Grant’s Wheel

Holcomb Lightweight Steering Column – PN DRC7993SC
• Reuses stock lower column connector
• Welding required for install
• One third the weight of factory column
• Includes DRC4000 steering wheel adapter
• Requires quick disconnect wheel

Grant Steering Wheel – PN 633
• Includes top marker
• Combination smooth and diamond vinyl wrap
• Pre-drilled dual 11/16″ switch holes
• Includes plastic plugs for holes

The mammoth stock column weighs in at 12 pounds while the Holcomb piece is only four pounds.

We also went with Holcomb for our lightweight steering column for 79-93 Fox Mustangs. It is topped off with a quick disconnect Grant racing wheel that is 13-inches in diameter and features a 3-spoke silver design with switch holes. The wheel is wrapped in black vinyl and has a top marker. We opted for no horn on our project, but the wheel is made to fit horn kit part number 3289 if you want a horn on a street/strip car.

“The drag race steering column is an easy bolt in replacement for 79-93 Mustangs,” said Holcomb. Our race steering column saves 4-10 pounds over the stock column. It uses a quick release hub and steering wheel adapter to mate up to the Grant drag race wheel, which features pre-drilled holes for mounting a line lock or transbrake switches. The pre-drilled holes mean your switches don’t get tangled and torn like they will on a stock column. We also designed our race column to utilize OEM lower steering shaft or Flaming River shafts for flexibility.”

The steering column install was surprisingly simple. Obviously, you have to remove the factory column first with the two bolts on the C-clamp. Once you get the factory part out, you can bolt the lightweight column into the car. The quick release is designed to bolt the Grant wheel directly to it.

The stock column's end must be cut off, slipped over the Holcomb column, and welded in place. The inner shaft does slide so you can place the steering wheel where you want it before welding.

The rest of the steering linkage bolts right back up after everything is set back to stock

Here is a shot of the completed interior. Not only is our new setup safer, but we also cut about 70 pounds from the car.

It is easy to get bit by the speed bug, but always remember you need to keep up with the safety side of things. With speeds approaching 140 MPH in the quarter mile, having a set of seats that hold us in place in case of an accident is key to minimizing any injuries.  The weight savings over the factory seats plus our new lightweight column and wheel help us go faster as well!

Part of the fun in watching drag racing is the variety of cars, trucks, motorcycles and even snowmobiles that can show up at an event. That kind of variety, while fun for the spectator, makes some headaches for the competitors and the sanctioning body… in this case, the NHRA. The widest variety of cars competing against each other is found in the Competition Eliminator class, where almost anything is allowed except for nitro-powered race cars.

Cars are classified into a number of groups, and then divided into classes according to the power to weight ratio. Cars or trucks with automatic transmissions have their own class, which is different from those with manual transmissions. These classes then allow for cars of widely varying configuration to compete against each other, on a level playing field. In general, faster cars are handicapped by letting the slower car start first, then whoever makes it over the finish line first wins.

So in Comp Eliminator, you could easily see a front wheel drive sedan take on an alcohol burning, supercharged dragster, and either could win the race depending on reaction time and driving skill. Making that happen, though, can get a little complicated along the way. In this article, we’re going to run through the different classes and competition rules, as well as a couple of examples, to try and help you understand what’s going on. When you see some of the more improbable pairings on the track, you’ll know that it’s Comp Eliminator time!

You won't find a more diverse group of racers than in NHRA's Comp Eliminator class. Adam White's rail dragster might end up racing against the Pontiac coupe beside it. Photos: Alex Owens

Have Some Class!

There are nine sub-classes of Comp, with 96 individual classes overall. Some classes allow engines of a different manufacturer than the car (example, a Dodge Hemi in a Chevy or Ford, etc) They are:

• Gas Dragster: 13 classes, from A/D, using Pro Stock-type motors and even bigger, down to H/D and I/D which are turbocharged. Four, 6 and 8 cylinder cars are all permitted in different classes. Some are for V-6 or inline 6 cylinder engines only, while some permit or are limited to 2 and 4-valves per cylinder. A, B, C and D/D also have separate classes for manual and automatic transmissions.
• Econo Dragster: 7 classes. Created in the 1980′s, the term econo is really a misnomer, as there is very little economical about them. Econo classes are limited to a single four barrel carburetor and automatic transmission only. A/ED through G/ED are the classes, again each with their own engine rules and requirements.

• Nostalgia Dragster: 2 classes. Created a few years ago for front engine dragsters with mechanical fuel injection, on methanol and using a Powerglide transmission, these dragsters resemble dragsters from the 1960′s, yet can run in the high 6′s with a relatively small V8 (380-410 cid for most cars).
• Altered: 37 classes. With door cars and front engine, open wheel altereds, these classes have it all. A/A to L/A, A/AA to L/AA for automatics, A/AP and B/AP (for cars using a planetary transmission), AA/A and BB/A for blown gas cars, AA/AM and BB/AM for blown methanol-burning cars, AA/AT to DD/AT for turbocharged cars, AA/AF and BB/AF for turbocharged front wheel drive cars. You see it all here from six-second big V8′s, low seven-second turbocharged four cylinders, screaming small blocks to loud blown cars.

Rick Brown's D/TA automatic transmission truck is in the D segment because of horsepower to weight calculations.

• Street Roadster: 3 classes. A/SR to C/SR for pre-1937 style topless, full bodied street roadsters
• Truck, 6 classes: P/ST, B/T and C/T, one class each for stick and automatics. P/ST uses the same formula as the now defunct Pro Stock Truck class that was run in NHRA from 1997 to 2001. Extended cab, mid size (Ranger, S-10 and Dakota), 1997 and newer trucks are permitted.
• Econo Altered: 8 classes. A/EA to G/EA. Same rules as Econo Dragster. Door cars and open wheel altereds permitted.
• Super Modified: 18 classes. For stock-appearing, 1967 and newer door cars. A/SM to I/SM, with a stick and auto class for each. V6 required in I, V8′s in A to H. Corporately correct engines (Chevy engine permitted in any GM car, etc). Some classes allow two 4 barrels, some a single 4 barrel.
• Pro Mod: 2 classes. AA/PM for blown cars, A/PM for nitrous oxide-assisted big engine cars. The same types of cars you’ve seen for years in NHRA and IHRA, this allows Pro Mod cars to compete at Lucas Oil Divisional races and National Events as a sportsman too.

How Comp is Run

Small cars can bring just as much racing action as the bigger ones do. Here, Mike Iacono lifts the front end to get more traction at the back.

Comp is a unique class that combines handicap racing with all-out, first to the finish line wins. You’ll remember in my article about Stock Eliminator that each individual class has an index, which they qualify against. The quicker (further under) you run against the index, the higher you qualify in the order. In Comp, 32 cars qualify, maximum.

Unlike Stock and S/S, where you can dial-in under the index, in Comp, the index is your handicap. For example, the A/D index is 7.03, while the H/SM index is 9.54. So, in eliminations, the H/SM gets a 2.51 second head start. First one to the finish line wins. Unlike Stock, Super Stock and bracket racing, there is no going too fast, and there are no breakouts–sort of.

In order to maintain a level, competitive playing field, the Competition Index Control (CIC) was developed in the 1980′s, to prevent runaway indexes. During eliminations, a competitor who runs more than a half-second (.50) under their index will have their index temporarily reduced by one hundredth (.01) for each hundredth under that they ran.

Meaning, if I am in an A/D and run a 6.510 in winning the first round, that is -.520 under the original index of 7.03, so for second round, my index will now be 7.01. These hits are temporary, and affect only me. Only my A/D  is penalized. If another A/D wins first round and does not run more than .50 under the 7.03, their index will stay at 7.03 for the second round.

If I continue to win, and continue to run more than .50 under my new index, it will continue to be reduced.  Eventually, those temporary “hits” can turn into a permanent one. Once a racer, in eliminations, runs more than an accumulated -.610 under the original index, it becomes a permanent “hit”, that affects all A/D racers in the country. If I win a race and run no more than a cumulative -.609 under my original 7.03 index, my index will return to 7.03 at the next event.

David Eaton's altered roadster uses a planetary transmission, so he runs in the A/AP class.

If I win that race, however, and in the final I run a 6.380, that is -.650 under the original 7.03 index, after this event, every A/D in the country will now run off a 6.98 index (a .05 penalty).  Permanent index hits are as follows:

• .610 to -.619 under the original index = .01 permanent index adjustment
• .620 to -.629 under the original index = .02 permanent adjustment
• .630 = .03 adjustment
• .640 = .04 adjustment
• .650 to -.709 = .05 adjustment
• .710 = .06 adjustment
• .720 = .07 adjustment
• .730 = .08 adjustment
• .740 = .09 adjustment
• .750 and more = .10 adjustment

The most a racer can be hit at any one race is a tenth of a second (.10). This can be quite a setback for some. A car that runs really fast in the spring and fall, on the 7.03 index, now in hot summer weather when the cars don’t run as fast, would be running on a 6.93. So you want to be careful how fast you go. Ideally, you want to get to the stripe first, by as little a margin as possible, to limit potentially damaging index hits. So in a way, it is sort of like bracket racing in that sense, but unlike bracket racing, you have to get to the finish line first to win in Comp.

Here are two scenarios, to better explain.

Scenario #1
A/D, index 7.03
Round 1, index 7.03, I run 6.510, -.520, so second round index is now 7.01
Round 2, index 7.01, I run 6.480, -.530, so third round index is now 6.98
Round 3, index 6.98, I run 6.480, -.500, no penalty
Round 4, index 6.98, I run 6.450, -.530, so for the final my index is 6.95
Round 5, index 6.95, I run 6.440, -.510 under.

Since it is the final, no more rounds, so no penalty for the next round. My total, accumulated CIC hits add up to .09, so no permanent hit is received and my index will go back to 7.03 at the next race, as well as all A/D racers’ index (unless another A/D at that same race made a run of more than -.610 under the 7.03 during the event).

A small engine in Dave Yediny's altered coupe puts it in the L/A class. If it was running an automatic transmission, it would be classed as L/AA.

In the case that I race someone in my Class during eliminations (another A/D racer), it is heads-up, going back to the old index. So, using the above example, if I race an A/D in round three, and my temporarily adjusted index is 6.98, and another A/D racers index was adjusted to 7.01, we would both run off the original 7.03 index. The winner would go into round 4, going back to his/her adjusted index, plus any “penalty” incurred on that run.

Scenario #2
A/D, index 7.03
Round 1, index 7.03, I run 6.510, -.520, so second round index is now 7.01
Round 2, index 7.01, I run 6.480, -.530, so third round index is now 6.98
Round 3, index 6.98, I run 6.480, -.500, no penalty
Round 4, index 6.98, I run 6.450, -.530, so for the final my index is 6.95
Round 5, index 6.95, I run 6.380, – 570.

I have accumulated a total of .15 in penalties (-.650 under the original index), so effective Monday morning, myself and all other A/D racers will be running against a 6.98 index instead of 7.03. This prevents a particular car, or class as a whole, from dominating the entire class of Comp Eliminator.

To the uninitiated, NHRA’s Competition Eliminator rules can seem overly elaborate, but it takes these considerations to maintain a level playing field when dealing with the extensive range of cars and trucks that show up. We hope this helps you understand the sometimes complicated, but always exciting Competition Eliminator classes. Until next time…

Additional Resources

If you want to dig a little deeper into this class of racing, here are a few more places to check out:

InsideCompRacing.com

Southern California Competition Eliminator Club

Many people attending an NHRA or IHRA event may watch Class racing and wonder what all the letters and classes mean on a car, and how they get there. Well, I’m here to help you.  Class Racing refers to the eliminators of Competition, Stock, and Super Stock.  All three have a multitude of individual sub-classes, classes, and rules.  We’ll start with probably the simplest of the three–NHRA Stock Eliminator.

Click here for the Stock Eliminator class rules on the NHRA website.

Stock is for 1960 and newer factory production automobiles and some sports cars.  In most circumstances, there must have been 500 of that particular model produced, and had been showroom available and in the hands of the general public.  In other words, anyone could go down to their local dealer and order/buy one.  There are some exceptions.  The OEM (original equipment manufacturer) can apply for special production runs of 50 cars to be permitted.  An example would be the 1964 Ford Thunderbolt Fairlanes.

Photos By Bill Truby

Calculating NHRA Spec Weight And Classification

All cars are classified by using the factory shipping weight, divided by either advertised factory horsepower, or NHRA-rated HP.  I will use my car as an example, a 1992 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo.  It has a factory shipping weight of 3,444 pounds, and a factory horsepower rating of 170.  3,444/170 = 20.56.  This will classify me into the DF/S (D Front wheel drive/Stock) class.  All cars are classified this way, into one of 51 classes of Stock Eliminator.  Classes run from AA/S and AA/SA (AA/Stock and AA/Stock Automatic) down to W/S and W/SA for rear wheel drive cars and trucks, plus five front wheel drive classes AF/S to EF/S.

AA/Stock would be for the highest factory rated horsepower cars.  Some Mopar Hemis, 440′s and Max Wedges, big block 427 Fords, 427 and 396 Chevrolets, as well as some newer cars – LS-1 Firebirds, supercharged Cobra Jet Mustangs and the new DragPack Hemi Dodge Challengers are in this category.  Cars with a shipping weight/horsepower ratio of 7.50-7.99 pounds will fall into AA/S.  W/S is for four cylinder cars only, with a weight to horsepower ratio of 24 or more.  NHRA publishes their Classification Guide on their website;  you can look up your car to see what class it can fit.  Cars not listed in this Guide are not eligible for Stock Eliminator.

Minimum Weights

Once you find what class your car runs, you can determine the minimum weight for your car.  All cars have a minimum weight they must meet at the scales, with driver.  Cars are permitted to move to the “top” of their class, or move up one class, or move down one class.  Using my car as an example, the weight break for it is 20.56, which puts it into DF/S, designed for cars with a weight/HP ratio between 19.00 and 24.99 pounds.  I can move to the top of the class, which would be 19.00, multiplied by the NHRA rating for the motor, still being at 170.  From there, 170 pounds are added to each car, to arrive at the minimum Class Weight.  So, 19 x 170 + 170 = 3,400 pounds.  If I cross the scales at less than 3,400, the run is disallowed if in qualifying, and I would be disqualified if it occurs during eliminations.

In some cases, NHRA will rate the engine higher or lower than the factory rating, to bring it in line with other cars in it’s class.  As stated above, most classes have many different brands competing in it.  In an attempt to keep the playing field level, NHRA will adjust certain combinations, which can in turn affect the class(es) a car can run.  For example, a 2002 Pontiac Firebird with an LS-1 346 motor started out with a factory rating of 310, and would have fit C/SA.  It now has a rating, by NHRA, of 364, and it now fits A/SA.

Some cars have been de-rated by NHRA, if they are not competive in the class that they would otherwise run.  An example of this is a 1967 Plymouth, with a 440 cid motor and a single four barrel carburetor.  It was factory rated at 375;  NHRA rates it now at 350.  In both cases, you would use the NHRA rating of the motor to determine classification – shipping weight divided by NHRA rating to determine the “natural” class of the car.

My car, being a natural DF/S, can adjust weight to either make the “top” of DF/S, move up to CF/S, or move down to EF/S.  In all cases, it is the “top” weight break of each class, multiplied by NHRA rating and add 170 pounds to determine the minimum weight each car must meet for each class it can run.  Cars also have to pass a fuel check at the scales, to insure racers are not using any illegal additives to their fuel.  Leaded racing fuels are the only ones permitted, and there is an Accepted Fuel list and those are the only fuels legal in NHRA competition.

Qualifying and Racing in Your Class Index

Cars qualify based on how far under their Class Index they can run.  Many years ago, cars ran based off of the National Record for their class.  When participation started dwindling, the Index system was developed.  Originally designed to be an average of all the cars in that class in the country, now almost every car can run quicker than that Class Index, some as much than one-second under or more.  The AA/S Index is the quickest in Stock at 10.60, while  the W/SA Index is 16.65.  The further under that mark you can run in qualifying, the further up the qualifying sheet you will be.  The maximum number of cars that will qualify is 128, with the exception of the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, where everyone gets to run.

Once qualifying is complete, the ladder is set, using a standard sportsman ladder where the top half is matched against the bottom half.  In a 128 car field, it would be 1 vs 65, 2 vs 66, 3 vs 37 and so on, down to 64 vs 128.  Once the eliminations start, it is run like a bracket race — with a few exceptions.  Remember the index I told you about?  All cars must dial-in at or quicker than their class index.  Meaning, you better have a certain level of performance in your car.  My car, in DF/S has a Class Index of 15.60.  If the car is hurt and can only run about a 15.80, I still have to dial no slower than the 15.60 Index.  So you don’t want to show up with just a street car with some gears and slicks.

If, in the first round I am matched against a AA/S with my car, and I dial-in at 15.00 and the AA/S dials a 9.75, I get a 5.25 second head start.  Bracket rules, with breakouts and handicaps apply for all runs, unless two cars of the same class run each other.  If two AA/S cars run each other, there is no dial-in, no handicap.  Heads-up, first to the finish line wins (except in redlight situations).  So you want to make sure you have a pretty quick car, for the times you may have a heads-up class run,  but it better be legal.

Tech Inspection, Teardown and Legal Modifications

At some National events, there can be a Tech Inspection teardown.  Cars will be chosen at random (or in the case of a protest) to teardown.  Teardowns vary at times, but usually a head will be pulled, possibly a rod and piston and other items.  Cars must not exceed factory specs.  Camshafts must retain factory lift numbers, though any duration is allowed. Crankshafts can be balanced, but not lightened beyond OEM specs.  Cylinder heads may not be ported, neither can intake manifolds.  Rod and/or piston assembly can not be lighter than factory specs. Valves can not be larger than OEM.  Carburetors and fuel injection throttle bodies can not exceed factory specs either.  Certain aftermarket and replacement parts are allowed, but must meet the weight, volume, and other dimensions of OEM parts.

Wheelbase must meet manufacturers specs, +/- 3/4 of an inch.  Slicks are limited to 9″ wide.  Hood scoops are not permitted, unless that combination (car/motor) came with one.  All this can be checked, and racers found not compliant with the rules will be disqualified from the event, and possibly further action can be taken, depending on the flagrancy of the violation.  In some cases, a multi-month or even full year suspension can be issued; this ensures legality of all cars.

Class Run Offs

At certain designated National events (and all SPORTSnational events), class run offs are held as kind of a race-within-a race, held on Thursday or Friday, before the main Stock Eliminator show.  All cars run against each other, to determine the fastest car.  If there are eighteen B/SA cars there, it will be five rounds of Class Eliminations, to determine who is the baddest of the bad.  At these events, certain class winners, plus a few random cars, are chosen to be torn down.  At Divisional and National Open events, drivers are eligible to set a Class National Record.  Racers must break the record, and run within 1% of it to become the new record holder.  Anyone setting a National Record has to be torn down and pass before receiving credit for the record.

So all in all, Stock Eliminator is a double-edged sword in it’s attraction to racers.  For those who like to run fast and be the top dog, you can set records and go out to win your class.  If you like testing your driving and bracket racing ability against some of the best drivers in the world, you can do that too.  Many of the top bracket racing artists in the country also own and race a Stock Eliminator car and do quite well. Hope this helps you to better understand the Stock Eliminator racing we do.  Future stories, will better explain other issues involving Class Racing.

When building a race car, one of the most frustrating and misunderstood parts of the build can be the roll cage.  Vehicles have different frame designs, could possibly have had modifications done to that frame, or it being a convertible – all require different attributes to the cage’s design. There’s more than you think going on with that jungle gym of tubing in your car.

I could easily write an article five times this size when it comes to explaining how roll cages work in a variety of ETs and car configurations.  I am going to explain the key rules and requirements on building a 10 point, or 8.50 and slower, roll cage for unibody vehicles per the 2010 NHRA Rule Book.  We will be using our 60 horsepower, soon to be 1000 horsepower 1965 Mustang Project “Biting the Bullitt” as our example.  The cage we will be using is a pre-bent piece from Chris Alston’s Chassisworks.

The Goal of our ’65 Mustang

As with any project, it’s a good idea to figure out what you’re going to do with it in the long haul.  Meaning if your vehicle is going to run low 10s, but then might see the 9s sometime, building the faster cage in the car will lead to less headaches down the road.  Biting the Bullitt will run 9s off the bat, and there aren’t any immediate plans to push it under an 8.50 ET.  Our power will come from a Dart block-and head-equipped 427ci small block Ford that features an AED blow thru carburetor and a Paxton NOVI-2500 supercharger to produce in the neighborhood of 1,000 horsepower.  This is going to be achieved through a Crower hydraulic roller valvetrain and a moderate amount of boost.  This will allow us to drive the Mustang around town when we want, then throw the slicks in the trunk and head to the dragstrip.

The best part of the Mustang was its very clean interior and it needs to stay clean.

Our Roll Cage – a Chris Alston’s Chassisworks pre-bent 10-point

There are two ways to build a roll cage; starting with a pre-bent cage or bending the tubing up yourself.  If you have a popular vehicle, there is a good chance Chassisworks already makes a pre-bent cage for it.  “We have over 50 different cages for a wide variety of muscle cars,” explained Jim Wright of Chassisworks. “When we make a production roll cage kit, we actually get the vehicles in here at the shop and test fit the parts accordingly, and not just rely on given measurements.” A pre-bent cage reduces the cost of installation and the need for a tubing bender.  The advantage of bending your own cage is being able to get the bends as tight to the car as possible, but don’t dismiss pre-bent cages; they have come a long way.

The Alston kit we selected is made from 1 5/8-inch mild steel with 1 1/4-inch main hoop support bars.  “If a customer wants a custom cage that we do not already offer, they can use our custom roll cage worksheet and we can bent it to their specifications,” said Wright. The tubing size requirement on 8.50 cages are 1 5/8-inch x .118-inch mild steel or .083-inch chromoly. For 10-second and slower cars that only need roll bars, the size minimum is 1 3/4 O.D. x .118 mild steel or .083 4130 chromoly tubing, so this is another aspect to take into play when building or expanding a roll cage as your vehicle gets faster.  Also, while a chromoly cage is typically lighter due to its lower minimum wall thickness, it can only be TIG welded, while mild steel can be TIG or MIG welded, though the welds need to be clean, complete without holes, and show no signs of grinding.

The cage we selected comes with:

• Main Hoop
• Main Hoop Support Bars
• Door Bars
• Front Down Bars
• Windshield Bar
• Cross Brace/Harness Bar
Rear Down Bars
• Extra Straight Tubing For Optional Extra Bars

Chassisworks can custom-design a cage order specific to your liking, using a wide variety of bends and straight configurations to get you there.

In addition to the roll cage, we also opted for a pair of swing out door bars to make getting in and out of the car easier, as well as subframe connectors with X-brace from sister company Total Control Products.

The complete Chris Alston's Chassisworks roll cage, swing-out door bars, and window net kit

Caging the Sloth – Six Cylinders Sees 10-Points

Nothing screams speed like a 60 horsepower Mustang with a 10-point roll cage in it.  Though it might be safer driving it now, it sure hasn’t aided in the acceleration factor with the added weight.  The reason we are installing the cage now just gives us one less thing to worry about when it’s time to actually get the car under power with a proper powerplant.

When it comes to preparing to install a roll cage, you will want to remove everything from inside the car that you can.  This includes carpet, seats, and door panels.  As you know, welding is extremely hot and it isn’t shy when it comes to burning a hole in anything.  If you have a headliner that needs replaced and want to keep one in the car with the cage, replace it beforehand to save yourself a big headache.  We will go through the steps later when it comes to protecting the headliner during the final welding.

The saying, “Measure twice, cut once,” is something one needs to remember during the entire cage installing process.  The pre-bent cages are purposefully made long to accommodate for variances in vehicle builds.  Also, tack weld the entire cage in place before completely welding it to ensure a better fit.  Additionally, whatever seat and seat mounts you plan to use for the vehicle should be installed.  The driver, or someone of similar build, should be present for the variety of clearance checks.  We took the Mustang to local racing shop Mckinney Motorsports to have the cage installed.

Floor Support Plates

The Chassisworks roll cage kit comes complete with pre-cut 6-inch x 6-inch plates for your floor mounting.  Per the NHRA Rule Book, “On unibody cars with stock floor and firewall (wheel tubs permitted), the roll cage may be bolted or welded to the floor/rocker box.”  If you are going for the bolted option, the .125-inch steel plates must be on top and bottom of the floor and bolted together with at least four 3/8-inch bolts and nuts.  Welding the plates to the car does not require the use of bottom plates but must be completely welded to the floor.

Anything that attaches to the floor needs to be attached via 6-inch x 6-inch x .125-inch steel plates. These plates can be formed to fit the design of your floor. Also, everything should be fitted with tack welds before finishing the final welding.

The Main Hoop

Generally the main hoop is installed as close to the roof or headliner as you can without it rubbing.  The NHRA rules state, “All roll bars must be within six inches of the rear, or side, of the driver’s head, extend in height at least three inches above the driver’s helmet with driver in normal driving position or be within one inch of the roof/headliner in the area above the driver’s helmet, and be at least as wide as the driver’s shoulders or within one inch of the driver’s door.”  You can lean the main hoop back or forwards to get the proper measurements as well.  Additionally the bottom of the main hoop must be welded to a pair of the aforementioned 6-inch x 6-inch plates.

The roll bar from the Chassisworks kit fit amazingly well.  “From a safety standpoint, we would always recommend a roll cage instead of a roll bar because it’s safer in a roll over condition, even if your ET doesn’t call for it yet,” explained Wright. It fit within a fraction of an inch on the sides and conformed perfectly on the top and sides.  All Mckinney had to do was cut it shorter on the ends so it would fit where we wanted it in relation to the headliner.

Measure twice, cut once. Make sure everything is as level as possible and the front main hoop bars are equal in height

The Cross Bar/Harness Brace – The First Tube to Notch

The cross bar or harness brace serves multiple functions. It increases the structural rigidity to prevent forward or lateral collapse.  Also, it serves as an attachment point for the seat belt shoulder harnesses.  The harnesses typically attach via a welded bracket and a bolt to a bracket on the belt’s harness or a wrap around-style belt.  The bar must be installed within four inches of the driver’s shoulders vertically, but not above them.

A critical step in building a roll cage is tube notching.  You cannot weld a flat-cut tube end to an intersection of another piece of the cage and expect it to be safe.  Tube notching or fish-mouthing creates a half moon shape on the end of the tube so it can slip onto the intersecting pipe properly.  Usually a specifically designed tube notcher or drill press that allows for variable angles are used with a hole saw on the end.  If the cost is too much, a hand grinder can also work, though it can be less accurate.

Grinding is a method used to notch the tubing, though a tube notching tool is ideal. A spare, short piece of tube to test fit the notched tube onto while grinding comes in handy.

The Forward Hoop, Windshield Brace, and Dash Bar

Both the forward hoop and windshield brace rules are vague as written.  The front bar must be one continuous piece of tubing with the same diameter and thickness specs as the main hoop. It welds to the top corner of the main hoop and follows the roof and A-pillar line to another 6-inch x 6-inch plate in the floor.  The forward hoop can go through or before the dash.  The straight bar coming off the main hoop should be parallel to the roof before it makes its first bend.  Also there can be bars that connect to the front down bars, go through the firewall and connect down into the front frame rails.  Wright explained, “When you get into the 8 second zone the down bars to the front frame rail really help stiffen the chassis. They are typically harder to put in though with the stock dashes, heater, and wiring installed.”

Not wanting to hack up the dash in our Mustang, McKinney installed the bar before the dash, set back about an inch from it.  This gave them the space they needed to fit a stock dash pad back in and also for the kick panels that include speakers.  The Chassisworks forward hoop bars come pre bent and fit awesome.  All McKinney needed to do was shorten them to fit accordingly.

The upper windshield bar is another important piece of the cage.  It acts as a supporting brace for the forward hoop and also to keep the roof from collapsing.  Again, with the same spec tubing as the forward bars and main hoop, it must be welded at the top of the windshield support to the two forward bars.  The bar has a slight bend on both ends so that it can conform to the windshield’s shape and to tuck it up out of the driver’s view. “The windshield bar is one of the most important bars in a roll cage during a roll over situation,” explained Wright.  “It keeps the front of the roof from crushing in on the driver.”

The front main hoop bars are tack welded in place before the dash. They also sit about an inch back from the dash to allow for the dash pad to be installed along with the kick pannels

A dash bar is not required in vehicles that have their firewalls altered by one square foot or less, though a dash bar can be useful to tie the lower part of the front cage together to reduce chassis flex.  Before-dash forward down bars can be tricky when it comes to installing a dash bar as it can be in the way of your legs, though there isn’t anything that states you couldn’t bend the bar back towards the firewall and run it across there.  Though we decided against the dash bar for now, the NHRA rule states, “If the OEM firewall has been modified (in excess of one square foot for transmission removal, not including bolted in components) a lower windshield or dash bar of 1 1/4 x .058-inch 4130 chromoly or 1 1/4 x .118-inch mild steel is mandatory connecting the forward cage supports.”

Door Sidebars, Swing Outs, and Rocker Bars

Both door sidebars and rocker bars must be constructed of the same 1 5/8-inch .118-inch thick mild steel as the main hoop and and forward down bars.  The door bars are there to protect the driver in a side impact crash and must be welded to the main hoop.  From the main hoop, it must pass in between the driver’s elbow and shoulder.  There is no specific angle or point in which the forward side of the door bar must intersect, though it should weld to the forward bar near the bottom 6-inches.

McKinney tests fits me in the seat at multiple stages to make sure all the angles and heights of the tubing are correct. This is all done with the seat I plan to race with installed in place.

Swing out door bars can help a driver and passenger get into a vehicle without needed to go to Yoga classes, and as long as your car is going to be slower than an 8.50 ET, are completely NHRA legal.  The Chassisworks kit features a clevis-type connector that is over the minimum thickness required by the NHRA.  The swing-out rules are pretty broad and are as follows:

1 5/8-inch O.D. x .083-inch CM or .118-inch MS minimum. Bolts/pins must be 3/8-inch-diameter steel, minimum and in double shear at both ends.

b. Male or female clevis(es) permitted. Male clevis must use two minimum 1/8-inch-thick brackets (CM or MS) welded to each roll- cage upright; female must use minimum 1/4-inch-thick bracket (CM or MS) welded to each roll-cage upright. Pins must be within 8 inches of the vertical portion of both the forward and main hoops. A half-cup backing device must be welded to the vertical portion of the main hoop (inward side) or the upper end of the swing-out bar (outward side), minimum .118-inch wall (CM or MS) extending at least 1 5/8 inches past the center of the pins. A clevis assembly using a minimum .350-inch-thick male component and two minimum .175-inch-thick female components may use a 1/2-inch-diameter Grade 5 bolt and does not require a half-cup backing device.

The swing out door bar is tacked in place to the main hoop so it passes in between the shoulder and elbow

c.Sliding sleeves of 1 3/8-inch x .083 CM or .118 MS, with minimum 2-inch engagement, are permitted in lieu of the upper pin/cup.

d. All bolt/pin holes in the swing-out bar must have at least one-hole diameter of material around the outside of the hole.

As mentioned above, the swing out door bar pins must be within eight inches of the vertical sections of the front and rear main hoop.  Typically, the clevis receiver is welded to the roll cage at the shoulder.  The lower portion can use a small piece of pipe welded to the bottom of the front main hoop bar and then the clevis is attached at this point.  This allows the needed height for the swing out to function properly.  What we did was install the door bar higher up on the front main hoop and in the same fashion as the rear hoop – welded directly to the hoop.

The larger clevis joint is designed to slip into the end of the door bar.  Since there are variances in the minimum wall thickness on the tubes, some grinding on the inside of the tubes might be required to fit the clevis in snugly.  After that, it is completely welded to the pipe.

The completed door bar sits up high enough on the bottom end to be able to swing out and was able to clear the arm rest as well.

Rocker bars are only required when the OEM frame rails don’t run below and outside of the driver’s legs.  The frame rail acts as a side impact support and a rocker bar must be added in place if it.  This also goes for any car with a modified floor or rocker box, though modifying the transmission tunnel up to six square feet is permitted.  The NHRA rule book states:

“A rocker or sill bar, minimum 1 5/8-inch x .083 CM or .118 MS or 2-inch x 2-inch x .058-inch CM or MS rectangular, is mandatory in any car with a modified floor or rocker box within the roll-cage uprights. Rocker bar must be installed below and outside of driver’s legs and must tie into the main hoop, the forward hoop, frame, frame extension, or side diagonal. Rocker bar may not tie into swing-out side bar support. If rocker bar ties into side diagonal more than 5 inches (edge to edge) from forward roll-cage support or main hoop, a 1 5/8-inch x .083 CM or .118 MS brace/gusset is mandatory between the diagonal and forward roll cage support or main hoop.”

Almost Done! Main Hoop Support Braces, Rear Down Bars, and Roll Cage Gussets

The roll cage "D" bars install over the top of the subframe connectors

Believe it or not, this section is the easiest part of it all.  The “D” bars or main hoop support bars are designed for unibody vehicles in which the roll bar is connected to the floor instead of a separate frame.  The D bars are designed to support the main hoop from movement under impact as a triangulated point of reference.  Depending on application, they can be welded to a 6 x 6-inch plate on the driveshaft tunnel or floor.  On the top side, the D bars are welded in the corner of where the harness bar and roll bar meet. Since we are installing a set of TCP subframe connectors, we placed the D bars over the top of the connectors. This way we can weld the connectors to the plates from underneath the car to provide even better protection.  The NHRA rulebook states the following:

“For rear-wheel-drive cars, with neither a frame nor subframe connectors, but with complete OEM floor (from the firewall to the rear of the trunk; exception: the rear inner wheel wells may be tubbed with steel or aluminum), the 1 1/4- inch x .058-inch CM (or .118-inch MS) “D” bars may be welded to conventional 6-inch x 6-inch x 1/8-inch form fitted/contoured plates attached to the driveshaft tunnel. Otherwise, the “D” bars must be attached to frame, subframe, or subframe connectors.”

The supplied rear down bars fit great. They went through a spot in the rear package tray and weld in right behind the rear seat.

The rear down bars or rear support bars must attach to the floor of the trunk… somewhere. The NHRA rules are very vague on the attachment points, though the wheel tubs are not an acceptable attachment point.  Also, there is a variety of rules on the total diameter of the tubing depending on the length and amount of cross braces utilized. If using 1 5/8-inch tubing, the rear bars can be any length or angle.  This means you could write your name in cursive with the rear bars, and as long as they connect to the rear floor, they will technically be legal.  With this tubing, the top side of the rear down bars can be welded anywhere on the horizontal section of the main hoop or five inches or less vertically down the sides.

A rear cross brace was a simple add in to increase strength and reduce flex

We opted for the angled rear bars on our kit for two reasons; first to allow for more head room for any rear passengers, and second was so we could re-install the rear seat.  We wanted the rear bars to weld right behind the rear seat to allow for more trunk space since most of the rear trunk is actually occupied by the fuel cell.  Since we will be adding in mini tubs later, we allowed for the additional four inches of space we needed from the stock tubs.  This spot is also very close to the frame rail and we will later box the plate to the frame rail when we install the tubs.  Having some extra material left over, a support bar was welded between the two down bars for additional strength.

While there are measures you can take to weld the majority of the top welds, in some instances (especially with headliners) it can be hard to weld the top-most part of a bar. I called up NHRA to ask their tech department about that and they mentioned that if at least 75% of the joint is welded, a gusset on both sides of the tube can be added to take place of the missing welding.  While the tech did not have specs on the gusset’s requirements, some online sources have said they must be 1 1/2-inch long on each side and be at least a quarter inch thick.

Gussets used where the front main hoop connects to the main hoop. NHRA says you must have at least 75% of the welded joint completed to be able to reinforce them with the gussets.

Installing the Total Control Products Subframe Connectors

Subframe connectors should be anyone’s first purchase on a unibody vehicle.  Not only are they cost effective, but they tie the front and rear frame rails together and drastically improve the vehicle’s resistance to flexing. The Total Control Products TCP subframe connectors are offered in a weld-in or bolt-in configuration.  For our project, we selected the weld-in versions.  The connectors are specifically designed for first generation Mustangs and fit perfectly in place.

The Total Control Products weld-in subframe connectors with bolt-in cross bar and driveshaft safety loop.

To get the connectors installed as flat as possible to the floor, it is recommended to jack the connectors into the the floor to help persuade connectors to fit.

Once in place, Sean tack welded the connector in place and followed along with a complete weld of both the front and rear attachment points. Also, anywhere the connectors set flat to the floor, they were welded in place there - including where our roll cage D bars reside.

The subframe connectors can be optioned with Chassisworks’ bolt-in cross brace that can also be optioned with a driveshaft safety loop.  Since our stock exhaust is in the way for now, we did not install the brace.  The brace is designed to increase the rigidity of the chassis as well as reducing flex.  It attaches with two bolts on all four corners, though the front bolt holes have to be drilled through the frame rail as well.  The driveshaft safety loop attaches to the brace with four bolts.

Bottom Line – Get a Rule Book!

While we offered a lot of tips and tricks when it comes to installing a 10-point roll cage, it does not take place of a rule book.  They are cheap and indisposable when it comes to having your cage certified.  Also, there are other rules that must be met to make your vehicle legal for a certain time and speed outside of the roll cage.  It’s a good idea to consult with the tracks you race with locally to inquire about any additional rules they require to race. Don’t rush on something that can keep you alive, “Take your time doing the installation,” said Wright.  “All of our cages are made oversized in length so you can fit it as tight as possible and the tighter you can fit it, the better results you are going to have”. Remember, a roll cage is designed to keep you safe in case there is a crash, so don’t skimp on your safety!

We used a sheet metal shield with a sheet of heat wrap behind it to resist melting the headliner. Also, taking breaks and allowing it to cool will keep the heat lower.

The finished and painted roll cage with the interior reinstalled.

It might have been awhile since you have seen an update on our 666. To quickly recap, our Fox-Body is equipped with a 575 hp 408 Windsor, making about 480 hp to the rear tires.  Though this was going to be the last race we would make with our 408 as we are going to put our 427 Windsor that we had built for 666 sometime ago…we need to make the 666 horsepower goal that we had set to make with the fox body.

The Mustang is going to be used as a temporary race car for the 2011 PSCA racing season.  The class we plan to run is Limited Street, though the Mustang will be there just to gain points while the real car is being built…our ProCharged, LSX powered Project Grandma Malibu.  With that, a few changes have been made to the car.

Wolfe Racecraft 10-Point Cage Add On

We had previously installed a six-point Wolfe Racecraft roll cage years ago.  The kit is designed specifically for a fox body Mustang and each bar is cut to length (and can also be purchased pre-notched), which a decent welder can install in about one day.  Adding onto the six-point cage is Wolfe’s four-point add-on kit.  Along with the six-point kit, this was a built-to-fit application and also came pre-notched.  Sean additionally added a few gusset bars to help reinforce the cage. This week we will have the cage certified to make it all legal.

TCI’s C4 Auto Transmission Swap

You may have remembered that the Mustang was originally equipped with a 5-speed transmission.  In its place is now a TCI C4 automatic, which we installed to help harness the power of our 650+ 427 with consistency and durability.  TCI’s C4 is a standard transbrake, three-speed automatic transmission, sporting the low-drag, six-pinion planetary kit that still uses the stock ratio but has bearings all the way through.

Our C4 features a scatter shield for safety along with an SFI approved bell housing

A late-model, 26-spline case filled setup, it also has a reinforced forward gear drum, a billet intermediate servo assembly, 300M input shaft, a deep aluminum pan, and Red Eagle clutches. It should be noted that these features are all standard equipment on this model transmission. This transmission is based upon a factory C4 transmission case, and designed and intended for use in racing applications.

The design that TCI has implemented decreases the amount of drag considerably, pulling in the neighborhood of 18-20 horsepower, down from what is commonly around 30 horsepower in high gear. And being a Ford transmission where it would be commonplace to find it bolted behind a small block engine that on the average doesn’t typically make large amounts of excess horsepower, that 10-12 horsepower becomes quite a difference.

A deep sump pan holds an quart of additional transmission fluid

The six-pinion planetaries are created entirely in-house by modifying the factory gear assemblies to add in the extra gears. From the factory, the C4 sports a three-pinion planetary, and thus, is doubled through TCI’s process. The three-pinion planetary setup in the factory transmission is notoriously a weak link, and by increasing it’s size, the overall strength of the planetary assembly is vastly improved.

In addition to our TCI transmission, we also installed a eight-inch torque converter. This is TCI’s best selling race torque converter and is suitable for the greatest percentage of drag cars – from bracket racing, to Super Gas and Stock Eliminator.  Most of the models now feature a cast steel stator that is supported by an oversize caged bearing for added reliability.  Current models also feature an improved housing design for less flex or ballooning under the stress of racing, resulting in more consistent times, reactions, and better durability.

AFCO’s Double Adjustable Rear Shock

To help get the rear end planted properly we installed a set of AFCO’s double adjustable, twin tube shocks.  They are compression adjustable from the top side of the shock’s shaft and rebound adjustable via the knob near the lower shock mount.  Having a double adjustable shock allows us to dial in the amount of weight transfer to the rear tires and also how fast the shock will try to recover.

The shock features an outer reserve tube with an inner pressure tube that allows the shock to perform with small body dents. All AFCO R-Series Shocks are 100% dyno tested, rebuildable, and revalvable.

• Compression is adjustable from 1 (softest) to 8 (stiffest), with an infinite number of positions in between (no clicks)
• Rebound is adjustable via a keyhole in the shaft from 1-valve to 12-valve, with an infinite number of positions in between (no clicks)
• Lightweight aluminum design
• Valving is extremely sensitive to change–even a small adjustment can be felt, allowing you to find the “sweet spot” in your setup
• Strong, dependable adjusters will keep your settings until you change them again
• 100 percent dyno-tested to ensure all AFCO drag shocks match in performance
• In-house manufacturing maintains high tolerances
• Can be mounted upside-down for reduced unsprung weight

Red Line Oils Add The Viscosity

With a vast amount of overhauls completed, the need for a fresh set of lubricants.  First off was a bottle of Red Line’s Water Wetter. Unique agent for cooling systems that doubles the wetting ability of water. Also to keep the block and heads free of gunk, rust and corrosion protection allows for use of straight water in racing or reduced antifreeze levels in warm climates.

Next up was six quarts of Red Line’s 5w30 synthetic motor oil.  It features excellent wear protection and friction reduction across a wide range of operating conditions. Als0 superior high temperature stability and oxidation resistance increases lubrication of hot metal compared to other synthetics.

The gear oil of choice was 75w-90 fully synthetic. This is the most popular Red Line gear oil, with thousands of applications for passenger cars, light trucks, and racing vehicles. It contains additional friction modifiers for suitablity with clutch-type limited slip differentials – for most LSDs, no additional friction modifiers are required.

Trip to Fontana with High 10s on the Mind

Our trip to the track began surprising early, with a departure time of six o’clock in the morning, in order to arrive at the track in time for a prime pit spot. As it turned out, we ended up a 1/4 mile from the staging area. We used the two mile asphalt circle track that is parallel to the pit area as a point of reference in measuring the distance. This is the same oval track that NASCAR holds their annual Fontana races on.

A quick check of fluids, tire pressures and window cleaning, and we were set. No sooner than we got James stuffed into the driver’s seat, the call came over the public address system for cars to start moving to the staging area.

Our initial choice to enter in the Sportsman class turned out to be a mistake and we chose to move up into the Pro class. On the first run we left at 3,500 RPM of the trans brake, and our project car rebounded with a 1.497 sixty foot and a 7.179 @ 94.23 mph eighth mile where he lifted and coasted out the rest of the track to a 11.920 @ 87.93 mph. James reported an issue with the shifter possibly being mis-adjusted. One the second pass of the day the car managed to rebound with a 1.432 sixty foot and a 7.069 @ 94.35 mph eighth mile time and rounded out the quarter mile with a 11.177 @ 117.70 mph pass. We did notice during the run, each gear change resulted in a loud bang through the exhaust system.

Another five minute walk back to the trailer and our worst fears were confirmed. The pop in the exhaust was substantial and we needed to track down the source. After listening to the engine, we determined that there was a problem with an leaky exhaust gasket that was drawing fresh air into the exhaust flow.

Another five minute walk to the staging area where we met James waiting to move into the burnout box. James drew the left hand lane, where he started on the first run of the day. The car launched much smoother than the previous runs and the gears shifted smoothly resulting in a breakout run. We had dialed a 10.80 and ran a 10.568 @ 116.94 mph while on the rev limiter the last 150 feet, due to the lack of rear gear. With the proper gearing and being able to stay in it the entire duration of the track, we felt that 10.30s would have been feasible.  The last five minute walk was a bitter sweet feeling because of the nice run but the reality of breaking out and going home meant the end of the day.

Our three time slips throughout the day with car number 7555. Click the picture above for a larger version.

When we went looking for the perfect suspension upgrade for our Project MaxStreet 1966 Chevy II that offered the versatility and performance to go along with the big power coming from our 555 cubic inch Edelbrock/Musi crate engine, we turned to none other than Detroit Speed and their new QUADRALink four-link suspension system.

Detroit Speed's QUADRALink rear suspension kit

It can be easy to make the whole theory of vehicle suspension and suspension geometry difficult, especially if an engineer is trying to explain it, but it’s really a rather simple concept. Tuning it is more of a learning curve, but understanding how it all works isn’t anything that a few minutes and a cup of coffee can’t accomplish.

When you get right down to it, the primary function of suspension is to provide a smooth ride for you and your vehicle. The force of motion when encountering a bump in the road will cause your wheels to move up and down horizontally in concert with the road surface. Without anything to absorb the energy between the wheels and the car itself, the vehicle would – at speed – lose contact with the road and eventually wear the car (and your teeth) to pieces. Think of an empty wheelbarrow when rolled over an uneven surface – it bounces uncontrollably. Not comfortable, and certainly not safe.

Understanding a Leaf Spring Suspension

Our Project MaxStreet 1966 Chevy II comes from a time when leaf springs were pretty well the standard for rear suspension, even on performance-minded automobiles. Leaf springs were commonplace and found on most American vehicles until the mid 1980’s, and can still be found underneath many trucks and heavy-duty vehicles today. When applied in applications that are designed for their use, leaf springs are quite effective. But when you overstep those boundaries – such as attempting to put close to four figures worth of horsepower to the ground through them as we are – their ineffectiveness becomes glaringly obvious.

Project MaxStreet and it's ancient leaf springs are about to meet their maker

Leaf springs, which are commonly referred to as semi-elliptical springs, are springs that are formed in a slender arc-shaped length of steel (or other metals) of rectangular cross section. The springs are mounted to the body of the vehicle at each end, while the center section of the arc is attached to the axle housings through the use of a clamp. The leaves can be attached to the vehicles frame either directly at both ends or just at one end while the other is mounted with a shackle, or short swinging arm. When used on larger and heavier vehicles, several progressively shorter leaves of springs can be stacked atop one another in layers for additional strength to cope with the increased weight.

Leaf springs actually date back to mediaeval times on horse drawn carriages and were originally known simply as “carriage springs.” Despite their ancient roots, however, they still offer some advantages over modern coil-type springs. On heavier vehicles, they spread the load of the weight more widely over the vehicles chassis, while helical (coil) springs transfer it to a single point. In addition, they also locate the axles. In other words, they inhibit the side-to-side movement of the rear end housing, eliminating the need for trailing arms and panhard bars that are found in modern suspension designs. This both cuts down on cost and weight in a simple live axle rear suspension.

But as you increase the horsepower being applied to the rear suspension, you also increase the forces of acceleration, and this can greatly change the dynamics of a leaf spring setup. During hard acceleration, such as drag racing use, the leaves will want to twist and subsequently, will lead to wheel hop until settling back down into their proper orientation. If rounding a corner at a fairly high rate of speed, the leaf spring method will tend to lose control of the lateral location of the rear end and axles, and that’s a bad thing for a myriad of obvious reasons.

The Benefits of a Modern Four-Link Suspension

Suspension is every bit as important as the monster you’ve got lurking under the hood, and with our ProCharged 555ci crate engine making in excess of 800 horsepower to the rear wheels, even a simple modified leaf spring setup just wasn’t going to be enough. It was all fine and great in our Chevy II as it came from the factory, but this ain’t your daddy’s Chevy II anymore. What we needed was something that could handle the rigors of some big horsepower in various uses – from the street, to the strip, and even the road course – while offering some level of flexibility and tunability. And that, my friends, was a four-link.

Four-link suspensions are virtually unmatched in high horsepower drag racing applications where consistent traction and nearly limitless tuning ability are a must. As well, they are very popular on road course vehicles and have become increasingly present in the Pro Touring style of project cars that are all the rage these days.

Sean works on removing the old factory leaf springs and rear end housing to make way for the new Detroit Speed QUADRALink and 9" Moser housing

The popularity of the 4-link primarily centers around its ability for a vehicle to accelerate rather quickly or turn freely through a corner without a loss of forward bite. While the leaf springs would wheel hop or lose hold of the axles, the 4-link will stand its ground. There are two different types of four-links: parallel and triangulated. They both accomplish the same purpose as one another and any other form of rear suspension – hold the rear axles in the vehicle.

In a four-link suspension setup, there are four bars that hold the axle in place while providing vertical movement of the rear end for suspension. The bottom two bars hold the axle in place front to back, while the top two keep the housing from rotating and the pinion angle at a constant. In a triangulated configuration, the top two bars are mounted at angle from the housing to the frame, holding the housing in place and eliminating the need for a panhard bar. One of the primary arguments in favor of a four-link is the separation of duties of locating the axle and supporting the vehicle, whereas leaf springs perform both functions. As such, the four-link, either triangulated or through the use of a panhard bar, will continue to locate the axles regardless of how soft you choose to make the springs. Leaf springs on the other hand, will flex laterally and twist the leaves to the breaking point when softened.

Detroit Speed and Engineering hooked us up with their brand new QUADRALink rear suspension kit made specifically for the Chevy II. Detroit Speed and Engineering is located in Mooresville, NC, right in the heart of stock car country. DSE provides complete replacement suspension kits and components that can transform your early model project car into the 21^st century marvel. Led by owners Kyle and Stacy Tucker, Detroit Speed, through its ever-growing line of extensively engineered and high quality parts and acclaimed projects from its fabrication facility, has become one the most renowned names in the high performance automotive aftermarket.

“A four-link offers a better transfer of power to the wheels, and also eliminates power hop. Without being too technical, it better defines your suspension geometry parameters that give you the ride, handling, and performance that make it feel like a late model performance car,” said Detroit Speed Vice President Stacy Tucker. “What makes a four-link work is the instant centers and percentage of wheel base as well as the weight of the car. All that is done in the side view of the four-link geometry. Basically the four-link works depending on the pickup points on the rear axle and where they converge at on the side view and how that correlates with the wheelbase of the car,” said Detroit Speed owner Kyle Tucker.

Under acceleration, the natural course of events regardless of the suspension in place, is the rear end housing and axles will want to rotate upward from the forces placed upon it from the driveshaft. With a four-link, in doing so, the two top bars will undergo a pulling force, while the two lower arms are pushed upon.

Said Stacy, “With our four-link in particular that uses our patented Swivel-Link. So you get the best of both worlds, with superior ride quality because the Swivel-Link doesn’t bind at all. So as you go through the ride motion, there is no binding. In addition, you get the excellent handling of a four-link. Our four-link uses a panhard bar, which provides better lateral locating of the rear axle. Anything that moves unintentionally when you’re on a race track or trying to get best handling is a detriment to your overall handling performance.”

The main drawbacks to a four-link swap are cost and the generally inherent difficulty of installation. However, kits from companies like Detroit Speed are both affordable and designed for relatively simple installation make much more of a case for ditching those rusty old leaf springs and never looking back.

The DSE QUADRALink utilizes tuned high-durometer rubber bushings

The Detroit Speed QUADRALink Kit for Chevy Novas – PN # 041707

The Detroit Speed QUADRAKLink kit makes for a perfect upgrade of your rear suspension from the stock leaf springs. The kit utilizes DSE’s exclusive new 4-link geometry design to achieve the best possible handling.

• Patented Swivel-Link allows the suspension to fully articulate with smooth and sold motion and without binding that that can commonly occur in 4-link setups
• Tuned, high-durometer rubber bushings in place of the standard heim joints and urethane bushings that are notoriously weak and noisy
• Long upper links provide a great pinion angle and u-joint angle control
• Panhard bar provides precise and effective lateral location of the axle during hard cornering and acceleration. It is also fully adjustable with changes in ride height
• Adjustable sway bar includes end links, bushings, and mounting brackets for installation.

Detroit Speed already had QUADRALink 4-link kits on the market for the 1967-1969 Camaro and Firebird, 1970-1981 Camaro and Firebird, and the 1968-1974 Nova/Venture/Omega. The kit for the 1962-1967 Chevy II is the newest addition to their product line, and what better way to put it to the test than under Project MaxStreet.

Let’s get to work!

Installation of our QUADRALink Four-Link

The DSE QUADRALink kit, minus the housing brackets that are being installed at Moser Engineering

Detroit Speed provides everything you need with the kit to get your new QUADRALink installed and ready to hit the road. All the mounting brackets and cross member come fully fabricated and ready to be installed on the car. Included are the instructions, an instructional video, and printed templates for lining up and making your cuts and welds to make the installation process much simpler then one may think for such an extensive setup.

The installation process on our MaxStreet Chevy II closely followed the order of events in the supplied video, which is pretty self-explanatory once you know which parts are which and where they go. In the kit is both the upper and lower four-link bars and the panhard bar, the crossmember with brackets for mounting the upper bars and support gussets, two spacer boxes and brackets for the lower four-link bars, the mounting plate/brackets for the shocks, the panhard bracket, and the four brackets to be welded to your housing to connect it all together.

Sean removes a section of the trunk floor to make way for the new piece that provides extra clearance for the four-link

Before moving forward with the installation of the QUADRALink, we first had to prepare the car for the job. Namely, removing the seats and carpeting from both the cabin and the trunk and of course, all of the leaf spring suspension parts. We had already outfitted the car with Detroit Speed’s Deep Mini Tub kit to fit the 17×11” Billet Specialties Street Lite wheels, which required a narrowing of the Chevy II’s framerails. It should be noted that the mini tub kit does not change the installation procedure of the four-link in anyway and it is actually designed to accommodate it.

The supplied brackets for mounting the housing to the four-link bars were sent to Moser Engineering to be welded to our new 9-inch housing that will go in the car, which won’t be seen in this article but will be discussed in a future update on the project. Detroit Speed recommends a -2 degree pinion angle on the housing, and Moser will be supplying their housing as such.

The new section of trunk floor supplied in the DSE kit is set in place prior to welding

The install begins with the removal of a rectangular section of the trunk floor. Extra clearance is needed in that area for the four-link and the mounting of the panhard bracket. Supplied with the QUADRALink kit is a steel plate that raises up that section of the trunk. Once all the supplied measurements are made, it’s time to start cutting.

Next, we need to go underneath the car and remove the transport hold downs on each side, the axle jounce jumper bracket, and E-brake cable bracket. Once removed, we have an unobtrusive framerail to place and weld the DSE shock mount structure to. Using the supplied templates, the placement for cutting through the floor of the car for the upper four-link brackets is the next step. Once marked, the square area is cut and removed from each side.

The crossmember is dropped into place once the openings are cut for the attached upper four-link brackets

The framerails are then marked on each side for placement of the rail support/shock bracket and tapped and drilled for welding. Likewise, holes are also tapped and drilled in the floor where the cross member will be and the floor area where the section that we cut out will be replaced. Each of the parts is also drilled along the edges for welding locations. Once everything is prepared, we can begin welding it all into its proper place in the car. The bracket for the panhard bar is placed perpendicular to the rocker panels and once measured, is welded into place.

A set of steel support gussets for the upper four-link brackets and crossmember are set in place before Sean puts the welder to them

The crossmember is then dropped into place from the inside of the car. The mounting brackets for the upper four-link bars are part of the crossmember and, if the square holes that we drilled in the floorboard earlier are measure correctly, it should drop into the correct location. The supplied gussets will fit underneath the upper brackets and provide additional strength and support. Once in the proper position, both parts are welded into place.

The lower four-link brackets weld to the bottom of the framerail and the supplied spacer box. Note the leaf spring bracket still intact for now to make sure we line up the mounting holes properly.

We then turn to the lower four-link brackets underneath the car. The support boxes that come in the kit not only provide additional strength for the lower four-link arms, but provide the proper positioning under the car. As you can see, we haven’t even removed our leaf spring brackets yet. With the support box welded into place, we can then position and weld the actual brackets to them.

With all of the grunt work complete, we can weld the rear seat support back together and into place, where it will attach to the new crossmember.

The kit all complete under our Chevy II and awaiting the arrival of our new 9" housing from Moser Engineering

At this point, everything in regards to the car itself is in place and ready to bolt up. The new 9-inch Moser housing with the four-link brackets welded into place has arrive and now we can get simply bolt it all up. One of the great attributes of a four-link suspension, as previously mentioned, is the ability to tune the suspension for a variety of environments and situations. “When you talk about changing the side view geometry, you do change those links of the upper and lower arms but also, you need to change the heights of those relative to the ground, and that’s how you can tune a four-link,” explained Kyle.

Kyle offered a list of general tuning suggestions for QUADRALink and replacement-type four-link suspensions on the dragstrip to get the most of out of your new suspension.

• Tuning of the pinion angle is probably the number one tuning tip, and is very much dependent upon the instant centers of the four-link bars in the side view geometry. Pinion angle will play a large role in bettering your 60’ time.
• Adjusting your spring rate by running a heavier spring on the right rear
• DSE will have soon offer a urethane bushing option to replace the rubber model and can play a large role in the tuning as well
• Sway bars and tire pressure

The Detroit Speed QUADRALink kit does require a moderate level of fabrication skill, though we were able to install the complete kit in around two working days. If you’re ready to ditch those old leaf springs under your classic project car, a four-link kit might be just what you need. Especially if you’re planning to make a lot of horsepower and want to plant it to the ground efficiently whether at the dragstrip, the road course, or just a cruise through the hills. Your car will appreciate it, and so will you!

The DSE four-link kit with their adjustable rear coilover kit and new 9" housing from Moser all buttoned up and almost ready to roll

The tire's date of manufacture is encoded in the sidewall - in this case, the 34th week of 2008.

Like anything else in the non-sparkly-vampire universe, tires aren’t immortal, and freshness is important. The first step in reading your tires is, well, actually reading them – or at least what’s encoded on the sidewall. “The tire can give a pretty good account of its life and health in several ways,” Robinson explains. “One of the first things I recommend is to identify the manufacturing date found in the serial code on the tire. Generally it’s the last four digits and represents the week and year of manufacture.  Knowing the date is not the only key, but it establishes the lifeline of the product.” There’s no hard and fast rule about when a tire is too old, but more recently-manufactured tires are less likely to have UV or ozone damage from careless storage. If the tires have been previously mounted, Robinson suggests, “A visual inspection of the bead area is strongly recommended to insure there has been no damage due to mounting, movement of the tire on the wheel, or improperly installed wheels screws.”

Before mounting, inspect the bead area for damage, especially on tires that have been previously used.

Once you’ve determined that there’s nothing obviously wrong with the bead, it’s time to get to the meat of the tire. “The tread can be a strong indicator,” says Robinson. “Inspect the entire tread looking for any cuts or potential punctures. Older tires tend to be “dryer” on the tread than those that are new.  This is not to suggest the tire’s condition is unfavorable, but it can be a factor if the tires were stored improperly.”

Room to Grow

With new bias-ply slicks, a little record-keeping from the very start can pay dividends down the line. Most racers know that they’ll increase in diameter down track; per Robinson, “Most often your tires will grow from 5/8 to over an inch, and different combinations will yield varying growth.” What you may not know is that the initial, brand-new “rollout” (circumference) of a bias-ply tire at rest will change once you start to use it. “Typically the tire will be “set” after 3 to 5 runs,” Robinson explains, at which point it shouldn’t change diameter from there on out. “A thorough history of the tire’s circumference measurement should be documented.  The size of your tires, especially bias ply tires, is critical to the entire combination as the roll out and growth of the tire establishes the final drive ratio.  In most cases each inch of roll-out can change finish line RPM by about 125 RPM.” Drag radials, on the other hand, don’t change diameter unless there’s something seriously wrong. Per Robinson, “Radial race tires are not generally affected with this trait. Because of the construction, radial tires are almost always identical in size and do not grow during the run as do the bias-constructed race tires.”

Tire size doesn't just affect gearing; growth at high RPM or suspension squat on the launch can lead to contact with the fenderwells, as evidenced here.

Smoke ‘em if you got em…

Inspection of your tires can also give you clues about inflation pressure and burnout technique. In the same way you can read a spark plug’s temperature by looking at the color of the ground strap, indications left on the margins of a slick can tell you a lot. “A close inspection of the tread and shoulder area can offer clues to determining the correct duration of your burnout,” says Robinson. “If tires are worked hard in the water box, there will be evidence on the shoulder’s edge.”

Tires that are worked too hard in the burnout box will often develop a blue border on the edges of the tread.

As far as setting the correct tire pressure is concerned, the first place to look is obvious signs of wear in the center (overinflation) or edges (underinflation) of the tread face. Going lower doesn’t always improve grip, and too little pressure can lead to “cupping” that lifts the center of the tread face away from the track surface. The type of tire also plays a role in finding the ideal PSI. Per Robinson, generally speaking, “Radials require greater air pressure to perform optimally when compared to bias-ply tires, and most of the benefit in performance comes from reduced rolling resistance.” Going too low gives up that advantage in the quest for sidewall flex that’s just not going to happen with a stiffer radial carcass. Robinson concludes, “I’m sure it’s possible to get close to your ideal tire pressure by visual inspection but I believe that that time slip is the ultimate guide.  Always consider the ambient conditions and try to develop an understanding as to how they affect your combination.  Good data is very important.”

Underinflation has led to "cupping" on this tire, shown by the V-shaped pattern on the tread surface.

One of the more obvious things a close inspection of your tire tread can tell you is how much tread thickness actually remains, by examining the wear indicators. Once again, though, it’s part of the puzzle, not the whole picture. Sometimes a tire will start to ‘go away’ before the tread is done, but according to Robinson, “Not in every case.  We have had many customers bring their tires to our M/T Service trailer with the cords showing.  They always brag about how well the tires worked right down to the cords!”

As they say in the commercials, ‘your mileage may vary.’ Robinson admits, “Honestly, there are so many different combinations at the drag strip that to attempt to predict the life of a drag tire on any particular car is a real gamble.  Too many factors weigh in. Also, there are other components besides the tread that can affect performance.  Heavy cars with big power can reduce the resilience of the tire reducing its spring rate, for example.” So how do you know when it’s time to say goodbye to a pair of slicks? “Ultimately it’s the measured performance that will tell the truth on your tires,” says Robinson. “Look hard at the incremental times provided on the time slip.  Check the performance of your fellow racers.  Track conditions and ambient temperature also weigh heavily in the consistent performance of your car.”

Tread depth isn't a surefire guide to how well a drag tire will work, but keeping an eye on the indicators can give you insight into how the tire is wearing across the treadface.

Side to Side

One way of making sure that you’re getting your money’s worth out of a pair of drag slicks is to rotate them from side to side to even out the wear. Once again, an examination of the tires will provide clues to when it’s time. Robinson advises, “Watching your 60-foot times closely, along with a visual inspection of the tread are your best indicators.  Some applications will never see a benefit from rotation, while others will.  If you notice the tread of your tires “feathering” (a unique texture that’s much easier to show than describe) this could be indicating tire spin or slippage.  Rotation can extend the effective life of a tire, as some cars can establish wear patterns that reduce the contact patch.” Drag radials, on the contrary, are often unidirectional and shouldn’t be rotated, though it is possible to remount them on the opposite rims if uneven wear across the tread face occurs in an IRS application.

Rotating tires from side to side can add to their useful life, even in very high horsepower applications.

Speaking of bias-ply vs. radial, when we asked Robinson on whether there’s a difference between what you’d look for, he offered the following advice: “The radial tire has a different shape in the shoulder area.  Bias-ply tires tend to be square at the edge, and the radial is rounded.  This makes “reading” the radial a little more challenging.  There is no distinct edge.  I’ll go back to the good old time slip – it tells you what the car wants!” In that same vein, Robinson has a bit of guidance when it comes to choosing between the two in the first place. “When shopping for a DOT tire, most customers have an option to go bias or radial,” he explains. “Since the majority of those with street-based performance cars utilize automatic transmissions, the radials become an ideal choice for most in the DOT applications.  Most ‘street based’ clutch cars lack the high end adjustability required to benefit from a radial. If you run a clutch, then stick to the bias-ply ET Street tire.”

Drag radials are a little bit different to read compared to slicks thanks to their rounded shoulder contour.

Street to Strip

We’ve spoken in general terms throughout this article, but there are clearly differences in how a tire works on an 11-second bracket car, compared to an Outlaw 10.5 racer. The question obviously arises as to how much they have in common when it comes to understanding what your tire is telling you. Robinson explains, “Well, the 11-second bracket car should be a dead-hook program, but that’s another topic!  Really it comes down to understanding the conditions and the time slip.  What you want ideally is consistency and efficiency.  If you see your 60-foot times going up and down, then look to the track conditions and draw comparisons to your competition.  If your 60-foot times go up consistently, then your tires may have lost their ability to hold your car or create enough grip.”

We packed up our die grinders and welder for now, and got out a good set of Cornwell wrenches and set aside about two days time to install the g-Machine Subframe system onto our 1966 Chevy II. That’s not very much time when you consider the total package from the subframe, to a Willwood brake kit designed specifically for the g-Machine setup.

Our New Deuce

For those who haven’t seen the few updates we’ve already done on the car, our Nova will be receiving the 555ci Edelbrock/Musi crate engine that was previously installed in Project Grandma. To spice the motor up even further, Pacific Performance is assisting us on installing a few new goodies. It will be getting a new set of low compression JE pistons, Edelbrock’s new XT Heads, and a F2 Procharger to help light the tires of this light muscle car. Transferring power will be a TCI 6x transmission with 6 forward gears with out the need for a third pedal. Balancing the fuel, air, and spark distribution will be the one-two-combo of a FAST XFI and MSD ignition. We are aiming for around 850hp to the wheels on pump gas.

Chassisworks g-Machine Front Clip for the Chevy II

The Chevy II has been a popular car for the Pro Touring crowd thanks to it’s lightweight body, short wheel base, and willingness to accept lots of motor – but not with out some suspension work to go with it. Our infamous, and soon to be ProCharged, Edelbrock/Musi 555 BBC will provide all the ‘GO’ power it needs, but the suspension was an area of concern for us.

We found Chassisworks’ g-Machine Subframe system and were imminently impressed with the amount of technology built into it. While at first glance you can tell it is vastly different from the stock subframe, diving into the details reveals even more design differences that allow the Chassisworks subframe to improve the handling performance of the Deuce. Lino Chestang of Chassisworks explains, “the g-Machine system was specifically designed to handle the increased cornering and braking forces that modern Pro-Touring and open-track cars are capable of generating, and provide a number of other advantages. It also allows for quick and simple adjustments when using different alignment setups for specific race tracks or participating in a weekend autocross with your street car.”

This complete system has tons of info that we want to share with you, just not in one article. In this article we will cover all the subframe related components that leads up to installing the engine. In part two, we’ll cover the remaining steps including wheels and tires completing our upgrade, and oh yeah, and all 555 cubic inches of big block ProCharged power.

Here is the COMPLETE overview of what we used on our g-Machine setup: (Part Numbers)

• Chassisworks g-Machine Subframe (7700)
• Chassisworks g-Machine A-Arms (6153 & )
• Chassisworks g-Machine Sway Bar (6154)
• Chassisworks g-Machine Power Rack and Pinion w/Billet Rack Mounts (6140-215-1)
• Chassisworks g-Machine Spindles (6186)
• Chassisworks Varishocks (VAS 11222-425)
• Chassisworks Varisprings (VAS 09-675)
• Chassisworks Heavy Duty Hubs (1317-1)
• Chassiworks Rotor Hats (1332)
• Chassisworks Caliper Brackets (1474)
• Wilwood SRP Drilled Performance Brake Rotors (WW 160-8396 & WW 160-8397)
• Wilwood Billet Narrow Superlite 6 Radial Mount Calipers (WW 120-8000-RS & WW 120-8001-RS)

g-Machine Subframe: ’62-’67 Chevy II (PN: 7700)

First and foremost, the most important thing to keep in mind about this subframe is the suspension design. Chassisworks started off with a clean sheet of paper when designing this kit. That means this is more than just a revised OE suspension geometry, it is an all new thought process. Let’s start at the base of this kit, the crossmember.

Instead of reusing the stock crossmember, Chassisworks made the call to use a brand new bent-tube, billet-component crossmember instead. The billet-component name comes from the billet steel parts integrated into the crossmember such as the steering rack mounts. They claim doing so ensures a rigid structure with greater strength and resistance to bending. The process starts with a single piece of 4×2 steel tubing that is mandrel bent on each end to form the base of the rest of the system.

Chassisworks adds slots for their billet-mounts that are interlocked before being welded into place. This small detail keeps helps prevent the medal from warping during the welding process, which would throw off alignment of the parts attached to them.

From there, Chassisworks adds their Billet Steel A-Arm Mounts to the crossmember. These CNC machined parts include threaded bosses at each end that accept screws to lock the pivot pins into place. Again using a slot-tab style of mounting, these cap off the end of the crossmember by fitting into tabs in addition to being welded all the way around.

The One-Piece Clevis Shock Mount is attached at the top of the A-Arm mount that includes a gusset across both the top and bottom for extra support. Chassisworks designed it to work with their complete line of VariShock coil-overs as well as the ShockWave air suspension thanks to its 1-5/16” wide opening and 1/2” mounting bolt hole.

The lower control arms are mounted in place to a one piece bar that runs the entire length of the control arm for added strength and support. To add an extra level of insurance, Chassisworks used the placement of the sway bar mounts on each side as support gussets of the lower control arm mounts. Just one small example of the engineering detail that went into this system.

Close up showing the sway bar mount acting as a gusset for the lower control arm mount.

Holding the power plant in place is their side-mount brackets. Chassisworks understands that engine swaps are common and has options for small blocks, big blocks, even LS engines all with or without motor plates. These come with the correct bolt hole for each engine already drilled out, and welded to the crossmember to maintain correct engine placement.

Forward of the crossmember, the subframe design is braced with the use of a fabricated frame horn that widens the frame rails for even more support where the forward struts connect as well as the bumper supports. It is here that Chassisworks places one of their Gemini Connector Systems on each side. This slip-fit joint uses a 5/16” socket-head screw to hold its two sides together. Besides letting everything be packaged into one nice clean box for shipping, it makes installation easy by breaking down the large subframe system into three easy to handle bits.

“Instead of going with a welded joint or bolt-on tabs, we use a CNC-machined male base that provides a larger contact area at the welded connection to the subframe rail,” Lino told us. “This not only creates a simple slip-fit joint that is significantly stronger than the tubing itself, but also takes advantage of the additional internal bracing within the subframe rail to create a rock-solid joint,” he added.

To eliminate any chance of chassis deflection froward of the firewall, Chassisworks uses 1-5/8” tubing for front struts to keep things in line. Besides bumping up the strength even more, they’re mandrel bent in just the right spots to route the tubes right against the inner fender. This gives you more room in the fender, while still leaving plenty of room in the engine compartment for a monster like our 555 BBC.

Bottom line here is the stock factory front clip is like most components unibody cars are built from. They’re flimsy, weak, and not suited for spirited performance driving. This Chassisworks front clip provides a quality base for which to install a performance suspension that you can trust won’t act like it’s made from soda cans.

The rest of the components all install onto the subframe which is why it is the most important piece to this puzzle. Let’s take a look at the rest of what is included as we install it.

Installation

We mentioned that this swap was a 100% bolt in job, and that you wouldn’t need a single special tool to make the change. This makes the system even more attractive as it doesn’t require years of welding or fabrication experience to install – Chassisworks does all those steps before the unit is shipped. What’s really amazing was the level of detail both in the parts and the instructions. There is nothing to figure out, or that isn’t in these instructions – these are some of the best we’ve seen.

The install started off with the removal of the stock parts. This was easily done without even pulling the wheels off. We first yanked the motor and transmission, along with the fenders and bumper, letting us simply unbolt the stock clip from the firewall and roll it forward.

Installing the Chassisworks subframe was even more painless. It only took eight bolts total to mate it to the firewall. We used a floor jack to both balance it, and lift it up to the car.

Next were the front struts that we first attached via the Gemini connectors. To mount these to the firewall, we had to measure the width of the shims used to align the stock clip. Chassisworks includes new shims that install the same way. We just matched the width of the stock spacers, and installed them accordingly.

The Gemini Connectors were easy to use and made installing the subframe a cake walk.

Starting to take shape, our Nova was already looking better.

With the foundation of our new front end installed, we moved onto the suspension itself. Chassisworks designed the g-Machine Subframe to accept their new g-Machine Control Arms.

There is tons of small technology packed detail in these arms that make them a better alternative to stock style suspension. Besides, once you make the jump to the g-Machine subframe, stock control arms will no longer bolt up to the car. Check out a few of the highlights on the lowers right after the next photo.

Chassisworks g-Machine Lower Control Arms (PN: 6152)
• Broad lower control arm increases load capacity and stability during braking and cornering.
• Longer lower control arm length reduces track-width change and roll-center movement during suspension travel for smoother transitions entering and exiting turns.
• Lower shock mount is located very close to the balljoint for better shock-motion ratio. A higher shock-motion ratio allows use of lighter, lower-rate springs for better suspension control without degrading ride quality.
• Includes mount for anti-roll bar and screw in ball joint.

These installed using the supplied bolts that threads into the lower mount. When done, the arm should stay in the same spot you leave it and not pivot down.

Chassiworks PN: 6153

The uppers are just as impressive as the lowers. Their advanced, rigid design has more advantages than you might first see. “The added bridge of the upper arm and diagonals on the lower reduce deflection throughout the arm, resulting in more immediate vehicle response and predictable braking and corner entry,” explained Lino.

Besides the billet eyebolts and double-adjustment couplers that give you an almost endless amount of adjustment, Chassisworks designed them to give the most possible clearance for large shocks such as the ShockWave air suspension and their Varishock Coilovers. It also has the right amount of positive caster built right into it thanks to an rearward offset balljoint. It is only about a 1/2-inch, but that different makes this control arm perform so much better than the stock control arm. It is stronger, lighter, plus it looks a heck of a lot better.

We easily and quickly assembled the upper control arms with all the supplied hardware, and made sure that both lengths of the rod ends of each arm were exactly the same. Even though we will soon be aligning the suspension, we wanted to make sure we had a good starting place.

Up next were the spindles (PN:6186), where once again Chassisworks found another area to improve upon the stock offering. Starting out with a state-of-the-art finite element analysis software, they looked at the molecular level to see where they could improve the design. This resulted a 2-inch drop spindle that is actually taller than some of the more commonly used OE spindles. That gives a quicker camber curve for cornering as well as a lower center of gravity. “The spindle height and axle location work in conjunction with the control arm geometry to offer improved negative-camber gain and lower ride height than what is typically found in OEM designs,” adds Lino.

They install just like every other spindle, with two castle nuts and the same amount of cotter pins to lock them in.

From there it was time to add the steering rack (PN: 6140-215-1). Anyone that has ever owned a Nova, regardless of year, can attest to the issues with the stock setup. Chassiworks does away with all of these issues with their g-Machine Power Rack and Pinion. This setup not only adds the modern touch of power steering in the compact package of a rack and pinion, but the subframe relocates the steering system to the front of the crossmember. That leaves you plenty of room for large sump oil pans behind the crossmember. It also leaves you plenty of room up front as well. The hard lines are routed as close to the rack body as possible that Chassiworks combines with a low-profile rotatable banjo fittings give you a compact package with great performance.

Mounting the rack is just as nifty. Chassisworks uses their own billet aluminum assembly (PN: 6139-215-2 ) to hold the rack in place. Besides being a simple bolt in job to attach the rack, the design promotes being able to clock the rack in an almost endless amount of positions. This results in the ability to point the input shaft of the steering rack in the perfect position to clear things like exhaust without the overuse of U-Joints.

The different angles you can set the input shaft for the steering rack are endless.

To kick off the alignment process, we then installed Chassisworks’ included shock simulators. These simple bars help so much when it comes time to align the system. The holes are positioned perfectly to hold the suspension at ride height, even when the car is in the air.

Again turning to Chassisworks’ awesome set of instructions, we performed the necessary steps to insure that the car was sitting level before following each step in the book to align the suspension. This is an important process that should not be skipped, and besides, right now is the easiest time you will have aligning your car.

With the alignment complete, we were ready to move on to the antiroll bar. Chassisworks included one of their g-Machine 1”-diameter Antiroll Bars (PN: 6154) for use on our Deuce. The design uses short style end links that let the performance effects of the bar be more linear and predictable – two words not normally associated with the Chevy II. It is held on the to crossmember with another beautiful looking billet mount and a graphite-impregnated black urethane bushing to keep things moving smoothly.

Once the sway bar was installed, we could remove the shock simulators and install the real things. First, we had to assemble the shocks. We’ve dealt with Varishocks before and are still impressed with their quality and ease of assembly. Chassisworks recommended their part number VAS 11222-425 shocks for our application. They features the same great qualities as every Varishock including improved heat dissipation and fluid control.

What really got us was it is equipped with their Quickset 2. This adds a double-adjustable feature to the already stout shock. The two knobs at the base of the shock, one controlling compression or bump, the other handling rebound or extension, work together to provide 256 different adjustment points to dial in the setting that works best for your vehicle.

Over that, we added Chassisworks’ Varisprings of the 9-inch length configuration. These 650 lb/inch springs will be just what our Nova needs according to Chassisworks, but if we even want to go back and change them, they are labeled right on the spring to let us know which ones we have on the car, and they can be quickly changed the same way they were built.

Having the spring rate on the spring sounds like a small thing, but when you build up to a box of them, it comes in handy to know which ones you got.

Installing them into chassis took only two bolts per side and they were in.

The complete suspension and subframe assembly.

Here’s a close-up of the installed spindle and suspension assembly before we added the brakes.

With the suspension handled, we moved onto the brakes. Chassisworks recommends and sells Wilwood rotors and calipers for the installation using their billet aluminum hubs and hats. Starting with the rotor, Wilwood choose to go with their SRP Drilled Performance Rotor for use with the g-Machine System. We agreed because we knew that it featured a directional cross drill and slot pattern on the surface of the rotor to help prevent brake fade from heat. “The rotors used in the Alston g-Machine system where specifically matched to that system,” says Michael Hamrick of Wilwood, “It gives you that big brake look, with lots of performance to go with it.”

Before installing them on the car, we had to mate the Wilwood rotor to the Chassisworks hub. This was done using the supplied bolts. Then the rotor was attached to the spindle with plenty of grease on the wheel bearings.

Providing the clamping power for the front brakes is Wilwood’s Billet Narrow Superlite 6R Radial Mount 6-piston Caliper. “The size of this caliper lends it to be used in tight fit applications normally associated with big brake conversions,” says Hamrick, but there were a few other reasons we were happy to see Chassisworks select them for their kit. Each caliper has six of Wilwood’s Termlock pistons, a multi-part piston design that boasts creating a thermal barrier between the caliper body and the pads. That means a longer service life and less pedal fade to go along with the even pad wear qualities known to be associated with six piston brake set ups.

We easily installed these onto the front of the new subframe with the included Chassisworks caliper brackets to bolt them onto the spindle.

The caliper also features easy to remove bridge bolts, that will allow us to swap out the brake pads, without removing the calipers from their mount. Remember, brake pads are an excellent brake adjustment to make, but many people shy away from doing so due to the amount of work it takes to swap pads. Wilwood knows how important it is to be able to ‘tune’ your brakes and wanted to give the user the best chance to make that change.

With the new subframe installed, our ’66 is starting to look more and more like a serious street machine with every bolt tightened. Overall, we were really impressed with the Chassisworks g-Machine System. The fit was exactly as described, and the function of every little piece will help our ’66 be one step closer to cutting the cones out the autocross track.

Sneak peak on what is to come in the next article.

While that might seem like a lot of work, it was really nothing. Thanks to the 100-percent bolt-in job, the entire process went along quickly and smoothly. With day one complete, up next we will wrap up the install of the Chassisworks g-Machine Subframe System by installing the engine, fenders, and a prime set of Billet Specialties Wheels to get this Nova rolling again.

By: Dave Morgan
Courtesy of ProMedia Publishing

One approach to reducing friction loss, as well as vibrations, is to focus on an adjustment we normally call “Pinion Angle.” We tend to think of this difference in the angles between the driveshaft centerline (CL) and the pinion gear CL. A more correct term for this angle is to call it the “Working Angle” of the rear U-joint. However, to look at this relationship as being only between the pinion and the driveshaft would be a mistake. We also need to consider the working angle at the opposite end of the driveshaft, where it meets the transmission output shaft. In doing so, we will be considering the entire drivetrain angle.

Yet before we leave the topic of what we call this adjustment, let’s understand that to many drag racers, particularly those with leaf spring rear suspensions, the words “pinion angle adjustment” often relates to a tuning aspect of their suspension setup. For these guys, pinion angle is used to adjust how hard they hit the tire on a launch.

This is a somewhat controversial topic. For some, the reason for paying attention to pinion angle is so that we will reduce bind in the U-joints in the driveshaft. If we follow this logic to its final conclusion, then the reason racers see a difference in ET, reaction time, or 60-foot time with different pinion angles is that incorrect pinion angle is a form of bind and having this bind is a way to remove violence from the hook. Remove the bind, or in other words have the correct pinion angle, and you’ll hit the tire harder because the suspension will move that much more freely. Such racers often monitor U-joint temperatures with the same heat gun they use to measure track temperatures.

The other side of the conversation is based on the notion of harnessing the torque of the pinion gear as it climbs up the ring gear. Drag racers use this rotational force to a better effect than any other type of motorsports. In a leaf spring application, the forward half of the leaf spring is the front/rear locating device for the suspension system.

Keeping in mind that this front locator is a spring; it flexes and in doing so, can permit more vertical pinion motion, which lifts the front eyelet of the leaf spring upwards. In doing this, the differential housing is forced downward. Careful racers modulate this downward thrust with some excessive amount of pinion angle that they adjust into the car by adding, or removing, wedged-shaped shims between the leaf spring and the housing tubes of the differential. They are careful because to do this they must tickle the limits of the range of motion of the U-joints. If they exceed these limits too many times, noisy, spinning, middle-of-the-car badness follows.

The pinion-angle adjuster can be on the bottom of a ladder bar on on the top, as seen here on these Alston ladder bars. They are simply turnbuckles that can be lengthened or shortened to change the angle of the pinion. These adjusters can also be used to change preload.

Before we split our conversation into the two approaches, reduced vibrations and friction losses as well as improved hook, consider how much torque we are talking about. Let’s ask ourselves, “How much torque do we produce at the ring and pinion?” This number is often referred to as Drive Wheel Torque (DWT) and we can use the following formula to determine it.

DWT= Engine Torque X First Gear Ratio X Rear Gear Ratio X .85

We’ll consider a racecar that produces 515 foot-pounds of torque during the usual launch rpm. Many FSC readers have an engine that makes more torque than that, but we’ll keep the textbook numbers conservative. This is a T-5 manual-transmission car with a low gear ratio of 2.95 and a rear-gear ratio of 5.38.

As stated at the beginning of this article, estimates vary on how much torque we lose due to friction. We can affect these friction losses by watching our drivetrain angles. This idea is in line with the first opinion; reduce friction and you also reduce bind. We see this attitude in play when we look closely at the engine position in a tubeframe racecar. Normally, to reduce frictional losses, the tubeframe chassis builder, who does not have a stock transmission tunnel to work around, can aim the crankshaft directly at the pinion CL. The crankshaft, input and output-shaft on the transmission and driveshaft are all on the same angle. In this case, the front and rear working angles are the same and we have the least amount of resistance at the U-joints.

For this conversation, we’ll take an average of these 10- to 20-percent estimates and say our car loses 15-percent of its torque from friction. That .85 factor at the end of the above formula is one way of reducing the total by 15-percent. So, let’s plug in our numbers.

DWT=515 ft/lbs X 2.95 X 5.38 X .85 = 6947.53 ft/lbs

Now we know that when the pinion gear tries to rotate upward in this car, it is doing so with a force of nearly 7,000 pounds! (And we wonder why stuff back there flexes.) Scratch one up for the leaf spring guys because they can say this is the DWT force they use to wrap their springs up with and load against the chassis then beat the daylights out of their rear tires. But ladder bar racers and four-link guys can’t forget that they too, use this DWT. Ladder bar racers use it to raise the front rod end against the chassis. In four-link cars, the top bars pull and the lower bars push from this DWT.

Pinion Angle?

If all we are going to do is think only about pinion angle, then we should at least get that relationship right. Frank Rehak, from the Driveshaft Shop commented on how many racers measure this angle incorrectly. He said, “They think pinion angle is the angle of the pinion in comparison to the level ground. They place an angle finder on the yoke of the pinion and what ever that number is; they call it the pinion angle.

For cars with the stock floor still in the car, zero pinion angle is the same as the crankshaft angle.

“In a textbook approach, what people call the pinion angle is the working angle of the U-joint at the rear of the driveshaft. There is another working angle at the front of the driveshaft. That’s the one people don’t think about. They don’t realize there is a front working angle and a rear working angle and the relationship is about both working angles. We want them to be the same within a half-degree tolerance. Also, we want no more than three degrees of working angle for the U-joints on either end of the drive shaft. Keep in mind, I said that was a ‘textbook approach.’ I’ve seen racers do things that, by the book, should never have happened. Every car is so different and unique, that’s why we like to get involved with a racer’s project as soon as possible. ”

It would be reasonable to ask why we need to pay attention to the working angles of the U-joints at both ends of the driveshaft. The simple-looking driveshaft is a lot more intricate than it seems. This one component must transfer power and torque from one shaft to another, even when the angles between the two shafts vary and it must do this smoothly. To avoid vibrations, the front and rear working angles need to be within a half-degree of each other and as slight as possible. In OEM applications, the difference in working angles can be found to be between four and five degrees. In our high-torque standing-start applications, we look for a smaller difference, which is the three degrees Frank Rehak mentioned.

Look closely at all three photos, they are not the same. This is where you place the angle finder to determine the angle of the transmission output shaft. The angle finder is placed agains the yoke at the rear os the transmission yoke.

You can measure the angle of the driveshaft at either end. Here, it is measured at the rear portion of the driveshaft, where the angle finder is positioned on the rear yoke of the driveshaft.

Here you can see that the angle finder is positioned on the pinion yoke, indicating what the pinion angle is, relative to level.

If we are going to consider both front and rear working angles, then we can split the combinations of angles into two types of cars. The first is the tubeframe car, which has the benefit mentioned before, the crank aims right at the pinion, working angles are the same, and friction is reduced. In this case, we compare the angle of the pinion to the angle of the driveshaft, which is concentric with the transmission shafts and crankshaft.

Here’s a maintenance tip for those racers who have a tubeframe car with the crank aimed at the pinion. One of the benefits to having a very small difference in working angles is that the bearing cups in the U-joint are rotated slightly with each revolution of the driveshaft. This causes the needle bearings within the cups to roll so that a different needle bearing will receive the full impact of the torque with each turn of the driveshaft. As the working angles become closer, this rotation of the bearing cups lessens and individual needle bearings get clobbered with the force of moving the car. The tip is to periodically remove the driveshaft and manually rotate the bearing cups in the U-joints. “That’s a good idea,” Rahek said. “Grease gets backed against the needle bearings and holds them in place while they get hammered by the torque. They will form splines into the surface of the trunnions to the point of U-joint failure.”

The second type of car is one that has the stock floor in it. The transmission tunnel of the stock floor creates some limitations on the engine placement along with ring-and-pinion location. And, surprise, surprise, some racers are placing bigger motors in their racecars with stock floors! The crank CL can not be aimed at the pinion CL so the two shafts that will be connected by the driveshaft will be at different heights to each other.

“That’s when guys get into trouble,” Rehak said. “The OEM guys have the working angles down pat for the engine/chassis combinations they sell to the general public. When a racer places a different engine in a car, he loses all that engineering that went into driveline placement.”

This means that racers, who upgrade to a bigger engine, need to pay close attention to the angle of that bigger motor, which probably does not have the same crank CL height location as the original, meaning the transmission will need to be relocated also; and that changes the front working angle, which no longer matches the rear working angle. If a bigger engine is part of your program, please refer to the sidebar, “How to measure Drivetrain Angles.”

Helping Hook

Now we’ll return to the issue of using the rear working angle as a means of planting the tires harder. Keep in mind the environment that the driveshaft is in and the job it has to do. It must smoothly transmit massive amounts of torque between two shafts that may, or may not be aligned, remembering also that the angular relationship between the two shafts constantly changes. Finally, let’s be honest, most of you don’t race ballerinas.

Launching 3500-pounds of anything is going to resist a lot of force that is trying to move it (the name of the game.) This means that the driveshaft, like most driveline components, is subjected to two loads. These are the huge amount of torque from the engine/transmission and the enormous inertia that is inherent in a 3500-pound car. To be able to transfer lots of torque, move a porky automobile and not bust into a bunch of needle bearings is a very good quality to have in a driveshaft.

Everyone who has considered the rear working angle, no matter what they call it, realizes that the angle of the pinion changes as the differential goes through its vertical travel and that it rotates up when torque arrives. The amount of upward rotation is limited by the suspension linkages. These include the leaf spring, which has a lot of pinion rotation, the commercially available ladder bar, which has less pinion rotation than the leaf spring, but more than an equal-length four-link system. When we compare the equal-length four-link system to the triangulated four-link on a Fox-bodied Mustang, where the upper bars are shorter than the lower bars, we see that the equal-length four-link has less pinion rotation.

So when we can ask ourselves what angle should our pinion shaft be, we should also identify what we compare that angle to. If we want the rear working angle to be within a half degree of the front working angle for the least amount of vibration and friction loss, then we’d like to have the pinion at nearly the same angle as the crankshaft, and consequently the transmission output shaft. This means that we can register the angle of the pinion against the angle of the crankshaft and call that “Zero Pinion Angle.”

For cars with factory four-links such as Fox-bodied Mustangs and A-Body GM cars, racers should install adjustable upper control arms that also have turnbuckles, which can not only adjust pinion angle, but can be used to set preload and center the differential housing within the car.

For tubeframe cars, pinion angle is the difference between the angle of the driveshaft versus the angle of the pinion shaft.

Knowing how much our suspension linkage changes the angle of the pinion, we can lower the angle of the pinion at the yoke end by the same amount that the suspension permits the pinion to raise. For leaf spring cars, the pinion CL is set between 5-7 degrees down in comparison to the crankshaft angle (keep your temperature gun handy.) Ladder bar cars normally run three degrees down in relation to the crank. Equal-length four-link bars run one-to-two degrees down in comparison to the crank angle. Unequal-length four-link cars will see as much as four-to-five degrees in relation to the crank (find a buddy with a leaf spring suspension and a temperature gun.)

How to measure Drivetrain Angles

To reduce frictional loses and vibration, we need to compare the working angle of the front U-joints versus the working angle for the rear U-joints. We want the two working angles to be within a half-degree of each other and as slight an angle as possible, less than three degrees is normally recommended in drag racing. The exception is in cars with leaf springs where the spring wrap exceeds three degrees and cars with triangulated four-links where the upper bars are shorter than the lower bars.

There are three angles that we are concerned with in our driveline. These are:

• The driveshaft angle, which is exactly what it sounds like and is the easiest to measure. This is the angle of the driveshaft, which normally spans downward from the tail of the transmission to the pinion in the differential.

• The front working angle is a comparison between the angle of the output shaft and the angle of the driveshaft. For this, we’ll need to measure the angle of the yoke at the rear of the transmission, and then compare that to the driveshaft angle.

• The rear working angle is a comparison between the angle of the pinion gear and the angle of the driveshaft. For this, we’ll need to measure the angle of the yoke at the front of the pinion, and then compare that to the driveshaft angle.

For example, let’s consider a car with the transmission angle at 3.5 degrees, driveshaft angle at 4.5 and actual pinion angle at 3 degrees, as shown below. The front working angle is 1.0 degrees, while the rear working angle is 1.5 degrees. This alignment will probably work, but is at the edge of tolerance, which is a half-degree difference between the two working angles. Both working angles are also less than three degrees, which is considered the limit of the range of motion available from the U-joints.

Electronic Angle Finders

Electronic angle-finders, also known as inclinometers, are becoming more popular these days. They are easier to read, are very accurate and all of them include a hold-function. This helps collect readings when the part to be measured is in some difficult-to-reach area of the car. The angle can be measured, then after pushing the hold button, the reading is held until the gauge can be removed from the angled surface and into the daylight, where the degrees can then be read. Here we’re measuring the potential pinion angle of a four-degree leaf spring shim and a one-inch lowering block.

Here is a demonstration of another way to measure the angle of the pinion centerline (CL) if the driveshaft and U-joints are not installed in the car. Place the angle-finder on the forward edge of the yoke, which in theory, if not in practice, should be 90-degrees to the pinion CL.

Other opinions about Pinion Angle: The Racers Speak

Extreme Street hitter Bill Trovato says that he hasn’t put much thought into the importance of pinion angle. “I’m not sure it plays as an important roll as many people think, but I am always open to the idea and will probably investigate it further. For now though, Trovato feels his winning and record setting Xtreme Street Starfire, works just fine. “I do what makes sense to me and for the car. To me, pinion angle doesn’t factor that much into the way my car leaves way the car hooks so I don’t play around with it,” he said.

Mark Artis, who not only races in Nostalgia Super Stock, but also builds many of the cars that race in the class says pinion angle makes big difference in the setup of any chassis regardless of if it’s leaf spring, ladder bar or four link set-up.

Brian Metz, who not only serves as Crew Chief for Troy Coughlin’s Pro Street entry, but also runs Metz Performance, says pinion angle is extremely important when you want to control wheel speed. “ I adjust according to what type of wheel speed I see. We set a base pinion angle up and then adjust it accordingly once we get to the track,” Metz said.

Looking back, some of these were funny as hell, at least to the bystanders in the garage, and I’m willing to share them with you if you share your best garage gaffs with us.  In the interest of real safety, I’ll explain some of the things I’ve done to keep me from spilling more blood and looking like a dumb ass in front of the video crew.  So sit back put your feet up and feel free to learn something as I reflect on the legendary mishaps I have experienced in the powerTV studio shop.

I'm a superhero but even superheroes have their kryptonite.

I’m a super hero.  No, really, and I am willing to admit it.  In order to qualify as a super hero, you have to face an evil doer.  That one nemesis whose sole purpose is to bring you down or at least make you look bad in front of your adoring public.  Being the maniacal mechanic, and bona-fide super hero, I have found my archenemy.  In my specific situation, my Lex Luthor happens to be project Grandma which I’m sure you are all familiar with.

For those not familiar with our Project Grandma project car, here’s a brief rundown on the old gal:  Grandma is a 1979 Chevy Malibu with a 25.5 funny car roll cage, wheelie bars, and a parachute.  All the stuff you need and want when you are going fast at the track.  Under the hood is a 555ci big block motor that gets her moving.  You can read more about this project car in the vehicle build articles here.

Now don’t get me wrong about Grandma, like any decent villain she is an awesome car and probably one of the coolest projects we have here at PowerTv.  However just like any Grandma she loves to give you kisses.  In my case though its usually a kiss to the forehead that leaves me with a headache.

Headaches are a part of the job if you don't slow down.

A specific instance, that really woke me up that day, happened during my first month or so here in the shop.  I was minding my own business working on Madd Maxx, our dirt track car.  So I walked over to the tool box to get some tools and as I am walking back across the shop, behind Grandma which happens to be on the two post lift,  I am looking at the tools in my hand preparing for my next task.  Then all of the sudden out of no where I’m sitting on my butt on the shop floor and my wrenches that were previously in my hand are now spread out all over the dam floor.  Now I’m not sure if she was jealous of the attention Maxx was getting or maybe she just wanted to prove a point.

Needless to say this was a bit of a shock to me because usually I can make it all the way across an entire room without falling over.  As I look up and see Grandma sitting there practically laughing at me, I look around to find myself lucky that no one else was fortunate enough to see my mishap.  So as I gather my tools and myself together I realize that I was just knocked flat on my ass by walking full speed into Grandma’s wheelie bars.  Now upon reflection I’m sure this is more my fault then Grandma’s but it sure is nice to have someone to blame.

Common sense and using the right tool for the job will prevent a lot of pain.

As I stated in the title, this article is supposed to be about shop safety and not me beating my self up, so here is my most important safety tip.  SLOW DOWN!!! 90% of the times that I hurt myself or make a mistake in the shop I can trace it back to me being in a rush.  Now there is no excuse for not taking the time to do something right.  You will always find that when in a hurry or a rush not only do you often times hurt yourself, but that is where mistakes are made and things are forgotten.  So if I could stress one shop safety tip more then any other it would be to take a couple deep breathes and slow the hell down.  Now the times when you want to do this the least is when it needs to be done the most.

Not using the right tools or "just making do" will end up hurting a lot more.

I feel that I can’t stress this issue enough, as it has been one of the hardest things for me to do.  I am naturally a hyper person that doesn’t have an off button so getting me to slow down on any level was a daunting task I’m sure.  But through the help of my boss, co-workers, and the occasional kiss from Grandma I think I have come a long way.  Although this is still something I have to think about on an every day basis, along with all the other shop safety that is entailed with working in an automotive performance shop.

I would like to leave you with one final great example that my boss gave me when I started working here to help me slow myself down.  He said that “time taken on a job and quality of the job you are working on are directly related to each other whether you like it or not.”  He went on to illustrate the point further by saying; “For instance if I was to tell you to go pull a motor out of a vehicle you would take your time and label every wire and hose.  You would put all the nuts and bolts in labeled bags.  Take time to drain all the fluids and keep the shop or garage in a generally clean manner.”

Pausing for effect and making eye contact, he finished with: “However, if I told you I wanted that motor out of the vehicle in 15 minutes you could get it done.  There would be cut wires and hoses.  Bolts would be all over the place as well as oil, coolant, and transmission fluid.  The motor would be out of the car in a fraction of the time but the quality of the work just went in the trash.”

Slow down and take the time to keep the garage clean. Slips, trips and falls are the number 1 cause of reported industrial accidents.

Now this is not an excuse to be a slug when your working on a car.  There is a very fine line to be drawn on this topic.  That line is different for everyone depending on the task you are trying to complete and your experience level.  So hopefully next time you find yourself getting impatient with a job whether it be cars or construction you will remember my first step to safety, not driving, that is SLOW DOWN.

Until next time remember floor it and stay dirty.

Our Swinger Nova project has gotten a lot of attention to the chassis over the past few months, including Ridetech’s Street Pak Challenge suspension kit, a Currie rear end, and a set of SSBC brakes. With the underpinnings coming along, it was time to attack the sheetmetal, starting with a Detroit Speed wheel tub kit to accommodate wider tires in back, a pair of their subframe connectors to stiffen the chassis, and a firewall cover plate. Classic Industries stepped up to help us take care of our rusted out front and rear fenders, and to reskin the driver’s door. Follow along as the sparks fly on our ’71 Nova.

Detroit Speed Mini-Tubs

While the tail-up ‘stinkbug’ stance was the way to get big rubber under a Nova back when our Chevy still had that new car smell, we want to be able to run our 18×11-inch Forgeline wheels and 275/40/18 tires and still keep the center of gravity low and the tires tucked neatly into the fenderwells. To do that, needed a mini-tub kit that was easy to install and Detroit Speed got the call since their tubs will fit wheels and tires up to 12 inches wide, making them perfect for our application.

Stamped from 18 gauge steel, these tubs are able to keep the stealth look plus have a perfect fit. “If someone who doesn’t really know what they are looking for glances into the trunk of a car with these tubs, they will have no clue that anything was changed,” said Stacey Tucker of Detroit Speed.

Included with the Mini-Tub kit is a great instructional DVD that walks you through the installation of the kit. The disk also contains files for the templates you will need to print out in order to assist you during the install.

The Mini-Tub Installation

In order to install the new tubs, the trunk interior and back seat need to be removed, along with the rear suspension, rear axle, and fuel tank. Because our ’71 Nova was already stripped down, we were able to head right into tearing the stock tubs out to make room for the Mini-Tub Kit.
First, we removed the deck lid braces and the seat back braces. We were extra careful during this step because we knew they’d be re-used with the new tubs. The seat back braces were simply cut off. Because the deck lid braces were spot welded on from the factory, we just drilled out the spot welds to remove them.

Before the actual removal of the factory wheel tubs began, we took reference measurements, as recommended by Detroit Speed, from the tub to the outer wheel well. These measurement will be used later when we install our new tub kit. After three measurements were taken on each side, we cut out the wheel tubs carefully and slowly. We cut along the full length of the tubs and separated them from the rear of the trunk and floor pan.

Once the old tub was out of the way, it was time to print out the templates that were on the DVD to guide us when notching the frame rails to fit the new tubs. “There is no need for any special paper or printer,” Tucker explained. “Just print them out on your home printer, and you are ready.”

“We use 1/8″ steel for the repair areas on the frame. That material is thicker than the original frame, and even though you notched it out, it will be stronger than before,” Tucker commented. We traced the template design onto our frame rail and began cutting each one out. After all of the cutting was done, we welded on our 1/8″ steel plates.

With the body and frame prepared, it was finally time to fit our new wheel tubs in. We pushed them into place, made sure they were were we wanted them, clamped them down, and started marking dots on the lip of the tubs to keep them from warping when we did the finish welds.

Once the new tubs were positioned exactly where we wanted them, the real welding began. We alternated the holes we were welding so we would get a nice, secure fit all the way around without overheating and warping the sheetmetal.

With these new wheel tubs in place, we will be able to run 18×11-inch Forgeline wheels and 275/40/18 tires, which never would have fit before the modification. Although these tubs did take a little while to install, it was not as difficult as it may seem. You can check out the full Mini-Tub Install photo gallery here.

Working stiff

We really wanted to reinforce the frame on our Swinger Nova because it will be driven hard on the road and even harder on the autocross course. The subframe connectors from Detroit Speed will do just that by tying the front subframe to the rear frame rails. The design of these subframe connectors tucks them in underneath the car to maintain ground clearance, and they are meant to be completely welded in, both at the points where they connect to the subframes front and rear, but also all along the areas where they pass through the body. Seam-welding the subframe connectors in this manner greatly improves chassis stiffness by triangulating them into the entire structure of the car.

Easy Installation of the Subframe Connectors

For something with such a major impact on chassis stiffness, installing these frame connectors was a breeze. First, we made sure our frame was straight because we didn’t want to lock in any bend it might have had. “You should make sure your subframe is squared before any cutting or welding takes place,” recommended Tucker. Next, we traced the template onto the floorboard and cut it out to ensure the frame connectors would fit tightly.

The car was ready to get the connectors installed, but we needed to get the connectors themselves prepped. The square tubing is bent and TIG welded in a fixture by Detroit Speed for accuracy, but because every car is a little bit different from the factory, there are some brackets that need to be welded on each end to get the best possible fit. After welding the brackets on, we were ready to install the connectors. We welded the connectors onto the front sub frame and to the rear frame rails, and we were done!

Repairing the Door Skin, Front Fender, and Quarter Panel

The Swinger Nova came to us with a bit of a rust problem, but it was nothing too big that we couldn’t handle. This rust issue seemed to be confined to the driver’s side of the car, and we needed to repair the door skin, quarter panel, and front fender. Classic Industries hooked us up with everything we needed for this job, and the panels we received from them fit perfectly.

Repairing the Front Fender

The lower right section of the front fender was rusted all the way through and needed to be cut out. Classic Industries offers a factory-correct replacement for pretty much every piece of sheetmetal on this car, and because rust damage is pretty common on this area of the fender, they even provide patch panels to avoid the expense of replacing (and shipping!) the entire fender. The panel is stamped with the correct bend, and just needed to be trimmed to match the rusted area we cut out.

Removing and Replacing the Door Skin

Removal of the door skin was a breeze. All it entailed was grinding down the factory spot welds and separating the door skin from the door. Applying the new door skin, however, was a little more tricky.

We needed to make sure the skin was lined up just right in order for the door to match correctly with the fenders. With the door skin positioned where we wanted it, we clamped it to the door and threw on a couple of tackwelds to hold it down while we made sure the fit was good. We then finished up by carefully rolling the edges of the skin onto the door and installing the door onto the car.

Replacing the Quarter Panel

This job was a piece of cake! We simply cut out the rusted part of the panel, removed it, and threw it away. In addition to complete quarter panels, Classic Industries also offers different partial sections to replace damaged areas while preserving as much factory sheetmetal as possible. In our case, the entire fenderwell needed replacement.

Taking the same approach with this quarter panel as we did with the front fender, we carefully tack welded it in place, stitch-welded it once we were happy with the position, and then took a grinder to it to level out the welds and prepare it for body filler to completely smooth the seam.

Firewall Fill Plate

Even though we are located in sunny Southern California where it can get pretty hot, we have no plans to put in an air conditioning system. With nothing running through the firewall, we decided to install a firewall plate from Detroit Speed. The plate is 18 gauge steel with a rolled edge and will cover up the holes that an air conditioning unit would usually run through. Now we’ll have a nice, smooth look to our firewall.

Things Yet to Come…

The engine that will power this ’71 Nova will be a GM LSA. If you’re wondering what the LSA is, it’s based off of the all-aluminum supercharged LS9 found in the current Corvette ZR1, detuned from 638 to ‘only’ 556 horsepower for use in the Cadillac CTS-V.

This engine is completely stock and the 1.9L supercharger is a little smaller than the 2.3L you would find on an LS9, with maximum boost pressure dropping from from 10.5 psi down to 9.0. We can’t wait to see what this supercharged LS engine will do to the Swinger Nova.

Final Words

While we took our time to do the job right, the mini-tub kit was not as difficult to install as we originally thought it would be. Detroit Speed really hit the nail on the head when it came to getting the correct dimensions for a perfect fit. The same goes for their connectors. You can’t cut corners or rush a job like this, but Detroit Speed helped the process by providing parts that fit like they should and clear, easy-to-follow instructions.

The ’71 Nova looks far better with all of the rust off and the new panels on. Even though we’ve already done a lot, there is still a bunch of work left to do, with the interior still gutted and the sheetmetal bare. Even so, we’ve got a great foundation with the LSA powerplant; pair that up with the amazing stopping power from the SSBC brakes and the impressive handling we’ll get from the Ridetech Street Pak Challenge kit, and this Nova is going to dominate the autocross course.

Upgrading the Steering and Suspension on Our B-Body

Our Grandpa is big, old, and worn out. We wanted to build a strong foundation for this car to ride on, so the suspension is where we decided to start. We’ll begin with the basics in this article, and then we’ll revisit the suspension again a little later on down the road.

We tapped our friends at Spohn Suspension for the parts to upgrade this old B-Body. Spohn is best known for kick ass F-Body suspension, but they make amazing muscle car hardware, as well as.. well, eccentric upgrades like our B-Body. We also got with Energy Suspension to help with some of the worn out bushings on our ride as well.

Here is a quick overview of what we installed:

• Spohn Performance Adjustable Upper Control Arms
• Spohn Performance Lower Control Arms
• Spohn Performance GM Ball Joints
• Spohn Performance Upper Control Arm Shafts
• Spohn Performance Steering Rebuild Kit
• Spohn Performance Front Sway Bar
• Energy Suspension Lower Control Arm Bushings

With the above mentioned upgrades, our vehicle will have a better foundation to build the rest of the car on. With so many different uses planned for this car, we need components that will serve well in a multitude of areas. We spoke with Jeff Bonnett of Energy Suspenson and Steve Spohn of Spohn Performance to get the low down on how we would be able to do what’s best for Grandpa.

Ugly, huh?

Front End Rebuild

Let’s start in the front of the car, beginning with the removal of the stock components. With out trusty ball joint separator in hand, we popped both the left and right side spindles off and set them aside. To get to the upper control arm shaft, we needed to remove the entire upper control arm. Keep track of the spacers that shim the correct amount of toe angle into each wheel.

The stock ball joints had expired long ago. Spohn makes quality replacement ball joints for just about every GM vehicle including our B-Body. The new ones are not only stronger, but they even include a nurrled exterior to really bite into the control arm.

These new ball joints pressed in just like every other ball joint we have ever worked with. Spohn includes all new hardware to go with these. Just make sure that you pump the right amount of grease into them before driving your vehicle.

Once off the car, we found that the best way to remove the two pressed-in bushings that hold the shaft in place was to use an air chisel. We didn’t have to worry about damaging the old bushings as Spohn includes new ones with the shafts.

With the shaft removed, we used part of a ball joint press and a vice to press out the other remaining bushing on the upper control arm.

Disassembly of the upper control arm continued with the removal of the upper ball joint. This was simple with the help of a drill and die grinder to remove the back sides of the rivets and pop out the ball joint. Our new Spohn ball joints are held on with grade 8 hardware, but they still use the stock rivet holes which makes this a simple bolt in job.

Because we were reusing the stock control arms, we took advantage of having them completely disassembled and spent some time with them in the sand blasting cabinet. A quick coat of paint had these 20+ year old control arms looking brand new again.

A quick search online revealed a number of DIY ways to press in the new bushings on GM control arms. We thought it was best, though, to let a professional do the work. When it came down to it, it was only a few extra bucks to ensure that it was done right and without damaging our parts.

Next, we bolted in the upper control arm ball joints from Spohn, and we pressed in the ones on the lowers. Anytime you change the ball joints on your ride, make sure that you grease the joint before you go out and drive the vehicle. Not doing so can damage the part.

We also swapped out the lower control arm bushings for a set of new polyurethane bushings from Energy Suspension. The OE bushings were in bad shape, and they were in dire need of replacement. “Worn or torn bushings will throw off the vehicle’s suspension and steering geometry causing the car or truck to lose its front or rear end alignment which may lead to costly shop visits if not corrected,” explained Jeff Bonnet of Energy Suspension.

“Audible squeaking is usually the first indication of bushing failure, which means that the bushing has separated from the metal sleeve it was originally bonded to and is now rotating inside the sleeve allowing the bushing to slowly deteriorate due to friction,” he added. Our car had all of the above.

“Polyurethane is impervious to oils, gases, road salts, or atmospheric conditions including freezing temperatures and desert heat,” Jeff Bonnet explained to us. The bushings we found all over this car weren’t showing such resistance and had definitely seen better days.

Grandpa’s Steering Upgrades

Up next was the steering and sway bar. This was simply a task of pulling out the old and bolting up the new. We started with the sway bar. After unbolting the end links and the two clamps that held it to the frame, the old bar fell right out of the car and into the dumpster.

The new Spohn sway bar included all new hardware and end links with polyurethane bushings for a stiffer ride. “The bigger bar increases the roll stiffness and lets the rest of the suspension start working better,” said Steve Spohn of Spohn Performance.

The stock steering on this car should have been replaced over a decade ago by the looks of it. In fact, we didn’t even have to use a press or a pickle fork to remove anything since it just all came right apart! “These are wear items on these cars,” explained Spohn. “After so much time, it just needs to be replaced.” Again, Spohn provides all the hardware you need to complete the swap all the way down to the cotter pins for all the joints. Even the idler arm is replaced with brand new metal.

To keep the geometry of the steering the same, we bench assembled the entire new steering system to check the lengths of each arm to the stock. Then, we bolted it all up in the car according to the instructions provided.

The 1-5/16 sway bar bolted right up and we were ready to move onto the rear.

We decided that the stock steering box will have to do for now. We are looking into other GM steering boxes that will be able to bolt up to this frame and give us a quicker ratio for out on the autocross track. For drag racing, though, this will be fine for now.

Installing The Spohn Rear Suspension on Grandpa

For mass production purposes, GM built this car, as with all cars, with stamped steel control arms. “Switching to a tubular or boxed control arm means your suspension will be stiffer,” said Spohn. “That means the car can hit the tire harder and transfer more power to the ground.” In addition, the new control arms are a tad bit lighter and look way better. This car definitely needed improvements in both of those categories.

We opted for Spohn’s adjustable upper control arms for Grandpa. “Switching to an adjustable control arm lets you dial in the pinion angle you want. I always recommend them to any custom swapping out of the suspension because if you change things like ride height or tire size, you can set it perfectly,” said Spohn.

What a great advantage to be fitting out Grandpa with air suspension from Ridetech. We can change the pinion to different angles that best suit the different types of driving this car will be subjected to such as street, strip, and autocross.

Spohn sells these control arms for a number of different applications, all coming pre-greased with all of the fittings already installed.

In order to install the rear suspension, the first thing we did was unbolt everything and drop the rear end out. Be careful here, as there might be more than you think bolted up to the housing. Look out for brake lines, parking brake cables, and other small components that may hinder you from removing the rear end.

For those of you that are new to GM suspension mods, the front bolts on the rear lower control arms are through the frame.

Once the stock components were out of the way, it was time to unbox the new stuff! We laid out the parts for some quick photos and really got a chance to admire the craftsmanship of these control arms.

Before you get too excited and just run under the car to get started as quickly as possible, make sure you take the time to measure the control arms first if you are switching to adjustable. We measured the length of the stock upper control arms, and then we adjusted the new Spohn control arms to match. Once we install the rest of the suspension, we will go back and set the pinion angle to our liking.

The lowers were just a hair easier. These bolted into the stock locations using new hardware. One thing to keep in mind when installing control arms, be it upper or lower, is that it’s good practice to keep all the bolts facing toward the center of the car. The only place we couldn’t do this was where the lower control arms bolted to the rear end because of the length of bolt not being able to fit in that direction. No big deal, just a good thing to keep in mind.

Putting It All Together

Finally, we reattached the brakes and lowered Grandpa back down. I can tell you from personal experience that just doing the few things we mentioned above made a considerable difference already in the ride of the car. Although we don’t yet have our Ridetech air suspension dialed in and ready to go, we decided to do a little driving with the stock shocks and springs to get an idea of the improvements we made.

First off, the entire rear of the car felt immediately stiffer and the car tracked straighter. Steering was somewhat more precious, and it seems body roll was decreased. That being said – with the stock shocks and springs it still feels a little bit like a cloud, but it is definitely a much thicker cloud now!

Thanks to Spohn and Energy Suspension, we kicked off part 1 of our Project Grandpa series. Next up is a heaping of air suspension courtesy of Ride tech, and a new 9-inch Ford rear end thanks for Currie and Eaton.

Make sure to follow along, because Grandpa is gonna take us on a wild, wild ride!

Energy Suspension has been making top quality parts for the last twenty-seven years right here in the U.S.A. I had the opportunity to speak to Mike Papazian about their body bushings. He set me straight on why someone would want to replace their body bushings and what makes Energy Suspension’s Hyperflex better than what is in our car.

Papazian explained that their Hyperflex bushings are made from polyurethane formula that they have tweaked to perfection over the years. “Urethane is stronger and stiffer than rubber,” said Papazian, “plus it is resistive to petroleum products like smog, ozone, gas, and oil. So it won’t break down and crack.” While resistive qualities hadn’t crossed our minds when swapping out our bushings, we are glad we trusted Energy Suspension to take care of us.

Even with out getting a good look at the stock bushings out of the car we could tell it was time to replace them.

Installation:

Suspension can be a tough topic for some. So let me be the first to tell you, there should be no fear with dealing with suspension parts. Just like engine work following instructions and common sense will help you in the long run. The nice thing about replacing body bushings is while it is a big job, it is actually really simple.

We started out by loosing all the bolts on both sides of the car. This took a little bit of muscle but went very quick. Then, it was time to lift the body off the frame. Energy Suspension recommended to following factory GM instructions on lifting the body off the frame. So using a 2 x 4 piece of wood and our Cornwell floor jack we lifted one side on the car off the frame and removed the bolts. Keep in mind when choosing a piece of wood to lift the body up you want to have something that is close to the length of the body. That way the weight will evenly distributed. Never under any circumstances should you ever lift the body with the jack directly on the body. Doing so could damage the body.

The swapping of the bushings was as easy as pulling the old bushings (what was left of them) out and sliding the new Hyperflex Bushings in. We then reset the body shims and threaded the bolts back into the body but didn’t tighten them down. If you tried to torque them down now the body would be mis-aligned.

The other side works the same as the first. After lowering the car we crawled under and tightened all the bolts down to factory specs.

Only try to do one side at a time and make a note of any body shims as these will need to be put back in the same spot.

Now that we have much better support for Grandma we now can rest easy that we started beefing up the car to better accept the monster 555 ci Edelbrock/Musi big block. This is a great upgrade that could be done at your house with just a few hours of your time and a good set of tools. For your time you will be rewarded with a stiffer chassis and better handling vehicle.

Now the stars have aligned granting us permission move forward. This will be the first of many Project Updates that we will be doing to bring all of you daily work as the build progresses. Now, before we dive right into the first day, a quick recap on where we are so far.

We are the stage where we are fully ready for our Chassis Engineering chrome moly roll cage, mini-tubs and chassis goodies. All of the Malibu’s work is being done by Mike Ryan of Ryan Fabrication right here at powerTV’s shop.

The front end on Grandma has been completely reworked thanks to the TRZ Suspension, QA1 Shocks, and Aerospace Brakes. The car has been stripped of almost everything not essential to the structural integrity of the body and frame and in between that body and frame we sandwiched Energy Suspension body bushings.

The 555ci Edelbrock Crate engine has been built by Pat Musi and put down 1050 hp on the engine dyno. All we have to do now is fit the roll cage, do a a 25.5 SFI conversion, as well as a mini tub kit, so we can move on to the rear suspension and rear end install.

Today all we did was yank out the rear end. You can see the photos below.

Mike says that he doesn’t like to have his picture taken and will do almost anything to make to sure his face isn’t photoed by our cameras.

At first the wound appeared to only be a minor one….

..but the redness and swelling soon followed.

With the Malibu being a full frame car, with a perimeter outer frame, we’re going to be adding inner frame rails for the 25.5 spec, and tying up the control arms structure into the roll cage for more rigidity. The Malibu actually has a nice suspension design from the aspect that it’s easy to add support to both the upper and lower control arm locations.

We’re going to walk you through all of the steps we go through so you can do this to your own G-body. Of course we’re using TRZ Suspension and QA1 front and rear shocks in the build, as mentioned, so when we get to that stage we’ll give them props there! The Mini tubs will allow us to use our Mickey Thompson 295/65 drag radials and tuck the body nicely without it looking like a stink bug.

Check out the photo sequence and captions below.

Sadly, the stock bench seat had to go. We’ve got a fresh new Kirkey seat to go in here instead. I really wanted to keep the bench seat, but nightmare’s of crashing at 160 mph erased that quickly as I imagined myself tearing through the stock 30+ year old fabric and springs.

We already had used some aircraft stripping agent to remove the coating from the trunk area, plus 30 years of grime. Looks nice huh.

The Cornwell Plasma cutter is our friend today. We’ll use a combination of the plasma cutter, cut-off wheel, and a sawzall to remove the wheel wells.

Before we starting cutting out the stock tubs, Mike Ryan started by cutting out the connected sheetmetal between the rear trunk hangers and the wheel tubs. They are tack-welded here. We’ll be getting rid of the trunk hangers and go with a pin-on trunk since the hangers are huge and gangly, and they are where our Chassis Engineeing Mini Tubs are going.

Here you can see the rough cuts that Mike is making with the Plasma cutter from the inside of the well.

The wheel tub is really made of two pieces in most cars, and the G-body is no different. You can see the seam line here, as we used the plasma to cut out the inner well.

The way the wheel well looks after the rough plasma cut.

Mike wants a nice crisp line for doing the mini tubs. Here you can see he used masking tape (not finished yet) to start a line that he is going to use a cut off wheel to follow to make a nice crisp cut on the inner sheetmetal for the wheel tub.

Finished after trimming nicely.

A cut off wheel is used to remove the outer wheel well. A plasma cutter will burn through your sheetmetal so it’s a no go.

Nobody said chassis fabricators had it easy.

All finished and ready for final trimming!

Mike started by cutting the sheet metal kick up behind the rear passenger seats. We found an easy to mark surface about 8 inches up from the floor board and a perfect cut-ready marked seam just below the rear speaker deck. Cutting this section of sheet metal out of the way opened up the top of the frame rails so that we could cut the rails unabated and without interference.

We cut the sheet metal behind the rear passenger seat at the bottom along our marked line to allow access to the top of the frame rails. There is a seam in the sheet metal, just a little higher up, but cutting along that seam would not give us the full working area that we needed to cut the frame rails and add some support bars later. This will allow us to work the frame rails, cut out the stock upper spring buckets, and then run roll cage bars to the back of the upper control arms mounting locations.

The top cut was made just below the speaker deck and the entire section of sheet metal was removed. Cutting it at the seams makes for a straight line cut and is easier to weld back in.

Now we had a clear path for cutting the parameter frame rails without too much interference from other panels. While Mike continued to cut away sheet metal so that we would have unlimited access to the frame rails, I took the tires and rims to one of the local tire stores for mounting and balancing. We needed to have the real deal ready to go so that we could mock up the tire placement in the wheel wells. Ultimately, this would tell us how much frame we needed to cut.

Billet Specialties Street Lite Rims. These were a little wider than the tire shop was used to seeing.

Getting the Mickey Thompson ET Street Radials ready for mounting. They almost needed two guys to lift these tires up and over the rims for mounting.

Once the wheels were mounted and back at the shop, the real work began in earnest. By this time, we had the frame rails completely exposed and Mike had already found the center line of the wheel well. You’ll notice in the picture below that there are four “sharpee” lines marked on the frame rail. A forward line, which is where the leading edge of the tire would rest. The axle tube location in the wheel well is marked by the two middle lines, and the aft line indicates the rear edge of where the tire needed clearance.

Our precision marked cut lines that indicates where we needed to make the initial notch cuts. The two black lines in the center are indicative of where the axle tube would be located.

We knew that we would be using a coil over spring/shock set up, so our next step was to remove the upper spring perch that attaches to the top of the frame rail. Now that the we had the working room, these came out without a problem using nothing more than our trusty sawzall.

Now you see it and……

Now you don’t.

With the removal of the spring perches on both sides, nothing was preventing us from starting our frame cuts. In the picture below, our master fabricator Mike, starts to make the initial cuts into the frame rail using the fabricator’s best friend; a sawzall.

With the initial cuts being made to the depth that we wanted, we could start cutting the frame rail from front to rear lengthwise. Knowing that we would have to weld plate metal over the section that was cut out, we decided to cut the frame rail outer section off with a 1/8 inch lip so that we could weld that part onto the frame rail once the center section was removed. Removing the center section of the frame rail (roughly an inch and half) would provide the clearance for the wheel that we needed. Using the outer section as a cap would make the notching job look “stock-like”.

Follow along this sequence of photos to get the idea of how we cut the frame rails:

We started by using a cut off wheel and die grinder to open the frame rail for our sawzall. Using the sawzall, we were able to follow a marked line down the length of the frame rail.

Once the lengthwise cuts intersected with the cuts that we made earlier, the frame rail cap came off in a nice single piece for later reuse.

We then cut the frame rail center section out, making them a little “skinnier” for the actual clearance part of the proceedure.

With a little test fitting and some grinding, the cap that we had made previously was made ready for use.

Once our fabricator had the cap where it fit tightly inside the frame rail, it was tack welded into place.

In the photo below, you can see how much of the frame rail was removed even with the cap in place.

Now was the time for the true test. We fit the tire into the wheel well to see if it would clear and sit in the wheel well fully. Sadly, we didn’t cut the rail quite narrow enough, and we couldn’t tuck the tire completely inside the well, even with removing the lip. We’ll need to come back after the holidays and finish this job 100%!

After our test fit, it was evident that we needed to take a bit more off of the frame rail.

A look at the inside of the wheel well where the tire is rubbing on the frame rail.

By this point we had hit the wall on a full day’s work. We decided to close the shop for the day and tackle the clearance issue on a fresh new day.

Starting the day by playing catch up, that is; taking the previously welded cap back off of the frame rail and cutting it down a little more. None of us were looking forward to undoing work that we just did last week, but to get these big Mickey Thompson’s to fit in the wheel well, we had to do the unpleasant task of cutting through Mike’s nice weld to remove the cap.

The problem was that by notching and rewelding the frame rails narrower – we didn’t leave enough room for the 295/65 M/T ET Drag Radials to fit up into the wheel well. Thankfully our friends at Yellow Bullet were there to help us figure it out.

Back to the future. We cut the cap off to remove some more material from the frame rail. This is the where we were last time. Then check out the photo from below.

Once we got back to square one, maybe not square one but at least two backwards steps from progress, Mike pressed on by removing more material from the frame rails. The goal was to remove all the metal from the channel to make the frame rail look somewhat like a piece of flat stock. This will help make enough room for the big M/T’s.

We used the omnipotent Cornwell Plasma cutter to simplify the cutting job. You can see that our frame well was going to end up being less of a channel and more of a flat piece of metal.

Once the cutting was done, we ended up gaining an inch to an inch and a half more clearance. The goal was to support the frame rail from the inside on each side of the vehicle. That would allow the maximum amount of tire and wheel clearance and still be able to support the frame rail for strength. Without the backside support, our Grandma would be turned into a Chevy Low Rider unintentionally.

And yet again it was time for the true test. We put our big meaty Mickey Thompson tire on the tranny jack and raised it into the wheel well. While we all held our breaths and crossed the fingers and toes, the tire was raised to ride height.

Test fitting our tire…again. Check out that bitchin ride height.

The tire fit perfectly into the wheel well as we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. The next step was to run the tire through the full length of travel. We needed to be certain that there would be no chance for the tire to rub anywhere within the range of tire travel. We raised the tire to it’s upper limit, and again there were fingers and toes crossed awaiting the outcome.

Our tire fit with room to spare.

Next it was time to strengthen what was left of the frame rail. Taking a few tips from those that have been through this process before on Yellow Bullet, we opted to bend 1 3/4 inch tube to the exact curves of the frame rail, then halve the tubing right down the middle leaving us with two identical pieces of tubing. Mike tack welded the halves of tubing to the frame rails, one on the right and one on the left.

Tubing was bent and welded to the inside of the frame rails for support.

Finally, we got around to cutting out the spare tire retainer in the trunk area. The gargantuan round tub that holds a full sized spare tire located on the right side of the trunk………GONE. I think we were all pleased with that modification.

Using our new favorite tool, the sawzall, to remove the spare tire tub in the trunk. Now you see it…

Now you don’t.

So it would seem that our start to the new year is off and running with great success. We packed up our tools, shut down the garage and prepared ourselves for another day in the long running saga of PROJECT GRANDMA.

Check out below for some photos and more captions of our work.

The complete tacked in inner support for our frame rail. We’ll be adding plenty of tubing back here that will support this area.

We had to make our inner support tube in two pieces because of the compound bends and because the frame rail changes angles. We found it easier to do it this way.

Welded in completely. Notice how the bar goes through the upper control arm cradle and is welded their for strength.

We started to seam weld the upper control arms areas for strength. We will also be tig-welding MIL-spec washers in this area as well to positively locate the rear end suspension.

Until next time…

When we last left off we had added some support to the inner frame rails and were ready to finish up the notching of the frame rail. Only one thing stood in the way — the powerTV video guys were shooting a video on coatings with Techline Coatings in the shop. So for a good part of the day Mike was banished into the office, left to ponder the pending work that awaited him in the garage. But the day moved on and before long Mike was out in the garage doing what he does best…

On the agenda today was finishing off the frame rails by closing up the holes in the front and rear frame, and then by welding washers (TIG) in the rear control areas to replace the damaged 20+ year old OEM suspension holes that have been enlarged due to typical Grandma abuse.

Early in the day Mike traced and cut out the plates to box the frame in the rear where it had been notched. Then after spending some time at the bench grinder he was rewarded with the finished pieces.

The finished look complete with a melted body bushing. Smelled great too.

Here is where we added washers to the inner and outer lower control arms suspension holes to support the 1,000+ hp our 555 is going to apply.

Now it was time to box the front of the frame. We spent a little bit of time making the boxed frame more study that a simple end cap. This was simply traced out on a template and then bent using a beefy sheetmetal brake.

Here’s what we ended up with once welding was finished. The angled flat steel provided a nice triangulated gusset to the frame and would be dramatically stronger than a flat cap. And we had plenty of tire room.

Here’s another angle so you can really see the triangulated steel.

The last thing we did before shutting down the shop for the weekend was set the tires under the car and lower old Grandma down so we could check clearance and get our measurement for the Currie rear end going in the car. We are using a brand new, trick Currie Fabricated 9-inch that Currie is just releasing, and it’s going to be no joke. We needed to get a wheel to wheel measurement from the ‘Bu first.

Plenty of room back here with the 295/65 Mickey’s.

Before we slid the tape measure under the car we couldn’t help but stop and just take in the look of the car sitting at about ride height with the tires shoe-horned under the backside. This is at ride height.

After checking the clearance all around the huge 295/65 M/T ET Drag Radials, we were really happy with the amount of room we had around the tires. We then measured from inside of each wheel so we can send the numbers off to Currie so they can build the fabricated 9-in going into the car.

It measured out to 56 3/4 inches from wheel-to-wheel. With 15 x 10 wheels with a 5.5 backspace, 56.75 (hat to hat) is our magic number.

That’s all for this update, check back next week where we will be moving on to boxing the rest of the frame and finishing up the mini tubs.

Check out the rest of the photos below:

Driver side rear notch plate welded in.

The GM G-Body is a very easy chassis to work with as a outer perimeter full frame car. The challenge with a 25.5 car is the work that is needed with the frame: the boxing of the stock frame and the addition of the inner frame rails. No matter the SFI spec, we’d need plenty of stiffening for the chassis to take the brunt of the 1,050+ horsepower 555 cubic inch Pat Musi/Edelbrock engine.

We also got a bunch of goodies in the shop today, courtesy of our friendly UPS man. FAST sent us a dual wide-band Air Fuel meter so we can make sure to get the correct mixture of combustion in the Edelbrock 555. Moroso sent us a nice switch panel, and Edelbrock hooked up Granny with a Edelbrock Progressive Nitrous Controller, Purge Kit, and a 2nd fancy Edelbrock silver bottle. Nice.

The first thing we did was raise the body up off the chassis. This was 10 bolts. We have Energy Suspension body bushings – some recommend aluminum bushings for a hardcore pure drag racing applications, but they are about $200, and the easier fix is to just weld the chassis to to the body in 5-6 spots to eliminate flex. We’ll be cheap. Plus, the Energy Suspension bushings are very strong and we’re confident they’ll hold up to many seasons of drag racing.

Here’s the Malibu up in the air and separated by about 10 inches between in the body and the frame.

Mike started off by cutting some raw steel to the right shape needed to box the frame rails. Once again ourCornwell Plasma cutter made quick work of another job and before long a rough-cut piece was pinned temporally to the frame to be welded in. After spending a little more time making some finishing pieces Mike welded in the newly added metal.

This was our contraption for getting the body off the frame, while keeping the frame high for ease of welding. Take one Bendpak lift, about 5 tall jacks, and a small whisper to god to pray this entire thing doesn’t come down on your head. We hope our insurance company never reads this.

Here’s our virgin frame. It’s a C-Channel, stock G-Body outer frame that is not boxed. We need to box it for SFI regulations and for chassis stiffness, as well as to provision something for the the frame rails, control arm supports, driveshaft loop, etc., to weld to.

The first thing Mike started with was “capping” off the editing “L” shape of the front and rear frames. This was simply a plasma cut piece of steel sheet we used, templated and cut to fit. Then we began cutting the long strips of steel to box the frame.

Here’s Ryan uses his favorite tool – the Cornwell Plasma Cutter, to cut away the strip of steel necessary to box the frame. We think it’s a cool shot because of all the radical sparks. We also think it’s cool that the old IKEA desk Mike has stolen as a work bench isn’t on fire. Yet.

C-Clamps holding in the boxed frame rail prior to welding during the fitting process. It’s important to get them close and right before firing up the welder.

We used a combination of TIG and MIG welding for the boxing process. We TIG welded the caps, and MIG welded the longer boxed sections of frame rails. Do whatever you feel you are better at if you are doing this at home.

Here is the completed and boxed left side frame rail. You can see the “half dollar size” steel hole Mike had to close up while building the end cap. These little details aren’t necessarily safety or SFI requirements, but they make a big difference in stiffness. It’s it better to do the job right even if it takes a little longer?

Coming next – and finally – how to build Mini Tubs with Chassis Engineering steel tubs.

To see all of the Grandma Mini-tub photos, visit the photo gallery here.

Chassis Engineering offers four different kinds of wheel tubs that work with virtually any tire size. They offer standard tubs that are 23-inch wide and 40-inches long, Pro tubs which are 28-inches wide and 45-inches long, and an intermediate tub which is 28-inches wide and 40-inches long. The smallest Sportsman wheel tubs are available either in .040-inch aluminum or .024-inch steel.

Since we were doing a mini-tub and not a full back-half, we chose the smallest steel tub from Chassis. We also knew that even that tub would need to be trimmed down width size as we didn’t need to take up our entire trunk since we would be limited by the stock narrowed frame rails. Our wheel wells are shipped unassembled, and like all C/E wheel tubs, incorporate a “Pittsburgh” seam that allows for easy assembly.

Before we could install the kit, we had to clean up the wheel well area before we could measure to fit the mini-tubs in. Mike started by cleaning up the cuts he had made before when removing the original wheel wells and removing a little more metal to give him a nice clean surface to weld the new tubs into. This was more about finishing off the “rough” grinding and cuts from the plasma cutter we showed you earlier.

From there, Ryan made a cardboard mock-up of the tubs to test fit the kit in. After a few quick slashes with a marker, he trimmed the mock-up down to the correct size needed to fit the finished tub in. This is a step that you want to spend a little bit of time on. Cardboard is a cheaper to throw away than metal so Mike made sure that the fitment was right before transferring the dimensions to Chassis Engineering supplied steel tubs. Not all chassis shops do this, and some trial fit using the actual tubs.

Here is an inner shot of the cardboard tub in the wheel well with a “rough cut. You can see there are some challenging areas inside the tub where the factory upper control arm mounting area is located. Logically here we are probably going to have to supplement the Chassis Engineering tub with some additional sheet metal here for a good seal and a clean look.

A shot from inside the car so you can see the approximate location and fitment of the cardboard tub. Because the C/E tubs are so nicely sized in terms of length, we will never have a problem getting our Malibu slammed down to the ground like we are planning.

To make building the tubs a little easier, Mike brought a tub-jig he had built out of wood from his shop. To make it work for this job, he had to modify it a little bit because of the tire size we chose for our project. This made it easy when crimping the ‘Pittsburgh’ seam of the tub to hold the two pieces of metal together.

While Chassis Engineering doesn’t require it, Mike went ahead and riveted the end of the kit together before crimping down the edge. That way, there is no way for the two parts to slip or slide apart changing how it would fit up into the car while he was test fitting it in the car. After that he used a hammer and pounded down the Pittsburgh seam to secure the tub together.

The C/E wheel-tubs are capable of really fitting up to a 32-inch tall tire and one at least 14-15-inches wide. Obviously we won’t need that much room due to our tire size, so from there he simply cut down the blank tub to the size needed to fit into the car. Not wanting to have to go back and add metal in later, he cut them out a little big and trimmed them to a perfect fit. The same process was repeated for the passenger side tub.

Once the mini-tub was properly cut and then fine-trimmed, it was time to install it into the car. Since we cut out the inner wheel tub, we would have some work to do here that could be called trickery. We tack welded the tub to the front and rear inner sheetmetal that was cut away, as well as to the rear trunk hinges.

Mike also took the chance to cut out the trunk and weld in a new panel that covers the hole where the spare tire well was located in the trunk of the car. Then all that was needed to do was weld the now trimmed tubs in. He started off tack welding everything in place. Later Mike will go back and lay down a real nice bead to cap off this part of the build. While normally you would weld the tub into the inner fender as well, our car will be retaining her 70′s appliance-white paint job so we didn’t want to risk bubbling its unique surface. We’ll just fill in the gap with some seam sealer later when we weld the rest of the floor back in. For now check out some finished shots below.

The rain might be coming down finally in Southern California, but that doesn’t mean this car is down off the lift for good. We still got lots more to do before we can mock up the engine and transmission as well as a few other surprises. Check back next week as Mike Ryan will be getting to what some say he does best – putting in a Chassis Engineering roll cage, along with a full upgrade to the SFI 25.5 spec.

Turning this:

Into this:

Our 1978 Malibu “sleeper” project car is finally ready for its build-up. An extensive teardown has disrobed “Granny” to bare frame and body. While we shuddered to think of our “Granny” naked, we actually found a decent foundation to work from. There were a lot of areas where our project car needed some serious help, and we decided to go from the ground up. Our first step was to upgrade her suspension to handle an Edelbrock/Musi 555ci big-block crate engine. The stock suspension, although heavy enough, simply would not be up the challenge of the beefier drivetrain and performance that the monster motor is capable of putting out. We chose the TRZ Motorsports front suspension components because they were designed to replace the stock control arms without modification, and are strong enough to withstand the tortures of racing.

TRZ Upper and Lower Control Arms.

The TRZ Motorsports Package
TRZ Motorsports out of Kissimmee, Florida, builds high performance suspension components for serious street and drag race vehicles. They have been making parts for popular vehicles like late-model Mustangs (’79-04), Camaros (‘67-02), and Novas (’63-79) for years. What brought them to our attention was their support for less-often-seen vehicles like the G-body Malibu (’78-’88), Impala (’77-96), and S-10 pickups and Blazers (’83-02). Because our project car was a late 70’s Malibu, TRZ had ready-to-ship suspension components on hand. Manufactured out of chrome-moly tubing for weight and strength, and TIG welded for durability, the upper and lower control arms feature billet aluminum cross-shafts for corrosion resistance. We asked Todd Braasch at TRZ what we could expect in weight savings by replacing the stock front suspension with the TRZ Kit while strengthening up a suspension system that was designed for a weak-in-the-knees 3.8 liter six cylinder. Todd told us, “roughly 30 pounds.” We wanted to see for ourselves.

Each stock lower control arm weighed almost 14.5 pounds for a total of 29 pounds for both sides.

The TRZ lower control arms weighed 4 pounds, 12 ounces for a total of 9.5 pounds for both sides. All together, we saw just shy of 20 pounds lost in total for the lower control arm replacement.

The stock upper control arms weighed 6.5 pounds each, for a total of 13 pounds for both sides.

TRZ’s high performance upper control arms (pictured on the right) weigh in at 2 pounds, 6 ounces each for a total of 4 pounds and 12 ounces. The total weight savings added up to 8.25 pounds.

Weight reduction and strength is crucial
Total weight reduction by replacing the weaker stock control arms with TRZ’s performance control arms was almost 28 pounds. Keeping in mind that we are replacing the smallish 6-cylinder small block powerplant with a larger 8-cylinder big-block beast, being able to control where the weight is on the car is critical. Our project car will be going to the chassis shop soon for a roll cage addition. As soon as the cage ties the chassis together, we will be mocking up the drivetrain so that we can upgrade the steering with the TRZ/Flaming River Steering package. We expect to see tremendous performance enhancement with another 40+ pounds of weight reduction from the stock steering system. Here’s the rub on putting your chassis on a diet: reducing weight is good only if you don’t sacrifice dependability and strength. Todd clued us in on the priority, saying, “safety is the biggest consideration when we build components. We only use chrome-moly; there is no mild steel in our entire shop.”

Good for more than just weight reduction…
In addition to allowing us some flexibility in weight placement, the TRZ suspension system is designed to handle better in a performance application. The upper control arms have 7 degrees of positive caster built into the design of the control arm for straight-line tracking and high-speed stability. Our sources at TRZ Motorsports indicated that 5-7 degrees of positive caster really affect the steering stability at 105 mph and above. TRZ’s upper control arms come with travel limiters to keep front-end rise under control, where many systems make the front shock absorber the suspension limiter. Relying on the shocks to limit the suspension travel makes it harder for the shocks to do the job they were designed to do. Todd Braasch at TRZ Motorsports emphasizes the safety factor built into the TRZ upgrades. Unlike the stock pressed steel components that deflect, bend and twist under loads, Todd explains that TRZ’s TIG welded 4130 chrome-moly tubular construction provides a greater level of stability and safety.

QA1 Pro-Coil Coilover Double Adjustable Shocks for Big-Block Vehicles.
To round out the TRZ Suspension package, we added QA1 Pro Coil coilover conversion double adjustable shocks designed for our big-block engine upgrade. The double adjustable shocks are completely rebuildable and revalvable, and according to Corey Flynn at QA1 Precision Products Inc., “These are the last shocks you’ll ever need to buy.”

Per QA1, their Pro Coil double-adjustable coilover conversions are “the last shocks you’ll ever need to buy.” Adjustment knobs on the shock body handle compression and rebound adjustments, and the shocks can be rebuild or have their valving changed if the need arises.

QA1 enjoys a great reputation for having a very consistent feel from the driver’s seat that gives the car a comfort level, which explains their popularity in every form of motorsports. Corey claims that a major advantage in QA1 shocks is that, “all components are built in-house, which guarantees consistency in construction, and every shock is checked on a shock dyno before packaging.” The threaded aluminum bodies allow easy adjustment between runs, while reducing weight compared to coilovers using a separate threaded sleeve. QA1 also takes pride in the consistency and repeatability of their external adjustments, taking the guesswork out of dialing in your suspension.

Spring-time Fresh
The coil springs supplied in the coilover kit vary depending on the application. For our big-block G-body conversion, we chose the DGMP1450-3 kit which includes powder-coated coil springs with a deflection rate of 450 lbs/in, that are 10 inches in length with 4.10 inch upper spring I.D. and 2.50 inch lower spring I.D. For small-block applications, the DGMP1350-3 with a 350 lbs/in spring is recommended. In addition to the improved performance value in the spring upgrade, we realized an additional weight reduction of almost 6 pounds.

The well-worn stock springs weighed over 8 pounds.

QA1′s 450-3 springs weighed in at 5 pounds and 4 ounces each.

Aerospace Brakes
Braking technology has changed tremendously since 1978, so it was a forgone conclusion that a brake upgrade was needed on our project car. We picked the Aerospace brake kit part #AC245, the heavy-duty race/street 4 piston caliper disc brake kit that is designed for cars weighing up to 3,000 pounds.

Aerospace heavy duty brake kit for G-body, S-10 and Grand National.

The Aerospace heavy-duty front brake kit included:
• Billet Aluminum 4 Piston Calipers
• Billet Aluminum Mounting Brackets
• Grade 8 Hardware
• Billet Aluminum Hubs with screw on dust caps
• Bearings and Seals
• Brake Pads
• 10-1/4” Diameter Drilled Rotors
• 1/2” Studs, 3” long

We also ordered the Rear Pro Street brake kit to complete our brake upgrade. Included in the rear kit:

• Billet Aluminum 4 Piston Calipers
• Billet Aluminum Mounting Brackets
• Grade 8 Hardware
• Billet Aluminum Hats with multiple bolt patterns
• Screw-on Dust Caps
• Brake Pads
• 11-3/4” Diameter .81” Thick Cast Vaned Rotors

Yet again we realized serious weight reduction by replacing the factory stock single piston cast calipers and brackets. The weight of the stock brake system measured 47 pounds where the Aerospace front brake upgrade weighed in at only 30 pounds. The billet aluminum Aerospace calipers added modern multi-piston stopping power and a high performance look to our suspension upgrade. In order to install the front brake kit onto the stock spindles, some modification of the spindles must be performed. This modification can easily be done by the home project builder using a cut-off wheel and grinder. We opted to make our lives a little easier by using our Cornwell plasma cutter and pneumatic die grinder.

Installation of the Front Suspension Components
Removal of the stock components and installing the new system is straightforward and easy. The vehicle will need to have a front end alignment after the components have been changed, but you can help yourself by recording baseline stock measurements before you disassemble the suspension components to have a place to start.

Taking baseline measurements will help get your front suspension alignment in the ballpark when installing the new components.

Support the car on jackstands and remove the front wheels.

Once the wheels are off, the front brake calipers and rotors can be easily removed, followed by disassembly of the shocks, lower control arm, coil springs, tie rod, spindle and upper control arm.

We found it easiest to install the lower control arms first. This allowed us a base to mount the shocks and coil springs to earlier in the installation process.

With the shocks and springs mounted to the lower control arms, we could then attach the upper end of the shock to the frame to hold the lower arm in place.

Attaching the top end of the shock to the frame.

Attach and torque the upper control arms.

Install the spindle, hub and rotor, brake caliper and tie rod. The original rotor and caliper is shown installed here because we treated the brake installation as it’s own upgrade.

Finishing the Installation
The wheels can be re-installed and the vehicle lowered to the ground. Using your baseline measurement, adjust the coil over springs so that the ride height is close to the baseline measurement.

Front Brake Installation
As with the TRZ control arm installation, the car needs to be supported on jackstands and the front wheels removed to allow access to the brake system. The calipers can then be removed with a hex head socket or Allen wrench. The dust cover on the hub is then removed, revealing the hub retaining nut and outside wheel bearing. Once these are removed, the rotor hub is removed from the spindle with the inside wheel bearing.

Remove the three bolts that attach the dust shield to the spindle.

In order to mount the Aerospace calipers, some modification of the stock spindle is required. The modification can easily be done by a home mechanic using a cut-off wheel and grinder. We opted to use our Cornwell Plasma Cutter and pneumatic die grinder.

Once the spindle has been modified, the rotor hub can be installed. The wheel bearings need to be packed with grease and installed into the rotor hub.

The rotor hubs can then be installed on the spindle and secured with the retaining washer and retaining nut.

With the hub and rotor assembled and on the spindle, installing the caliper mount can begin.

Once the caliper mount is installed on the spindle, the calipers can be bolted onto the caliper mounts and the front tire can be re-installed on the vehicle.

Taking a lesson from the experts.
Once again we went to Todd Braasch for baseline adjustments for the track. Todd explained that the rule of thumb for these G-body cars is to, “start out tight and adjust your way into the track using the shocks and limiters.” He recommended starting with a good alignment job, making sure that you set the caster to the, “optimal 5-7 degrees positive”. As for the front end limiters, Todd again recommends to, “start tight, between 3/4 to 1 inch of travel, and adjust it to the track in 1/4 inch increments.” Todd tells us that they have a G-body with this exact setup running on 275/60 radials pulling 1.27 sixty-foot times and running 5.30 in the eighth-mile.

Wrapping it up
In an afternoon of work with common hand tools, you can improve the handling and front end durability of your G-body chassis with the added bonus of losing 51 pounds of unnecessary weight from the front suspension. For our purposes, taking out the underpowered V-6 and putting in a 555 cubic inch big-block on nitrous, beefing up the front end was a necessity. Dropping the fifty-plus pounds was just icing on the cake. Although we were shooting for the practical, the billet aluminum and chrome-moly performance components gave our chassis a real pro look. With quality looking components like these, we may not be able to pull off the “sleeper” look we were going for on this project build. Our front end is no longer an ugly duckling.

The finished front suspension. Our ugly duckling has been transformed into a beautiful swan, sort of.

Granted, we expect the car to run in the 8.80′s with the 555 ci Pat Musi / Edelbrock pump gas big block going in between the frame rails, so 25.5 might be considered overkill. However, eventually we will go nuts and slide in our 427ci twin turbo LSX engine built by Billy Briggs, and we want this car to be able to handle it without having to add more cage later.

Before work on the Chassis Engineering cage could be started, we had to build the inner frame rails, and then tie-in the support for the stock suspension to take the brunt of the 1,100 to 1,300 hp engines.

Excuse our crappy lighting. First, Mike started with the cross-member. This is the cross bar runs between the frame rails, that dips down in the middle for the driveshaft. The cross bar was welded to two plates that Mike welded to the stock OEM outer perimeter frame rails.

Once the cross member was finished and tacked in, Mike added the two inner frame rails as required by SFI 25.5. We used 1-5/8 inch chrome moly supplied by Chassis.

Here is another shot of the inner frame rail. You can see that it is straight and then it curves forward to meet the frame rail at the front of the chassis. This will later by gusseted by the front cross bar and transmission x-member.

This is where the front frame rail intersects the frame. You can see the plates that Mike welded to the frame, and then the actual 1-5/8 chrome moly tubing to those plates.

This is where you need to be careful, and smart – with stock suspension. You can see the rear cross member here, and to the left the front frame rails moving forward. To the right is a bar welded from the lower control arm forward to the cross member which intersects the inner frame rail. Remember, lower control push while upper control arms pull. Mike is designing this chassis so that the lower arms force is directed squarely into the frame of the vehicle and not into the flex in the stock attachment points.

Here is the finished product so far with where the frame sites. Keep in mind, there are going to be additional bracing and gussets forward of the rear cross member. This is just the “bones” of the system so to speak. What will be added is the front cross member, front trans mount, a lower seat bar, and possibly an x-brace underneath the inner rails.

Since we started to get into the roll cage, you can check out the rear cross bar that was welded between the frame rails as the down points for the rear bars to come down from the main hoop. Of course, we’ll also use this to mount our fuel cells, battery mounts, parachute, etc.

Later this week we will be starting work on the roll cage. It should go in really smoothly given the fact that we are going to be using a Chassis Engineering 10 point moly cage and add a few bars to it to complete the 25.5 spec. It’s already pre-bent so that is saving us a lot of hassle!

One cool trick. We have a painted car (if you can call the original OEM 30 year old stuff on the body paint), and if we welded the tubs to to the body – even tack welds – we would melt the paint. So we are going to use seam sealer, but Mike added a few little gussets in the middle of the tub to keep it from deflecting. Pretty sweet. This will give them some support.

On a side note, our Publisher Lloyd Hunt showed Mike an easier, more stress relieving way to bend the tubing for the underside of the car – by using Editor Mark Gearhart’s face.

As mentioned, we decided to start off with a 10 point moly cage kit for our Malibu, and then add the necessary bars to complete the 25.5 spec cage as per the SFI rules. This is a common upgrade, and we’ll be very clear where the standard 10-pt cage ends and where the 25.5 SFI spec starts.

That means we have a lot of bars to run in the G-body, but we are starting with a good foundation. The Chassis Engineering kit comes with most of the bars pre-bent in the kit, including the main hoop, top hoop, and a-pillar bars – which are very difficult to bend yourself. All that was required there was to fit, hold and weld.

Chassis Engineering was good to us. Not only did they supply the cage, but they supplied the mini-tubs, parachute mount, parachute cable, misc. accessories, but even – get this – a driveshaft loop. I know, they hooked a brother up!

Coming out of the box, here is the Chassis Engineering pre-bent main hoop and top halo bar. This would be the starting point for the kit. Mike started by cutting out two small holes in the floorpan so that we can run the main hoop down to the frame rails as per NHRA and SFI spec.

After taking a few measurements, he cut the legs of the pre-bent main hoop to fit inside our Malibu with enough room for a head liner. When he was happy with the fitment and clearance at the top for the headliner and all around the main hoop, he tack welded it in.

Mike says that for him, it is easier to do most of the main hoop section in the car, tack welding it in at first; then bring it out of the car for final welding. That way he has plenty of room to lay down a nice tig welded bead on the cage without interference from anything else. This is where our 25.5 upgrade came in. We would need to add the rear bars for the funny car cage upgrade that sit behind the driver’s seat.

Here Mike tig welds the rear part of the funny car cage upgrade – required as per SFI 25.5 – to the Chassis Engineering main hoop. The 25.5 upgrade required two modifications to the standard main hoop. First, the cross bar was mounted lower than the standard area on a 10-pt, and second, the two funny car rear bars are welded behind the driver’s seat.

Here is a sweat trick we didn’t know. Before Mike welded the main hoop in, he made these trick plates with a clearanced hole with a hole saw, so that you have a completely sealed and clean floor with the cage going through it.

With the main hoop installed, next on the list was the two rear down bars from the top of the main hoop that run down to the rear trunk cross bar Mike welded under the trunk last week. He started by cutting two slots in the rear deck to give the bars plenty of clearance to run down into the trunk area. Mike plans to use some sheet metal later to fill these in after all of the necessary bars have been run through that area.

Again grabbing from the Chassis Engineering kit, Mike cut the bars down to size and bent them in the rear of the car. After fitting the bars in mike made two similar floor plates as he did for the main hoop and welded everything in. Chassis supplies the rear bars straight here giving you flexibility in your installation. Some install straight bars but we preferred to bend ours.

The complete rear down bars. See how clean they look with Mike’s trick plates. Once this area gets cleaned and painted you’ll see what nice work this is. It’s just obscured by 6 different kinds of metal surfaces.

Here is a shot showing where the bars are welded into from under the car. This is our rear cross bar that will eventually partially support our fuel cell and battery trays.

Here is another angle of the rear of the car, the C/E mini-tubs, main hoop, and rear down bars. As mentioned, you can see the main hoop with the start of the funny car cage installed in the car on the right. Notice how the cross bar is mounted lower than you would normally see in a 10-pt cage.

From there Mike was on to the halo bar. Again another easy install as the only thing Mike had to do to fit the Chassis Engineering piece in was cut it down to size and notch the bar so it fit flush against the main hoop and weld it in.

The last thing Mike got to was cutting two holes in the floor just like he did for mounting the main hoop, only this time, it is in the front of the car just in front of where the driver seat will mount. This is where the bar running from the halo bar will come down and attach to the frame. We refer to these are front down bars.

Check back in later this week, Mike will be fitting more and more of the cage in the car as we continue to bring you updates all the way till this car is running on the track. Our goal is provide you with a step by step guide to building your own 8-second Malibu with common every day components and off-the-shelf parts.

Until next time, we’re out.

Now the thought of seeing poor dear old Grandma at Runoff Beach was something that we just couldn’t live with. It was bad enough for the old gal that she’ll have to live with the noise from the 555ci Edelbrock/Pat Musi Big Block that will be shoehorned under her hood. We thought the least we could do is send her down the track with a good set of brakes. To do so we chose Aerospace Components lightweight drag racing brakes. Not only will replacing the well-worn stock brakes help improve stopping power, but they just might help us free up a little horsepower to as well.

Grandma has already been through a lot, from having been driving to near destruction by our now Editor-in-Chief to being striped of everything she has. So we redeemed ourselves a little bit when we did some joint replacement by upgrading her underpinnings with some really nice Energy Suspension body bushings. Now I really think we are going to be in old Grandma’s good graces. With a brand-spanking-new set of brakes behind her wheels Granny should have no problem stopping that big inch mill, no matter how much it fights her.

Aerospace Components is best known for their vacuum pump system and lightweight brakes. What most people don’t know is that Aerospace Components actually has a wide variety of products, including water pumps, fuel pumps, 9-inch Ford “Bullet-Proof” third members, shifters, billet nitrous bottle brackets and “pro dial” boards. From its humble beginnings in Dearborn, Michigan twenty-two years ago, Aerospace has grown to become one of the most advanced companies in the industry.

Brakes and Drag Racing

Brakes capable of bringing your car to a safe stop at the end of the track are a prerequisite if, like most racers, you’d like to make more than one pass without extensive repair work and hospitalization. But beyond the obvious advantages of being able to slow down, a good set of brakes can also help you increase wheel horsepower. “Fiction!” you say? Consider the amount of rotating mass your engine has to turn in on the vehicle, talking everything from accessories driven off to the belts to the wheels and tires into account. By reducing the amount of rotating mass, the engine won’t have to work as hard and this frees up horsepower. The brakes are another example of rotating mass, so therefore by installing lighter brakes with less inertia, you can reduce the amount of horsepower lost before it does the important work of getting you down the track.

Aerospace’s lightweight billet aluminum hubs feature screw-on dust caps and are drilled with a dual bolt pattern.

Brakes for drag racing are designed a little differently than ones use in a street or even a roadrace application. Instead of having to withstand repeated uses, drag racing brake kits must be able to slow cars going extremely fast in one very quick use. With that in mind, even picking things like brake pads is important.

Brakes aren’t a one-size-fits-all proposition. Rotors, calipers, and even pads must be matched to the car’s weight, speed, and use. Drag race brakes designed to bring a 3,200 pound car down from 175 miles per hour, then cool down in the pits between rounds won’t work very well for repeated stops on the street, and vice versa.

Aerospace Brakes

Aerospace Components offers brake components “a la carte” or as complete Front and Rear Brake Kits, as shown here

Aerospace sent us their Heavy Duty Kit for use on Grandma. The kit, designed for cars weighing between 2,600 and 3,000 pounds, came with everything we needed from the 10.25” diameter drilled rotors to a set of Hawk pads, with all the bearings and seals we needed to make Grandma a super stopper. Constructed from billet aluminum, the four-piston calipers felt light when we picked them up but we wanted to see just how light. After stealing the scale from the shipping department, and defacing it with the oily, grimy stock brakes the results were surprising, but more on this later. For now, on to the installation…

Kit Components:
• Billet Aluminum 4 Piston Calipers
• Billet Aluminum Mounting Brackets
• Grade 8 Hardware
• Billet Aluminum Hubs with Screw-on Dust Caps
• Bearings and Seals Included
• Hawk Brake Pads
• 10 1/4” Diameter Drilled Rotors
• 1/2” Studs, 3” long

Installation

This first thing we tackled was removing the stock system. After breaking the old bolts loose we pulled the well-worn set of brakes, and while BJ was taking off the passenger side I took the driver’s side pieces to weigh and compare with the Aerospace Brakes. Throwing all the Aerospace kit components on the scale, the weight came out to 30 pounds for the entire front kit, including brake pads. With BJ still slacking on the other side, I put my half of the stock brakes on the scale to see how they stacked up.

The only things that these old stock brakes are going to be stopping is the back door of the shop from closing.

It was very surprising to see the scale read just a hair over 23 pounds for the driver’s side alone. That was without brake pads too, as there were none left to weigh! We cut nearly half the total weight off the front brakes by installing Aerospace’s kit. Remember that a good proportion of that is rotating mass as well. That means more of our big inch horsepower moving Grandma forward, and less lost spinning up the brake rotors.

I got back to Granny and BJ just in time to start putting on the Aerospace Kit. Our kit, as with many big brake conversions for cars of this generation, required that we trim the spindles. Aerospace provided us with a template for doing so. Our Cornwell Plasma Cutter made quick work of the thick steel and after a little bit more clean-up grinding we had enough clearance to mount the caliper bracket. When doing this yourself, a cutoff wheel and a grinder would do just fine – it just won’t be a quick as a plasma cutter or a torch. With our caliper bracket mounted we then placed the rotors on the spindle and put the greased bearings in place. Next was the cotter pin, followed by the dust cap.

The “got to have” tool – the plasma cutter. Patience and a cutoff wheel will give you the same end result, though.

With the spindle trimmed and the Aerospace bracket mounted, the hubs go on. Be sure to use lots of grease, both in the bearings and the spindle shaft.

Proper spindle nut torque is important for bearing life and safety. Speaking of which, don’t forget that cotter pin, and don’t reuse an old one – crashing a car because you cheaped out on a ten-cent part is inexcusable.

The Aerospace kit includes half-inch diameter studs that are a tech-inspector-pleasing three inches long, giving plenty of thread engagement on the lug nuts no matter how thick the wheel hub is.

Capping off our Aerospace system are the Billet Aluminum Four-Piston calipers. With no brake lines run yet this was as simple as placing the new Hawk pads in the caliper and bolting it to the mount we installed earlier. After a little bit of shimming to align the rotor and caliper properly, the complete Aerospace Components kit was on. All that remains is the plumbing, and Grandma will be able to stop on a dime and give nine cents in change.

When installing the calipers, a little shimming is necessary to properly center the caliper body relative to the rotor to ensure even pressure and wear.

The finished product is a huge improvement in both appearance and performance, and cuts the total weight of the front brake system almost in half.

Top 5 Tips For Upgrading Brakes
Brought to you by Matt Moody at Aerospace Components

1) Specify Not Only Your Vehicle But Application

This might sound like a no-brainer, but Matt explained that trying to save money by buying a less expensive kit might save you money up front, but in the end the brakes could fail due to being operated outside of what they are designed for. Brake kits are engineered for specific weight ranges, speeds, and usage profiles (street, strip, or roadracing). If you are unclear about what you need, call the experts at Aerospace. They are more than happy to assist you in choosing your kit.

2) Change Your Brake Lines

Cracked or leaking lines are one of the most common failures when it comes to brakes. By swapping them out to stainless steel you not only get a better performing product but a better looking one as well

3) Make Sure Your Master Cylinder Is The Correct Size

This is where people start to get lost. “Make sure if you are upgrading from drum brakes to disc brakes that you have the correctly-sized master cylinder,” Moody said. Drums and discs require different brake fluid pressure and volume. “Trying to use your old one will only result in poor performance of your brakes.”

4) Thread locker Is Your Best Friend In Your Race car
Moody told me to lock tight everything with “permanent” threadlocker, such as Loctite Red 271. If you don’t, the bolts could back out, and when you are hauling down the track that is the last thing you want to happen.

5) Know What You Are Doing
This one is common sense, more than anything. If you don’t know what you are doing when it comes to installing brakes, have someone who knows disc brakes help you. If you don’t know anyone, you should take it to a shop to have them installed. Brakes are a safety issue, and not only for you in the car but other people around you. Don’t just hack a set of brake on your car; do it right.

What’s Next with Granny

Grandma is coming along pretty quick now. Soon the car will be off to the chassis shop to get a full Chassis Engineering cage and mini-tubs. After that, we will be putting on the rest of the Aerospace Components brake parts, including the rear brakes and master cylinder. Before long, old Grandma will be screaming down the track, and now, thanks to Aerospace Components, we won’t be screaming too when the run is over.

Mike cut a hole in the floorboards large enough to allow welding the front down tubes all the way around the tube.

Cutting the floorboard for the down tubes required a pretty good size opening so that the tube to chassis weld could be done from inside the car for the outside half, and from the bottom of the car on the inside half of the tubing.

Mike welds the down tube to the chassis from below for the part of the tube that faces towards the inside of the car.

After the front down tubes from the halo to the chassis had been welded into place, Mike tack welded the sheet metal cover over the hole that had been cut for the tube to run through the floorboard. Being ever mindful of aesthetics, Mike formed the sheet metal to mate with the existing bends in the floorboard.

Sheet metal cover completes the job. Mike fabricated the metal plate to mate with the existing floorboard bends.

Once the down tubes had been welded into the chassis and to the Halo, Mike added a couple of short tubes from the main hoop cross bar to the rear end upper control arm mount cradle. This brace will support the upper control arm mounting points from flexing under the torsional load during launching. Also, it is another place where the cage is tied into the chassis providing even further support from chassis flex.

The short tube from the main hoop to the upper mount cradle. This is the exact area that intersects where the upper control arms connect.

Welders are often under-appreciated so we wanted to take a moment to applaud their ability to get into areas where a regular Joe couldn’t or wouldn’t go. Welders also have this unique ability to weld with either the right or left hand depending on how tight the area is that they need to get to. So here’s to you Mr. Under-appreciated ambidextrous metal melter.

Cheers to the Fabricator that will get in any spot, in any position, right or left handed to ensure that a good weld is made.

After he had finished the bracing bars, Mike took on the task of adding the cromoly tubing that make up the funny car cage. These bars are custom fitted to the driver and the seat that will be mounted into the car. Each bar in this section is hand bent and fish-mouthed to fit precisely to the cage. Mike approached this task with patience. Trying to take too much metal off of a bar, or over bending a bar would mean starting all over.

The purpose of the funny car cage is to protect the driver in the event of a severe accident and structural failure of the outer layer of roll-cage protection – the doors bars (which in our case are X-bars). They also support the door bars with 2 additional triangulated bars on the driver side.

An outer hoop is installed first.

Once the framework for the funny car cage is made and tack welded, the painfully slow and precise work of fabricating individual support bars begins. Even moving forward cautiously, we managed to make a couple of mistakes and had to fabricate a couple of new bars for that perfect fit.

The funny car cage was hand fabricated to a custom fit.

Before we close out today’s blog, we felt it was necessary to pass along another one of Mike’s tricks of the trade. When welding tubing, the air inside the tube gets hot and expands. As the welder completes the weld at a seam, the structure starts getting air tight and there is no where for the expanding hot air to escape. This can cause what welders call “a blow out”. To prevent that situation from happening, our fabricator drills a small vent hole in the tubing so that the air can escape. This hole can be filled in later.

Vent hole in the tubing prevents “a blow out”.

With our day in the garage over, our fabricator made it through the day with out experiencing any “blow outs”, but he did contort himself in ways that would have made a circus clown proud. All in the name of getting the perfect weld. I bet he’s going to be sore tomorrow.

Here is the “X” in the doors. These are just tack-welded at this point and can be removed for access to the interior.

Next it was on to the front of the car where Mike was working on the front cage extensions that would run to the front of the G-Body’s front frame rails. This would strengthen the front of the car substantially. You can see the finished work below. These tie into the cage at the front intersection bar that goes between the two front down bars.

We expect Grandma to run in the 8-second zone, which means we are going to need a little stopping help. While we did upgrade the brakes to Aerospace Components lightweight drag racing brakes, a parachute was still needed given the speed of the car.

Mike installed a Chassis Engineering Parachute Mount Kit on our Malibu. He started by drilling a circle the size of the 1-5/8-inch tubing into the bumper of the car. From there he notched and cut the bar down to the correct size before tacking it to the rear cross bar we had installed a few weeks ago.

Mike added some bracing to the bar as well to make sure the parachute system is structurally strong before adding the actual parachute mount to the rear of the bar behind the bumper.

Welding the parachute holder bar (is there a better word for this) to the Chassis Engineering mount kit. Check outthe parachute mount kit here.

That wraps up this update. Check back later this week and we should have our 555 ci Pat Musi/Edelbrock Chevy Big Block mocked up in the car. From there we can them move on to reassembly as we continue to keep you up to speed on Project Grandma.

Mocking up the Drive Train

The first step in this mock up process was to take the Monster crate engine and bolt a brand spankin’ new TCI Pro-X Powerglide Transmission to it. A long time ago, the Powerglide transmission had a reputation as being a little weak in the knees for real power applications, but that was – a long time ago. TCI has perfected taking a stock power glide and making it durable enough to handle just about anything that you can throw at it, but this isn’t a stock glide. This is a TCI Pro-X, and it uses an upgraded case to handle up to 2,000 HP.

Once the big block and the glide were together, we lifted the assembly into Grandma’s engine bay with the Cornwell engine hoist and load leveler. We have to give the Cornwell Tools big props on the load leveler. Attempting to put the engine/transmission combo into the engine bay while the car is on a two post lift is no easy challange, even with the fenders and grill removed. The load leveler simplified what would have been a difficult, and somewhat dangerous task. Finally, we added the Lemons 2-1/4 inch header tubes so that Mike could fab up the steering system ensuring that there was plenty of clearance.

Lemon’s Headers – A Work of Art

The Lemons headers we ordered are a pretty special set up for g-body chassis like Grandma. Lemon’s is one of the only exhaust header companies that specializes in race-type (read: seriously BIG tube) headers for Muscle Car big block applications in early cars.

With our Lemon’s headers, each bank has four 2-1/8-inch headers that step into 2-1/4 inch stainless tubes, which merge into a 4 inch collector. On each side, two of the header tubes route outside the frame and the other two run along the inside of the frame. These headers are designed for the engine mounted in the stock location, but will not fit with with clutch linkage or column shifter linkage.

We are using the TRZ/Flaming river steering rack, so we had already planned on moving the steering column for clearance. We also planned on rerouting the master brake cylinder lines for clearance too. While we were mocking the drivetrain out, we made note that the transmission cross member would have to be fabricated to allow for the massive 4 inch collector.

Transmission Cross Member – Making a 25.5 Legal X-Member

For the 25.5 SFI spec, we needed to build our Transmission cross member within certain parameters. Mike’s next step was fabricating the transmission cross member. Starting by bolting on the Energy Suspension Transmission mount to the tail shaft extension of the transmission, we were able to locate the mounting position of the cross member.

Mike set about fabricating the cross member and transmission mount by measuring and custom fitting pieces of plate steel together, joined by tack welding the metal. This would form the trans mount that would attach to the mild steel cross-member.

Once the cross member pieces were custom fit, tack welded and double checked for fitment, Mike TIG-welded the entire assembly. While we were already under the car, we needed to add a couple more tubes for support and safety. The tranny mount and bar ran perpendicular to the “stringer” tubes, or the floor bars, which go from the rear end mount cradle forward to the frame near the front wheel well area.

These bars are required for 25.5, and provide extra crash protection and frame support. It is cheap insurance and makes the chassis strong as a tank without weighing like one.

With the engine mounted and the transmission mounted in place, test fitting the steering assembly could begin. Steering is extremely important, even in a straight line car, so making sure that the rack placement and steering shafts had good clearance and proper geometry was essential at this stage. The steering shafts would have to be rerouted because of the larger engine and the manual rack and pinion upgrade. Yet again, Mike would have to custom fabricate the entire steering column and rack mounting. We are going to do a more detailed article on this in the future with some more photos, but for now – you can follow along.

TRZ/Flaming River – Manual Steering Rack Conversion

Mounting the steering rack started with removing a mounting pad from the engine cross member. This little mounting boss serves no purpose in this particular chassis, so cutting it off was of no consequence. With the mounting boss removed, the manual steering rack was bolted to the spindle steering arms so that proper rack placement could be determined. The TRZ steering assembly came with two mounting brackets that need to be welded in to place in order to mount the steering rack.

It took a little patience to grind and massage the steering brackets so that they would form a close “air tight” fit to the crossmember. Getting this tight fit is key to a good TIG weld. Keeping in mind that it is easier to take off metal than to add it, Mike made several trips to the grinder, taking off a little bit at a time then test fitting the mount to the frame until it was perfect.

Massaging the mounting brackets until they made an “air tight” fit

There are two brackets that need to be welded to the frame that support the steering rack, and each bracket needs to be custom fit for the best results. Mike made several trips to the grinder and back to the chassis to test fit his work. The quality of the welds and the mounting of the steering rack depended on this level of attention to detail. We recommend strongly that you do not take a short cut here.

Taking no short cuts, these mounting brackets were fitted perfectly to the crossmember.

Now that the rack was firmly mounted to the crossmember, we could focus on routing the steering shafts. With the big engine in place with the Lemons headers attached, there was little room for the steering shaft to run. A new route from the steering rack to the steering column had to be made. Armed with a bi-metal hole saw, we created a new path for the steering shaft by cutting through the cross member.

Making a hole in the crossmember to run the steering shaft

Working from the steering rack back to the steering wheel, we managed to find a decent path through the engine cross member, outside the first two header pipes near the upper A-Arm and through the firewall. Our goal was to route the steering column through the original location in the firewall. This required manufacturing a new mounting plate for the steering column to run through. Again, patience was key to fabricating a plate that covered the existing firewall hole and allowed the steering shaft to run through it.

Our new firewall steering column plate

All the pieces were in place for us to run the steering shaft from the wheel to the rack, so we started putting the puzzle pieces together. The angle of the shaft coming through the firewall to the rack was steep enough that we needed to use three universal joints. Using this setup requires keeping the angles of the universal joints within a few degrees of each other. Too much of an angle on one of the joints will cause binding or give the driver a stiff feel in the steering.

Steering shaft running through the firewall and utilizing 3 U-joints to route to the rack

Our fabricator, Mike “scrooge” Ryan, takes a moment to chase the photographer away

By this point, our fabricator was tired of grinding and decided that we had made enough progress for the day. Our plan is to pickup the next day with the final steering column assembly and start working on the interior components like the parachute release handle and the transmission shifter. Looks like our Grandma project is starting to enter the home stretch run.

Project Swinger as it stands today

We’ve been hearing a lot of buzz on the forums about air suspension systems in recent months due in no small part to suspension pioneers like Air Ride. But like many people, we had always thought air suspension was for semi-trucks or super slammed low riders. After seeing several events where iconic muscle cars were equipped with Air Ride Technologies’ air suspension systems, our view has change dramatically. To err is human, after all. Now that we’ve gotten some firsthand experience, we are willing to admit; To ‘air’ is divine. As such, we chose Air Ride for our 1971 Nova Project, the “Swinger Nova.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTCIjfR58Pk

It’s no secret that we love our muscle cars here at PowerTV. It’s also well known that we love modern technology and upgrading our muscle cars with quality systems to improve performance. Our vintage muscle cars have seen their hi-tech prime pass them by years ago. These once-respected road warriors have been reduced to sloppy handling and worn out chassis that are technologically challenged.

When we decided to get serious about handling, there were a number of good suspension companies out there to consider. However, Air Ride Technology was one company that had a particular reputation as a “race what they sell” manufacturer. We had taken laps in an X-body Nova of theirs – and it flat out worked.

This is the story of our Project Swinger. Here you’ll read about how, using the Air Ride Technologies Street Challenge Package, we will be transforming our ill-handling, wheel-hopping 1971 Chevy Nova into an autocross-worthy street cruiser. To make this beast into a precision-cornering, aggressive autocrossing machine, we decided to take it down to the bare frame. Here is what we started with on Project Swinger; A broken down leaf-spring setup and a lousy, weak-knee’d 10-bolt rear end. Ick.

Who is Air Ride?

The brainchild of Bret Voelkel, Air Ride Technologies has been leading the charge in the advancement of air suspensions. As the story goes, one day in 1995, while driving on the freeway, Bret was stuck behind a tractor-trailer semi. Bret noticed the air bags under the truck and began to study the semi’s suspension system. The idea of engineering an air suspension system for street cars hit him as he watched the trailer handle the road conditions while supporting a load.

If heavy-duty vehicles could benefit from having air suspensions, couldn’t high performance street cars use that specialized technology to handle gravitational and g-force loads? Tony Bicknell, our man at Air Ride Technologies, tells us that to Bret, specialization means excellence. “Air suspensions are all we make. We’d better be good at it.”

Air Ride has developed into a large company, but one filled with enthusiasts that are as home on the autocross course or race track as they are behind their desks. And they are based in the US, and that makes us happy as well. They are a quality company that makes quality parts.

Today, Air Ride manufacturers not only air systems, but a variety of top-shelf components such as the new innovative Tiger Cage, Air Bar 4-link kits, and Strong Arm control arms.

What is the Street Challenge System?

To understand what Air Ride did, imagine a company putting together all of its top-of-the-line suspension components into one all-inclusive kit. That’s exactly what the Street Challenge Kit is. The kit includes drop spindles, upper and lower “Strong Arm” A-arms, their ShockWave air spring/shock combination, and 4-link conversion “Air Bar”. To complete the front end suspension system, Air Ride Technologies caps it off with the “MUSCLEbar” front sway bar. Air Ride Technologies currently has 55 different Street Challenge kits for cars and 23 for trucks.

This package includes:

2 Double Adjustable Upgrades from Standard Shocks
2 Chevy Camaro 67-69 ShockWaves
2 Ridetech Spindles
Chevy Nova 68-74 MUSCLEbar
RidePro e2 Remote control option
StrongArms for ShockWave Front (Upper & Lower)
Chevy Nova 68-74 AirBar w/Shockwaves
AirPod w/ 5 gallon tank, 2 compressors, and LevelPro control

REAR SUSPENSION:
Turning Over a New Leaf – the 4-Link Air Bar

The rear suspension setup in the Street Challenge kit is a major upgrade from ancient leaf-spring technology. Let’s face it; the Nova’s X-Body rear suspension, like most classic muscle cars from the 60’s and 70’s, needed a lot of help. What Air Ride Technologies has done for the rear end is more of a complete make-over than just a rebuild.

With the multi-leaf spring type suspension, the only way to get the wheel hop and axle wrap out was to stiffen up the springs to the point where the ride was harsh and unpredictable. Air Ride’s Tony Bicknell reminded us how a stiff suspension felt by saying, “You could run over a dime and tell if it was heads up or tails.”

What the crew at Air Ride has developed for the Nova Street Challenge kit is a four-bar conversion system. Tony explained that the old leaf spring suspension was asked to do too many functions. “First, it had to hold the car up, then it had to control the lateral axis, fore and aft axis, and the pinion angle movement. The best adjustment on that suspension was a compromise between those functions.” With the four-link system, each of these functions can be separated and controlled to where the ride is more precise and predictable.

The Air Bar is a 4-link retro-fit that removes your leaf-springs and replaces them with a complete bolt-in cradle that allows you to use upper and lower control arms. Like the stock suspension in a Fox-body or SN95 Mustang, the length and geometry of the unequal-length control arms position the axle throughout its travel, rather than requiring leaf springs to support the weight of the car, prevent side-to-side movement of the axle, and still allow it to move vertically all at the same time. Essentially you are replacing 1970′s thinking with today’s modern suspension technology.

In order to make the “leaf spring” to 4-link conversion, you’ll need to start with Air Ride’s mounting cradle which bolts in (or welds in our case) to the stock rear frame and provides the mounting points for the upper and lower rear control arms.

The four-link cradle is designed to bolt in to the stock unibody subframe, but since we have the time, the lift, and the tools, we decided to weld it in as well. Plus our frame was tweaked slightly, so this proved the easiest route.

Included in the Air Bar kit are double-shear upper link mounts that need to be welded onto the rear end housing. Intimidating as this may sound, it is not that difficult as long as you don’t rush the welding. Setting up the proper angle is extremely important when prepping these upper link mounts for welding. By installing the upper links into the chassis mounts, and lifting the rear end up to normal ride height, the aft end of the upper links will dictate where the link mounts need to be placed.

We recommend that you tack weld the mounts into place and move the rear end through the full range of motion to ensure that there is no binding. Once you are satisfied that the mounts are properly located, they can be welded permanently into place. Use care when welding these link mounts. The rear end housing and axle tubes can be overheated very quickly, and overheating the rear end will result in the metal warping and twisting. Thus, we strongly recommend that a stitch welding technique be used in this process.

Now that we had installed the cradle, it was time to get the control arms bolted up. We started with the lower arms, which utilized a nice stiff bushing to discourage body roll under the g-forces our Air Ride suspension was sure to create.

Once we had the lower Air Bar arms bolted in, it was time to get our Currie 9-inch rear end ready to go. Although we’ve got a complete install story on the Currie 9-inch coming in the next issue, we’ll give you a quick preview: Currie Bolt-in X-Body 9-inch, 3.50 gears, Eaton Posi-Diff, and Currie 31-spline Axles. Brakes are by SSBC – and they are very impressive.

For the upper arms, we needed to mock up the upper control arm mounts that Air Ride supplies. With some careful measuring, we aligned the upper control arms on the rear end with the upper control arm mounts on the Air Bar. Some careful welding, and our upper control arm brackets were in.

Finally, we would need to bolt on our lower Air Ride Air Bars, which attached to the Air Ride rear end bracket (which is bolted to the factory rear end leaf spring mount), and then the shocks bolt in using trick billet lower shock relocation brackets.

Taking the place of standard shock absorbers, the ShockWave air shocks are as easy to install as OEM replacement shocks but offer a greater degree of adjustability. Combined with the Air Bar, this system lowers the car’s stance by 2 inches. Because of the handling characteristics of the four-link system and air shocks, the Nova’s soft, rolling rear end was now a crisp and controlled suspension. The only item to watch out for here is to mount the shocks with the adjustment knob facing the rear of the car for ease of adjustment. Easy as that, our Air Ride rear end suspension was in place and waiting for our rear end assembly.

Here is the one side of the completed Air Bar rear suspension system. The upper control arms are bolted to the Currie 9-inch, and you can see how the double adjustable shocks bolt to the upper part of the Air Bar cradle.

The completed Currie 9-inch with the Air Ride Air Bar and shocks isn’t all pretty yet, but that’s because we’re more concerned with the bones than the skin, but rest assured our rear end and underside are going to be all swell and shiny when our Swinger comes back from the paint shop.

FRONT SUSPENSION:
Getting Strong-Armed

Front suspension systems for muscle cars are all pretty much the same design: a double-wishbone suspension with upper and lower triangular A-arms. It has been the industry standard for performance cars for decades. Over the years, the double wishbone system was refined from equal length upper and lower control arms to the current version with an upper control arm that is shorter than the lower control arm.

Using unequal length control arms gives better handling when cornering. As the wheel travels up, the top also moves in toward the vehicle’s center, adding negative camber. This is caused due to the upper arm swinging through a shorter arc than the lower, which pulls the top of the tire inward as the wheel travels upwards. This negative camber gain generated by the chassis rolling helps keep the outside wheel in full contact with the road surface. A larger tire contact patch means more cornering force.

Let’s take a look at the Air Ride front system:

It’s common knowledge that the pressed-steel lower A-arms on these vintage muscle cars lack in the performance arena. Greater deflection and often distortion occurs in these factory parts when the handling is pushed to the limits. Air Ride’s StrongArms are the perfect solution to these handling problems, and they match up well with the performance rear end of the Air Bar system.

The upper and lower StrongArms replace the stock A-arms, and are designed to account for the dropped stance by realigning the ball joint angles to prevent binding, with added caster adjustments for improved high speed handling. The StrongArms feature heavy-wall CNC-bent tubing (.219”-wall) that is jig welded for a precise fit.

Air Ride RideTech Spindle:

Air Ride Technologies has amplified the potential for maximum cornering by adding a 1 or 2 inch dropped spindle that lowers the vehicle’s roll center. Lowering the roll center helps in handling and predictability when cornering. The drop spindles are designed for the increase in camber gain from the unequal length A-arms and the change in the arc due to the drop.

Many times enthusiasts will lower a vehicle without understanding the effect of that positive camber gain. What they end up with is a car that is lower but does not handle as well as it did at the stock ride height. Adding the drop spindles to their tubular control arms gives the enthusiast a lowered stance and better high-speed handling. Lastly, the oversized and soft rubber pieces that were used as stock pivot bushings in the 60’s and 70’s lend themselves to serious suspension slop. Air Ride uses firmer polyurethane bushings that provide smooth movement without losing suspension precision.

The front ShockWaves are very much like the rears in the fact that they are designed to take advantage of stock suspension mounting points as much as possible. There were some clearance issues on our project car that were identified in the Air Ride installation manual.

Due to the larger circumference of the air shock compared to the old steel springs, part of the spring tower had to be cut away so that the air bag part of the ShockWaves did not rub or get pinched as the suspension moved up and down in its travel. Cutting the spring bucket can be easily achieved with a torch, cutoff wheel, or as in our case, a Cornwell plasma cutter. Keeping in mind that the spring buckets are very visible, the quality of your work will show up here. We recommend taking the time to grind the areas smooth and test-fit often when performing this task. Not only will you prevent accidental early failure of your ShockWave, but the care and fine details will show up in the appearance of the system when completed.

Installing the lower StrongArms to the ShockWaves.

RideTech Spindles

Once the spring buckets have been clearanced for the ShockWaves, the next logical step is to mount the RideTech spindles. When upgrading the front suspension, we highly recommend not bypassing the RideTech Spindles in favor of the stock spindles. The RideTech spindle is purposely designed with a taller overall length with a drop spindle design and increased caster gain built into the steering geometry when these parts are used together. The OEM cast spindles are likely to have experienced a degree of metal fatigue over the years, so replacing them with the RideTech spindle from Air Ride was a “no-brainer” for us.

Putting it all together by attaching the RideTech spindles to the StrongArms.

Front MUSCLEbar and mounting kit

Honestly, sway bars don’t get the credit that they deserve. Because they have a simple-looking design, sway bars are often overlooked as a true performance part. Air Ride’s MUSCLEbar also has a deceivingly simple look on the surface. Beyond the appearance however, is a well-designed sway bar developed to work with a dropped front suspension to enhance the cornering performance of your project car. The upgraded design of the MUSCLEbar includes an increased bar diameter, polyurethane bushings, and the correct-sized attachment links that work with the rest of the lowered Street Challenge system for a complete front suspension designed for aggressive cornering.

Finishing up the front suspension by installing the MUSCLEbar.

Compressor & Controls

Finally, in our mock up assembly, all that was left was to test-fit and mount the Air Pod. With no other electrical lines in the chassis at all, the installation of these items was strictly for test-fit purposes only. The Air Pod is an “integrated” air compressor system which is pre-wired, pre-plumbed, and pre-tested, so there is very little to do during the instalation.

According to Air Ride, it takes 4 plumbing connections (one to each shock) and 3 wiring connections to install the Air Pod, and using it instead of separate components will save about 10 hours of installation. The best part is it weighs less than 25 pounds and is easy to mount.

Since Air Ride offers several different Air Control systems, we are going to do another complete article on choosing an Air Ride compressor system. Briefly, there are 4 different systems available:

1. RidePRO – “Good” - A standard, non-electronic system that uses valve bodies and compressors. It has a manual control system. It’s for a bare bones install.
2. RidePRO-E2 ” Better” - A system with air-pressure sensors and three height presets with an electronic controller. Good for cars that don’t see frequent changes in loads.
3. LevelPRO – “Best” - Adds ride height sensors to the RidePRO-E2 system to provide automatic pressure adjustments. Perfect for the customer that wants to “set it and forget it,” according to Air Ride.
4. AirPod – Available in “RidePro-E2” or “LevelPRO” trims – this places the tank, compressor, and controls in an easy to install unit. This is the top of the line.

For the most part, the Air Ride is one of the easier installations we’ve done, considering that we have changed the entire suspension system from the OEM-designed economy car setup into a prime road race performer. Air Ride Technologies has taken a very difficult task and turned it into a weekend project using common hand tools. The only additions that we found to Air Ride’s tool list was a set of spring compressors that come in handy for taking off the old coil springs, and our Cornwell plasma cutter for trimming the spring bucket.

We’ll be looking forward to bringing you Part 2 of the Air Ride Swinger Nova suspension article and video – once we get our baby rolling!

As mentioned, we decided to start off with a 10 point moly cage kit for our Malibu, and then add the necessary bars to complete the 25.5 spec cage as per the SFI rules. This is a common upgrade, and we’ll be very clear where the standard 10-pt cage ends and where the 25.5 SFI spec starts.

That means we have a lot of bars to run in the G-body, but we are starting with a good foundation. The Chassis Engineering kit comes with most of the bars pre-bent in the kit, including the main hoop, top hoop, and a-pillar bars – which are very difficult to bend yourself. All that was required there was to fit, hold and weld.

Chassis Engineering was good to us. Not only did they supply the cage, but they supplied the mini-tubs, parachute mount, parachute cable, misc. accessories, but even – get this – a driveshaft loop. I know, they hooked a brother up!

Coming out of the box, here is the Chassis Engineering pre-bent main hoop and top halo bar. This would be the starting point for the kit. Mike started by cutting out two small holes in the floorpan so that we can run the main hoop down to the frame rails as per NHRA and SFI spec.

After taking a few measurements, he cut the legs of the pre-bent main hoop to fit inside our Malibu with enough room for a head liner. When he was happy with the fitment and clearance at the top for the headliner and all around the main hoop, he tack welded it in.

Mike says that for him, it is easier to do most of the main hoop section in the car, tack welding it in at first; then bring it out of the car for final welding. That way he has plenty of room to lay down a nice tig welded bead on the cage without interference from anything else. This is where our 25.5 upgrade came in. We would need to add the rear bars for the funny car cage upgrade that sit behind the driver’s seat.

Here Mike tig welds the rear part of the funny car cage upgrade – required as per SFI 25.5 – to the Chassis Engineering main hoop. The 25.5 upgrade required two modifications to the standard main hoop. First, the cross bar was mounted lower than the standard area on a 10-pt, and second, the two funny car rear bars are welded behind the driver’s seat.

Here is a sweat trick we didn’t know. Before Mike welded the main hoop in, he made these trick plates with a clearanced hole with a hole saw, so that you have a completely sealed and clean floor with the cage going through it.

With the main hoop installed, next on the list was the two rear down bars from the top of the main hoop that run down to the rear trunk cross bar Mike welded under the trunk last week. He started by cutting two slots in the rear deck to give the bars plenty of clearance to run down into the trunk area. Mike plans to use some sheet metal later to fill these in after all of the necessary bars have been run through that area.

Again grabbing from the Chassis Engineering kit, Mike cut the bars down to size and bent them in the rear of the car. After fitting the bars in mike made two similar floor plates as he did for the main hoop and welded everything in. Chassis supplies the rear bars straight here giving you flexibility in your installation. Some install straight bars but we preferred to bend ours.

The complete rear down bars. See how clean they look with Mike’s trick plates. Once this area gets cleaned and painted you’ll see what nice work this is. It’s just obscured by 6 different kinds of metal surfaces.

Here is a shot showing where the bars are welded into from under the car. This is our rear cross bar that will eventually partially support our fuel cell and battery trays.

Here is another angle of the rear of the car, the C/E mini-tubs, main hoop, and rear down bars. As mentioned, you can see the main hoop with the start of the funny car cage installed in the car on the right. Notice how the cross bar is mounted lower than you would normally see in a 10-pt cage.

From there Mike was on to the halo bar. Again another easy install as the only thing Mike had to do to fit the Chassis Engineering piece in was cut it down to size and notch the bar so it fit flush against the main hoop and weld it in.

The last thing Mike got to was cutting two holes in the floor just like he did for mounting the main hoop, only this time, it is in the front of the car just in front of where the driver seat will mount. This is where the bar running from the halo bar will come down and attach to the frame. We refer to these are front down bars.

Check back in later this week, Mike will be fitting more and more of the cage in the car as we continue to bring you updates all the way till this car is running on the track. Our goal is provide you with a step by step guide to building your own 8-second Malibu with common every day components and off-the-shelf parts.

Until next time, we’re out.

Granted, we expect the car to run in the 8.80′s with the 555 ci Pat Musi / Edelbrock pump gas big block going in between the frame rails, so 25.5 might be considered overkill. However, eventually we will go nuts and slide in an bigger BBC built by World Products, and we want this car to be able to handle it without having to add more cage later.

Before work on the Chassis Engineering cage could be started, we had to build the inner frame rails, and then tie-in the support for the stock suspension to take the brunt of the 1,100 to 1,300 hp engines.

Excuse our crappy lighting. First, Mike started with the cross-member. This is the cross bar runs between the frame rails, that dips down in the middle for the driveshaft. The cross bar was welded to two plates that Mike welded to the stock OEM outer perimeter frame rails.

Once the cross member was finished and tacked in, Mike added the two inner frame rails as required by SFI 25.5. We used 1-5/8 inch chrome moly supplied by Chassis.

Here is another shot of the inner frame rail. You can see that it is straight and then it curves forward to meet the frame rail at the front of the chassis. This will later by gusseted by the front cross bar and transmission x-member.

This is where the front frame rail intersects the frame. You can see the plates that Mike welded to the frame, and then the actual 1-5/8 chrome moly tubing to those plates.

This is where you need to be careful, and smart – with stock suspension. You can see the rear cross member here, and to the left the front frame rails moving forward. To the right is a bar welded from the lower control arm forward to the cross member which intersects the inner frame rail. Remember, lower control push while upper control arms pull. Mike is designing this chassis so that the lower arms force is directed squarely into the frame of the vehicle and not into the flex in the stock attachment points.

Here is the finished product so far with where the frame sites. Keep in mind, there are going to be additional bracing and gussets forward of the rear cross member. This is just the “bones” of the system so to speak. What will be added is the front cross member, front trans mount, a lower seat bar, and possibly an x-brace underneath the inner rails.

Since we started to get into the roll cage, you can check out the rear cross bar that was welded between the frame rails as the down points for the rear bars to come down from the main hoop. Of course, we’ll also use this to mount our fuel cells, battery mounts, parachute, etc.

Later this week we will be starting work on the roll cage. It should go in really smoothly given the fact that we are going to be using a Chassis Engineering 10 point moly cage and add a few bars to it to complete the 25.5 spec. It’s already pre-bent so that is saving us a lot of hassle!

One cool trick. We have a painted car (if you can call the original OEM 30 year old stuff on the body paint), and if we welded the tubs to to the body – even tack welds – we would melt the paint. So we are going to use seam sealer, but Mike added a few little gussets in the middle of the tub to keep it from deflecting. Pretty sweet. This will give them some support.

On a side note, our Publisher Lloyd Hunt showed Mike an easier, more stress relieving way to bend the tubing for the underside of the car – by using Editor Mark Gearhart’s face.

Depending on who you speak to, we lose 10- to 20-percent of our torque due to friction losses in the drivetrain. Naturally, no one likes losing torque after spending so much money and working so hard to create this rotating force. This is, after all, the force we use to move the car and no matter which class you run, the name of the game is to move the car. So if we’re going to be good racers, one of the many questions we must ask is, “What can I do to reduce torque loss due to friction in the drivetrain?”

One approach to reducing friction loss, as well as vibrations, is to focus on an adjustment we normally call “Pinion Angle.” We tend to think of this difference in the angles between the driveshaft centerline (CL) and the pinion gear CL. A more correct term for this angle is to call it the “Working Angle” of the rear U-joint. However, to look at this relationship as being only between the pinion and the driveshaft would be a mistake. We also need to consider the working angle at the opposite end of the driveshaft, where it meets the transmission output shaft. In doing so, we will be considering the entire drivetrain angle.

Yet before we leave the topic of what we call this adjustment, let’s understand that to many drag racers, particularly those with leaf spring rear suspensions, the words “pinion angle adjustment” often relates to a tuning aspect of their suspension setup. For these guys, pinion angle is used to adjust how hard they hit the tire on a launch.

This is a somewhat controversial topic. For some, the reason for paying attention to pinion angle is so that we will reduce bind in the U-joints in the driveshaft. If we follow this logic to its final conclusion, then the reason racers see a difference in ET, reaction time, or 60-foot time with different pinion angles is that incorrect pinion angle is a form of bind and having this bind is a way to remove violence from the hook. Remove the bind, or in other words have the correct pinion angle, and you’ll hit the tire harder because the suspension will move that much more freely. Such racers often monitor U-joint temperatures with the same heat gun they use to measure track temperatures.

The other side of the conversation is based on the notion of harnessing the torque of the pinion gear as it climbs up the ring gear. Drag racers use this rotational force to a better effect than any other type of motorsports. In a leaf spring application, the forward half of the leaf spring is the front/rear locating device for the suspension system.

Keeping in mind that this front locator is a spring; it flexes and in doing so, can permit more vertical pinion motion, which lifts the front eyelet of the leaf spring upwards. In doing this, the differential housing is forced downward. Careful racers modulate this downward thrust with some excessive amount of pinion angle that they adjust into the car by adding, or removing, wedged-shaped shims between the leaf spring and the housing tubes of the differential. They are careful because to do this they must tickle the limits of the range of motion of the U-joints. If they exceed these limits too many times, noisy, spinning, middle-of-the-car badness follows.

The pinion-angle adjuster can be on the bottom of a ladder bar on on the top, as seen here on these Alston ladder bars. They are simply turnbuckles that can be lengthened or shortened to change the angle of the pinion. These adjusters can also be used to change preload.

Before we split our conversation into the two approaches, reduced vibrations and friction losses as well as improved hook, consider how much torque we are talking about. Let’s ask ourselves, “How much torque do we produce at the ring and pinion?” This number is often referred to as Drive Wheel Torque (DWT) and we can use the following formula to determine it.

DWT= Engine Torque X First Gear Ratio X Rear Gear Ratio X .85

We’ll consider a racecar that produces 515 foot-pounds of torque during the usual launch rpm. Many FSC readers have an engine that makes more torque than that, but we’ll keep the textbook numbers conservative. This is a T-5 manual-transmission car with a low gear ratio of 2.95 and a rear-gear ratio of 5.38.

As stated at the beginning of this article, estimates vary on how much torque we lose due to friction. We can affect these friction losses by watching our drivetrain angles. This idea is in line with the first opinion; reduce friction and you also reduce bind. We see this attitude in play when we look closely at the engine position in a tubeframe racecar. Normally, to reduce frictional losses, the tubeframe chassis builder, who does not have a stock transmission tunnel to work around, can aim the crankshaft directly at the pinion CL. The crankshaft, input and output-shaft on the transmission and driveshaft are all on the same angle. In this case, the front and rear working angles are the same and we have the least amount of resistance at the U-joints.

For this conversation, we’ll take an average of these 10- to 20-percent estimates and say our car loses 15-percent of its torque from friction. That .85 factor at the end of the above formula is one way of reducing the total by 15-percent. So, let’s plug in our numbers.

DWT=515 ft/lbs X 2.95 X 5.38 X .85 = 6947.53 ft/lbs

Now we know that when the pinion gear tries to rotate upward in this car, it is doing so with a force of nearly 7,000 pounds! (And we wonder why stuff back there flexes.) Scratch one up for the leaf spring guys because they can say this is the DWT force they use to wrap their springs up with and load against the chassis then beat the daylights out of their rear tires. But ladder bar racers and four-link guys can’t forget that they too, use this DWT. Ladder bar racers use it to raise the front rod end against the chassis. In four-link cars, the top bars pull and the lower bars push from this DWT.

Pinion Angle?

If all we are going to do is think only about pinion angle, then we should at least get that relationship right. Frank Rehak, from the Driveshaft Shop commented on how many racers measure this angle incorrectly. He said, “They think pinion angle is the angle of the pinion in comparison to the level ground. They place an angle finder on the yoke of the pinion and what ever that number is; they call it the pinion angle.

For cars with the stock floor still in the car, zero pinion angle is the same as the crankshaft angle.

“In a textbook approach, what people call the pinion angle is the working angle of the U-joint at the rear of the driveshaft. There is another working angle at the front of the driveshaft. That’s the one people don’t think about. They don’t realize there is a front working angle and a rear working angle and the relationship is about both working angles. We want them to be the same within a half-degree tolerance. Also, we want no more than three degrees of working angle for the U-joints on either end of the drive shaft. Keep in mind, I said that was a ‘textbook approach.’ I’ve seen racers do things that, by the book, should never have happened. Every car is so different and unique, that’s why we like to get involved with a racer’s project as soon as possible. ”

It would be reasonable to ask why we need to pay attention to the working angles of the U-joints at both ends of the driveshaft. The simple-looking driveshaft is a lot more intricate than it seems. This one component must transfer power and torque from one shaft to another, even when the angles between the two shafts vary and it must do this smoothly. To avoid vibrations, the front and rear working angles need to be within a half-degree of each other and as slight as possible. In OEM applications, the difference in working angles can be found to be between four and five degrees. In our high-torque standing-start applications, we look for a smaller difference, which is the three degrees Frank Rehak mentioned.

For cars with factory four-links such as Fox-bodied Mustangs and A-Body GM cars, racers should install adjustable upper control arms that also have turnbuckles, which can not only adjust pinion angle, but can be used to set preload and center the differential housing within the car.

Pinion Angle Example with Angle Finder:

Look closely at all three photos above and to the right: they are not the same. This is where you place the angle finder to determine the angle of the transmission output shaft. The angle finder is placed agains the yoke at the rear of the transmission yoke. In the last photo, you can see that you can measure the angle of the driveshaft at either end. Here, it is measured at the rear portion of the driveshaft, where the angle finder is positioned on the rear yoke of the driveshaft.

If we are going to consider both front and rear working angles, then we can split the combinations of angles into two types of cars. The first is the tubeframe car, which has the benefit mentioned before, the crank aims right at the pinion, working angles are the same, and friction is reduced. In this case, we compare the angle of the pinion to the angle of the driveshaft, which is concentric with the transmission shafts and crankshaft.

Here’s a maintenance tip for those racers who have a tubeframe car with the crank aimed at the pinion. One of the benefits to having a very small difference in working angles is that the bearing cups in the U-joint are rotated slightly with each revolution of the driveshaft. This causes the needle bearings within the cups to roll so that a different needle bearing will receive the full impact of the torque with each turn of the driveshaft. As the working angles become closer, this rotation of the bearing cups lessens and individual needle bearings get clobbered with the force of moving the car. The tip is to periodically remove the driveshaft and manually rotate the bearing cups in the U-joints. “That’s a good idea,” Rahek said. “Grease gets backed against the needle bearings and holds them in place while they get hammered by the torque. They will form splines into the surface of the trunnions to the point of U-joint failure.”

The second type of car is one that has the stock floor in it. The transmission tunnel of the stock floor creates some limitations on the engine placement along with ring-and-pinion location. And, surprise, surprise, some racers are placing bigger motors in their racecars with stock floors! The crank CL can not be aimed at the pinion CL so the two shafts that will be connected by the driveshaft will be at different heights to each other.

“That’s when guys get into trouble,” Rehak said. “The OEM guys have the working angles down pat for the engine/chassis combinations they sell to the general public. When a racer places a different engine in a car, he loses all that engineering that went into driveline placement.”

This means that racers, who upgrade to a bigger engine, need to pay close attention to the angle of that bigger motor, which probably does not have the same crank CL height location as the original, meaning the transmission will need to be relocated also; and that changes the front working angle, which no longer matches the rear working angle. If a bigger engine is part of your program, please refer to the sidebar, “How to measure Drivetrain Angles.”

Helping Hook

Now we’ll return to the issue of using the rear working angle as a means of planting the tires harder. Keep in mind the environment that the driveshaft is in and the job it has to do. It must smoothly transmit massive amounts of torque between two shafts that may, or may not be aligned, remembering also that the angular relationship between the two shafts constantly changes. Finally, let’s be honest, most of you don’t race ballerinas.

Launching 3500-pounds of anything is going to resist a lot of force that is trying to move it (the name of the game.) This means that the driveshaft, like most driveline components, is subjected to two loads. These are the huge amount of torque from the engine/transmission and the enormous inertia that is inherent in a 3500-pound car. To be able to transfer lots of torque, move a porky automobile and not bust into a bunch of needle bearings is a very good quality to have in a driveshaft.

Everyone who has considered the rear working angle, no matter what they call it, realizes that the angle of the pinion changes as the differential goes through its vertical travel and that it rotates up when torque arrives. The amount of upward rotation is limited by the suspension linkages. These include the leaf spring, which has a lot of pinion rotation, the commercially available ladder bar, which has less pinion rotation than the leaf spring, but more than an equal-length four-link system. When we compare the equal-length four-link system to the triangulated four-link on a Fox-bodied Mustang, where the upper bars are shorter than the lower bars, we see that the equal-length four-link has less pinion rotation.

So when we can ask ourselves what angle should our pinion shaft be, we should also identify what we compare that angle to. If we want the rear working angle to be within a half degree of the front working angle for the least amount of vibration and friction loss, then we’d like to have the pinion at nearly the same angle as the crankshaft, and consequently the transmission output shaft. This means that we can register the angle of the pinion against the angle of the crankshaft and call that “Zero Pinion Angle.”

For tubeframe cars, pinion angle is the difference between the angle of the driveshaft versus the angle of the pinion shaft.

Knowing how much our suspension linkage changes the angle of the pinion, we can lower the angle of the pinion at the yoke end by the same amount that the suspension permits the pinion to raise. For leaf spring cars, the pinion CL is set between 5-7 degrees down in comparison to the crankshaft angle (keep your temperature gun handy.) Ladder bar cars normally run three degrees down in relation to the crank. Equal-length four-link bars run one-to-two degrees down in comparison to the crank angle. Unequal-length four-link cars will see as much as four-to-five degrees in relation to the crank (find a buddy with a leaf spring suspension and a temperature gun.)

How to measure Drivetrain Angles

To reduce frictional loses and vibration, we need to compare the working angle of the front U-joints versus the working angle for the rear U-joints. We want the two working angles to be within a half-degree of each other and as slight an angle as possible, less than three degrees is normally recommended in drag racing. The exception is in cars with leaf springs where the spring wrap exceeds three degrees and cars with triangulated four-links where the upper bars are shorter than the lower bars.

There are three angles that we are concerned with in our driveline. These are:

• The driveshaft angle, which is exactly what it sounds like and is the easiest to measure. This is the angle of the driveshaft, which normally spans downward from the tail of the transmission to the pinion in the differential.

• The front working angle is a comparison between the angle of the output shaft and the angle of the driveshaft. For this, we’ll need to measure the angle of the yoke at the rear of the transmission, and then compare that to the driveshaft angle.

• The rear working angle is a comparison between the angle of the pinion gear and the angle of the driveshaft. For this, we’ll need to measure the angle of the yoke at the front of the pinion, and then compare that to the driveshaft angle.

For example, let’s consider a car with the transmission angle at 3.5 degrees, driveshaft angle at 4.5 and actual pinion angle at 3 degrees, as shown below. The front working angle is 1.0 degrees, while the rear working angle is 1.5 degrees. This alignment will probably work, but is at the edge of tolerance, which is a half-degree difference between the two working angles. Both working angles are also less than three degrees, which is considered the limit of the range of motion available from the U-joints.

Electronic Angle Finders

Electronic angle-finders, also known as inclinometers, are becoming more popular these days. They are easier to read, are very accurate and all of them include a hold-function. This helps collect readings when the part to be measured is in some difficult-to-reach area of the car. The angle can be measured, then after pushing the hold button, the reading is held until the gauge can be removed from the angled surface and into the daylight, where the degrees can then be read. Here we’re measuring the potential pinion angle of a four-degree leaf spring shim and a one-inch lowering block.

Here is a demonstration of another way to measure the angle of the pinion centerline (CL) if the driveshaft and U-joints are not installed in the car. Place the angle-finder on the forward edge of the yoke, which in theory, if not in practice, should be 90-degrees to the pinion CL.

Other opinions about Pinion Angle: The Racers Speak

Extreme Street hitter Bill Trovato says that he hasn’t put much thought into the importance of pinion angle. “I’m not sure it plays as an important roll as many people think, but I am always open to the idea and will probably investigate it further. For now though, Trovato feels his winning and record setting Xtreme Street Starfire, works just fine. “I do what makes sense to me and for the car. To me, pinion angle doesn’t factor that much into the way my car leaves way the car hooks so I don’t play around with it,” he said.

Mark Artis, who not only races in Nostalgia Super Stock, but also builds many of the cars that race in the class says pinion angle makes big difference in the setup of any chassis regardless of if it’s leaf spring, ladder bar or four link set-up.

Brian Metz, who not only serves as Crew Chief for Troy Coughlin’s Pro Street entry, but also runs Metz Performance, says pinion angle is extremely important when you want to control wheel speed. “ I adjust according to what type of wheel speed I see. We set a base pinion angle up and then adjust it accordingly once we get to the track,” Metz said.

Everybody that has tried to stuff a good sized tire under a Fox-body Mustang with a stock suspension knows it will rub. Oh yea, it will hit everything, make white smoke on the top end, and possibly even cut the tire. Did we mention it will rub everywhere.

With Project 666, our ’86 Fox Body, we wanted to stuff a 275/60/15 Drag Radial on a 15 x 10 wheel and not have it look like a inner-city low rider with the wheels hanging out the wells. We wanted that lean, Pro-stock slammed look with the tires tucked nicely in the fenders. That meant it was time for the hammer. It was time – to clearance the wheel wells.

We figured, since this was such a pain in the ass, why not document it and save thousands of future Fox-body wheel well pounders the trouble of making a mistake. This is our Guide to Fox Body Wheel Wells.

Why I loved this project…

Most of the time I get projects that cause more frustration than they relieve.

I have finally stumbled on a project that relieves more stress than it generates, and yes, it involves using a hammer on your car. Actually, several hammers. Whomever takes on this project should have careful attention to detail and should not cringe at the thought of swinging a hammer mere inches from a nicely painted quarter panel. By default, I was the unanimous choice as the wheel well fabricator.

As we mentioned, our project car is a 1986 Fox Body Ford Mustang. We have recently changed the rear end from the stock 8.8 rear end to a Moser Engineering M9 rear end assembly. We ordered the new rear end assembly slightly shorter in width than the stock one so that we could bring the tires in closer to the frame. Bringing the inside of the tires closer to the frame would allow us to run a wider tire and still have them fit into the stock wheel well.

Where can this be done?

This can be accomplished in the driveway, staging area, street or any other flat surface where you can get the car up on a jack stand and the wheel removed, I found it easiest on a lift. Putting the car on a lift and raising it to about eyeball level, gives you a better chance at creating the leverage needed to strike the wheel wells with some meaningful blows. Just like in little league baseball where your coach yelled to keep your eye on the ball, having the surface that you are going to be hitting closer in your visual range will increase your accuracy. Get the work up where you can see it and you will have fewer problems. Use a lift if possible, but we’ve done it on jack stands many times.

After removing the wheels, we lifted the car about eye level. This afforded us the perfect swing area for our 5 pound mini sledge. There are many tools available to shape metal, and the most common are mallets and hammers. Most fabricators consider these essential tools when forming metal and hand shaping techniques a must when learning how metal reacts when being formed. While there is nothing complicated about using a hammer, there is a learned skill involved in getting predictable results when forming metal by hand. Start easy and develop a “feel” for how the metal reacts to the hammer blows.

These are the tools that we used and we recommend that you start with:

• 5-lb sledge – this is used for the major “easy” blows to move metal.
• Dead blow hammer – used for corners or dangerous rebound areas
• Regular/Conventional House hold hammer – for targeted blows/high spots
• Lock-jaw Wedge Pliers – to prevent sheet metal seperation

We are going to start out by looking at the front half of the Fox Body wheel well. Above us is in yellow is the area that will need to be clearanced to eliminate tire rub. How much – well that depends on your specific wheel and tire combination. In our case, with the 15 x 10 and the 275/60/15, a significant amount of metal needs to be pounded back.

When you start with the front half of the wells, you are generally going to work in a circular motion starting with the 5-lb sledge. The areas that will be the toughest are near the spring perch. Unfortunately, this is also an area that needs a lot of work.

Notice where the metal is formed around the bottom edge of the inner wheel well. When sheet metal is bent, it adds strength. This is also the area where sheet metal is joined together. Use caution when forming the metal in these areas. Remember that the Fox Body platform is a unibody construction vehicle. Where the edges of sheet metal meet, like in the rear shock mounting areas or the upper spring perches, are spot welded together. Striking these areas with too much brute force can rip the metal at the spot welds.

A good rule to follow is: hit the metal with a firm blow in the center of the area you want to form, and work your way outward to the flanges. Be advised that the hammer may rebound from the hit causing the hammer to strike the inside of the quarter panel leaving a dent visible from the outside. There is the possibility that the hammer operator may get stuck by the rebound, leaving a dent in the forehead visible for all to see. To prevent either of these incidents from occurring, you always want to use a strong and firm blow to reduce the rebound. Try to keep the hammer blows even and at the same strength.

Work from the inside to the outer edge of the inner wheel well.

Do your best to work from the inside area out to the edges. Keep working the metal with repetitive and overlapping blows so that the metal stays somewhat smooth. Most of the time I like working the metal in a circular pattern. I have found this to be helpful in stretching the metal without creating too many ripples in the form. Patience is going to make a huge difference in the success of your metal forming. Continue stretching the metal until you see that some space has been created. Fit the wheel on the hub and check for clearance. This will give you a good idea of how much metal you will have to form. Keep in mind that the suspension is lower than ride height at this point, so you will have to guesstimate how much clearance you need at the upper portion of the inner wheel well.

Work the metal until enough space has been created for clearance.

Try and Try again

Ok, now this is where the patience comes into play. If your wheel looks like it has enough clearance, you will need to tighten the wheel up to the hub with lug nuts, lower the car to where the wheels are barely touching the ground. As soon as the wheels touch the ground, you will need to watch the clearance between the wheels and the wheel well the rest of the way down. It might be a good idea to get a helper that you trust to either lower the car or be your eyes. If you have good clearance through the suspension travel, then your all set. If not, you need to bring the car back up in the air. Take off the wheel and move some more metal. You may have to do this process more than once. And yes, your patience will be tested.

Mount the tires and bring the car down to ride height. If you’ve got the car on jack stands this part will be a pain in the ass.

Once the car is on the ground and at race/ride height – check tire clearance all the way around. We’re looking for at least 3/8-inch if possible.

It’s important that the procedure listed above be followed. If you leave a flap of metal sticking out, there is a potential that you may experience tire rub which will eventually cut down a tire. Usually with very bad results when this happens on the track. There never seems to be a real convenient time for a tire to explode or cut and force you into the guard rail.

I’ve yet to be successful keeping off the wall after a blowout, but I will still keep trying.

Here is what our wheel well looked like once we finished.

This is our wheel well, our tire and wheel combination. Not yours. You may have to beat on your wheel well more or less than ours, and potentially in different spots.

Also, please keep in mind, after you install the tire, you must load the car to ride height before you check for clearance issues. Make sure that the car is not supported by the frame and the rear end is hanging down to its bottom length of travel when you are checking for clearance. Load up the chassis by lowering the car fully to the ground.

Bounce the rear suspension a couple of times by pushing down on the rear bumper. After checking for clearance at static ride height, you will want to check the clearance at race ride height. To do this you will want to raise the front end of the car one to two inches. This will settle the car on the rear suspension. Check the entire wheel well area for clearance. Don’t forget to check for wheel clearance on other parts in the area, like exhaust system pipes that run close to the aft edge of the tires.

Painting the wells – pretty?

We think if you take the time to do this right, you should go ahead and do a nice job painting the wheel wells. This has been done poorly (and it looks like crap) more times than we can count. Many people just take out a spray can and go to town.

Over spray, drips, and a shoddy looking chassis can be easily fixed with 30 minutes of time, masking paper and painters tape. Everything your Home Depot or local auto part store can easily have in stock. We masked off our wells and painted them a nice flat black.

A few other areas to think about..

A couple of other areas worth mentioning concerning wheels and wheel clearance are brakes and wheel backspace. The Fox Body 5.0 Ford Mustangs have a great many bolt on performance enhancers. It’s pretty easy to double the stock horsepower, and in the case of our project car, triple the horsepower. Keep in mind that you must upgrade your brake system proportionately. Our project car started out with rear drum brakes. Realizing that was not going to provide the stopping power that we needed, an upgrade to rear disc brakes was in order. Changing braking systems from drum to disc can interfere with backspacing on shallow backspaced (and sometimes deep backspaced) wheels. Keep an eye out for clearance issues there as well.

Our project Mustang awaits the Maximum Motorsports Manual Brake Conversion Kit.

Our Project 666 car, a 1986 5.0 Fox-body Mustang, has recently undergone an upgrade to a Wilwood brake kit. The new brakes, rotors and calipers made a huge difference in stopping power but still lacked that little something for outrageously quick, stop-on-a-dime performance. Looking for that extra edge, we went to the Mustang specialists at Maximum Motorsports for help. Since we plan on putting Mickey Thompson Drag Tires on the back wheels, updating our braking system to include a TCI Roll Stop at the same time would prove to be a time-saver.

Since 1992 when the company was founded, Maximum Motorsports has established itself as a leader in Mustang performance parts. Because we are looking at adding some horsepower (a lot of horsepower, to be honest), we needed to start thinking about stopping our ‘Stang before the track runs out. The adrenaline rush of getting to the end of the strip and finding out your brakes are weaker than you would like is a bit too much for the faint of heart. We called Chuck Schwynoch, CEO of Maximum Motorsports, to get the lowdown on manual brake conversions for Mustangs. Chuck assured us that switching to manual brakes would only moderately increase the effort required for braking, especially using his company’s manual brake conversion system, due to the advanced pedal arm geometry designed in the kit.

Chuck went on to explain why we would benefit in using manual brakes in our project car. Two of the most popular selling points were less weight and more space. Because manual brakes do not require a power booster, that entire assembly is removed. The removal of the power assist booster saves a lot of space under the hood and eliminates the need for the engine to supply vacuum to the booster, which is nice when you’ve got a lumpy cam installed.

The bulky, heavy old power assist unit will be taking up space in the recycling bin instead of under the hood from now on.

The Roll Stop

Not wanting to overlook any technical advantage we could get, we made a call to TCI Automotive for the scoop on their Roll Stop kit. We talked with Scott Miller at TCI and he enlightened us on the unique nature of their roll stop.

It’s pretty much a given that if you want to do super-human burnouts and heat the meats on the rear, you need a roll stop to lock the front brakes. According to Scott, on most roll stops you pump up the brakes and press the switch to lock the fronts, then take your foot off the brake pedal. At that point, the pressure you have on the front brakes is what it is. With the TCI Roll Stop, if you don’t have enough pressure you can step on the brake pedal and add more pressure to the front brakes due to the one-way valve design in the solenoid.

Making the decision

So, let me see if we get this correct; in switching to a manual brake system, we can save a little on weight, provide a little extra room in a crowded engine bay and save some power because the engine doesn’t have a parasitic vacuum draw from the power assist booster, and all we have to do is step on the brake pedal slightly harder. That seemed like a real “no brainer” to us, so we decided to convert. As for the Roll Stop, we were going to be moving the brake lines anyway, so it was just too cool to pass up and we put one on order. How much space would we be saving? In removing the vacuum assist, the master cylinder would move six and a half inches closer to the firewall. We knew to be prepared to move the existing brake lines for the change. Maximum Motorsports also sells brake line adapter kits to assist with the installation.

When the Maximum Motorsports manual brake conversion kit came in, we were delighted and surprised to find a new brake pedal is included in the kit. The brake pedal not only corrects the pedal geometry, but as an added bonus, the pedal pad can be mounted in one of six different positions on the pedal arm. This makes it possible to “fine tune” the mechanical leverage ratio and even change the position in relationship to the accelerator pedal to aid in the “heel and toe” downshifting technique, for those using it in a street or roadrace application.

The brake arm has a number of mounting holes drilled to allow for pedal adjustment.

An adjustable length pushrod attaches to the pedal arm with a spherical rod-end, eliminating the sloppy fit of the stock pushrod to further improve pedal feel. A CNC-machined aluminum adapter block bolts to the firewall in place of the vacuum booster, and mounts any 1979-1995 Mustang master cylinder. By using readily-available aftermarket master cylinders, you are assured of always being able to find a replacement one easily, whether at home or at the track.

The adjustable length pushrod with spherical rod end provides a better fit than the stock pushrod.

Chuck explained that for a stock 1979-93 Mustang brake system with the original calipers, rotors, and rear drums, you must use the stock master cylinder size that was originally fitted on 1987-93 power brake-equipped 5.0L Mustangs. The 20.6mm bore of that master cylinder is the best choice to provide decent braking ability with reasonable pedal effort.

For Mustangs equipped with rear disc brakes, the master cylinder recommendation depends upon the situation. For a 1979-93 Mustang equipped with rear disc brakes, Maximum Motorsports recommends a 1” bore master cylinder (1993 Cobra). For 1994-95 Mustangs (both GT and Cobra) Maximum Motorsports recommends a 15/16” bore master cylinder (1994-95 Cobra).

Some drivers of road course-driven Mustangs prefer a master cylinder one size larger because it provides less pedal travel. Chuck suggests trying the recommended size first, and only switching to a larger master cylinder if track testing indicates a change is warranted.

Finally. A good set of instructions.

Another pleasant surprise was the fully illustrated and very complete instruction manual. Rarely do we encounter a step-by-step installation manual that is as thoroughly detailed. Compared to many aftermarket part instructions, these were great. It was very obvious that a great deal of research and development went into this kit, from the components included right down to the instructions. We were pleased with the kit even before the installation began.

The next day our TCI roll stop came in and we were ready to start the install. The kit came complete with a solenoid valve, a push button microswitch, a red powder-coated mounting bracket, an in-line fuse connector, and mounting hardware. And once again, easy instructions. A quick trip to the parts store for some brake fluid and we were set.

Bolting it up

Normally, we figure that real men don’t read instructions and we just start bolting stuff on, but seeing as we were dealing with brakes and the boss was going to do the test drive, we were following the instructions to the letter. There was no difficulty with the installation or understanding the directions. I did have a question for Maximum Motorsports’ tech department about using a Wilwood brake bias control and the TCI Roll Stop in the plumbing. The tech department was extremely helpful and even provided a copy of their brake bias control instructions. As for TCI’s Roll Stop, the installation couldn’t have been easier.

The schematics tell the tale for installing the Roll Stop in the brake system and hooking up the power.

We started the installation with our usual safety precaution of disconnecting the battery and making sure that we had plenty of shop rags and containers for drained brake fluid. Following the instructions, we measured the stock pedal height and pedal free play. The next task was to remove the pedal box from the vehicle so that the pedal and brake light switch could be replaced. In order to remove the pedal box, several panels and the steering column had to come out of the car. It’s a good idea to take lots of photos during the disassembly, in case there are any questions when it comes time to reassemble. We found it easiest to remove the driver’s seat to provide plenty of room to remove the four nuts that secure the pedal box to the firewall. Finally, we removed the power assist assembly and master cylinder from the engine firewall.

Removing the power assist assembly.

Bare firewall where the power assist and master cylinder used to be.

The stock pedal box and pedals.

Once the pedal box was removed, we installed the new brake pedal from the Maximum Motorsports kit. The instructions were very clear on which parts to discard and which ones would be reused.

A few pieces from the stock brake assembly are reused.

Pedal box with Maximum Motorsports brake pedal installed.

With the new brake pedal mounted in the pedal box, we then connected the adjustable pushrod to the pedal and reinstalled the pedal box, steering column and panels back into the car.

The pushrod connects to the new pedal via a rod end, which makes for a precise, solid connection with no slop.

The other side of the firewall

With the work done inside the car, it was time to get under the hood and reassemble the master cylinder and brake lines. We added the TCI Roll Stop to the front brake lines as part of the upgrade. Much to our amazement, our Wilwood Master cylinder used National Pipe Thread fittings and the TCI Roll Stop used AN fittings. We found some adapter fittings from Wilwood that adapted the stock brake lines to the master cylinder and the Roll Stop.

The master cylinder adapter block bolts directly to the firewall in place of the brake booster.

Our master cylinder with the conversion block instead of the power assist unit looks much nicer, and performs well.

We ended up with a clean installation on our manual brake conversion, and a braking system that we can grow into. The test drive provided proof that a manual brake conversion was indeed a wise upgrade.

TCI Roll Stop solenoid valve mounted to the strut tower.

Points to ponder

Chuck Schwynoch reminded us that, “The Maximum Motorsports brake pedal is not intended to be used with stock, unmodified brake systems.” The pedal ratio is would be incorrect for a stock system and may cause an increase in stopping distance. The manual brake conversion kit mounts into the stock pedal box without drilling any new holes, and allows for use of the stock cruise control. If you have a real street/strip car and it is fitted with factory cruise control, you can change to manual brakes and still be able to use it on the highway when you’re heading to the track.

Maximum Motorsport’s engineers work with the car manufacturers and aftermarket brake manufacturers to ensure proper fit and safe application of the brake kits. In our case, we were using the MM brake conversion kit with a Wilwood master cylinder. Maximum Motorsports had already done the research with representatives from Wilwood to ensure that the kit would be compatible. Thanks to the research and development put in up front, the kit we installed went in smoothly. When we had a question about the pedal feel, Chuck answered it quickly and clearly. We give the MM Manual brake conversion kit two thumbs up.

Our latest performance upgrade involves a rear end change, replacing the wimpy stock rear end with a beefy Fabricated Ford 9-inch that would make Sir Mix-A-Lot proud and Kim Kardashian cry. Seriously – there ain’t no junk in this trunk. We wanted to give the Camaro a monster rear end package that could easily handle the rest of the drive train upgrades and wouldn’t be spitting gears and axles all over the pavement.

Moser M9 Package

We are upgrading to the latest Moser M9 package, complete with Moser’s freshest release – the F-Body Torque Arm – and are capping it off with ChassisWorks shocks, a perfect match for the bind free Moser torque arm. This combination is guaranteed to leave a rubber signature on the asphalt, letting everyone know that we were there.

Moser Engineering’s Fabricated M9 rear end and Torque Arm Package.

Moser’s M9 performance fabricated housing and Torque Arm package are perfect for the enthusiast who wants a performance piece with some serious strength and durability.

We wanted a true “fire and forget” performance rear end that could be bolted in, required very little routine maintenance, and could handle as much horsepower as we could throw at it. It’s a buy once and virtually race forever upgrade that bolts directly into place and doesn’t require special tools or skills.

The Project All-Air F-Body Camaro in STOCK form! Not anymore!

Moser Engineering

Founded by the late Greg Moser in the early ‘80s, Moser Engineering has built a solid red, white and blue reputation among racers. Moser Marketing Director Jeff Anderson explains: “Moser uses only U.S. made steel, forged in U.S. plants using Moser designed dies and tooling.” You just feel the sense of devotion to the U.S. and patriotic pride when you talk to the people at Moser. Jeff went on to explain that the company’s founder, Greg Moser, used a team of engineers to develop the proprietary material that the company still uses today. The company is now carried on very capably by his son Rob Moser – who grew up practically helping spline axles!

Moser’s product line includes high strength aluminum thru-bolt third members.

Key Features of the Torque Arm

The M9 F-body torque arm assembly is new to the Moser arsenal, and we’ve gotten our hands on one. There’s no doubt that a higher horsepower GM F-body needs some help in the torque arm area. The stock stamped steel simply won’t hold up to pressure.

There are a lot of great options in the F-Body torque arm world, and Moser’s is one of the most serious — going “ALL-OUT” with a radical Pro-Mod style design.

Check out some of the features of the M9 Torque Arm:

• Constructed with 1.25” o.d. 4130 chrome-moly and all TIG welded, the Moser torque arm is patterned after the same style setup used in the Pro Mod cars.

• The torque arm features a unique sliding front mount that allows the torque arm to slide and move freely, eliminating any chance of binding.

• The F-body Torque arm assembly utilizes existing mounting points, eliminating welding or additional fabrication.

• The Moser Extreme Torque Arm kit came with a 1.75” X .095” wall tube crossmember assembly that bolts into the stock mounting support. The crossmember assembly provides the front mounting point for the torque arm. There’s no doubt that this Torque Arm kit will handle all the power that we can throw at it and still keep the wheels on the ground.

Moser’s new F-Body torque arm features a sliding front mount for bind free operation.

Key Tech Features of the M9 F-Body Housing

We chose to upgrade our rear end from the stock version, certain that with the V-6 that came with the car, the rear end ratio was probably a little too wussy for our needs. The differential had a 10-bolt cover on it, but there was no telling what gears lay underneath. It was pretty much a given that the stock had to go, so we weren’t even going to waste time pulling the cover off and counting gear teeth.

The following features that make the M9 Housing a perfect for our application:

• The Moser M9 housing features a fully fabricated and triangulated center housing, constructed with 1/8″ thick laser cut steel.

• Beefed up with internal gussets, bulkheads, and a super thick 3/8′ faceplate, the M9 housing is tuff ‘enuff for any racing application.

• A factory installed back brace on the housing for big horsepower support.
  
• Extremely strong axle tubes constructed of 1/4″ thick DOM tubing with the standard 3″ outside diameter for any bolt on clamps that you may want to install.

• Several choices in housing ends including ours – the Ford ‘big bearing’ Torino-style housing ends, which have a deeper bore for the 45mm bearings.

• Choice of center sections, from Nodular iron to an aluminum center section which saves 14lbs over a stock center section. The aluminum center section is constructed out of T-6 grade aluminum with billet caps and billet steel adjusters.

• Moser’s thru-bolt design minimizes the ring gear deflection that has plagued aluminum case designs in the past.

• Choice of Gear ratios from 3.50 to 6.50, depending on the pinion size and desired torque.

We added some upgraded options to the M9 bolt in package for some additional insurance, starting with the Moser 40 spline axles that were gun-drilled and star flanged. For a massive axle, the weight is kept reasonable by eliminating the excess steel without losing any of the strength or structural integrity.

We capped off our axle tube flanges with a 5/8″ drive stud kit instead of press in or screw in lug studs. Moser sells the applicable wheel studs and drive studs for any of their axle flanges, ranging from 1/2 ” to 5/8 “. Drive studs look impressive and can handle a lot of torque, so we thought that the slightly more costly drive studs were cheap insurance against a busted wheel stud.

The M9 housing is fabricated from a single piece of 1/8″ steel and is a work of art.

Installation

Once we got our hot little hands on the rear end package for project car, we wasted no time in ripping out the stock components. As soon as the car was on the lift, the emergency brake cable came off the rear brakes, the rear sway bar was dropped out, the tunnel brace was removed, and the driveshaft came out. Once our initial enthusiasm died down a little, we took a look at Moser’s instructions to make sure that we were on the right path. We were spot on!

Dropping the stock rear end.

Next came removing the flexible brake lines up to where they mount into the hard line. Always safety conscious, we caught the brake fluid in a catch container and capped off the hard lines. Our F-body had a four channel brake system, with the electrical connector for the sensors attached to the forward bulkhead above the stock rear end housing. We disconnected the electrical connector and left the harness hanging from the rear end.

Once the brake lines and electrical were out of the way we could focus on dropping the stock rear end out of the car. Using our under lift hydraulic support, we supported the rear end and removed the lower shock mounts and rear lower control arms. When the panhard bar was removed, we were ready to lower the GM rear end and install the beefy M9 in its place.

Bolting in the new crossmember mount.

The installation instructions called for the new crossmember to be installed first. We found it necessary to leave the crossmember a little loose to allow for aligning the torque arm heim joint at the front of the torque arm. No hardware is provided with the crossmember, so using the original hardware or buying new metric bolts is a must.

Installing the center section into the M9 Housing.

Now it was time to prep the M9 rear end housing for installation. Moser’s Jeff Anderson reminded us to “clean the housing and axles tubes (inside and out) for any machining debris or shipping debris” that could cause premature bearing failure. Wrapping a mop handle with a couple of shop rags was the easiest way to clean the inside of the axle tubes, and our shop vacuum and a whisk broom took care of the housing.

Once we had a clean housing, we moved on to installing the third member studs into the housing face. Remembering to use thread locker, we installed all of the studs into the faceplate and secured them on the inside of the housing with nylock jam nuts.

Using a bead of silicone sealant around the gasket, we mounted the third member gasket on the housing and applied another layer of sealant on the other side of the gasket. Then we lowered the aluminum third member into the housing and the supplied washers and nuts were tightened to 40 ft. lbs in a criss-cross sequence.

Tightening down the center section bolts in a criss-cross fashion.

Our axles came with sealed bearings pressed onto the axles that do not require inner axle seals, so we could move directly to installing the axles into the assembly.

Before we seated the bearings completely into the axle tubes, we installed the caliper mounting brackets from our Wilwood Dynalite Drag Race Brake kit, which will act as the bearing retainers. The Moser axles came with bearing retainers, but due to the way the Wilwood calipers mount, we needed to use the Wilwood bearing retainers.

Once the retainers were installed and torqued down, we moved on to installing the torque arm.

Installing the heavy duty axles.

Installing the torque arm onto the housing using 3/4″ bolts, nuts and washers was pretty straightforward. The torque value wasn’t supplied in the instructions, so we went with the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) recommended minimum torque values for a plain 3/4″ bolt at 113 ft. lbs, then we installed the solid rod end into the front end of the torque arm. The rear end was ready to roll under the car and lift it into place.

Mounting the torque arm to the housing.

Before we started raising the M9 into the chassis, we went back to the instructions to see if we had missed anything. Even though real men don’t read instructions, it pays to keep a close eye on the manufacturer’s recommendations. We discovered that Moser recommends adding the gear lube prior to lifting the rear end into place. Our team unanimously voted to follow the instructions, so we added Royal Purple’s Max gear lube (SAE 75W90) to the fill level.

Filling our rear end with Royal Purple’s finest gear lube.

Now it was time to finally get the rear end bolted in. We lifted the assembly into place, placing the springs back in the spring pockets and on the perches, making sure to index the springs in the rubber insulators.

Next came the lower control arm and shock installation. Jeff Anderson explained to us that using “good quality shocks and adjustable lower control arms enhances Moser’s slightly lower riding M9 designed rear end, taking full advantage of the engine supplied torque.”

Our project car continued to get the royal treatment with a set of VariShock double adjustable bolt in rear shocks from Chris Alston’s Chassisworks. The team was pretty stoked to get a set of these shocks and the mood in the garage area was as if everyone’s favorite sports team had just won the Championship.

The VariShocks allowed us to dial in the bump and rebound valving independently. Because the VariShock Shocks are available in several different shock travel lengths, these adjustments allow for a wide range of chassis tuning options.

Finalizing the build with Chassisworks VariShocks put smiles on our crew’s faces.

With the M9 rear end package bolted in and the torque arm bolted to the crossmember mount, all that was left to do was install the Wilwood Dynalite Drag race brakes.

We’re waiting for the engine and transmission installation in order to measure for a new driveshaft. Once the driveshaft arrives we can focus on setting the pinion angle and setting the ride height!

Setup Tips from Exotic Performance Plus

To ensure that we took advantage of every aspect of this high performance package, we went to the guys at Exotic Performance Plus (EPP), who had some real experience with the M9 torque arm.

EPP specializes in Moser rear end installations and was the first to install the M9 bolt in package into an F-Body. Bob Beam’s 1999 Camaro, which was showcased at the 2007 SEMA show, was the prototype installation. Bob’s Camaro boasts a 1.29 sixty foot time on street tires. He claims that it will be even faster this year. We asked Bob about initial setup tricks and tips to help us get going:

Bob Beam’s Moser M9 F-Body Tips:

• Order the Moser M9 assembly with adjustable lower control arm mounts. Use the lower hole to mount the control arms initially. They just seem to hook up harder with the arms bolted in the lower holes.

• Order the M9 housing with the anti-roll bar brackets installed. No matter what anti-roll bar you are using, you will want the support of the factory-installed mounts when you put some real horsepower to it.

• Get the Back Brace Installed! Nothing beats the extra support of a back brace with the fabricated housing. No matter how much horsepower you throw at this combination, there will be very little if any deflection.

• When plumbing the brake lines, take the time to weld in brake line tabs. They are much nicer and more durable than using plastic zip ties to hold the brake lines in place.

• With the adjustable lower control arms and/or the adjustable panhard bar, preload the right side a little bit. This will help you launch and get down the track in a straight line.

• A good starting point for the pinion angle is -2 degrees. Of course it will vary with track condition but -2 degrees is a great starting point.

• Set up your rear shocks in the mid range of firmness. It doesn’t matter if you are using single or dual adjustable shocks, the midrange seems to help plant the rear tires.

• The front shocks seem to do well at 1-2 range on the up and 4-5 range coming down.

• Finally, you’ll want to get adjustable lower control arms. The Moser M9 F-Body naturally sits about a half inch to the rear. If you are using a taller tire, you’ll need to move it forward by adjusting the control arms. The M9 likes to sit a little to the right side as well. Adjustable control arms make these adjustments simple and easy.

Conclusion

Our project All Air Camaro is set for some really serious torque to the pavement with the Moser M9 package for F-bodies. We’ve gotten the super secret setup tips from one of the most experienced F Body Camaro racers, Bob Beam, and we have a brake system from Wilwood that provides stealthy power to our braking. All that’s left now is to get our power train installed and head to the track.

Our rear end is in and awaiting a driveshaft and tires.

More Info! — If you’ve always wondered about the 9-Inch vs. 12-Bolt F-body debate, read this!

While it actually boils down to personal preference when choosing between the Ford 9-inch rear end and GM’s 12-bolt rear end, there are some differences that make one more desirable than the other, depending on the application. Check out a few of our notes! We are defintely fans of the 9-inch, but some choose the 12-bolt because it’s a OE GM rear end.

12 Bolt vs. 9-inch: The Highlights

• The major difference is in the housing section. The 12-bolt rear end features a housing section that incorporates a carrier case and the pinion support, whereas the Ford 9-inch features a “drop out” center section that incorporates the carrier, gears and pinion support.

• The 12-bolt rear end is decidedly more involved to work on, due to the shim adjustments between the inboard pinion bearing and the pinion gear. The bearing is pressed on the pinion, so it requires removal and reinstallation to shim the pinion. Backlash for the ring gear is also adjusted with shims. These elements make the 12-bolt more complicated to work on.

• The 9” rear end is easier to work on because of the removable center section which houses the entire gearset. Although the 9-inch pinion is also adjusted with shims, it does not require pressing the bearing on and off.

• Installing axles on the 9-inch is also an added advantage. A retainer on the axle flange, which is held on by four bolts, is all that needs to be removed to yank the axles. The 12-bolt rear end utilizes ‘c-clips’ inside the rear end to keep the axle in place.

• With the 9-inch axle retainer system, the axle stays in the housing if it breaks. When an axle breaks on a 12-bolt rear end, the axle comes out of the rear end axle tubes and tears up whatever metal it makes contact with.

Our 1978 Malibu “sleeper” project car is finally ready for its build-up. An extensive teardown has disrobed “Granny” to bare frame and body. While we shuddered to think of our “Granny” naked, we actually found a decent foundation to work from. There were a lot of areas where our project car needed some serious help, and we decided to go from the ground up. Our first step was to upgrade her suspension to handle an Edelbrock/Musi 555ci big-block crate engine. The stock suspension, although heavy enough, simply would not be up the challenge of the beefier drivetrain and performance that the monster motor is capable of putting out. We chose the TRZ Motorsports front suspension components because they were designed to replace the stock control arms without modification, and are strong enough to withstand the tortures of racing.

TRZ Upper and Lower Control Arms.

The TRZ Motorsports Package
TRZ Motorsports out of Kissimmee, Florida, builds high performance suspension components for serious street and drag race vehicles. They have been making parts for popular vehicles like late-model Mustangs (’79-04), Camaros (‘67-02), and Novas (’63-79) for years. What brought them to our attention was their support for less-often-seen vehicles like the G-body Malibu (’78-’88), Impala (’77-96), and S-10 pickups and Blazers (’83-02). Because our project car was a late 70’s Malibu, TRZ had ready-to-ship suspension components on hand. Manufactured out of chrome-moly tubing for weight and strength, and TIG welded for durability, the upper and lower control arms feature billet aluminum cross-shafts for corrosion resistance. We asked Todd Braasch at TRZ what we could expect in weight savings by replacing the stock front suspension with the TRZ Kit while strengthening up a suspension system that was designed for a weak-in-the-knees 3.8 liter six cylinder. Todd told us, “roughly 30 pounds.” We wanted to see for ourselves.

Each stock lower control arm weighed almost 14.5 pounds for a total of 29 pounds for both sides.

The TRZ lower control arms weighed 4 pounds, 12 ounces for a total of 9.5 pounds for both sides. All together, we saw just shy of 20 pounds lost in total for the lower control arm replacement.

The stock upper control arms weighed 6.5 pounds each, for a total of 13 pounds for both sides.

TRZ’s high performance upper control arms (pictured on the right) weigh in at 2 pounds, 6 ounces each for a total of 4 pounds and 12 ounces. The total weight savings added up to 8.25 pounds.

Weight reduction and strength is crucial
Total weight reduction by replacing the weaker stock control arms with TRZ’s performance control arms was almost 28 pounds. Keeping in mind that we are replacing the smallish 6-cylinder small block powerplant with a larger 8-cylinder big-block beast, being able to control where the weight is on the car is critical. Our project car will be going to the chassis shop soon for a roll cage addition. As soon as the cage ties the chassis together, we will be mocking up the drivetrain so that we can upgrade the steering with the TRZ/Flaming River Steering package. We expect to see tremendous performance enhancement with another 40+ pounds of weight reduction from the stock steering system. Here’s the rub on putting your chassis on a diet: reducing weight is good only if you don’t sacrifice dependability and strength. Todd clued us in on the priority, saying, “safety is the biggest consideration when we build components. We only use chrome-moly; there is no mild steel in our entire shop.”

Good for more than just weight reduction…
In addition to allowing us some flexibility in weight placement, the TRZ suspension system is designed to handle better in a performance application. The upper control arms have 7 degrees of positive caster built into the design of the control arm for straight-line tracking and high-speed stability. Our sources at TRZ Motorsports indicated that 5-7 degrees of positive caster really affect the steering stability at 105 mph and above. TRZ’s upper control arms come with travel limiters to keep front-end rise under control, where many systems make the front shock absorber the suspension limiter. Relying on the shocks to limit the suspension travel makes it harder for the shocks to do the job they were designed to do. Todd Braasch at TRZ Motorsports emphasizes the safety factor built into the TRZ upgrades. Unlike the stock pressed steel components that deflect, bend and twist under loads, Todd explains that TRZ’s TIG welded 4130 chrome-moly tubular construction provides a greater level of stability and safety.

QA1 Pro-Coil Coilover Double Adjustable Shocks for Big-Block Vehicles.
To round out the TRZ Suspension package, we added QA1 Pro Coil coilover conversion double adjustable shocks designed for our big-block engine upgrade. The double adjustable shocks are completely rebuildable and revalvable, and according to Corey Flynn at QA1 Precision Products Inc., “These are the last shocks you’ll ever need to buy.”

Per QA1, their Pro Coil double-adjustable coilover conversions are “the last shocks you’ll ever need to buy.” Adjustment knobs on the shock body handle compression and rebound adjustments, and the shocks can be rebuild or have their valving changed if the need arises.

QA1 enjoys a great reputation for having a very consistent feel from the driver’s seat that gives the car a comfort level, which explains their popularity in every form of motorsports. Corey claims that a major advantage in QA1 shocks is that, “all components are built in-house, which guarantees consistency in construction, and every shock is checked on a shock dyno before packaging.” The threaded aluminum bodies allow easy adjustment between runs, while reducing weight compared to coilovers using a separate threaded sleeve. QA1 also takes pride in the consistency and repeatability of their external adjustments, taking the guesswork out of dialing in your suspension.

Spring-time Fresh
The coil springs supplied in the coilover kit vary depending on the application. For our big-block G-body conversion, we chose the DGMP1450-3 kit which includes powder-coated coil springs with a deflection rate of 450 lbs/in, that are 10 inches in length with 4.10 inch upper spring I.D. and 2.50 inch lower spring I.D. For small-block applications, the DGMP1350-3 with a 350 lbs/in spring is recommended. In addition to the improved performance value in the spring upgrade, we realized an additional weight reduction of almost 6 pounds.

The well-worn stock springs weighed over 8 pounds.

QA1′s 450-3 springs weighed in at 5 pounds and 4 ounces each.

Aerospace Brakes
Braking technology has changed tremendously since 1978, so it was a forgone conclusion that a brake upgrade was needed on our project car. We picked the Aerospace brake kit part #AC245, the heavy-duty race/street 4 piston caliper disc brake kit that is designed for cars weighing up to 3,000 pounds.

Aerospace heavy duty brake kit for G-body, S-10 and Grand National.

The Aerospace heavy-duty front brake kit included:
• Billet Aluminum 4 Piston Calipers
• Billet Aluminum Mounting Brackets
• Grade 8 Hardware
• Billet Aluminum Hubs with screw on dust caps
• Bearings and Seals
• Brake Pads
• 10-1/4” Diameter Drilled Rotors
• 1/2” Studs, 3” long

We also ordered the Rear Pro Street brake kit to complete our brake upgrade. Included in the rear kit:

• Billet Aluminum 4 Piston Calipers
• Billet Aluminum Mounting Brackets
• Grade 8 Hardware
• Billet Aluminum Hats with multiple bolt patterns
• Screw-on Dust Caps
• Brake Pads
• 11-3/4” Diameter .81” Thick Cast Vaned Rotors

Yet again we realized serious weight reduction by replacing the factory stock single piston cast calipers and brackets. The weight of the stock brake system measured 47 pounds where the Aerospace front brake upgrade weighed in at only 30 pounds. The billet aluminum Aerospace calipers added modern multi-piston stopping power and a high performance look to our suspension upgrade. In order to install the front brake kit onto the stock spindles, some modification of the spindles must be performed. This modification can easily be done by the home project builder using a cut-off wheel and grinder. We opted to make our lives a little easier by using our Cornwell plasma cutter and pneumatic die grinder.

Installation of the Front Suspension Components
Removal of the stock components and installing the new system is straightforward and easy. The vehicle will need to have a front end alignment after the components have been changed, but you can help yourself by recording baseline stock measurements before you disassemble the suspension components to have a place to start.

Taking baseline measurements will help get your front suspension alignment in the ballpark when installing the new components.

Support the car on jackstands and remove the front wheels.

Once the wheels are off, the front brake calipers and rotors can be easily removed, followed by disassembly of the shocks, lower control arm, coil springs, tie rod, spindle and upper control arm.

We found it easiest to install the lower control arms first. This allowed us a base to mount the shocks and coil springs to earlier in the installation process.

With the shocks and springs mounted to the lower control arms, we could then attach the upper end of the shock to the frame to hold the lower arm in place.

Attaching the top end of the shock to the frame.

Attach and torque the upper control arms.

Install the spindle, hub and rotor, brake caliper and tie rod. The original rotor and caliper is shown installed here because we treated the brake installation as it’s own upgrade.

Finishing the Installation
The wheels can be re-installed and the vehicle lowered to the ground. Using your baseline measurement, adjust the coil over springs so that the ride height is close to the baseline measurement.

Front Brake Installation
As with the TRZ control arm installation, the car needs to be supported on jackstands and the front wheels removed to allow access to the brake system. The calipers can then be removed with a hex head socket or Allen wrench. The dust cover on the hub is then removed, revealing the hub retaining nut and outside wheel bearing. Once these are removed, the rotor hub is removed from the spindle with the inside wheel bearing.

Remove the three bolts that attach the dust shield to the spindle.

In order to mount the Aerospace calipers, some modification of the stock spindle is required. The modification can easily be done by a home mechanic using a cut-off wheel and grinder. We opted to use our Cornwell Plasma Cutter and pneumatic die grinder.

Once the spindle has been modified, the rotor hub can be installed. The wheel bearings need to be packed with grease and installed into the rotor hub.

The rotor hubs can then be installed on the spindle and secured with the retaining washer and retaining nut.

With the hub and rotor assembled and on the spindle, installing the caliper mount can begin.

Once the caliper mount is installed on the spindle, the calipers can be bolted onto the caliper mounts and the front tire can be re-installed on the vehicle.

Taking a lesson from the experts.
Once again we went to Todd Braasch for baseline adjustments for the track. Todd explained that the rule of thumb for these G-body cars is to, “start out tight and adjust your way into the track using the shocks and limiters.” He recommended starting with a good alignment job, making sure that you set the caster to the, “optimal 5-7 degrees positive”. As for the front end limiters, Todd again recommends to, “start tight, between 3/4 to 1 inch of travel, and adjust it to the track in 1/4 inch increments.” Todd tells us that they have a G-body with this exact setup running on 275/60 radials pulling 1.27 sixty-foot times and running 5.30 in the eighth-mile.

Wrapping it up
In an afternoon of work with common hand tools, you can improve the handling and front end durability of your G-body chassis with the added bonus of losing 51 pounds of unnecessary weight from the front suspension. For our purposes, taking out the underpowered V-6 and putting in a 555 cubic inch big-block on nitrous, beefing up the front end was a necessity. Dropping the fifty-plus pounds was just icing on the cake. Although we were shooting for the practical, the billet aluminum and chrome-moly performance components gave our chassis a real pro look. With quality looking components like these, we may not be able to pull off the “sleeper” look we were going for on this project build. Our front end is no longer an ugly duckling.

The finished front suspension. Our ugly duckling has been transformed into a beautiful swan, sort of.

Wilwood Brakes, located in Camarillo, California offers a line of brake components for anything on or off the road.

Our F-Body Camaro Project Car “All-Air”.

The Brake System

Choosing the rear brake system was an effortless decision. Wilwood’s distinguished Dynalite drag brake series for Ford Big Bearing axle flanges was readily available off the shelf. We chose the 11.44 diameter solid rotor kit with a 2.36 offset (part number 140-0261-B), that would work perfectly with our Moser fabricated M9 rear end with Torino style bearings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wI5um4edBw

Deciding on the front brakes offered more of a challenge. Because we wanted to use an 11.75 diameter rotor, the choices were limited. Fortunately, Wilwood has just engineered a caliper mounting block for the F-Body Camaros that can adapt the caliper mounting for 1998 through 2002 model year spindles to accept Wilwood series calipers.

Wilwood Technical Consultant Michael Hamrick explained that the new caliper mounting block “is a fresh release, and LSX TV has the first production block off of the line.” Michael further explained: “If you have a 1993 through 1997 model year Camaro with floating style single piston calipers, there is still good news. Changing to the later model spindles will allow you to use this kit and take advantage of mounting the Wilwood Dynapro Radial calipers and rotors”.

Hamrick went on to tell us that, “Radial mount calipers and brackets offer a much more rigid mounting system than a lug mount design. The radial design also allows for rotor diameter changes with a simple spacer rather than a whole new bracket. If a customer with a 13” rotor kit wanted to upgrade to a 14” rotor, he would only need longer studs and spacers rather than a complete new taller bracket.”

Specs on the Dynapro Big Brake Front Hat Kit:
Application: Drag Race
Radial mount Calipers
4 Piston calipers
Piston area: 4.8 sq. in.
Ultralite Curved vane rotor.
Number of vanes: 32
Rotor surface: Plain face.
Rotor Material: Iron
Rotor Diameter: 11.75″
Rotor Width: 0.81″
Minimum Wheel Diameter: 15″
Brake Pads: Value priced Race only. Medium to Very High heat range.

The installation of the Dynapro big brake front hat (part number 140-10787) is painless and trouble free.

Wilwood Engineering’s DynaLite Drag Brake Kit.

Prepping the Car for Installation

Although Wilwood brake systems are fairly easy to install, it is highly recommended that someone experienced in brake installation and brake system operations perform the installation. Prior to attempting to install any brake system kit, the components of the kit should be inspected for completeness. Wilwood provides a wheel clearance diagram with every set of instructions and it is important to verify the minimum required clearances for inside wheel diameter and radius.

Removing the front caliper from the stock brake system.

Removing the original equipment brakes is the starting place in prepping the car for assembly of the new system. Our team put the Camaro on the two-post lift and removed the tires, then we turned our attention to the calipers and hubs.

Because we also planned on upgrading the front suspension with a VariShock Front coilover conversion, removing the spindle and upper shock mount assembly was in the cards as well. The VariShock Coilover conversion requires reusing the stock spindle so we took this opportunity to clean and degrease the OEM spindle on the car.

Pulling the stock rotor off.

After we removed the stock front brake calipers, rotors, and spindles, we focused on prepping for the coilover conversion. We removed the upper shock mount and disconnected the sway bar from the lower A arm. The shock, spring and upper shock mount came out of the shock tower as one assembly. We needed to reuse the upper shock mount as the foundation for the coilover conversion, so we removed it from the shock assembly and cleaned it up.

Removing the stock spindle for cleaning.

Suspension Installation

Because we already had everything apart to do the brakes, we decided it would be a good time to also switch out the suspension.

VariShock’s coilover mounting bracket attaches to the stock mount in the shock tower. It’s simply a matter of installing four 3/8” bolts with washers and nylock nuts to the OEM mount and torquing to 35 ft lbs. The shocks included in the VariShock coilover conversion are the VAS 16X2F-824. These are threaded body shocks with a total travel of 4.25 inches. The shocks feature dual adjustment knobs to control bump and rebound independently. Both ends of the shock incorporate urethane bushings, which must be installed along with mounting studs and crossbars that mount to the lower A Arm.

Chris Alston’s ChassisWorks VariShocks.

With the shock mounting components installed, we moved on to installing the coilovers. Because the shocks are threaded, installing the spring seats is uncomplicated. Simply apply a little anti-seize to the inside of the spring seat, and screw it down onto the shock body as far as it will go without hitting the adjustment knobs.

The VariShock Coilovers come with a unique thrust bearing that installs on top of the spring seat, allowing for easy adjustment of the ride height with the coil spring installed. The coil spring slides down the shock body and sits on the thrust bearing. The upper spring seat can then be inserted between the spring and the top mount eye, completing the assembly.

Assembling the VariShock Coilover conversion kit.

The finished shock / coilover assembly was then mounted in the shock tower of the chassis by first attaching it to the upper mount. We took a quick check to make sure that the adjustment knobs were pointing to the inside of the car, then we attached the shock assembly to the lower A arm. Once both coilovers were installed, we reattached the sway bar and reinstalled the spindle. Finally, we were ready to start installing our front brakes.

Attaching the VariShock coilover to the upper mount.

{openx:292]Front Brake Installation

The front brake installation is straightforward as long as you follow the procedure in the instructions. Wilwood provides very accurate instructions, complete with pictures for those of us who need visual guidance.

Our team stayed with the printed instructions and completed the installation in record time. There are not that many components and they are manufactured to only go on one way. We’ve heard of installers making the task more difficult by over thinking the installation. This has gotten them into trouble, so save yourself the headache and go by the instructions.

The front brakes are installed by attaching the mount bracket assembly to the spindle. This is where a lot of installers get in trouble: the bracket must mount squarely against the inboard side of the caliper mount bosses on the spindle. If the spindle bosses have any road grime crud, metal shavings, casting irregularities, machining ridges, or are dinged up, the Wilwood caliper will not properly align to the rotor. It pays to make sure that the mounting bosses have a clean flat surface to mount the block to.

The two bolts mounting the block in place only need to be tightened at this point. Later, when the calipers and rotors have been installed, the alignment is checked and any shims that need to be added will require the removal of these two bolts.

Installing the mounting block to the spindle.

Now the rotor can be bolted to the rotor hat and safety wired. The bolts need to be coated with red thread sealer and torqued to 65 ft lbs. While you can safety wire the bolts by hand, we strongly recommend using a pair of lock wire pliers to make the job easier and more secure. Remember to safety wire the bolt heads so that the wire is pulling the bolts in a tightening direction.

Wilwood Engineering provides a data sheet on the proper safety wire technique on their website which can be viewed here.

Safety wiring the rotor to rotor hat mount bolts.

With the rotor bolted and safety wired to the rotor hat, the assembly can be installed on the hub. We checked the hub over to make sure that there were no stress cracks, rust or road debris on the mating surface, then we secured the rotor assembly to the hub using a couple of lug nuts to hold it squarely in place.

Keeping the rotor assembly tightly in place is critical for the next operation – installing the calipers and checking rotor alignment.

Checking the rotor alignment in the caliper.

Once the rotor assembly was held firmly in place by the lug nuts, we installed the caliper onto the mounting block. We checked the rotor to ensure that it was centered by examining the assembly, first from the top of the caliper, then from the bottom. If the rotor is not centered, a shim or two will need to be inserted between the mounting block and the spindle. Fortunately, ours was centered on the first shot so adding shims was not required.

Next we installed the brake pads, then checked to make sure that the pads were flush with the outside radius of the rotor. Again, we were on target the first time with no adjustment needed.

No adjustment needed this time.

Now it was a simple matter of taking the lug nuts off that we had used to hold the rotor flush to the hub, reinstalling the wheels, and tightening all of the lug nuts down to secure the wheel to the hub.

After changing out the stock brake lines to the Wilwood braided flex lines, we were finished with the front brake assembly until it was time to bleed them.

The Rear Brakes

The Dynalite Drag Brake Kit is designed for drag racing applications up to 2800 lbs and are true bolt on kits. Originally built for sportsman applications, the dynalite kits have become popular in many drag racing classes.

Specs on the Dynalite Rear Drag Race Brake Kit:
Application: Drag Race
Forged 4-piston Calipers
Piston area: 4.8 sq. in.
Solid Steel Rotor.
Rotor surface: Plain face.
Rotor Diameter: 11.44″
Rotor Width: 0.35″
Minimum Wheel Diameter: 15″
Brake Pads: Value priced Race only. Medium to Very High heat range.

Installing the rear Dynalite Drag brakes was even easier than the front brakes because there were no stock OEM brakes to remove. We had just completed an upgrade to a Moser Fabricated M9 rear end, so we moved right into the installation using the same procedure as the front brakes. The caliper mounting bracket also acts as the axle bearing retainer plate, so it was installed as part of the axle upgrade.

All that was left for us to do was bolt the rotor and rotor hat assembly together exactly as we had done with the front brakes, and install the rotor assembly onto the axle hub securing it with a couple of lug nuts. Then we installed the caliper onto the caliper mount and checked the alignment of the rotor in the caliper. Both sides were centered on the first attempt and no shims needed to be added. We chalked this up to working with brand new rear end components that had not been tweaked or distorted by driving several thousand miles. Giving thanks for the bonus of working with new parts, we installed the brake pads into the calipers.

Super stopping power in under one hour.

After the clearances had been checked, we removed the lug nuts that temporarily held the rotor assembly on, reinstalled the wheels, and changed the brake lines. The system was ready to be bled and put on the road.

Michael Hamrick gave us some technical advice about bleeding the Wilwood brake systems: “Obviously, you want to start at the caliper farthest from the master cylinder, which would be the right rear. Our calipers have bleed ports on the outside caliper and the inside caliper. Start with the outside caliper first, then move to the inside caliper. Because of the internal passages between the two calipers, we’ve found that going back to the outside caliper and doing a second bleeding before moving on to the next wheel is a good procedure to remove all of the air that was trapped between the calipers.”

He also gave us the heads-up on which brake fluid to use: “Wilwood Hi- Temp is the maximum performance DOT 3 fluid at cost effective price. If you want to go all out, Wilwood EXP DOT 4 fluid is the highest temperature, highest performance, lowest compressibility brake fluid you can buy.”

Our project car was still undergoing some other upgrades, so putting her on the street would have to wait. When we do finally take All Air to the track, one thing is certain: we have the stopping power worthy of our monster motor. There’s a feeling of confidence that comes with knowing you have the added level of safety that a superior braking system provides. We have that confidence in our F-Body Camaro with the Wilwood Engineering brake system.

With the rear tire mounted, there is plenty of clearance and we’re ready for the street.

Side by side of the stock-shock (bottom) and the new Varishock system (top). You can see that the stock shock assembly on the bottom includes an upper spring cup and a shock mounting location. On the Chassisworks, this is a true drag racing double-adjustable style shock. The difference is the custom upper shock mount system

Our All-Air Camaro project has already come a long way from the pitiful V6 stocker it left the factory with. But the hard work has only just begun, and with plans as ambitious as ours to turn this mild-mannered muscle car into a 9-second all-motor track monster, we needed some serious drag suspension. It just so happened that we had heard that Chassisworks had a trick new coil-over drag shock system that we wanted to try. We already had a full compliment of BMR suspension, but the great thing was the Chassisworks system worked just great with it. Let’s take a look!

As mentioned, we turned to Chris Alston’s Chassisworks for shocks and springs to help plant all this power to the ground. Chassiswork’s new trick F-Body Varishock system will provide our All Air Camaro with a bolt-in front coil-over conversion with dual adjustable shock valving, with a completely fabricated top shock mount that gets rid of all of the stock F-Body hardware in favor of a custom-designed coil-over configuration.

Think of it as a “Pro Stock” type front shock system for your F-Body.

Now, let’s get into the “meat” of the Chassisworks Coil-Over F-Body System….

The coil-over conversion plugs right into the mount, fitting easily into the stock location with no fuss.

Chassisworks Upper Strut Mount

As you can see in the above picture, the Chassisworks Varishock coil-over shock is not a standard “F-body” style strut. It is designed to be used with the Chassisworks upper-mount assembly. On the lower side, the urethane-bushing cross bar mounts to the BMR (or stock) control arm. Included in this kit is:

Shocks: Chassisworks Varishocks are billet aluminum, and are available in 16-position single adjustable, and 256-position double adjustable. Your choice. For All-Air we picked double adjustable. The single adjustable package is $719.00 and the double adjustable kit is $919.00

Springs: Three coil-over rates are available for your coil springs ranging from 350 to 450 lb/in whether you are drag racing, driving on the street, want a handling ride, or something in between.

Hardware: Upper control arm mount, mounting hardware, spanner wrench, and complete instructions.

Chassisworks lower shock mount is identical to stock, except with a poly bushing. It bolted right into the BMR lower control arms.

A Little Background on Chassisworks

Alston struck out on his own with Chassisworks in 1987, wanting to provide cost effective, quality suspension components, especially for muscle cars. He has been heavily involved in the hobby since the early days of the muscle car wars. His first love was a ’66 Chevelle “which stayed stock for maybe a month,” he says. After a stint in jail for street racing, Chris began to focus on professional, sanctioned racing, having been scared straight in a manner of speaking. He started by building tube chassis race cars right out of high school. “I worked out of my garage and in my driveway. Back then it was just Gassers and Pro Stocks,” Alston says. Back then, people concentrated mostly on the engine aspect of racing, something Alston himself never got big into.

There was a lack of any real suspension components, even on the highest horsepower cars. “All we had back then was a single loop roll bar, slapper bar, and maybe some shocks,” he says. “If you wanted a chassis component, you had to build it yourself.” Seeing that there was a large, unexploited market, Alston dove in and began designing shock absorbers for drag cars alongside Koni in the late ‘70’s. A true pioneer in suspension components, Alston and his company have made suspension components for a number of prominent companies, leading the way by providing adjustable, quality, and easily accessible shocks and suspension components.

Having been in the sport so long, “I’ve lived through five or six evolutions of the sport,” he says. This is what has helped him stay in business so long and become an industry leader. “Our heritage and involvement in the sport go way back.”

Testing a Varishock on the Shock Dyno

Our Project: Why VariShocks

All-Air is a big, ambitious project (aren’t they all?), and we didn’t choose to go with the Varishock on a whim. This coil-over conversion features the VariShock which offers a lot of benefits over the Camaro’s clunky stock suspension as well as the exemplary craftsmanship that Chassisworks has built a reputation on. Coupled with the Varispring, this exclusive bolt-in coil-over conversion is an easy install that makes a big difference down the strip. Even better, it is an adjustable and affordable system that can be tuned and tweaked to the needs of hardcore and casual racers alike.

Close-up of the dual adjustable Varishock

All the technology in the world wouldn’t matter if it was a poorly built product, but the Varishock uses top-notch materials to ensure a long and useful life. For example, the upper and lower spring seats are made from billet aluminum, and fully gusseted sheet metal eliminates flexing while allowing for a double shear bolt arrangement. A zinc coating on the mounts helps prevent corrosion, which means even several years down the road these shocks should still look as good as the day they were put in. A clear anodize finish is applied to each shock as well to enhance corrosion resistance across the entire product.

An aluminum alloy is used to make the base valve mechanism to allow for more consistent flow characteristics, while also dissipating the heat caused by fluid travel within the shock better than other materials. Internal valves in the Varishock system further improve heat dissipation and allow for greater fluid control, which is necessary to the longevity and effectiveness of the shock itself. These valves are also exchangeable and customizable, depending on your needs.

The Varishock uses a high-density, inert gas that prevents mixing with the fluid which allows the Varishock to be mounted any which way, even completely inverted.

Which brings us to the real meat of the Varishock design, the dual adjustable settings that allows you to tinker with the compression and rebound of the shock, rather than rely on a factory-determined setting. There are 16 settings for both compression and rebound, which means there are a total of 256 different settings per shock, allowing All-Air to be tuned for whatever the situation may call for. But one of the biggest advantages to the Varishock is the location of the knobs. Since they are on the bottom, they are easily accessible. As Alston says, “If you can’t get to them easily you’re probably not going to adjust them.”

The best shock is only as good as its spring, and the Varispring was built to work hand-in-hand with the Varishock. It utilizes high tensile wire that is stronger than the chrome-silicon wire found is most other springs. This allows the spring to “set solid”, which means the coils can completely compress and touch without damaging the spring, thus affecting ride height. Varisprings are available in lengths between 7″ and 14″, with the amount of travel varying between 3.51″ and 10.28″. The springs we choose for All-Air were 12″ long, with a 450lb spring rate up front and allowing for 6.24″ of travel. And just like the other Varishock parts, the Varisprings and powder coated for a good, long-lasting look.

Pre-Installation Prep

Before we can even begin thinking about installation, there is a lot of clunky stock parts to remove first. To start with, we are using an all-new BMR LS1-turbo K-member to get rid of the bulky, heavy, and ugly stock k-member. With the engine out, removal was a cinch, and the new BMR K-member mounted to the stock bolt locations without giving us any problems, as did the new upper and lower A-arms, also from BMR. This tougher, better looking suspension will vastly improve the handling characteristics of our Camaro while at the same time giving the engine bay a clean, new look.
With the front suspension all hooked up, it was time to assemble our shocks and springs. The Varishock comes with all the parts needed including the Varispring, upper and lower spring seats, and vehicle-specific mounting hardware. As mentioned earlier, while the coil-over kit is a simple bolt-in affair, some assembly is required before hand. Luckily, Chassisworks has made this as simple as possible; all that is needed is patience and a bench vice.

Pushing in the polyurethane bushing.

To start with, our shop “Dawg” Bobby Kimbrough inserted the polyurethane bushing into the upper shock eye. The polyurethane bushing provides unsurpassed support and comfort for the shock and is quite hardy as well. Using the bench vice, he pressed the steel sleeve into the bushing with the help of some polyurethane grease. Patience is key here. Ensure the steel sleeve is properly aligned before pressing it in, because as hardy as the bushing is, the steel sleeve will easily slit or rip it if it is pressed in at a funky angle. Measure twice, cut once, as the old saying goes. The polyurethane grease makes the job a lot easier, so make sure you have some on hand before attempting this step, otherwise you are just asking for trouble.

Using a bench vice, slowly and carefully push the steel sleeve into the upper eye socket

The lower shock eye also has a polyurethane bushing, but has a two-piece crossbar that installs into the lower A-arm rather than a steel sleeve. Again, coat the crossbar in polyurethane grease before proceeding, and press one side of the crossbar into the bushing. Then slide a crush washer onto the other half of the crossbar, and thread the crossbars together until they are flat and tight.

With the bushings and bars out of the way, it’s time to move on to the spring seats. The lower spring sits on a threaded shock body and is fitted with two spring-loaded shock ball lock mechanisms to hold whatever adjustments you may make to the shock. Once the bars are installed, Bobby threaded the lower spring seat on easily.

Slipping the spring over the shock

With six individual notches on the spring seat itself, slip-free adjustments can be made to the spring with the Varishock four-tang spanner wrench (which comes with each kit). Bobby turned the lower spring seat down as far as it would go without hitting the adjustment knobs and then lightly greased the spring seat bearings before placing them in the spring seat. The Varispring slips down over the shock reservoir and sits snugly into the lower spring seat. Then the top spring seat was placed between the top of the spring and the upper shock eye, and then he tightened both spring seats down equally to prevent loading up the chassis.

The process was repeated for the other front shock and we were ready to hook them up to our Camaro.

Installation – Front Shocks

The best thing about the Varishock system is that the upper shock mounts bolt right up to the OEM shock tower locations. No drilling, no measuring, no headaches. This allows the rest of the coil over conversion to mount up easily. The kit comes with two bolts, lock nuts, and washers, and with engine out and the car on a lift, installation couldn’t be easier. Just bolt the mount to the OEM locations, and you’re ready to attach the shocks and springs. An aluminum shim is sandwiched between the lower crossbar and the lower A-arm’s mounting plate, but other than that hooking up the front shocks was as simple as turning a wrench. As a side note, the adjustment knobs should placed on the inside of the lower A-arm, making them easy to access.

Upper shock mounts. Trick, simple and effective.

A note to anyone planning on doing this coil-over conversion without access to a lift; ensure that your car is properly elevated and not just sitting on a jack, especially during the stock suspension removal. Even the slightest shift can cause an improperly-elevated car to fall, resulting in serious injury or death. We may make the job look easy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t take the proper precautions even on a simple task like this.

With the front shocks locked into the new BMR A-arms, we were ready to move on to the rear. With the parts from BMR, and the Chassisworks shocks, we felt extremely comfortable that we could apply maximum weight transfer with superior adjustability at the drag strip.

Installation – Rear Shocks

With a project such as All-Air, the stock rear end just isn’t going to do. Even if this was a stock SS Camaro, the factory rear ends are nothing special and would require replacement anyway. To that end, we got in touch with Moser, who sent us their M9 rear end housing, a new lightweight aluminum center section, and heavy-duty axles to handle all of the naturally aspirated power we’ll be throwing at it.

Again, with the Varishock being a bolt-in kit, there was little more to the installation than popping them up into the factory mounting points. Taking the old shocks out was a bit more of a maneuver however, requiring cutting of the carpet just behind the apex of the rear wheel wells. From there, Bobby was able to unbolt and remove the old shocks and slip the new shocks into position. They fit perfectly into the new Moser rear end which Moser equipped with F-Body suspension mounts.

Good Hook to All

In terms of adjustment tips, of course those vary for each race car or street car. Chassisworks is available to help you with your exact combination. They recommended for our project that on the front shocks, a good setting would be on the 1-2 range for compression (going up from there), and 4-5 on the rebound on the way back down. For the rear shocks, depending on your tire size and rear end configuration, anywhere in the mid-range (7-8) should be enough to keep the tires and power on the pavement for the first pass. Then you should change the setting at see what your setup likes.

The F-Body community has been waiting for a product like the F-Body Coil Over conversion for some time. Working in concert with a trick shock system like VariShock, this package at under $1,000 is a major steal. We will be sure to update you with track results and testing once we get our 800 hp all-motor F-body down the 1320.

The completed front suspension.

The Track-Meter has been a hot item in the NHRA Top Fuel ranks for a little while, but since I haven’t shot one in a few years, I haven’t seen it. This was the first time I have seen the Track-Meter in the door car ranks. I first called up Grahm Jones, Crew Chief at Sprio Pappas racing, which relayed me over to the man behind the Track-Meter, Larry Wolyniec. But before I called Larry, Grahm shared their experience with the Track-Meter:

“After we compiled the information from the Track-Meter and got use to using it, it makes it so much better than your shoe. It has been a godsend to us. It really helps increase consistency as we dial in our boost/power levels to accommodate the track conditions. If we see 100-150 in/lbs we know the track is in poor shape, but if it’s near 300, we know the track has some teeth”

The Man Behind the Track-Meter: Larry Wolyniec

Larry has been involved in Top Fuel racing for a long time, coming out originally from the old Chi-Town Hustler driven by Frank Hawley in the early 80’s. He has most recently been working with the Bill Miller Engineering team for the last few years. Around 5-years ago when the car was fresh, they didn’t have much data on the car and constantly found themselves up in smoke off the line. From there, they knew they needed a software that would help them dial the car into the track better, but they didn’t have any answers. One afternoon Larry came up with idea, assisted by Ed Litke, for the Track-Meter and a prototype was made about 4.5 years ago. They took it to all the NHRA races and tested the surface of the race track before their qualifying efforts, and we will let Larry explain how it works:

“We have a given amount of area of rubber (on the Track-Meter) and this rubber is very similar to a slick on a Top Fuel Car. We then have a given amount of pressure we apply to the rubber by a mechanism within the meter. Then we have a (inch pounds) torque arm built into the meter that is part of the measurement process. The entire shaft that the meter is bolted to is surrounded by ball bearings so their isn’t any parasitic drag that would influence the reading. You then press on the outer portion of the device, compressing the internal spring that presses the pad firmly and evenly to the ground. Then the torque wrench measures the break away torque, in which the point of the pad looses traction with the racing surface”, Larry said.

Graphical interface that plots conditions at different spots on the track.

The database software is a graphical interface that allows you to plot measurements at different spots on the track. Though the launch pad is where the tire is sitting and is the most critical measurement. From there they will graph 30, 60, 100, 150, 330, and 660 feet in separate measurements. They will then radio these measurements back to the tow vehicle so they can plot the measurements on the software so they can adjust the power curve depending on where the track is better.

The data side of the plots that also allow you to log previous run data.

Fast forward through 3 years since the first Track-Meter was made and a patent was in process, putting the Track-Meter in a sellable market in 2008. Norwalk is where a fast majority of these first-run copies were distributed to the teams and by current time, virtually all the teams swear by it. We look forward to seeing more of these meters filter down into the door car ranks as it will certainly heighten the competition.

Today marked the first day toward the chassis fabrication of Project Grandma. We all have been longing to see our old gal come together, but there were a few things holding us back.

Now the stars have aligned granting us permission move forward. This will be the first of many Project Updates that we will be doing to bring all of you daily work as the build progresses. Now, before we dive right into the first day, a quick recap on where we are so far.

We are the stage where we are fully ready for our Chassis Engineering chrome moly roll cage, mini-tubs and chassis goodies. All of the Malibu’s work is being done by Mike Ryan of Ryan Fabrication right here at powerTV’s shop.

The front end on Grandma has been completely reworked thanks to the TRZ Suspension, QA1 Shocks, and Aerospace Brakes. The car has been stripped of almost everything not essential to the structural integrity of the body and frame and in between that body and frame we sandwiched Energy Suspension body bushings.

The 555ci Edelbrock Crate engine has been built by Pat Musi and put down 1050 hp on the engine dyno. All we have to do now is fit the roll cage, do a a 25.5 SFI conversion, as well as a mini tub kit, so we can move on to the rear suspension and rear end install.

Today all we did was yank out the rear end. You can see the photos below.

Mike says that he doesn’t like to have his picture taken and will do almost anything to make to sure his face isn’t photoed by our cameras.

At first the wound appeared to only be a minor one….

..but the redness and swelling soon followed.

Back to the future. We cut the cap off to remove some more material from the frame rail. This is the where we were last time. Then check out the photo from below.

Holiday’s are over, and it is time to get back in the saddle. We left off last year with Grandma’s frame notching for tire clearance. As Maxwell Smart was prone to say: “Missed it by that much”

Starting the day by playing catch up, that is; taking the previously welded cap back off of the frame rail and cutting it down a little more. None of us were looking forward to undoing work that we just did last week, but to get these big Mickey Thompson’s to fit in the wheel well, we had to do the unpleasant task of cutting through Mike’s nice weld to remove the cap.

The problem was that by notching and rewelding the frame rails narrower – we didn’t leave enough room for the 295/65 M/T ET Drag Radials to fit up into the wheel well. Thankfully our friends at Yellow Bullet were there to help us figure it out.

Once we got back to square one, maybe not square one but at least two backwards steps from progress, Mike pressed on by removing more material from the frame rails. The goal was to remove all the metal from the channel to make the frame rail look somewhat like a piece of flat stock. This will help make enough room for the big M/T’s.

We used the omnipotent Cornwell Plasma cutter to simplify the cutting job. You can see that our frame well was going to end up being less of a channel and more of a flat piece of metal.

Once the cutting was done, we ended up gaining an inch to an inch and a half more clearance. The goal was to support the frame rail from the inside on each side of the vehicle. That would allow the maximum amount of tire and wheel clearance and still be able to support the frame rail for strength. Without the backside support, our Grandma would be turned into a Chevy Low Rider unintentionally.

And yet again it was time for the true test. We put our big meaty Mickey Thompson tire on the tranny jack and raised it into the wheel well. While we all held our breaths and crossed the fingers and toes, the tire was raised to ride height.

Test fitting our tire…….again. Check out that bitchin ride height.

The tire fit perfectly into the wheel well as we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. The next step was to run the tire through the full length of travel. We needed to be certain that there would be no chance for the tire to rub anywhere within the range of tire travel. We raised the tire to it’s upper limit, and again there were fingers and toes crossed awaiting the outcome.

Our tire fit with room to spare.

Next it was time to strengthen what was left of the frame rail. Taking a few tips from those that have been through this process before on Yellow Bullet, we opted to bend 1 3/4 inch tube to the exact curves of the frame rail, then halve the tubing right down the middle leaving us with two identical pieces of tubing. Mike tack welded the halves of tubing to the frame rails, one on the right and one on the left.

Tubing was bent and welded to the inside of the frame rails for support.

Finally, we got around to cutting out the spare tire retainer in the trunk area. The gargantuan round tub that holds a full sized spare tire located on the right side of the trunk………GONE. I think we were all pleased with that modification.

Using our new favorite tool, the sawzall, to remove the spare tire tub in the trunk. Now you see it……

Now you don’t.

So it would seem that our start to the new year is off and running with great success. We packed up our tools, shut down the garage and prepared ourselves for another day in the long running saga of PROJECT GRANDMA.

Check out below for some photos and more captions of our work.

The complete tacked in inner support for our frame rail. We’ll be adding plenty of tubing back here that will support this area.

We had to make our inner support tube in two pieces because of the compound bends and because the frame rail changes angles. We found it easier to do it this way.

Welded in completely. Notice how the bar goes through the upper control arm cradle and is welded their for strength.

We started to seam weld the upper control arms areas for strength. We will also be tig-welding MIL-spec washers in this area as well to positively locate the rear end suspension.

Until next time..

Chassis Engineering offers four different kinds of wheel tubs that work with virtually any tire size. They offer standard tubs that are 23-inch wide and 40-inches long, Pro tubs which are 28-inches wide and 45-inches long, and an intermediate tub which is 28-inches wide and 40-inches long. The smallest Sportsman wheel tubs are available either in .040-inch aluminum or .024-inch steel.

Since we were doing a mini-tub and not a full back-half, we chose the smallest steel tub from Chassis. We also knew that even that tub would need to be trimmed down width size as we didn’t need to take up our entire trunk since we would be limited by the stock narrowed frame rails. Our wheel wells are shipped unassembled, and like all C/E wheel tubs, incorporate a “Pittsburgh” seam that allows for easy assembly.

Before we could install the kit, we had to clean up the wheel well area before we could measure to fit the mini-tubs in. Mike started by cleaning up the cuts he had made before when removing the original wheel wells and removing a little more metal to give him a nice clean surface to weld the new tubs into. This was more about finishing off the “rough” grinding and cuts from the plasma cutter we showed you earlier.

From there, Ryan made a cardboard mock-up of the tubs to test fit the kit in. After a few quick slashes with a marker, he trimmed the mock-up down to the correct size needed to fit the finished tub in. This is a step that you want to spend a little bit of time on. Cardboard is a cheaper to throw away than metal so Mike made sure that the fitment was right before transferring the dimensions to Chassis Engineering supplied steel tubs. Not all chassis shops do this, and some trial fit using the actual tubs.

Here is an inner shot of the cardboard tub in the wheel well with a “rough cut. You can see there are some challenging areas inside the tub where the factory upper control arm mounting area is located. Logically here we are probably going to have to supplement the Chassis Engineering tub with some additional sheet metal here for a good seal and a clean look.

A shot from inside the car so you can see the approximate location and fitment of the cardboard tub. Because the C/E tubs are so nicely sized in terms of length, we will never have a problem getting our Malibu slammed down to the ground like we are planning.

To make building the tubs a little easier, Mike brought a tub-jig he had built out of wood from his shop. To make it work for this job, he had to modify it a little bit because of the tire size we chose for our project. This made it easy when crimping the ‘Pittsburgh’ seam of the tub to hold the two pieces of metal together.

While Chassis Engineering doesn’t require it, Mike went ahead and riveted the end of the kit together before crimping down the edge. That way, there is no way for the two parts to slip or slide apart changing how it would fit up into the car while he was test fitting it in the car. After that he used a hammer and pounded down the Pittsburgh seam to secure the tub together.

The C/E wheel-tubs are capable of really fitting up to a 32-inch tall tire and one at least 14-15-inches wide. Obviously we won’t need that much room due to our tire size, so from there he simply cut down the blank tub to the size needed to fit into the car. Not wanting to have to go back and add metal in later, he cut them out a little big and trimmed them to a perfect fit. The same process was repeated for the passenger side tub.

Once the mini-tub was properly cut and then fine-trimmed, it was time to install it into the car. Since we cut out the inner wheel tub, we would have some work to do here that could be called trickery. We tack welded the tub to the front and rear inner sheetmetal that was cut away, as well as to the rear trunk hinges.

Mike also took the chance to cut out the trunk and weld in a new panel that covers the hole where the spare tire well was located in the trunk of the car. Then all that was needed to do was weld the now trimmed tubs in. He started off tack welding everything in place. Later Mike will go back and lay down a real nice bead to cap off this part of the build. While normally you would weld the tub into the inner fender as well, our car will be retaining her 70′s appliance-white paint job so we didn’t want to risk bubbling its unique surface. We’ll just fill in the gap with some seam sealer later when we weld the rest of the floor back in. For now check out some finished shots below.

The rain might be coming down finally in Southern California, but that doesn’t mean this car is down off the lift for good. We still got lots more to do before we can mock up the engine and transmission as well as a few other surprises. Check back next week as Mike Ryan will be getting to what some say he does best – putting in a Chassis Engineering roll cage, along with a full upgrade to the SFI 25.5 spec.

The GM G-Body is a very easy chassis to work with as a outer perimeter full frame car. The challenge with a 25.5 car is the work that is needed with the frame: the boxing of the stock frame and the addition of the inner frame rails. No matter the SFI spec, we’d need plenty of stiffening for the chassis to take the brunt of the 1,050+ horsepower 555 cubic inch Pat Musi/Edelbrock engine.

We also got a bunch of goodies in the shop today, courtesy of our friendly UPS man. FAST sent us a dual wide-band Air Fuel meter so we can make sure to get the correct mixture of combustion in the Edelbrock 555. Moroso sent us a nice switch panel, and Edelbrock hooked up Granny with a Edelbrock Progressive Nitrous Controller, Purge Kit, and a 2nd fancy Edelbrock silver bottle. Nice.

The first thing we did was raise the body up off the chassis. This was 10 bolts. We have Energy Suspension body bushings – some recommend aluminum bushings for a hardcore pure drag racing applications, but they are about $200, and the easier fix is to just weld the chassis to to the body in 5-6 spots to eliminate flex. We’ll be cheap. Plus, the Energy Suspension bushings are very strong and we’re confident they’ll hold up to many seasons of drag racing.

Here’s the Malibu up in the air and separated by about 10 inches between in the body and the frame.

Mike started off by cutting some raw steel to the right shape needed to box the frame rails. Once again our Cornwell Plasma cutter made quick work of another job and before long a rough-cut piece was pinned temporally to the frame to be welded in. After spending a little more time making some finishing pieces Mike welded in the newly added metal.

This was our contraption for getting the body off the frame, while keeping the frame high for ease of welding. Take one Bendpak lift, about 5 tall jacks, and a small whisper to god to pray this entire thing doesn’t come down on your head. We hope our insurance company never reads this.

Here’s our virgin frame. It’s a C-Channel, stock G-Body outer frame that is not boxed. We need to box it for SFI regulations and for chassis stiffness, as well as to provision something for the the frame rails, control arm supports, driveshaft loop, etc., to weld to.

The first thing Mike started with was “capping” off the editing “L” shape of the front and rear frames. This was simply a plasma cut piece of steel sheet we used, templated and cut to fit. Then we began cutting the long strips of steel to box the frame.

Here’s Ryan uses his favorite tool – the Cornwell Plasma Cutter, to cut away the strip of steel necessary to box the frame. We think it’s a cool shot because of all the radical sparks. We also think it’s cool that the old IKEA desk Mike has stolen as a work bench isn’t on fire. Yet.

C-Clamps holding in the boxed frame rail prior to welding during the fitting process. It’s important to get them close and right before firing up the welder.

We used a combination of TIG and MIG welding for the boxing process. We TIG welded the caps, and MIG welded the longer boxed sections of frame rails. Do whatever you feel you are better at if you are doing this at home.

Here is the completed and boxed left side frame rail. You can see the “half dollar size” steel hole Mike had to close up while building the end cap. These little details aren’t necessarily safety or SFI requirements, but they make a big difference in stiffness. It’s it better to do the job right even if it takes a little longer?

Coming next – and finally – how to build Mini Tubs with Chassis Engineering steel tubs.