I finally got my axles and brakes put back together in my Strange 12 bolt. Spent a lot of time talking to Kore3 and BigBrakeUpgrade about rear brake options (props to both those guys, they're simply fantastic!). Ended up giving my LT1 rear brakes another try at the encouragement of both those guys. Axle end play is fixed, no more leaks, and I loaded the calipers with some grippier Hawks HP Plus brake pads. We'll see how it works in a few months.

New Ford "Timken Set 20" tapered axle bearings. Midwest Chassis is in my town so I dropped off the axles and they pressed on the bearings for a reasonable fee. I also took the opportunity to install 1/2 inch studs while the axles were out (Red Loctite, and torque to 90 lb-ft). Changeover was very easy because axle flanges were threaded for both M12 and 1/2 inch studs.




Another thing I changed were the T-bolts that hold the brake backing plate to the axle housing flange. The original bolts from Strange were too short. I got some longer bolts from Midwest Chassis when I picked up the axles. Blue Loctite, and torque to 35 lb-ft.




Garage math verifying bearing preload after assembly. This is for my records, none of you will be interested in it.




Rear brake pads. Hawk HP Plus, HB112N.540 for PBR calipers on 1LE 3rd gens and and LT1 4th gen F-body cars.

 

Actually I am interested in the shims for your preload, lol. Where are you putting shims, inside the housing behind the race seat?

 

Haha, you nerd! This is a long explanation but I needed all this detail to understand for myself.

The outer bearing seal is a cap that simply slips over the roller bearing. The seal has a rigid housing, and on the inside of that housing (facing the bearing) are some rubber cushions that press on the roller bearing. The preload is how much those cushions are compressed when the brake backing plate is drawn tight to the axle flange.

The roller bearing itself is entirely recessed inside the axle housing, but the bearing seal/cap sticks out of the housing about 1/4 inch (called the bearing standoff). The bearing standoff just is what it is and you need to measure it on your setup like in the graphic below. Ideally the brake backing plate has a machined groove that mates up perfectly to the bearing seal and crushes it to the bearing preload spec. Shims go between the backing plate and the seal if you're a little short on preload. I can't remember exactly, but I think the preload spec is somewhere around 0.040 - 0.050 inch. If you spend the big bucks on custom backing plates from Kore3 then you'll get exactly what you ask for and there's no reason for shims if you did your homework.

Problem is my car doesn't live in the ideal world. I have GM 1LE backing plates and those things are flat on the backside (no relief for the bearing seal), and the backing plate isn't thick enough to accept a groove for the bearing. So what they did is hog out the center hole in the backing plate so it slides over the bearing without contact. At that point the seal is pretty much flush with the plate so they stacked a couple shims on top of the bearing seal/cap until the stackup stood slightly above the backing plate at the preload spec. The seal is then clamped in place by the flat side of the U-shaped retainer plate. (That's a backwards installation of the U-shaped retainer plate.) Not ideal but the numbers add up okay. But it's difficult to assemble because the shims keep slipping under the backing plate before you can get things tightened down.

What they SHOULD have done is enlarge the hole co-centric to the bearing, and made a taller co-centric spacer that sets in the hole over the bearing. Then used the groove side of the U-shaped retainer plate to clamp down on it. That way nothing moves around during assembly. But 1LE backing plates are now as rare as hens teeth so I'm not sure my scenario will apply to anybody building a new axle today.

 

Cool beans. I was hoping for a shot of the shims too,
Is that a 9" Ford bearing setup? I can't remember if that's the case or not.

This whole stackup is similar to the 9 bolt axle end

 

I wish I had a better picture for you. Best I got is post #1579.

They're small little things, ain't much to them. C shape so it can barely slide over the axle shaft. Not an off-the-shelf part. I couldn't find another one if I wanted to.

When I took them off, the C was facing down like in the picture. When I put it back together I aligned the C on the top side same as retainer plate. I figured clamping on three sides is better than two. If it ends up leaking again I'm going to have to get a custom backing plate with a full round seat. Strange Engineering sells one for my setup. Only reason I didn't try it this time is because Strange thought it would interfere with the panhard bracket on a 3rd gen. I can't see how that's even remotely possible but I didn't need a new problem.

 

LOL. You ought to put your thread trailer in the first post. Good stuff.

 

Winter is over and I just completed the first shake-down drive with a few new suspension mods, new axle bearings, and new rear brakes. Nothing fell off the car, and no leaks (yet).

Detroit Speed adjustable rear sway bar. This is a very nice kit. The two positions yield spring rates of 620 lb/in and 784 lb/in. The saddles have notches that lock into an anti-rotation feature on the axle tube. And there are clamps that keep the sway bar from walking side to side. Also more clearance to the axle cover than my old Suspension Techniques sway bar.




Added a 3rd position (middle holes) to my Founders height-adjustable lower control arm brackets.




Welded in a Founders height-adjustable panhard bracket and UMI y-brace. It's a long story why I have mixed products. I have 3 kits in my hands and I'll do a write up about that later. Also threw away half the bolts and washers and supplied my own. I cut down the UMI y-brace quite a bit without effecting its strength at all to give easier access to bolts.






Had the option of using either the Founders (top) or UMI (bottom) brace rod. UMI uses stronger, higher quality steel and rod ends but the design is executed very poorly. Decided to use the Founders but swapped out the rod ends for the higher quality UMI. Again, I'll explain more in a future write up comparing 3 different kits.




Founders body side bracket with some grinding to make fit. I'm keeping it bolt-in so that I have the option of going back to stock height. Washers were yielding when the bolts were tightened. Replaced with 3mm thick steel hardened washers, Caterpillar part number 7X-0510, and problem solved.




Took the opportunity to clean up and paint the axle again while it was out. Flat black gets lost in the shadows under the car, which is the way I like it.




Put a couple heat shields on the exhaust to lower temps at the floor pan and transmission. These shields are from Improved Racing and have standoff from the exhaust pipe so don't have to worry about ruining the pipe. No instructions with the kit. And no warnings that this stuff will leave a thousand teeny tiny fibers stuck in your bare hands. Don't be me. Be smarter. Fortunately most of it came out of my hands after soaking in warm water.

 

Also found yet another point of binding on my torque arm. Last year I made the shackles longer because of physical contact between the torque arm and the front mount. This time I noticed the shackles could not rotate on the bushings after tightening up the bolts.

​​​​​​I got some metal top lock nuts that won't back off the bolt. That way I can snug everything together but be just loose enough that the shackles can rotate. Really the ideal solution is a heim joint but I'm not cutting out the mount and starting over.

 

looking good, the flat black looks nice. how scary is it to remove the torque arm. is there any energy stored there that one needs to be careful with?

 

The springs are trying to rotate the nose of the axle up. If the car is sitting on the tires, then the weight is increasing that upwards force at the tip of the torque arm.

To remove the torque arm, support the rear of the body with jack stands (I use just in front of the LCA mount), let the axle droop, and remove the springs. The axle will want to rotate nose down (especially if the TA is still attached to the axle, but not the front mount). Once the TA is removed, the sway bar will likely provide some/enough anti-rotation to the axle.

 

Yielding in general, or just in the slots?

 

So basically, you let the rear axle float in free air to take most (or all) of the pent up energy out of the torque arm? What happens if you try to take the torque arm off while the car is sitting on the ground - is this dangerous?

 

Pushed the car a little harder today. Wow! I'll tell you what, a lowered panhard bar is a no-bull modification! Car has never cornered this good, and I can apply more throttle out of a corner. And that's with drag radials on the back! Makes me wonder what this car could do with proper shoes....

 

Yielding around the holes with any of the larger bolts that have high torque values. Deforms the washers pretty bad at the slots. All these kits seem to use similar fasteners and washers so expect to upgrade some stuff on your own as you see fit.

The more the springs are compressed the harder it will drive the torque arm up into the floor pan. It's not violent, you can pull it down by hand. I used to push my car around without the torque arm front mount hooked up.

Things get a little more difficult when you knock the torque arm off the axle. Axle will go nose high and you won't be able to pull it down by hand to get the torque arm mounted again. Simple trick... place a floor jack under the rear of the pumpkin and use it to tilt the axle so things line up. Or you can remove the springs, but that's a lot of work for something that a couple pumps of a floor jack can fix. Most lowering springs won't even be compressed with axle at full droop so no big deal.

If I'm pulling the axle then I leave the torque arm attached. Provides more stability so I can roll everything out balanced on a floor jack.

 

I'm hoping I can do this when I swap out transmission crossmembers.
Thinking I could support the transmission pan and pull off all of the apparatus that holds the TA to the trans. Then drop the OE crossmember, slide in the Hooker unit and attach the torque arm and isolated mount to the new crossmember.
Those big bolts and the room required to efficiently remove them and the arm from the axle is a PITA.

 

Nice feedback.
This is a mod on my (eventual) to do list. That and the extended ball joints are reported to have a significant impact on the handling characteristics of these cars.

 

Here is the comparison that I promised.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/susp...rd-heidts.html

 

FINALLY made some progress on this today! A buddy came over and did live tuning while I drove the car. Soooooo much easier than looking at datalogs! We got the buck mostly under control and when it does happen it tends to dampen out on its own rather than keep cycling. Drives quite a lot better! Stripped out gobs of timing and made it flat in the offending area. Got to do some smoothing of transitions but I think we may have unlocked the secret of the buck.

 

Heat shield to knock down some of the direct radiant heat from header tubes onto my IAT sensor (Inlet Air Temp). The IAT sensor gets so hot that I can't touch it and I've suspected it is adding to the temp reading, so maybe this will help that some. I'm going to redo it in aluminum. Had this galvanized steel laying around for the "proto build".

Shield is just big enough to block line of sight between header tube and sensor. Small enough that it won't vibrate badly. Softened all the edges with a plier just in case I rub it while working on the car. This is the the most advance metal fab I think I've ever done.

 

That car is extremely bad-A$$ (and looks great too)...

 

I noticed temperature drift in my Suburban to the gauge, similarly. I would stop and the temp on the dash would creep up, but as long as I was moving it would stay solid. At first I had the sensor in the head, near the manifold, then I moved it to the intake manifold crossover and it got better, but it would still do it. I wound up logging into the Holley HP with the laptop and watched, the temperature wasn't changing in the Holley so I chalked it up to ambient temp absorption into the sensor and it was worse since it was screwed into an adapter bushing.

You could definitely be getting the same

 

Ditching the drag radials. It never was a drag car anyway. Time to do what the car was meant to do. Just hoping there's reasonable traction under throttle or this is going to be one scary ride.....

 

you beat me to it!!

Those are the tires I plan on ordering in late May ! I had put up a information gathering thread in February about those tires over on frrax.com too and only got a few replies. http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/index.php?showtopic=18501
-reviews on the tires look great, and they have them in the sizes that would look appropriate on my wheels and for the proper stance.

I am happy for you, but now I am eager to hear how you like them! I think I am 99% sold on buying those. I plan on doing more autocross in June July August and then after that I'll be going back to drag racing, hopefully with the nitrous setup on

 

Wow. It's like every suspension mod on my car was unlocked all at once.
And these tires actually hook up some power!

I keep raising the height of the car every year and it works better and better. Being really low looks cool but it just doesn't work for me.

 

Is there any drag racing in the future with these?

 

Has there been much change in your IAT readings with that heat shield?

My experience was that I was not able to really lower my IAT until I moved my filter out of my engine bay. It lowered my IAT at idle by over 40 degrees.

 

awesome ! I've also heard/read good things about these tires. Pumped up that mine will be here within a few days, but I might wait till June to get them on the car. Glad to hear you are liking them !! Keep us posted!

 

Kind of curious what the LS7 does but it's not real important to me. Pretty much know I'll be stuck in the 11's with a 130+ mph trap speed. Trailer isn't licensed and I'm not even sure what kind of condition it's in. It's about 15 years old now.

I don't expect it to reduce air temp at filter. My hope is it reduces drift of the temp sensor.

 

Since I have no projects planned this year, I decided to put a little money into tools instead. Just dialed in more negative wheel camber to compliment my new found traction in the corners. Finding that my passenger side is a bit funky and the plates are maxed out at -1° camber. How much range of adjustment do you all have?

Longacre Acculevel and toe plates. Currently using plastic garbage bags for slip surface under the tires.



These are the reference points I'm building from (picture below). Need more seat time but right now the car is at,

-1° Camber
5.5° and 6° Caster
About 1/32 Toe Out (maybe a smidge more)

 

Just like everything else we do on these cars, it depends on what you want it to do and what equipment you have installed. My settings are almost identical to what you already have, but our suspensions are completely different. With that said, initial static settings are going to be fairly similar with all types of suspensions, it's when the suspension becomes active that the decisions need to be made. If you have a solid suspension setup, i.e. Delrin bushings and solid plate mounts, then you can usually run tighter settings because of less deflection. Suspension design will influence the settings also, such as mine has a lot of camber gain dialed in under compression, so I can run less initial camber and your bump steer will effect you toe settings. There is a lot more involved that would get far too technical for a short post, but your initial setting seem reasonable for a starting point and would be fine for some weekend autocross.

 

Looks like I graduated from being able to go around turns at a 'fun' pace to going around turns at an 'uncomfortable' pace. Tires still haven't slipped one bit. Don't know where these tires give up. Don't want to find out on the street so might try an autocross for the first time in over 20 years.

 

Sounds like your really starting to enjoy car just be careful turning hard and fast gets addictive.

When my dad would setup his dirt track car he used two square pieces of sheet metal with a layer of grease between them for slip surface under the tires.

 

This is awesome to read. I can hear the excitement in your voice! Good stuff.

I am super glad you informed me that these were in short supply. I can't wait to get back to aggressive cornering. My 4 tires arrived, last week from tire-rack.com, but I am waiting to put them on until Mid June. At that time, the new 6-point roll bar will be installed, and I can then get a full front end alignment, so I was actually going to be re-looking into this topic again too, just a few weeks from now!
Last time I had the car aligned, I set it to be at:
Caster 5 deg (Drivers) and 5.4 deg (pass side)
Camber, -0.8 on both
toe in 3/32 ish

I've liked my specs, but can't go too aggressive on them because I still want to do street, strip, and autoX.

 

Thwarted by rain today.
And it looks like the trailer is out of commission this year. The wood deck dry rotted and it's done. I refuse to buy wood right now at the insanely inflated prices so trailer will sit.

 

I hear you on the wood prices, too bad they're stopping you getting the trailer going. You could always use Trex since I think it's cheaper than wood now, and will last forever. Oh well...

 

I've said before that my 1-2 synchros are unhappy and wearing out. Turns out that's only half true. They're unhappy, but not wearing out.

I've figure out the trans still shifts fine with proper clutch throw. What's really happening is the Tick clutch pedal adjuster rod keeps shortening (screwing in) bit by bit each time I push the clutch. The problem has become so bad that I've developed a habit to reach under the dash and lengthen the rod a bit before each drive. And no amount of tightening of the jam nuts helps. The system is supposed to behave like a turn buckle where rod ends don't spin and adjustments are made by turning the center coupler. What's really happening is both the center coupler and piston rod end can spin independently, so the darn thing won't lock in place and shortens as the clutch is worked.

My first attempt to fix was to double nut the piston rod end. That did keep that end from moving, but then the top rod end started to shorten instead. Took twice as many turns to move the pedal, but it would still shorten during drives.

Today I removed the whole thing and double nutted both top and bottom. I dare that thing to move now!!

• Piston rod end is an 5/16-24 thread, and pedal rod end is a left-hand 7/16-24 thread.
• The top is impossible to access while in the car, so I pre-assembled and double jammed the top nuts and coupler before assembly. Doing that will lock the coupler in place so you can't use it for adjustments any more.
• Adjustments have to be made by turning the piston rod end, and that's done by using the bottom two jam nuts to get some grip on the rod to turn it. I set the pedal length, loosened the bottom jam nuts, and then ran them up to the coupler and tightened one last time.

Hopefully that's the end of that.

 

I was tempted to tack weld the jam nut when I got the length right.

 

Have you been having the same problem? I'm gathering that this issue is not common.

 

No haven't had an issue, but it crossed my mind during assembly.

 

What about wicking thread retainer? I use the green stuff on the light stuff that I think might back off

 

I did try some blue Loctite but it stayed gummy and didn't really cure. Maybe got contaminated by the anti-seize that I had on the rods. It's a steel rod in an aluminum turnbuckle.

 

Yeah the oil in the anti could stop the thread compound. You could use the locker on the jamb nut though

 

Now it's screwing out on it's own making pedal throw longer.

Didn't think a turnbuckle would out whit me, but here we are. I guess I gotta get it clamped both ways. Took it out again and got mean with it. If it moves again I'm going to have to get something different.

 

Top came loose again. This is ridiculous.
I don't know how that joint is relaxing. It was tighter than crap. Wondering if I need to switch from aluminum to steel turnbuckle.

 

Holley I/O expansion module. About dang time! Just hit the market real recently, I think.
8 custom inputs, 8 custom outputs. Twice as many as my original HP ECU, but it's not as flexible. Uses lower cost grounding output drivers.

Now to scheme and dream what I can do with this....

 

nice. I just saw Holley's youtube video about this unit yesterday. I was excited at first, but then very bummed out when I learned that it is not compatible with the Holley Sniper EFI. Would love to have a way to monitor fuel pressure, oil pressure, etc. Keep us in the loop. Glad to see you got something new to play around with. How are the Falken RT660's still treating ya ?

 

Tires are awesome. It elevated the car big time. It's a total package now.

 

That's what she said...sorry, I'm a child.

 

Got a deal I couldn't refuse on a Dominator ECU. That was unplanned. So now I gotta figure out how to get this thing under the dash. Found a spot that looks promising. Paving the way for future things.

 

I guess you don't need that I/O module now
Nice part about the Holley stuff, it uses the same plug and pinout for the main harness, so you can just R&R with the Dominator