I'm worried my frame may be warped. I don't have SFCs on yet. I've got my mods in the sig, but only 2.73 open without very good traction and no hard launches. My friend says I'm fine, but my ground effects are starting to warp a little bit and that scares me.

 

Although it is pretty easy to bend these cars there are quite a few that are raced in a series where subframe connectors aren't allowed. I highly recomend them, but they are not required. As for the ground effects not fitting 100%, they are plastic/rubber and old. Time and the elements tend to warp the plastic, so your ground effects are bending, not your car.

 

whats the price to weld SFCs up? I have them, just not welded

 

Anything from a cold 6-pack of the welder's favorite adult beverage, to $150, to they won't even touch it.

I'd suggest having the first option on hand and in plain sight when you ask, and ask late on a Sat afternoon shortly before closing time.

 

I would recommend some suspenion work to anything that is pushing some horsepower......

You can't really twist it on daily driving scenerio's, it's going to take some hard lauches or road racing to show some problems.....

I'd still recommend SFC's though.....

 

A month after I lowered my car and added the wheels and tires my drive side door stuck out .25" from the fender and my passenger side door was recessed .25" from the fender. I did not have SFC at the time. The car had never been wrecked at that point and I had a body shop check it out. Sure enough the unibody was missallinged and it cost $180 to straighten it out. The "tweaking" was minimal but enough to have it be fixed. I wouldn't have believed it myself but I was shocked to say the least.

You can kinda see it in this pic.

 

Whoa, Shifty, is the driver's door not lining up with the fender a sign of s twisted frame?................

I noticed this after TPI383 pointed it out........

 

It can be. If your door and fender are not missalinged it sure can. I didn't believe it either after reading everyone on here that said it wasn't possible. It is almost impossible twisting it from striaght line acceleration with huge power levels but it is possible from high grip cornering alone. The torsional stresses put on the uni body during cornering far exceed what they do when going in a striaght line. Take your car to a reputable body shop and have them put it on their frame puller. They can make tons of measurements to determine if it is where it is supposed to be or not. Mine wasn't so I had them fix it. Just another reason to do SFC's first.

 

wow, i thought it would be a lot more expensive than that to fix a bent uni body.:lala:

 

Well it was minimal and I have had numerous vehicles repaired over the years at this shop so I got a little break. It took only a half hour to do so, $180 for a half hour is pretty steep.

 

oh wow. things to take into consideration I suppose.



in any case my friend is tracking me down a welder who lives around here, and he said he'd probably do it for free. I can weld, but I just dont have access to a welder. I took three years of metal shop in HS. Welding is friggin simple. I'd rather not pay out the *** for someone to do it for me if I could do it myself.

Whats it cost to have the frame CHECKED for straightness then?

 

It depends on the shop. The problem with installing SFC's is not the welding but having a lift that loads the suspension. You do not want to jack the car or let the suspesion hang when welding them on. You need to have the car flat and loaded just as it sits on the road. That is always the hard part. most of us can weld, it is just finding someone with that kind of lift.

 

If your fender doesn't line up with the door then check to see if it has been jacked up before by the fender. Just about every thirdgen I know has been jacked up that way at one time or another.

A pair of vice grips on the bottom of the fender and a good pull usually straighten it out.

Now, if its uneven, but there are no signs of improper jacking then you may have a problem.....

 

Im pretty sure my car is at least a little tweaked too and i just have my sfc's bolted in right now. Should I wait to weld them until after I get it straightend if it needs it, or take them all the way out?? Or wont they affect the process?

 

The car needs to be straight. SFC must be installed a certain way.

 

You can't really twist it on daily driving scenerio's, it's going to take some hard lauches or road racing to show some problems.....

I disagree. Take a look at coupes for example. Many, including my 85 IROC, have slight cracks just in back of the drip rail, and apparently these have formed from normal driving: everything from speed bumps to sloped drives, to perhaps age. At any rate, I don't beat on my car.

JamesC

 

A stress crack and a permanent twist aren't exactly the same thing, though.

 

True. My point was that our cars twist enough under normal driving conditions to produce stress cracks.

JamesC

 

the 82 has cracks there too in the body, very noticable, feel them easily

 

the biggest thing to do with an f body is to get sfc's, specially if you don't have any cracks

 

I think I win for the worst allignment!



I have had my hood, doors, fenders, and hatch alligned from a body shop to where they should be, and the door looks like this! You think it's unibody problems?