This seemed like the best section to post in, since most of the mods are suspension related. I'll update the build as parts go on, etc.

My post on one of my drifting forums -

Thought i'd post up my "build" on here. We've had this car for about 14 yrs, has sentimental value and will remain street driven - not an all out race car. A couple of years ago i put a stock 98 ls1 / t56 into it. Suspension is all rebuilt, Spohn parts, koni yellow, poly / heim, etc. 11k miles put on it since the swap, street, drag, auto-x and drift. Last year it has mostly sat needing work while other things were more important.

Now i get to fix some things, etc. Hopeing to get it done for the Feb 22 drift event at mineral wells.

Car at an Atlanta Drift Fury event (I suck at driving):



So, car is in the shop getting tore into:




List of things to do to it:



Basically - rebuild T56, change out diff, add adjustable springs (Ground Control) , etc

T56 apart -



Torsen diff - went open - getting mini-spool



New spring rates, steering box fix , hope to make it handle better.

link to old photos of the ls1 swap, etc - http://www.bubbadrift.com/album/thum...lbum=26&page=1

drifting video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIJni8DfFoQ

James

 

A mini-spool isn't going to do you any favors in street or autocross driving. Don't know about drifting, but maybe CrazyHawaiian will drop in with some useful information (he's been drifting for a few years, last I knew in a 3rd gen).


Norm

 

I've been around CrazyHawaiian before, on his board, etc. I've been around drifting for over 5 yrs now

I've also been the mini spool route before ( www.BubbaDrift.com ). I don't want to put much money into the 10 bolt, and don't want to spend the money for a different rear right now.

But i agree, for most people a mini-spool is not the way to go.

 

Ill be watching this thread!

 

I should have posted this video - us drifting the Camaro:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIJni8DfFoQ

 

Nice video can't be easy trying to drift something as heavy as a street driven 3rd gen. Be watching to see how it goes.

 

update, things going slowly - life gets in the way (and the rearend rebuild was more of a pain in the *** than expected).

rearend parts and rebuild (mini-spool - cheap way of locking the diff)




Dropped front subframe to change the motomounts (shot, engine rocking and exhaust hitting the floorboard) and changing the oil pan gasket which was leaking and making a mess



Weight Jacker - Ground control setup, increased spring rates and can adjust the height -



installed -

 

rear springs and ground control adjuster (stiffer and go lower), rearend is hanging and the spring is not seated -



T56 parts cleaned up, getting ready to build the trans -



Family slowing me down in the garage -



Need to get more done, still a lot of projects to go

James

 

question about the rims,

what size are the tt2, and aren't they suppose to be chrome?

 

disagree, cheapest way is to weld the satelites in the diff, i did that and the car is still streetable and you can use to it how it works, true tires will get uesed faster but drifting with 100% locked is superb

 

Hells yeah, this should be a nice build! Your garage is freakin clean!

 

except that the diff i had was a torsen and you can't weld those up, so minispool was my cheapest option

wheels are polished, not chrome, 17 x 9.5 in rear, 17 x 8 in front - don't remember the backspacing off hand.

thanks on the garage

 

Thanks for the good pics of the Ground Control weight jacks. I have been considering a set for my car. Was it any easier to install the fronts than a regular spring?

 

Oh God yes - front springs are easy to change now: adjust it to the shortest setting, place it and the spring in place, place control arm bolts (or ball joint depending on how you took it apart) and then adjust height.

Changing spring rates and height is nice and easy now

 

i ordered my weight jacks on 2/28, still waiting for them to get the springs in????????? i wanted #1100/225 but they said the #225 were back ordered so i went with #1000/200 to start with. what spring rates did you go with?

 

I'm intersted in this build so i am suscribing to keep up.

 

wish my garage had that much room and it looks like i could eat dinner of the floors..you sure you work on a car in there??! lol j/k nice work so far!

 

Bubba drift is awesome and did great with a elcamino let alone with a 3rd gen.

 

Great Job. Looks Sweet!

 

Wow this is great. I sold my 90 RX7 then came across my camaro for cheap and was thinking about drifting it. Is the weight, being in the front mostly affecting your drifts much?? keep us posted......by the way Very nice work space

 

I am doing this also, but wont need an ls1 t56 setup to drift as Bubba here is doing...with these cars its steering angle that limits us and a lot of suspension mods.

240sx's are getting 60* and corollas around 70* steering angles allowing for more angle during tandem drift events where angle is the most looked at. Our cars IIRC lock out even after modifications (due to frame hitting wheels) at around 48* of steering angle...which is definitely not DRIFT FRIENDLY. Also the reason why James in his video spins out at high speed drift attempts, because of our very very crappy steering angle capabilities.

Now if we can have someone (maybe racecraft) make us some extended otherwise longer control arms. This would help us stick the tires out and look for more steering angle by keeping us from hitting the frame. But then there is custom sterring boxes and tie rods and such that get in the way for letting us go more than 50* angles still (look at racecraft drop spindles with the stops removed?). There is another thread that got really into what we need to do on our 3rd gens for more angle and drift friendle setup...Ill look for it. (Big downfall, solid rear axle), anyone up for a custom IRS? Haha...

Please correct me if I am wrong or misaligned. I was trying to remember as much info as possible.

 

Why would that be so? One of the advantages of a stick axle is its predictability (you can't get much toe change right side vs left no matter what you do - until you get to the point where a little toe is the least of your problems). I would think that predictability rates pretty high on the list of car behavior traits.

I would guess that if you set your anti-squat quite low, down around where a typical IRS suspension puts it, with minimal axle roll steer that you'd be on the right track for that end of the car.

Isn't the steering angle issue up front ultimately governed by engine width across the exhaust manifolds/headers?


Norm

 

Ahh, Im not a suspensionatic, its common sense. You can tune the rear suspension of an IR car more than any solid axle car, but doesn't mean you can't drift solid axle cars, just makes it harder to tune per style of drift or per track conditions compared to a car with IRS.

Such things as camber, toe (espeially now in the 08 drifting season)* and caster are all more tuneable on IRS's than with SA vehicles. Nothing wrong with that its a preference really, as there are SA cars in Pro Drifting such as the 69' Falken Camaro.

Same reason a semi-trailing arm isnt as good as IRS, they just dont give the best tuneable features as an IRS does. Thats all

Preference is opinion

*Toe out has been proven in Drifting to help keep a forward drift as well as the drift state itself. So in the case of SA cars we can not tune our cars to this newly discovered entity in drifting suspension to help our high speed drifts as well as all around drifts. This was stated by Tanner Foust as well (They found out late 2008 it helped their 350z)

Tanner Foust uses 0 front toe and .25 of negative toe in the rear.

We are all learning.

 

Hmmmm . . .


then again, stick axles aren't necessarily either zero toe or camber to begin with, and can be tweaked a bit also. It's just a lot more difficult to do and there's probably a limit to the number of times that you could do so safely.


Norm

 

More steering angle is a good thing, but with the simple mods there is enough steering angle to drift well. I may look at getting more some time down the road, but it is enough for this car and i don't want to cut it up right now.

As far as the spins go - there are many adjustments being made to the camaro - steering angle isn't the only reason we spin.

And while IRS is nice, we did finish 8th in the national drift series a few years ago with a solid axle car.

 

Worked like crazy on it last weekend, my friend Derrick came by to help. We were hopeing to have it done for sunday's drift event in mineral wells. At 2:45 we were done, just had to bleed the new clutch slave. We couldn't get it to feel right, swapped in a new slave, still had issues. At 6am we stopped, showered and drove to the event to hangout / watch. I'm too old for this all-nighter ****.

Anyway, here are a few pics. More to come when it gets off of the jacks, we lowered it, cut the bumpstops some, etc.

photos of some of the work-

T56 going together

 

Steering box rebuild -



Difference in stops that control the amount of angle ( IROC stops on left, Monte Carlo stops on right)



Stops and spacer rings (stops for one direction, spacer rings for adjusting stops in the other direction)



assembled and adjusted box-

 

what spring rates are you running with the weight jacks?

 

much higher than most people should - 1100 front, 250 rear , i'll let you know how it is once it gets on the road.

 

lol, that was what i was thinking, i'm running 1000/200, handles great, i need to pull some weight off the front and go stiffer in the rear, i'm thinking of going up to #225 in the rear, my combo is still streetable,

 

i think its funny everyone is like this suspension and this and that so what you need to race on a track.....man we drift in dang walmart parking lot come on now....

 

I've watched that youtube video multiple times, definitely subscribing.

 

I've seen that video a few times my self, and all i can think every time i see it is "i wanna go do that". good stuff

 

Any updates?

 

I'd like to see a new video of the new spring rates.

I plan to lower my car on 2" drop spindles and will need a very stiff ride especially since I live in the Cleveland area where all roads are like a war zone.

Anyway I was planning on going with 1000 front and 225 rear. So its great to see your in the same area as I was going to go with. So now I want an update Evan

Also when lowering the rear to level the car out after the drop spindles, what size spring should I get, one about 2" shorter (I dont want it to be level exactly but very very slightly raked in the rear, maybe .25" difference front to rear). So with that said should I look into a 1.75" shorter rear spring than stock. Let me know Evan, for some reason Im drawing a blank today...must be the nice weather outside.

 

This looks like an excellent build Im kind of doing the same thing only on a much smaller budget. How did the new steering box turn out and did you replace the idler and pitman arms with the monte carlo ones?

 

Steering box seems good, It was the IROC box with one of the stop springs removed and the monte carlo ss end plug (but you could use the iroc box and grind down the stops on the box). OR you could just buy a used Monte Carlo SS box. Use the camaro idler and pitman arms, none of that changes.

Was the photo in your sig from HMP?


Update -
Was planning on going drifting at mineral wells on 4/26/09 - but traced a bad vibration down to an unbalanced flywheel (resurfaced one). So the Camaro sits until i order and install a new clutch setup, not very thrilled about that.

Lost a little angle when lowering it i think, put a 1/2 in spacer upfront (with new studs) to help wheel fitment and pick up a couple more degrees of steering. No more angle without changeing the frame rails or other more serious changes.

Photos of the ride height with new Ground Control spring setup -





steering angle measurements and photo of the tire contacting the frame rail before i added stops

 

Have you thought about a possible extended a-arm mod or (GB from Racecraft?), to keep from hitting the rail.

Also what was the measurement of the steering angle? I'd like to know how far you have it, last I hear we max around 48* of angle, before we start hitting the rails and needing custom steering boxes, spacers or extended a-arms (ideas).

Also I was thinking because I use a 13.5" wheel from grant I was going to get a new steering box with a ratio around 10:1 over the stock 12:1 IIRC. This will mean less degrees of turning from the wheel per degree of tire pivot. Also hoping this helps my transitions as it will be less wheel rotation between each. Also might help parallel parking quicker...haha.

Anyway let me know that angle your achieving.

Take care

P.S. Damn nice garage. Jealous over here.

 

Just a thought, our 1st gen A arms have the same mounting points as the 3rd gen but the ball joint is extended by just about an inch. I can get some pictures if you'd like.

 

I think i measured something like 40 degrees, i'm pretty sure i lost a little bit by lowering it (center line of the tire is now closer to the frame rail so it hits sooner).

I could do mods to the frame, arms, etc to get more angle - but this is enough for the time being - it will drift like this.

And thanks on the garage, i'm loving it as well (last shop was a barn).

James

 

We'd have to check

Sway bar end link mounting point (can it be kept the same as stock to keep 3rd gen bars)
Spring perch mount location (angle of spring in perch)
Tie rod end length check

Also we would have to find a way to mount our shocks to the spindle as it would move it out 1" or so and create a weird angle on the shock when attached to the spindle (Caster camber plates from J&M)?

This may be a great mod/trick. As long as everything can be made to swap in easily then we may be able to state 1st gen arms to be a Drifting mod to the 3rd gen as far as getting more angle and further away from the rails.

Post some pictures of them side by side or on top of each other. Let us know.

 

Im going with the mote carlo ss box for when i get the chance to mess with it
and yes my sig pic was me at HMP it was pretty fun a little scary spinning out with the walls and all but I came out ok so I'm Happy
as for the first gen a arms I think that Soultron was trying that along with a steering box from a jeep grand cherokee. maybe he will drop us a line on this post.

 

I was just wondering, how did you keep the engine suspended when you removed the suframe? I have to change the oil pan and motor mounts too and do not want to pull the engine.. Thank you!

 

I'll chime in on this one because I was thinking about this the other day.

 

Cherry Picker
http://static.summitracing.com/globa...m-905218_w.jpg

Also BMR may be willing to mod the 1st Gen arms for the proper end link and spring perch location for our cars. Thus making these a true bolt on with 1" extension. Bye bye spacers (I hate them with a passion).

Lets see what happens, and I am going to message soultron giving his word on this.

 

Im very interested in buying the new arms from BMR I really hope they will make them

 

Hi all.
Sorry I haven't drop in any input here but I've been working on my band a little bit more lately ( blatant plug myspace.com/itssoultron).

As far as the arms go, I tried out 1st gen arms and they look fine, but the draw back are
A. small spring perch
B. sway bar mount
C. ball joint

I figured out a ball joint to use and I could always have a different perch put in or use a smaller spring, maybe even just drill a hole for the sway bar or not ruin one. The Drift Patrol stang doesn't run a front sway ( light car up front though).

Zack Catlin (sketchy on these boards) just made his own longer arms by cutting up 2 extra sets and welding them out about an inch further. He got results and last I heard was trying to do more with steering boxes, but he qualified for a D1GP event of some sort with those arms. He definitely has more than average f body angle.
Here's a vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8JHqKBR3XE



I say BMR should throw a set together and send them to zack and see if he can break them. I have the 1st gen arms already, but I bet folks would love to have a simple bolt on, better drifting product for a 3rdgens. Might even be good for roadrace or autocross within rule limitations.

 

Well got some new news, without making a whole new jig for the arms the bigger spring pocket wont work. We can make a set of uncoated arms with the proper ball joint but would have to send the swabar tabs with the arms for you (or a shop) to weld on. If anyone is interested just shoot me a PM and we can talk pricing and such.

If it was up to me I would, but im not the boss

 

Hey z28evans are you going to be at the5-24-2009 Mineral Wells Drift meet?
Im going to try to make it but it will depend on how much money i can save up

 

i had this idea to make a third gen drift car but everyone thought it would be dumb as hell, so i just drift with what i got, and hell yea its fun. nice car tho