'73 Notchback Road Racer

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DrewP
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby DrewP » Mon Aug 09, 2010 8:08 pm

Geoff,

The trans lines up surprisingly well with the halfshaft tunnels, I have a bunch of photos as I went along and was checking the alignment, I will have to dig up the final one.

This was one of the very first ones I took, before I moved the engine aft - you can see how far forward it looked like it sat. In the final position the tunnels line up almost perfectly with the bore in the case for the inner drivers.


First mounting position too far forward:

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Luke,

You can see in this picture that I moved the whole thing back about 1.5" from the one you posted (I have since cut the tube off and made another plate so it fits right, but you get the idea how much farther back it moved).

I am embarassed to say I haven't actually even thrown the radiator back in yet to see how it fits, I am sure the original one would fit, but I was planning on using and AL core C900 radiator since there's a stack of 20 of them in our parts shed, or maybe even one from a 9-5 or something, but I do need to double check how much space there is. I need to make sure there's enough space to add an intercooler later too!

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SwedeSport wrote:There is a balance between the gain from stiffening everything, and the gains youll achieve by increasing your comfort level in the cockpit.




I absolutely agree with this, you summed it up really well in that one sentence right there.

This is a really big deal with professionally designed race cars, with seating position, ergo, controls interface and control forces, all that stuff. There are some really cool vehicle ergo books that are mostly based off research done by the government for jet fighter cockpit design in order to maximize operator response and concentration.

This was thankfully something I was exposed to fairly early with the FSAE competition I did, since everything is custom made and fitted, and one of our team member's was really into it. One of the cars I built used a 450cc single cylinder sport quad engine ridged mounted with steel supports right to a steel tube frame car. It vibrated a LOT. You got pretty rattled after a stint in that, but the vibration wasn't really what got to you - it was actually the steering being such high effort, but something that a lot of teams with the single cylinder engines run into issues with is their motor mounts fracturing from all the vibration.

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Crazyswede
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby Crazyswede » Mon Aug 09, 2010 9:41 pm

Geoffs car has sold steel mounts. On the good side shifting is very positive and crisp with a good transmission, the power goes right to the wheels and there is no sense of the engine binding on its mounts. On the negative side the vibration feels as if its liquefying your joints and leading to early case of arthritis.
I am the 73%

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Geoff
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby Geoff » Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:38 am

You're a wuss. Kelly can sleep in that car! :P
The kind of dirty that doesn't wash off :eyebrows:

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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby Crazyswede » Tue Aug 10, 2010 11:36 am

Geoff wrote:You're a wuss. Kelly can sleep in that car! :P


I can sleep in it too....my knees and ankles still turn to jello in it though.

:-(
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DrewP
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby DrewP » Tue Aug 10, 2010 12:17 pm

This is the final alignment, I think it will be fine, but this car will also mostly have a stiff road suspension, so I am not as worried about droop clearance in the tunnel as if it had a gravel suspension setup in it either. I can just put taller droop limiters under the upper a-arms if I need to.

Having an empty gearcase for the mockup with the drivers and diff removed made it really easy to check alignment. At one point I had it mounted pretty cockeyed and didn't really notice till I looked through the wheel wells.

I put a long piece of tubing through the trans and just let it sit in the diff carrier bore and it aligned itself where it would all point so I could get the engine mounted straight. You can see it's still a little bit crooked, but it's not enough I am going to worry about it.



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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby SwedeSport » Tue Aug 10, 2010 1:12 pm

I think thats the first time I saw an early 99 that didnt have a huge gaping rust hole there. I didnt know that is what they are supposed to look like in there.

Are you gonna clear the steering rack pushing the motor back like that? I guess you are not planning to run it with swaybars?
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby DrewP » Tue Aug 10, 2010 2:43 pm

SwedeSport wrote:Are you gonna clear the steering rack pushing the motor back like that? I guess you are not planning to run it with swaybars?




;) ;) ;) Don't know yet! If it doesn't fit, I'll just have to figure something out. Would be nice the be able to adjust the front anti-roll bar at least, and if the stocker doesn't fit that'd be a good enough excuse to make one that the stiffness could be adjustable!
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby SwedeSport » Tue Aug 10, 2010 4:51 pm

I have an old addco bar for my 71 project. It looks kinda cheesy, so I'm interested in seeing new engineering. There wasn't any other options for a front bar. The 900 rear bar bolts in if your using 900 suspension.

What rack do you plan to run?
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby DrewP » Tue Aug 10, 2010 7:50 pm

I have an '87 900T here that is getting scrapped that I was gonna pull everything out of to run power steering, but now you've made me worried that I didn't save enough space. If that doesn't fit I will put it together with the small body manual rack that came in the '73 for now and see how it goes - I was planning to add a bunch of caster and maaayyyybe drop the upper a-arm mounting points to get a little more camber gain into the front.

I have complete front & rear suspension from a '93 900TC that's what's going into the car. I have the anti-roll bars, but if there isn't a way to mount it (could just hang it under the car with the mounting blocks upside down actually if it doesn't fit along with the steering rack). That or I'll just make a straight bar that will mount to the body with link-arms to go to the lower a-arms, so that I can swap out the middle bar to tune the stiffness to dial it in.

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Drew
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby SwedeSport » Wed Aug 11, 2010 10:20 am

Wouldnt moving the rack from its original location mess with bump steer? A road course car naturally needs waaaaayyyy less suspension travel than a rally car. So it has to work properly in a tighter range. But even tiny changes make a big difference. My dad has an 86 Monte Carlo SS that he put spindles from a Police Impala on to get the big brakes. Due to that change the car has unacceptable bumpsteer. He must have hundreds of hours and dollars in trying to find a steering setup that will correct the problem. GM made hundreds of center links, and tie rods etc for all the different cars that use similar rigs. Finding the right combo is proving tiresome and expensive. I know its not going to be as bad with a rack and pinion but it will still affect the outcome. I think you should put some thought into that. Saab probably had a good setup to begin with. Might not want to re-engineer that too much.

I just took out the power steering in my 86 Street/Track Project and put in a 900 EMS manual rack. Love it, Love it, Love it. Its only a hair quicker, but the feedback from the road is better, and it frees up engine power for the wheels. The best part is the clean installation. No more power steering fluid all over everything. And you can actually reach the back of the motor now.

Custom made stuff is great, until you break something and have to make your custom stuff all over again from scratch. I built my car to use primarily stock shit, so that in the event of a breakage, I can pull spares from a pile in my garage or any junkyard, and have it back in shape on the cheap, (and easy).
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby DrewP » Wed Aug 11, 2010 11:15 am

I meant more if I had to hack back into the firewall or something to clear it, if the crank pulley or some other immovable component causes me grief - I will have some re-evaluating to do.
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DrewP
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby DrewP » Tue Nov 09, 2010 2:51 pm

Some updates (finally!) after the spurts of motivation (hehee... spurts...) from all of you awesome cats out there in interwebland!



Firewall panel is in and tacked - David did a nice job making the panel considering we bent it with a c-clamp, 2 blocks of wood, and the edge of my steel work bench. I got the edges of the chopped tup folded up to flange the joint:



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Then punched around the edges of the flanges, rossette welded it in, tapped the corners down, and then it'll get a coat of body panel sealant all the way around to water- / rust-proof it, then paint over top.

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Also got all the sound deadening scraped off the interior floor. Since I don't have an easy way to get under the car yet I am just gonna leave the undercoating on the bottom of the car.

I got all this off by myself in about 90 minutes with a MAPP torch head burning a can or propane, and a paint scraper. Heat up a little area maybe 8" square, and start at a corner and it just peels up. I'll scrub and scrape some of the last adhesive off when I get ready to spray primer when welding in the seat mounts is finished. The bucket of what came off just the floor weighed 16-18 lbs easy, not bad for one afternoon.

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Then there's the latest development. Finally got the dash bar all drawn up and made, David came over and welded it in, made the backup plates for the front spring towers, and made the forward stays that bridge everything in. Will triangulate from the lower forward leg of the forward downstays once the seat is mounted to make sure nothing is gonna be too intrusive, but I think it'll be nice and straightforward.

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Drew
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby spgeebee88 » Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:17 pm

Awesome work!!! i wish that was my rig!

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Jordan
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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby Jordan » Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:31 pm

A gas soaked towel does wonders for getting that last bit of residue off the floors. Just don't smoke ;)

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Re: '73 Notchback Road Racer

Postby SwedeSport » Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:36 pm

He's back! GO Drew!
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