Hello!

[Jordan]

I think you missed the point that it is the opinion of most of the people on this board that the later brakes are NOT the way to go, especially for a race car. Later as in 88+ at least.

[paulh]

I think you missed the point that it is the opinion of most of the people on this board that the later brakes are NOT the way to go, especially for a race car. Later as in 88+ at least.

i got that, just typed that wrong, fixed now.

Paul

[Luke]

Steering rack is a little bit of a bugger to fit but not that bad. You will have to make up a custom column to fit to it. The area where the rack sits need to be "flattened" since it sort of slopes up on the 99 and its flat on a 900. Basically cut out the sloped area and weld it flat boxes. My co-driver did this mod while I was working on something else. It turned out nice.

Yeah you guys should really do this. Lots of people talk about it when it comes down to it never get around to building one.

[matt]

You'll need to create clearance for the lines going into the rack. Here's the piece I made to provide clearance, after the crossmember was cut.



Here is is after John tacked it into place.




My best advice is to heat the metal prior to attempting to beat it into submission. Or just make make it with square angles instead of the rounded look.

[Luke]

You'll need to create clearance for the lines going into the rack. Here's the piece I made to provide clearance, after the crossmember was cut.
My best advice is to heat the metal prior to attempting to beat it into submission. Or just make make it with square angles instead of the rounded look.

or just cut a slot... I think Matt just felt like beating the crap out of a piece of metal that day so who were we to stop him

[paulh]

Yeah you guys should really do this. Lots of people talk about it when it comes down to it never get around to building one.

yeah we really do, that 99 is too nice to junk, and too shitty to make into a good streetcar, so we really only have one option at this point :lol: we need to clear a few other projects out of the garage/driveway before this one gets started though.

Paul

[paulh]

as for the rack...that looks like lots of cutting and welding...maybe one of my parts cars has a good rack:



:lol: as you can see...we dont really have a parts shortage going on.

Paul

[Geoff]

I know that the soccer balls were designed to be able to be driven around on dirt roads with no tires and not bend, so those are REAL strong :lol:

They may be strong wheels but I've still beat the F out of them plenty of times. Standard practice at service for us is to pull the soccerballs off the car, inspect them, take a sledge hammer to them to straighten them as best possible. I also put deep 90° bends and full radial cracks in one from finishing a stage on a flat.

[Crazyswede]

in all fairness though we drove on that flat for at least 7 miles...so its amazing the wheel did as well as it did.

[Jordan]

Its good that with the later axles you can fit 9000 wheels which tend to be a bit wider, however they also tend to be damn heavy. Fine for road cars, less than ideal for racing. I believe there are more aftermarket options out there for the 4x114.3 hub pattern.

As for the rack...I'm going to keep my manual quick ratio rack on ... I'll see how hard it is to turn with sticky tires and maybe change to a power rack with a ratio quickener.

[paulh]

Its good that with the later axles you can fit 9000 wheels which tend to be a bit wider, however they also tend to be damn heavy. Fine for road cars, less than ideal for racing. I believe there are more aftermarket options out there for the 4x114.3 hub pattern.

As for the rack...I'm going to keep my manual quick ratio rack on ... I'll see how hard it is to turn with sticky tires and maybe change to a power rack with a ratio quickener.

well also the 9k bolt pattern is the same as the Focus, and since they seem to be getting more popular in rally, wheel options might start gettting a bit better. plus there are literally tons of 9k's in the junkyards around here with wheels on em, theyre getting to be much more popular than the older bolt pattern 900's. we'll probably try out the 9k setup first just cause its allready on the car, wont be terribly hard to switch back to the other setup if it turns out to be a big problem.

Paul

[paulh]

well, heres an interesting twist, i was looking around on ebay and found this
from what i could find out some of the GLE's came with power steering, so this might actually be a 99 power rack! asked the seller if it was a power rack and they confirmed it....so we'll see...

Paul

[Luke]

There were lots of power steering 99's, most of the ones with automatics also had power steering. The thing is though those cars came from the factory with a different rear engine bay stamping to accomodate the P/S rack. Geoff's 99 started life as an automatic and thus has an original P/S rack.

[Luke]

well also the 9k bolt pattern is the same as the Focus, and since they seem to be getting more popular in rally, wheel options might start getting a bit better.

Well there is always good wheels available if you want to pay for them!The spec wheel for the focus is the team dynamics pro-rally. Very nice wheels for the money (~$700 a set) and available in either bolt pattern for the same price. I was going to get a set but I have about 38 shelbies and minilites and 18 soccerballs to go through first and I havent bent one yet even when everything around them has bent:

Front A-arm


Rear axle:

[DeLorean]

Rear axle:

done that to my rear axle before... it only took overloading the car by about 1000 lbs so it was sitting on the bump stops and hitting a jack stand on the highway at about 80 mph. long story behind that one... anyway that front A-arm bend is pretty impressive, Can't say I have seen that before.