Blaze's 86 SVt Vic (The on-going project)

[interceptor1985]

When is the watts link going to be tackled?

[mrltd]

The problem you are encountering is caused by the body roll. Because of large distance between the lower and upper control arm mounting points, roll in the chassis results in the upper control arm being pushed out (more positive camber). This a big problem on the autocross course because you are braking hard while turning, this renders almost all of your anti-sway resistance in the rear useless. So all the anti-sway work is done by the front bar which is obviously not enough for a car of your weight. That and the fact that your car is higher than mine in ride height and CG (because your roof is higher).


However, this setup can actually increase your camber gain the more camber you adjust into it. The camber adjustment in the upper ball joint has a secondary effect of shortening the upper control arm. This increases the rate of camber change. Whether this is good or not depends on whether the control arm has a downward or upward angle (up being good, and up being higher at the ball joint end). But in all reality, your body roll will cancel all of this in a heartbeat.

It's not so much of a problem for me since most of my turning in closer to steady state, and I'm lower. I actually wore the Hoosiers pretty even with a little under -1 degree of camber

OK, makes sense. So I guess I need a nascar swaybar.... I've got a ton of camber gain, and the street tires wear the inside noticably. They get rotated every couple hundred miles.

However, I'd still like to see the bumpsteer. I don't know if your car is like this, but mine the the turn in changes the farther you turn the wheel. I heard that that can be attributed to bumpsteer. I guess it could also be from the +6.5/+7 degrees of caster and the amount of camber gain the car has. I'm really outside of my knowledge at this point and need to get some books to get this thing set up correctly.

[Blaze86Vic]

More caster is directly related to toe-in change as you turn the wheel. More caster means you will gain more camber, and will also change toe-in as you have more steering input. Bump steer is a result of camber change throughout suspension travel.

With the steering controlled from the front of the wheel, the extra camber in a turn will cause the wheel to turn in even more when you cross a bump. This isn't nearly as bad as most imports which are controlled from behind the wheel, resulting in the wheel turning out of the turn over bumps. The only solution is to align the steering geometry so that through the suspension travel, the distance between the inner and outer tie rod joints does not change. This isn't possible with our setup though, as the inner point gets moved because of the idler and pitman arm swing radius. So you just have to find the least amount of change.

It takes a lot of work to change that, mostly time analyzing, and for our level, it's not really work it. We'll gain so much more by simply getting bigger tires or something else.

[mrltd]

ah, damn steering...

As for not being worth it... Dunno. But I guess I need to get a bigger swaybar. I'm gonna say that that's why the bondurant vics have huge front bars and stock rear suspension.

[murphmobile2]

That's so fucking cool...

Your Vic makes me so jealous Blaze, lol.

[gadget73]

Aside from the alignment being off, and having to bleed the brakes it's no different from a stock rebuild.

Suspension Feel Comparison:
I had police uppers before, and ones that were properly adjusted, so I am going from solid upper mount/ rubber lower mount to a full poly mount setup. And amazingly it's got softer. So for comfort, poly is better than police uppers, but for improving road feel the police uppers are the only way (too bad you can't replace them, but if adjusted and greased regularly they will last you way over 300,000 miles as mine did.) Though I feel less of the road now, what I do feel has a distinctly firm and consistent feel, so it's not like a complete loss of road feel. It's a good balance that's for sure.

Braking:
My previous setup had stock rotors with Hawk HP+ pads, where my new setup has drilled /slotted rotors (purely for looks) and Hawk HPS pads. HP+ is track/street pad, where HPS is a performance street pad. I know this may shock some of you, but the car stopped better before. The brakes are working fine, and the car doesn't have a problem at all stopping, but purely on a comparison to my previous setup, it used to stop better. This doesn't mean that the brake upgrade isn't worth it. The brakes are larger, and therefore have more cooling. So low end brake pads will do better on them than the stock rotor because of the extra leverage from the diameter, and especially in heavy use. However, if you want to feel what it's like to have brakes, and mean BRAKES, go buy a set of HP+ pads for an 86-93 Mustang GT. HP+ pads, not only work better the warmer they get, but they work way better than HPS pads (even on much larger brakes). Brake pads are the biggest upgrade you could ever do. In a race application, bigger brakes is like finding gold, you can never get enough. In a race application, I could over heat the HP+ pads within 15-20 minutes. Again I could purchase even better brake pads that would deal with even this heat level, but I likely would not have to now (which saves money). On the street with our cars, it's unlikely that you will over heat them, unless you drag the brakes all the way down Mt. Everest. The HP+ pads are about as extreme a pad as you would want to get for a street car though, the hotter race pads tend to lose their bite when cold, and do not start working till warmed up.

I am not surprised by this result though, as I knew how much of a gain I got going from Motorcraft police pads to race pads, and am very glad that I have completed the brake upgrade. I can change brake pads by removing one bolt on the caliper, pivoting it out of the way, replace pads, and drop it back in place. I can change my rotors without having to redo my wheel bearings (I like not having to deal with grease when I'm working on my brakes, it's not a good combination). And adjusting the suspension alignment is 10 times easier.

That was my impressions as well, but having never done a stock front rebuild I was just curious.

I also kinda understand what you mean about the braking. Whenever I drive a stock brake car, I realize how touchy they are. Very little pedal effort and it wants to stop. Unfortunately that tends to bite me because I'm used to the foot feel of my brakes, and stockers are really wanting to stop hard at that point. Under panic stops I tend to appreciate the upgraded brakes more. They don't lock, it just stops in a nice controlled manner.

[91LTDProject]

Very cool. I cant believe how clean your frame is and your car has 350,000+ miles on it.

[Blaze86Vic]

Well it's official! The Vic is now my tow vehicle! Everything turned out great and it works pretty well.

[Nathan in MI]

That hitch looks nice! What class is it and where did you get it?

[torquelover]

Load distributing hitch/trailer FTW! Very nice set up you have there.

[P72Ford]

Blaze, I've yet to see you do something that doesn't appear to be top notch. I really appreciate your craftmanship, and the work that you put into making something functional, and also attractive. Awesome job. Thats a hell of a tow vehicle.

I've never towed with a car, just my Dad's flatbed. He has perhaps the slickest setup out there. He runs a combo pintle/ ball right off the wheel lift. The wheel lift obviously is hydraulic up/ down, and its hydraulic in and out. Plus, the "tow bar" on the wheel lift itself actually swivels. All of that allows him to back up on a trailer and be nearly 3 feet off (and up to 8 feet away), and still snag the trailer without having to adjust the truck. Plus, he can snag the tongue from any height, and up to 8 feet behind the truck. But, he tows stuff on a daily basis...


I hope this works out for you; I'd surely give you a thumbs up if I saw you cruising down the road with that combo...

[Dave84]

danm blaze...your vic is bad ass... its lookin good

[Dave84]

Nice.

[monterey1962]

That has got to get looks on the highway. Looks freakin' awesome, man.

[marquisman]

wow, very nice...VERY NICE!