tortuga

Nice!

Might not hurt to add a reinforcement plate (read:shock tower brace) on the top of the towers. It's been proven that the towers are up to the task of more force being put on them, but exactly how much is still kind of unknown.... I was very happy with the coilover setup in the rear with the GXP lowering springs up front. Was able to throw it all together for under 500 bucks too!

matt270avian wrote:

Might not hurt to add a reinforcement plate (read:shock tower brace) on the top of the towers. It's been proven that the towers are up to the task of more force being put on them, but exactly how much is still kind of unknown.... I was very happy with the coilover setup in the rear with the GXP lowering springs up front. Was able to throw it all together for under 500 bucks too!

Are you talking about a rear strut tower tie brace? I'm not too worried about the towers flexing in, that's not gonna hurt me much for drag racing. If/when I do get a replacement car whenever down the road, I'll invest in a coil over setup and make a rear brace then.
I'm kind of annoyed I was looking for those eibach caddy sts lowering springs and I just can't find em anymore - not even in the online catalog at all. I was thinking about having a setup with those rear springs at the back and then the coilovers that would have full adjustment like the air shocks provide (so the coilover springs would be much lighter since they would do almost nothing most of the time). I imagine it would be a bit of a compromise in handling but really safe and massively better than stock since it does get lowered with a sportier spring rate, and adjustable dampening.

and I present to you a drag racing rear suspension

I wonder how dangerous this will be..
Anyway I decided to purchase aluminum tube and make ends - 3 pieces instead of using 1 piece of solid bar stock mainly because this way is much lighter and after all this is for drag racing. According to my bathroom scale, the assembly & hardware weighs about 2.2lbs. So I did spend like fourty-something on the bars. I'm gonna install and drive around on the street briefly just to make sure It's not too psycho to handle over bumps and stuff and then just bring ramps and a jack to install at the track which I recon should be about as quick as changing tires.

nice

Nice

The solid rear suspension was way too psycho. I drove about a mile with it no faster than 35mph and said no way. Just backing the car out of the driveway the back end was bouncing like mad over every tiny irregularity in the asphalt - you wouldn't even call it a bump if you have any suspension at all. I can definitely see loosing control of the car at speed. So I'll just move forward with the coil over retrofit since the control arm mounts are already made. I just finished designing the upper tower mount.



principally the same as the lower mount
I'm counting on being able to turn the heim joint of the coilover around to have the upper and lower in a perpendicular orientation to one-another. My upper mount goes forward-back while the lower is side-to-side. Those who have the coil-over setup done, you can do this right?

Also this is based off my initial measurements of the stock top mount. I'm going to machine the profile and holes on a scrap piece and check it against the mount and stuff and see how much i'm off then make a corrected drawing and make 'em. Once I confirm a good mapping, I'll copy my drawings over to the coil-over thread. Also a threaded hole could easily be added in the middle of that mount to have a super simple rear brace added. I'm thinking about maybe using those aluminum bars I purchased to do that since they aren't doing anything else now

My 3rd or 4th oil pressure switch just started leaking on me! These things are garbage! It's supposed to be there to save your engine and so far 100% of the time it has been the thing to cause the problem! I can only imagine the OEM part is better but I'm throwing in the towel and eliminating mine. I have the gauge so it's kinda redundant anyway.

Don't buy the aftermarket oil pressure switch! Mine were 1 Nieoff back in the day and since, at least 2 BWD (borg warner which I understood to be a top tier aftermarket brand)

This was from a month ago. The last exhaust that will be on this riv and partially will be going on the new one once everything is swapped over






I already had this general setup before but I bought all new 304 stainless pieces for the cat-forward stuff and got it all welded up by an awesome race car builder local to me. Back-purged tig welding and the whole bit.
It's a totally stock cat-back with new mufflers because the originals rotted out. The cat is long gone of course and the cutout is automatic - operated by boost. The original cutout assembly I purchased from soundperformance not too far from me. I wasn't perfectly happy with it so I completely remade my own and it's working awesome. Nothing against their product - there's only so much you can do without making it outrageously expensive.
Anyhow it's near stock quiet and when you wanna be serious, it flows (and loud as hell). I have a control solenoid for the cutout so it can be disabled. Unlike the first iteration of this, we turned the offset pipe around a bit and got the cutout well clear of the ground. I'm really happy about that because it was pretty low before.
I designed a coupling between the stock cat-back and the front bit so I should be able to just cut the exhaust system at that point on the new car and install myself. That's why that one band-clamp is there.

Cool setup!

turtleman wrote:

The original cutout assembly I purchased from soundperformance not too far from me. I wasn't perfectly happy with it so I completely remade my own and it's working awesome. Nothing against their product - there's only so much you can do without making it outrageously expensive.
Anyhow it's near stock quiet and when you wanna be serious, it flows (and loud as hell).

Cody, have you checked these guys out? I got mine here and on sale for good price.
https://loudvalves.com/

charlieRobinson wrote:

turtleman wrote:

The original cutout assembly I purchased from soundperformance not too far from me. I wasn't perfectly happy with it so I completely remade my own and it's working awesome. Nothing against their product - there's only so much you can do without making it outrageously expensive.
Anyhow it's near stock quiet and when you wanna be serious, it flows (and loud as hell).

Cody, have you checked these guys out? I got mine here and on sale for good price.
https://loudvalves.com/

I was shopping around before I initially bought the SP one and didn't come across that or I would have given it serious consideration. Good price