Ishiftem v8 cosworth #2001 (soon to be LS powered!)

[Ishiftem]

This is my 75 vega. Started out as an original Cosworth #2001. When I bought it the the original motor was long gone and the car was solid, but otherwise neglected. I stripped it to metal,repainted it and threw in a 350 4spd combo. Drove it everyday for 9 months, grenaded the 7.5 rear and parked it. Finally got back to it and I'm redoing the entire car for the second time. It now has a fresh,3.07 posi stock width Dana 44 with the torque arm and 11" inch big car drums. The motor is a 350 with dart S/R heads, with 2.02/1.60 valves, mild porting. The cam is a solid lifter 272/282 duration, 485/503 lift. The engine is completly done by me(machine work by others,twice because Fast Times Motor Works and Chucky Samuels are @$#!heads). Trans is a freshened Richmond 5 speed with a Mcleod clutch and Long shifter. It has welded in sub frame connectors and an eight point bar. Just finished modifying the tunnel to clear the shifter today. The car will be completely stripped down and put on a rotisserie to sand blast the under side and paint/body work to the floor pans etc. Not going to strip the top side of the car again, but I will repaint it. Some little waves here and there and I want to tighten up a lot of the sheet metal gaps. They are HUGE. Here are some pics of the car when I got it and what it looks like now.

[Ishiftem]

Some more pics

[NixVegaGT]

Looks like a solid car, Dan. I really dig your rad support fab and the shifter housing on the tunnel. Looks good. I might adapt some fabbed valve covers like you have on my Buick heads. Nobody makes them for the Buick 300 heads. I was thinking of making my own but I figure I can make an adapter plate and use some SBC versions like yours. Probably a lot easier than fabbing them myself. Keep the pix coming.

[Ishiftem]

Thanks Nic! I will probably put the stock painted covers back on. The polished aluminum is a little too flashy for me. Maybe you could find some beat up cast covers for your motor and cut them right at the flange. That would give you something rigid to build upon. If you want the covers I have I would sell them for 60 bucks and that includes shipping. They are new and I just bolted them on to keep the dirt out.

[megavega]

whats connecting the engine bay braces to the rest of the car up at the firewall, just curious?

you had some nice fabrication ideas on seat mounts and radiator mounting, nice work.

[NixVegaGT]

Shit! That's a great idea, man! AND thanks for the offer. I'll let you know. Thanks Dan.

[Ishiftem]

for now the bars are just welded to plates on the firewall. Not the best, but I wanted to stiffen the front up as much as possible. I plan on putting another bar to tie both tubes together at the firewall later, which will help. I have kirkey aluminum seats for the car and they attach to the door bar and the bar behind the seat. The thinking is that if the car got a big side impact, the seat and driver move with the roll bar which lessens the impact forces to the driver and keeps with the car intruding on the driver. Probably overkill. I can post a pic of the roll bar/seat mounting if you like.

[Ishiftem]

I am currently in the initial stages of plotting the front suspension on computer. I have the car leveled to 1/10 of a degree and confirmed that with the frame measurements from Fisher. According to those numbers, it is within a 1/16 of an inch side to side, front to back. Next I used the Fisher measurements to first make sure the unibody is within spec and not damaged, which it was spot on, and used three separate points to plot the exact center line down the middle of the car. Next I removed the spring and shock so I could set the ride height. At the same time I removed the ball joints, sliced pieces from them and reinstalled them(less springs) so I could find the exact pivot point when taking measurements. I set the ride height using a spec in my Chevy shop manual. The difference from the center of the front lower control arm bolt to the lower ball joint seat. Chevy calls for the LBJ(lower ball joint, not the president) seat to be 2.25 inches below the center of the bolt. I used a laser for this measurement. I centered the cam bolts in their slots, centered the drag link, set toe at zero, and plotted the front axle center line. By the end of the weekend, I should have the pivot points measured, loaded, and results posted in the suspension section.

Thanks to Nix'svegaGT for taking the initiative to place a listing for ride height in the general topic section after I received no usable info in the suspension section. Too bad the only reply was from a guy who felt the need to let every one know how smart he is . Nic, feel free to pm me with any requests, and I will be happy to run them through the simulator. No, I'm not gay.....not that there is anything wrong with that..... I just respect Nic for his efforts in educating himself on the topic of suspension design, his well thought out questions and responses, and the ambition he shows in his research to better his car. Plus he sent me naked pics of sawzall girl.( just kidding, he didn't do that)

If any other member has a specific question , for example, what happens to the roll steer if I use blank spindle, I may help you if you don't tick me off. ENJOY YOUR H-BODY. IF YOU DON'T, WHO WILL?

[NixVegaGT]

I really appreciate your dedication to this topic. Not getting some support for measurements was a bit disappointing but that's ok. Not as many guys into the suspension optimization as we are. It does seem to be catching on though. I think the data you'll get from the sim will be really valuable, and more guys will sign on after that.

I guess if I was going to make a request to start with it would be this: What happens if I use those tall LBJ studs to raise the roll center for our geometry? They are 1.5" longer than stock length studs so I guess that would effectively raise the upper by 1.5". I'm wondering how far off that puts us in better shape for camber gain for us or if it's too far.

If you do come across naked pix of Cat, let me know!! LOL.

[Ishiftem]

I finally got a little more done. I added sheet metal to triangulate the cowl to the inner fender. I then added braces in the engine compartment to help triangulate that. I only got the one side done, now I have to do the other. Should go faster I hope. The gray "paint" is weld thru primer. I wouldn't be able to get back there once the metal work was done, so I stripped the area first then used the primer. Closeed up alot of the holes in the firewall too. Eventually I will put in a aftermarket heat/ac unit under the dash so I won't need the holes anymore.I 'll grind the welds later. I also got some of my suspension goodies in the mail. The upper arms are nascar take offs. They are chrome moly with chrome moly cross shafts and solid bushings. They are like new. They pivot so smooth with zero play, it's almost disgusting. They already have the ball joint sleave tilted 10 degrees so the ball joint won't bind with the taller joints I will be using. The best part? 26 dollars to my door for the pair! Also got the control arm mounting plates and lower threaded ball joint sleeves for the 71-76 impala ball joints from QA1. Here are some pics

[72 SS PNL]

looks good , i like the supports you added that get hidden by the fenders

[NixVegaGT]

The unibody gussets is a good idea! I like it. Maybe I'll add that in the dead of winter after everything else is ready. So you are removing the stock UCA mount location and adding those plates for the tubular CAs, right?

[Ishiftem]

Right. That whole upper control arm bracket from the top of the frame on up is coming off. I should be getting started on it in the next day or two if some more parts show up. I want to run my numbers again just to be sure where everything is going. Once I get the suspension squared away, I won't need the car leveled anymore and finally get it on the rotisserie. I need to get the underside sandblasted asap as the weather is tarting to turn here. Calling for snow showers Wednesday.

[Ishiftem]

Those supports I added behind the fenders helped BIG TIME. Highly recommend doing it. I have a tube with left and right threaded rod ends to connect the struts together. If you go back and look at the pictures of how I used to have it, there was a lot of flex. I could turn the tube with one hand and just keep spreading the front end apart. Now I get one turn and it tights up solid. Got some new parts in for the steering and finally was able to do the fabrication for the different length arms and altered geometry. I set it up with a half degree of negative camber and 4 degrees of caster. I used the extended upper joint with a standard height lower. It makes the spindle 1 inch taller than stock vega. I have the stud to extend the lower also if I want to in the future. Or I could swap and put the taller upper in the bottom and a standard in the upper if I want to keep the geometry the same and lower the car another half inch. The control arm brackets also have an extra set of holes so I can still lower them or crank in more anti dive. The one inch taller spindle coupled with the longer upper arm is a great compromise between having excess negative camber while breaking while maintaining sufficient camber in roll. It also keeps the inner tire during a turn from gaining so much negative camber. Also, the roll center is lower, about 5.3 inches, which reduces the jacking effect that using a taller spindle produced. The longer arms really helped by slowing the rate of change. The extra caster also helped the camber in roll without negatively effecting the roll center or camber change during dive. The lower ball joints are 71-76 full size car, and the upper is the same size as the g body lower. The spindles were reamed to fit. The tie rod adjuster sleeves are 1 inch aluminum. the rod ends are 3/4 inch shank with 5/8 hole. I could of gone all 5/8, but I liked the extra insurance of the 3/4 shank seeing the car will see a lot of street duty. They are chrome moly with teflon/kevlar liner for the race.

[80 MONZTA]

You are really moving along nicely with this. I like the pic of the new ball joint compared to the original one, almost twice as big.
Looks like your new upper control arm does not really set in any farther then the original upper control arm bracket did, does it?
What spindles are you using? Are they G-body, I thought you said that somewhere, but don't see it here in this thread.
Looking forward to seeing more of this build.