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So I have made a few changes to the car since the last update.

At the autocross events I have attended so far the car was far from being fast on the autocross track due to several key things the least of which was not the manual steering. I had a lot of play in the steering and it was really slow. I think it was about 5 turns from lock to lock. I put the power steering box and linkage that I had removed from my Astre project since I had it laying on the floor! I recall the Astre had that little badge on the dash that said Radial Tuned Suspension so I think that means it had a fast steering box. I didnt look at any of the codes on it before I installed it but lock to lock is about 3 turns now, really fast.

I also installed some AJE adjustable lower control arms. I wrote here many times about my front wheels not being centered in the wheel well and it was so bad the tires rubbed the firewall/fenderwells before I could even get full steering lock. The AJE arms were relatively easy to install but once installed I found the car sat much higher in the front. What I determined is the actual shock mount on the AJE control arms is higher by approximately an inch. This caused several problems so I ended up cutting 1 1/2 coils off the top of the QA1 springs. Once I put it back together I was able to actually use the adjustment on the coil over shocks to raise the front end to where I want it and get the shock where its riding in the center of its range.

Now that I had the power steering and the control arms on it was time to try and fit my front tires again. So I had the 245/35/18 tires mounted back on the rims and test fitted them with no more problems with rubbing the inner fender wells.

While I was at it and since I had them, I upgraded the front brakes from the S10 Blazer setup to C5 Corvette calipers and rotors. This improved the braking tremendously.

So now that all this work was completed I figured it was a good time to test it and actually was able to compete in the Optima Ultimate Street Car autocross and speed stop challenge. The car worked better than it ever has, it actually felt "twitchy" which it was far from before. The front end alignment it way off from where it needs to be so I need to get that dialed in but I am really happy with the results from all these changes.

I can't wait to take another ride in it with all the new goodies............
Folks, this car just keeps getting awesomer! Yes, awesomer.

bugdewde wrote:I can't wait to take another ride in it with all the new goodies............
Folks, this car just keeps getting awesomer! Yes, awesomer.

You going to any up coming events? I was thinking about going to that Steetkhana event in Louisville but we ended up going to USCA instead.
I do believe Adam and I will likely go the the good guys event in Charlotte in October.

I am also planning to get the AJE A-Arms for my Sunbird. Debating on which model I want.

Found a couple action shots from the USCA in Charlotte

I drove my Vega from Atlanta to Charlotte North Carolina and back to the Goodguys show. Man what a bunch of nice cars!!!

I ran the autocross but the track was really tight I had to put it in reverse and back up every lap on the same corner so needless
to say my laptimes sucked !!!!

I cut the steering stop off the spindles when I got home so no more problems like that hopefully. Car did well but gas mileage sucks with
a 12 gallon fuel cell I can go about 130 miles to the tank.

Great build journal. I skimmed through it looking for your source for the rear hatch spoiler but seemed to have missed it. I will be using one on the 74 GT I am restoring. Can you let us know what you did there? Thanks in advance.

74_Vega_GT wrote:Great build journal. I skimmed through it looking for your source for the rear hatch spoiler but seemed to have missed it. I will be using one on the 74 GT I am restoring. Can you let us know what you did there? Thanks in advance.

Hey I doubt I posted the source for the spoiler here, I stole it from my Astre project!!!!

It came from Ebay not sure which vendor since I purchased it about 3 years ago. I think I bought the front and rear spoilers from the same
person but not positive on that one.

My Astre journal is been dormant for a while unfortunately

So I had my car on jackstands the other day doing some general maintenance and checking for things about to fall off when I found both front lower shock mounts were broken.
I recall at one point the front suspension bottomed out hard and I suspect that is when this happened.







I posted these pictures on another forum and several people commented on how crappy the mounting design is on these control arms and I have to agree.
When I first received these I was really disappointed with the way the lower mount was configured but since they were powder coated and no one has reported
any problems with them I figured they were "ok" though not to my liking. Now that the crossbar has failed and the new cross bar requires using even smaller bolts
to mount them it seems time to modify these arms. The swaybar mounts are in the wrong spot as well so I will be re mounting these as well.

Joy!

Test firing new bullet for the blue Vega

400 sbc 60 over with ported Vortec Heads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_mmM74KUaw

There's some eco-wanker jibber-jabbering on the radio and you're firing up a fresh 406.
That's priceless.

Ken

Kenova wrote::lol:
There's some eco-wanker jibber-jabbering on the radio and you're firing up a fresh 406.
That's priceless.

Ken

Hey Ken that was Rush Limbaugh I think he would approve !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfXgZ1aQuDI


Short video of my new motor running in the car!

I just installed a Holley sniper on my car. Swapped out a 750 Vacuum secondary Quick Fuel carburetor to this. I installed new fuel lines for better flow.

It is rated at 850 CFM and supposed to support 650HP. It was easy to install took about 5 hours from start to finish. I bought the "master kit" came with fuel pump filters and hose in addition to the throttle body coolant temp sensor and Oxygen sensor.

Out of the box there were quite a few problems. The display/controller had the wrong software loaded in it. Was not the Holley Sniper software it was for a different system. The SD memory card was bad, could not read or write to it. I contacted Holley Tech support and they sent me another display unit with software loaded and it would not work either. Another bad memory card and Now it would not recognize the ECU in the throttle body.

Holley Tech support told me I would have to send it to them for repair. I boxed it up and took it back to Summit and they swapped it out for new one.

This one worked better but still could not read or write to the memory card. So it would not let me upload the preliminary tune. I had a SD memory card so I downloaded the files and moved them around until the unit would read them. Not sure exactly what the problem was but there seems to have been several. I have since seen a couple other people report the same problems on the holley forum.

With that said I am pretty happy with it now that I have it up and running. It learns really quick and has a really snappy throttle response. I am having a serious problem getting the engine to start when it is over 180 degrees. I am working on the tune to resolve this once that sorted I think I will be happy with my purchase so I would recommend the unit. The tuning software is really powerful and you can even control timing, nitrous and it will work with boosted engines.

Quick update! Installed a new starter and that seems to have solved the hard to start when engine was warm problem. So it was not related to the Sniper install at all.

Really happy with the performance of the Holley unit and its software has quite a bit of tuning ability. I think this will prove to be a valuable upgrade over time.