Project SS!

[Steve85]

i need to be quick...regional mgr here

The stall is the point at which all of the engines power is connected to the trans input shaft. the stall speed is also the flash point under heavy load conditions (acceleration). when you mash the pedal, the converter will allow the motor to spin quickly to stall speed before it engages. This is simplistic but gets to the point. If your motor is not making much power at the stall speed acceleration suffers. It's like driving a clutch, from a stop sign/light the clutch is slipped as power is added and you ease away...at the starting light, you bring up the revs, then dump the clutch/mash go pedal and shoot out of the hole. Not enough revs and you bog spit and clunk your out of the hole.

Going with too much duration could push your powerband too far above the stall. The engine will make great HP at 6K but you will take forever to get there. Lots of HP, not much acceleration.

Lunati is owned by Holley now, but I do think they are having site problems... You need to go to Holley.com first.

[HAULN-SS]

still looking into this yet, but I found another snag - the installed height of these springs would need to have like .120" shims. I can find them online @ .060" in the right diameter...but I also just sent my dad an email to see if he'd bea ble to make me a set of shims at their machine shop.

[HAULN-SS]

Welp. I forgot where this thread even was, and probably haven't touched the car in as long. I am getting ready to make some moves on it though. After years of being a garage queen and never getting driven, this is going to be the summer of work on and drive and get right.

The one snag with the whole thing about driving in northern va with this car - lots of ridiculous shit happens on the roads here. This includes marylanders absolutely cutting you off, causing you to slam on the brakes, shit go everywhere. Well, this car only has a 10.x" rotor/single piston caliper up front and drums in the back. Before I'd really feel comfortable driving this thing a few times a week, I am going to upgrade the front brakes on it.

There are two routes - junkyard, and new kit. I think I am going to go new kit. I have some emails out to kore3 right now about exactly what I need to do a z06 front disc conversion, which seems to be popular among G-body people, but I couldn't quite find out all the specifics, and what still has to be bought besides their kit. Hopefully they can help.

Regardless of what kit I go with, almost all of them require a larger wheel diameter than the stock 15" can provide. So I have also begun the wheel search. What do you think of these? And can anyone identify what brand/make they are?

[Dave]

Just to be devil's advocate, since I don't live in the hell that is Northern VA, but a Z06 brake upgrade seems like major overkill here. Have you tried a simple upgrade to a more aggressive brake pad? Not Advance Auto specials; I'm talking about a legitimate autoX pad that offers good initial bite and will haul you down more aggressively than something you pick up at a generic parts counter. This feels like a $100 set of pads could save you from a lot of work and be at least 1/20 of the cost (just a guess).

Z06 brake upgrade is way more stunnerific though.

[RawrImAMonster]

The other thing that LSx guys do is upgrade to the CTS-V front calipers with Z06 rotors. I think it is a little cheaper than the full Z06 setup and it's more than capable of stopping your car.

I want to say around its around $800 ish for all the parts.

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[HAULN-SS]

Woops, I just realized I said the wrong thing when I said z06. Regarding norther va/brake overkill...well, it's like this. The car as it sits is definitely sloppy feeling. I had put some upgraded pads on it years ago, but don't ask me what that is now, because I forget. Probably the wrong thing for what I'd really want now. Wiki puts the car at 3300lbs as it sits (which is 100lb less than my much smaller cadillac), and I really just think the stock 10.5" rotors are undersized for the car. I guess what spawned this whole thread of thinking is that my ATS has 12.7" brakes and will basically stop on a dime which I love. Maybe I am wrong on all of this. Regarding the brakes under consideration...

The debate is between the c5/c6 kit, and the Z51 kit, not z06. The standard c5/c6 rotor is 325mm, and the z51 jumps up to 340mm for minimal cost. I had thought about doing the aggressive pad route, but the reality is I do want to go to a bigger rim at some point, as well as do some suspension mods in the future anyway. Depending on the route I go with the suspension work, those kits seem like they may or may not come with new spindles. All of them come with new A-arms (why are these 700 dollars???) and either drop springs or coil overs. I am not sure which route I am going to go with there just yet.

The 325mm (12.6") kit from kore3 starts at 700$.

There are some other kits out there from baer that give you a ~13" rotor as well that I know some of the vendors are in partnership with that may be an option as well.

The other thing that is going on is trying to figure out if I do this, do I need to go ahead and do a rear disc conversion at the same time. I hadn't planned on this initially, but the more I thought on it, I realized that I probably have to, right? Otherwise I will end up with hubs with different bolt patterns that will make buying wheels a pain. These kore3 guys make a rear conversion kit (without parking brake) that starts at $550 that they say will work, however I have been advised against using sinking any money into the stock 7.5" rear end.

So on my research list right now:
Suspension kit costs/benefit analysis
Continue research brake kits/options
See if I can find a GM 10 bolt 8.5" rear end with posi for sale somewhere

Nearest path to an upgrade is probably get the spindles and the front brake kit. This may or may not require going ahead with a rear disc conversion, and rims/tires. I may hold off on suspension stuff after this. Regarding wheels - these guys somehow got a 17" stock factory rim. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.detroitspeed.com/Projects/DSE-1984-Monte-Carlo/DSE-1984-Monte-Carlo-pg-1.html">http://www.detroitspeed.com/Projects/DS ... -pg-1.html</a><!-- m -->

[RawrImAMonster]

Woops, I just realized I said the wrong thing when I said z06. Regarding norther va/brake overkill...well, it's like this. The car as it sits is definitely sloppy feeling. I had put some upgraded pads on it years ago, but don't ask me what that is now, because I forget. Probably the wrong thing for what I'd really want now. Wiki puts the car at 3300lbs as it sits (which is 100lb less than my much smaller cadillac), and I really just think the stock 10.5" rotors are undersized for the car. I guess what spawned this whole thread of thinking is that my ATS has 12.7" brakes and will basically stop on a dime which I love. Maybe I am wrong on all of this. Regarding the brakes under consideration...

The debate is between the c5/c6 kit, and the Z51 kit, not z06. The standard c5/c6 rotor is 325mm, and the z51 jumps up to 340mm for minimal cost. I had thought about doing the aggressive pad route, but the reality is I do want to go to a bigger rim at some point, as well as do some suspension mods in the future anyway. Depending on the route I go with the suspension work, those kits seem like they may or may not come with new spindles. All of them come with new A-arms (why are these 700 dollars???) and either drop springs or coil overs. I am not sure which route I am going to go with there just yet.

The 325mm (12.6") kit from kore3 starts at 700$.

There are some other kits out there from baer that give you a ~13" rotor as well that I know some of the vendors are in partnership with that may be an option as well.

The other thing that is going on is trying to figure out if I do this, do I need to go ahead and do a rear disc conversion at the same time. I hadn't planned on this initially, but the more I thought on it, I realized that I probably have to, right? Otherwise I will end up with hubs with different bolt patterns that will make buying wheels a pain. These kore3 guys make a rear conversion kit (without parking brake) that starts at $550 that they say will work, however I have been advised against using sinking any money into the stock 7.5" rear end.

So on my research list right now:
Suspension kit costs/benefit analysis
Continue research brake kits/options
See if I can find a GM 10 bolt 8.5" rear end with posi for sale somewhere

Nearest path to an upgrade is probably get the spindles and the front brake kit. This may or may not require going ahead with a rear disc conversion, and rims/tires. I may hold off on suspension stuff after this. Regarding wheels - these guys somehow got a 17" stock factory rim. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.detroitspeed.com/Projects/DSE-1984-Monte-Carlo/DSE-1984-Monte-Carlo-pg-1.html">http://www.detroitspeed.com/Projects/DS ... -pg-1.html</a><!-- m -->

Why do you want a GM 10 bolt? Those are known for exploding at stock power levels on the LS1 F-bodies.

Edit: JK, that is the 10 bolt 7.5 that is known for explodering.

[HAULN-SS]

Yah the 7.5 is what I currently have. The 8.5/10 bolt came in Hurst/Olds, 85-87 turbo buicks, and i think 85-87 442s. It's apparently a unicorn to find one out of a car. I may end up buying a beater and parting out what I can to get the rear out of it. I need to make some junkyard calls first.

[JustinG]

Regarding wheels - these guys somehow got a 17" stock factory rim. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.detroitspeed.com/Projects/DSE-1984-Monte-Carlo/DSE-1984-Monte-Carlo-pg-1.html">http://www.detroitspeed.com/Projects/DS ... -pg-1.html</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.gbodyparts.com/product_info.php?products_id=1289">https://www.gbodyparts.com/product_info ... ts_id=1289</a><!-- m -->

[HAULN-SS]

So with the search ongoing for a 8.5" rear, I am now looking for the rims since I have sold the motorcycle.

Looking for a mesh style wheel, 5x120.65, 17 or 18" diameter, with 9 or 9.5" width. If you come across any BBS RS or Super RS that fit that bill let me know.

[HAULN-SS]

Spindles ordered. Called a guy on ebay who had some already pulled, blasted, and repainted.

Also went ahead with the order of the brake kit. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.kore3.com/proddetail.php?prod=10105-01">http://www.kore3.com/proddetail.php?prod=10105-01</a><!-- m -->
Ordered it without pads and rotors because it seems like the guys markup is kinda high on those. The kit pictured isn't 100% accurate because I'm going to be doing this on 2WD blazer spindles, and they dont officially sell a kit for this but emailing back and forth with the guy he told me what all is needed. You're essentially paying $100+ for the brackets that are needed. The best part is if I ever go back to a stock rim with these spindles I can just go back to where I started.

Calipers will have the corvette logo on them, and I debated for a long time whether I liked that or not (you can get it machined off if you're lacking clearance) but in the end went with black + machined logo. if the rims are black too it will pretty much fade into the background anyway.

[Senor_Taylor]

Oh wow, this is a nice thread. Glad you revived it. Any way you can get the images working?

[HAULN-SS]

It appears the images were hosted on the old jmu peregrin server, so i have no idea where the pics might be on my local hard drives. If I dig them up maybe i will repost;

[HAULN-SS]

Well I think my wheel choices may have opened up. I wasn't sure what the tolerances are on wheel manufacture, etc. I started wondering whether 5x120 will fit a 5x120.65 bolt pattern. Apparently all answers are pointing to yes. Has anyone here actually ever done that? It seems like people on other forums are saying yes it will work fine as long long as the backspacing is correct too.

[JPolen01]

I've never heard anyone talk about decimal places when it comes to lug patterns. Usually it's 4x100 4x114 5x120 etc. I think it will be fine

[D_Eclipse9916]

Some people do it, it's not a good idea, even scarier is some people use wobble bolts.

[HAULN-SS]

brakes shipped! So talking pads here, I have a ton more options now on those as well. Can anyone make a good recommendation on best bang for your buck pads for daily driving, spirited driving on occaision? does it even matter if I'm not building a dedicated auto cross or track machine? Oh yeah..low dust I guess would be nice too

[Jake]

I was happy with the Performance Friction Z-rated pads on my green 325i. It was a 99.8% street car (it saw VIR and Summit a handful of times for pace laps and like, six hot laps). They were great on the street, didn't dust all that badly (compared to BMW OEM pads, which are awful) and the couple times I really did use them, they were fine for some hot laps.

[HAULN-SS]

Hrmm so that looks like it's a semi-metallic. Going in that same vein - summit has a hawk rotor+hps combo for $320 for the front that seems like a decent deal to me. Would you say those pads might be similar?

[ViPER1313]

Hawk HPS are pretty heavy on the dust.