Project SS!

[HAULN-SS]

Went ahead and ordered the front adapters from this site: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://shop.adapterkings.com/">http://shop.adapterkings.com/</a><!-- m -->

They seem to be pretty prompt on the customer service. They also custom machine the hub bore and the wheel bore on the outside so you don't have to use a separate hub ring. This will give me the best fit I think - the wheels will be lug centric and hub centric..should be plenty strong. The adapter I got is 1" which should give me the clearance I need up front.

I am already thinking about ordering some different rear wheels. I didn't go staggered because I didn't want the hassle. I may end up doing it anyway, because I gotta order spacers regardless. I think if I do the spacers, I want to up the rear-wheel to like 10" to make the dish more obvious on the machined lip. Wish I had thought about this ahead of time. Hopefully if it looks dumb this way, I will be able to sell 2 rims/tires for most of what I had in them to get the money back. We'll see.

[HAULN-SS]

Adapters came the ther day. They are a pretty nice looking piece. I have made a bit of progress after doing some dumb shit, on disassembly. I originally was going to take off the LCAs and go have the LBJs pressed in somewhere. Then I said Eff that, and went and rented the tool to do it. I had already started taking the LCA off so the shock was out and spring was copressed - all wasted effort!

Then, I also wasted time trying to get the UCA off. I didnt realize that if you loosen the tension just a bit, it will move up enough you can get an impact wrench on the bolt heads holding it to its mounting bracket. So I struggled like a MFer with the nuts on it before I realized it, and then it became a 2 minute job to remove it. ALl in all, I'm wore out, but here some pics with a mock up of the new UCA with the lower ball joint pressed in.

[HAULN-SS]

I think I'm going to order new guages for the car. Dakota Digital are the go-to guys it seems like. What color scheme would you do? I think I want white guage faces, maybe red or white lights?

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=788/category_id=670/mode=prod/prd788.htm">http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/ ... prd788.htm</a><!-- m -->

My console is black and looks like this:

Here are some videos of a guys white/blue setup: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2FTQLmi9nc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2FTQLmi9nc</a><!-- m -->

Thoughts?

[Jake]

I'd do black faces and whatever backlighting matches the rest of the interior. If you hate that idea, light up the gauges in white.

Having say, blue gauge illumination if the rest of the car's LEDs are green or whatever would look bad.

[HAULN-SS]

Interior is oxblood red. Does that change your mind there?

not my car but you get the idea.

Also, in my seats, I had some stitching embroidered that is in this style, but just "SS":


That matched my under-hood insulator which is this one:


So anyway, thats where I got the idea the silver might look good.

[HAULN-SS]

So, being that I have everything good and tore apart, I think I have decided to at least do a litle bit of prep for whenever I get to the next round of upgrades. I am going to order some SPC Performance springs. These are 1.2" drop in the front and 1" drop in the rear. The fronts are 530lb springs and the rears are 135lb. In a perfect world, where my bank account was overflowing, I would have also ordered varishock single adjustable shocks, but they are $400 for a pair, so I ended up getting bilsteins to go on all 4 corners for $300. The reasoning is simple - I can replace the shocks easier than the springs, and I can always sell them on the Gbody forums later to recoup some of the cost if I ever decided I need the adjustable shocks.

I am kicking around ordering a 9" rear to go in the car at some point because it's kind of pointless with these cars to put a brake kit on the rear or anything because any big power numbers will grenade the 7.5" rears. That being said, I think after I get this last bit of stuff buttoned up I am going to work on tuning the SBC350, which has never had an honest attempt at. I'll then drive it and see where I'm at with it. If it is still feeling like it needs something I am thinking of doing an LS3 swap/4l80e swap. I could offset quite a bit of the cost by selling the engine I built I believe, and it has become pretty routine to do with these cars. I actually think I want to stay with an automatice in it too because I already have the ATS for all my shifter/twisty needs.

[.RJ]

[HAULN-SS]

Trust me - you don't want to see my spreadsheet. These shocks and springs are it for a good while. Though really, the majority of the cost was in wheels/tires so far. If I hadn't done the brake upgrade I believe you could get a decent handling car with just A-arms, ball joints, and shocks. The stock springs are a little light, but they would do for a while if you were trying to piece something together. Hopefully if the GM Mid-models market explodes in the near future I'll already be ahead of the curve (not that I'm looking to sell)

[Mike]

black gauges with red lighting. white gauges scream rice.

[HAULN-SS]

Actually a new contender has come on the radar. a new design:

These have to be ordered and aren't advertised on dakota digital's website yet, but I was kinda leaning toward this. What you think?

[HAULN-SS]

Springs stillhavent come in. The guy that runs sc&c is very knowledgeable, but slow as shit and I dont even have a shiping number. Spent some time today taking more stuff apart. Fuck this spring right here in particular.

I don't know if im doing something wrong or what but I had to take apart the spring compressor to get it in there at the right place to compress it enouhg to get it out. This took about 3 or 4 tries to find the sweet spot, and even then it didnt want to just fall out. Im dreading the other side already

[HAULN-SS]

Actually a new contender has come on the radar. a new design:

These have to be ordered and aren't advertised on dakota digital's website yet, but I was kinda leaning toward this. What you think?

Ordered. Should be in saturday.

[ScottyB]

those are some sweet looking gauges...reminds me of the font Stack uses

[HAULN-SS]

So does anyone here have a set of protected lugnut sockets? I need a 19mm or 3/4" lugnut socket. mine is too close to the holes for the wheels I bought and it looks like it's chipping the paint a little bit. I'm going to have to touch that up, but I found on amazon they sell some that are thinner walled with a plastic sleeve. Otherwise, I might go buy a socket and take a grinder to them to shave and get a bit of clearance

[HAULN-SS]

Quick status update - springs came in! So I am officially in put back together mode. These are 550lb springs, should lower about 1+"


Got the driver's side in with no problems. I did mess up and forgot to put the bushing on the shock's extension rod for under the frame. Luckily dropping the shocks is like 2 bolts and a nut, so I can do that with everything else still on the car. Shocks are bilstein HD's, not sure if I mentioned that somewhere before. Should be a nice upgrade from the 20 year old sensatracks that were there before.


Got the spindle on, and the new moog swaybar endlink. Got a braided brake line that came with the C6 brake kit, and it's all in place now, just waiting on me to finish assembly. It seems to be pretty hard to find torque specs for most of this shit, so I'm kinda doing it by the feels. The UCA has those "vertical" adjustment bolts that are supposed to be set to 60 lbs, and I think the spindle to hub is like 120, but haven't found anything definitive. I will probably get the alignment shop to do a "nut and bolt check" on everything when I get it up there.

[HAULN-SS]

Got some good work done tonight. I got the spring in, the shock situated like it should be. Ended up running into one issue - I somehow ordered the wrong brake pads, so I couldn't quite get everything buttoned up. I also need to get a tool...the bolts that hold the caliper bracked to the conversion bracket takes an allen head or something bigger than what I have.
Showing how the caliper has to be shimmed to center it over the rotor



Had to grind on the spindle just a bit to fit this bolt in there


The Kore3 bracket that makes this all possible

Couldn't resist previewing the mockup

[Mike]

gauge choice was a good one.

[HAULN-SS]

Almost done - Does anyone know a good place to get the alignment done out my way, or in winchester? I guess I could take it into northern va as well, but I think I probably want to trailer it to alignment - I'm not sure if eyeballing a car's alignment is safe enough to get to a shop - any guesses? Also, I guess the shop needs to be willing to do a performance alignment right? Will they know wtf to do with adjustable control arms to get it right?

[Mike]

i'm not sure what could go wrong with an eyeballed alignment other than it pull a bit one way or the other.

this'll do better than your eyes: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBrzXeJnYiQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBrzXeJnYiQ</a><!-- m -->

[Evan]

Max out camber then set the toe to 0 using the tape measure method. Wont eat tires, worst thing that happens is the wheel isn't straight. (Hell I tracked cars for months using that method)