Ready For A Shakedown

Just shy of 5 months since this build started, we're finally done. Let me qualify "done" since cars like this are never really "done". My goal was to have her mechanically sound, resprayed and ready for a proper shakedown at an autocross by June 11 and it happened.

Ready to rumble - 6-9-2018

Today, we completed the final piece of the puzzle. The car's been driven about 500 miles since she became road legal again and with several months of being parked, her springs have now adequately settled to properly adjust ride heights. My target was to keep the ride height no more than about a 1" drop from factory. Not only does this allow the car to keep the highly optimal suspension geometry and let the suspension work, it also means I don't have to worry too much about scraping on things when I'm generally driving around. This meant the front had to be raised a bit and rear lowered a bit.

 Not too high, not too low - 6-9-2018

Checking for clearances - 6-9-2018

I know that the rear tires were rubbing on something if I hit a bump after putting on the Mugen MF10s so we did various checks to see how much clearance we needed. We just needed to shave the bracket that lines the bumper up with the overfenders a little and we were good to go. Yes, the correct way would've been to completely remove the shocks and articulate the arms completely but it really isn't hard to see where the tire would end up just by compressing the corner as much as possible. I took several test drives on bumpy / wavy roads and not a peep from the rear anymore.

Plenty of clearance now - 6-9-2018

I also asked SJF to move the sphericals on the front upper control arms to try and get as much caster as we can. The stock rubber ones are offset from the factory and you have to offset the sphericals as well. For some unknown reason we've only been able to get 4.6 degrees of caster on the driver side and 5.0 on the passenger side. I think we'll revisit this on the 2nd alignment after I put the car though her paces and after all the suspension bits have been pushed to the limit a bit.

Ready for alignment - SJF Performance - 6-9-2018

The final alignment numbers are:

Front Camber: -3.1

Caster: 4.6 (left), 5.0 (right)

Front Toe: 0

Rear Camber: -2.3

Rear Toe: 0.06in each side (0.12in total)

It's probably a decent starting point since I have no idea how the balance of the car will be with the new suspension and I'm trying not optimize the car for autocross and make her too loose as that could prove to be a bad trait at higher speeds on a full track. We set the front bar to 4/6 and the rear to full soft. I'll probably start the shocks midway and go from there at her first event. 

Hella Functional - 6-9-2018

It's been a very interesting few months getting this build done. Now comes the fun part, enjoying the car and fine tuning things along the way. I'm still getting used to driving her again and learning which noises are normal. Despite her appearances, she's still very much a raw race car under the skin and makes all the "interesting" noises race cars make. Now I'm chasing down little rattles and I already think a new radiator and fan setup in the not too distant future would be a good idea. The new generation stuff doesn't take up as much space while cooling as efficiently and have quieter fans. Right now the FEL fans on the car make it sound like she's a jet engine about to take off when they kick in. The first cone I hit is going to suck given her near perfect condition right now but I built her to drive her and that's what I'm going to do.

Soon to be seen at an autocross or track near you