Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The Plastic Spoon

updated to link to the web archive version:

One of my favorite sites on the web to lurk is Corner Carvers. The CC users are a bunch of non-nonsense hardcore racers. They can be somewhat abrasive (the page motto is "Suck it!") but as long as you follow the rules and most importantly, use the "search button" before asking a question, you'll be fine. Corner Carvers has a wealth of information about track-proven chassis and suspension setups for every manner of vehicle.

I was perusing the site a while back looking for suspension ideas for a fox body mustang I had just aquired, and stumbled across a wiki article entitled "The Plastic Spoon" written by Wes (aka "Wangstang.") I had just hit the mother load! The Plastic Spoon (whose name implies its contents are cheap, functional and commonly available, as opposed to 'silver spoon' money-is-no-object items) is a step-by-step guide to build a world-class handling and braking fox body mustang relatively inexpensively using mixed-and-matched components from different vendors. Each piece is looked at with an "what's the best bang for the buck here" approach, so the final product should perform with the best of them, for much less! It also has a clear upgrade path for when you (or your budget) get more serious and you want to take it to the next level.

I used many of the Plastic Spoon's suggestions when building my '79 Pace Car. The car still isn't running, so unfortunately, I can't report on its performance, but by using the guide for a reference all of the parts seem to play nicely together. (There were many changes in the geometry of various suspension parts over the years, so if you just throw things together haphazardly, there's a good chance it won't fit without customization or spending more money on the correct parts to make it work.) It all bolted on effortlessly and the wheel/tire clearances and ride height look great!

The only downside is that the 'Fork is a little outdated. Many of the links no longer work, however, in most cases he was kind enough to list a part number, so looking them up on the web will be easy enough.

Thanks Wes!!

Edit: Looks like the link moved, not sure if this is the permanent home, but here's the link

Monday, July 30, 2007

Vintage Drag Racing Videos

I love the Internet! It lets us see stuff that before might have ended up in a dusty box somewhere or in the five cent bin at a garage sale. Several great vintage drag racing videos have surfaced lately, here are a few:

Island Dragway, 1962.



Pacific Raceways, 1963

1963 Drag Racing Nationals in Indianapolis

Here's a great one featuring some early front-engine dragsters (AKA "diggers" or "slingshots")

Great stuff! Keep posting them people!

Friday, July 27, 2007

Fox mustang 5-lug conversion and brake upgrades


Anyone that knows me knows that I've owned at least one Mustang at any given time since I was 15 years old. I lurk around on numerous mustang-related message boards and a series of related questions comes up time and time again...

How to I convert my 4-lug fox to 5-lug?

How to add rear disk brakes to my fox?

How do I upgrade my fox to 13" cobra brakes?

Probably the most straightforward way to accomplish all of the above is to buy Ford's complete M2300K kit. It is entirely complete, so you don't have to chase down any odds-n-ends or do any guesswork on your combination. However, these kits are getting pretty scarce, and the price has gone up 50% in the last 5 years!

Here's a really nice photo gallery of an M2300K install on an 86 (complete with ABS!)

Baer Brakes is also making a complete 4-wheel upgrade package that's been dubbed the "M2300K Killer" (Baer part #1263005.) Here's a great writeup on that package from MustangUpgrades.net. However, it too retails for North of $2400.

A lot of you guys are probably like me, and like to do it yourself to save a little money, or just upgrade a few parts at a time as time and money allow. If you are, here is the most authoritative site on Mustang brakes and parts interchange I've seen. It goes into great depth about which parts you'll need to adapt just about any year Ford brakes to your mustang! He also manufactures and sells 3-port to 2-port master cylinder adapter kits that allow you to run the four wheel disk brake M/C setup with your stock prop valve and brake lines, as well as stocks the hard-to-find adapter fittings you'll need to run the various brakes with your stock fox lines.

If you're just looking for a 5-lug conversion, but want to do it as inexpensively as possible, it's recently become much easier! You could piece everything you needed together out of a junkyard and parts house, but now e-tailers like Latemodel Restoration Supply will sell you everything you need in a kit. It still costs a bit more ($400), but again, it will be complete and take out any guesswork.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

LS-1 V8 Rx-7 FD

This is only the 4th post in my blog, but I'll bet you're already detecting a theme... I love engine swaps! LS1s are the swappers favorite these day's due to their low cost, high availability, light weight, small size and huge power potential.

One car that makes a perfect platform for an engine swap is the FD RX-7 (1993-1995 in the US). They are perfectly balanced (50/50) front to rear, lightweight, have a low center of gravity and make 275 hp in stock form. Sounds pretty good as is, so why swap in an LS1 you ask? There are quite a few good reasons actually:

1) Maintenance. The FD has an incredibly elaborate sequential twin turbo system that is controlled by an extremely complex series of vacuum connections, hoses, valves, clamps and solenoids. They are all tightly packaged in an extremely high heat environment between the intake manifold and the turbochargers. Needless to say they don't last long there, and as the cars age a bit, owners are frequently trying to find out why they are losing boost or their car is dead. It requires a major teardown to access and is fairly expensive to replace it all.

2) Torque. The turbo rotary doesn't have a whole lot of bottom end (dyno chart.) The strong low-end and broad, flat torque curve of the V8 would give the car instant throttle response and would accelerate much faster than the peaky rotary.

3) Cost - The LS1 swap could be completed for about what it would cost to upgrade the stock turbocharger, intercooler, exhaust and fuel system, but you wouldn't have the problems normally associated with those upgrades (turbo lag, noise and constantly dickering with fuel enrichment on a piggyback tuner.)

4) Performance - Every aspect of the RX-7's performance is improved, even with a stock LS1. Believe it or not, the LS1 weighs about the same (or less) than the rotary, turbos, manifold and the supporting accessories, so the stellar RX7 handling and braking characteristics are unchanged! Folks are seeing low 12s with stock LS1s, 11s with the usual bolt-ons!

As far as engine swaps go, they say this one is pretty easy and is becoming more common. There are numerous people on sites like http://www.v8rx7forum.com/ that have done the swap and can answer and build questions you may have. If this interests you at all, go spend some time over there, it'll make you a believer! Companies like Hinson Supercars will sell you everything you need to make the swap a bolt-in, or they will do the turn-key swap for you. They have some very impressive cars on their site! Here's a video of their shop car (pictured above) running an 8.22!

When I win the lottery and can spend all of my free time (outside of my family time) playing in the huge, well-equipped shop of my dreams, I will build one of these for sure!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Rotary valve engines

About twelve years ago, I read an interesting article about a typical V8 that had been retrofitted to run using rotary valves instead of the usual poppet valve and camshaft arrangement found in just about all internal combustion engines. If memory serves, the engine was able to rev to around 15000 rpms, make much more power and run much more compression than it had in its previous configuration. It sounded great but then they kind of dropped out of the picture.

Fast forward about a decade... A year or two ago, that article came up in conversation with some friends and so I started looking up rotary valves again and stumbled across the site of Coates International Ltd. At the time, they appeared to be doing a bunch of R&D and had patented a very slick looking rotary valve setup, the Coates Spherical Rotary Valve Engine" (CSRV). I visited the site again today, and was delighted to see that they have received 10 million dollars in funding and have recieved many orders for their complete CSRV engines.

To summarize the benefits of the CSRV, here is an excerpt from their site:

The CSRV engine design eliminates the use of poppet valves, springs, rockers, camshafts, pushrods, etc. In fact, the CSRV system removes most moving parts from a standard industrial 855 CID engine, including the engine oil from the top part of the engine, replacing all these parts with only two moving sphere shafts, twelve floating seals and carriers that require no oil, no servicing or adjustment, producing higher volumetric efficiency, allowing higher compression ratios to be utilized. This results in an engine possessing higher thermal efficiency, lower emissions, and higher M.P.G.s.


In a video interview with CEO George Coates posted on their site, he states that the engines will have close to twice the volumetric efficiency of a conventional poppet-valve motor, be able to run much more compression, make more power, have almost no emissions and never need an oil change. He said once they have the orders filled for the entire engines, they will look into developing retrofit kits for popular V8s.

I'm excited about the possibilities!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Supercharged V6 Mr2

Brad Bedell was one of the first people I "met" on the Internet probably close to a decade ago. At the time, he had the fastest MR2 in the country, running in the bottom of the 11s. It was for sale, and I wanted to buy it! We traded numerous e-mails and gave the better part of a car payment to Ma Bell getting it all setup. I had the 300 mile road trip planned, the money lined up, and a truck, trailer and co-pilot ready to go... then I get the phone call... "Hey man, bad news. I took the car out for a farewell drive, and now it's got a funny noise coming from the bottom end."

DOH! Anyway, that worked out for the best for both of us. I unexpectedly moved to California for work shortly thereafter and really didn't need a high-strung hotrod to battle the 405 in, and the next month, his car was on the cover of Turbo magazine so he got almost twice the money he was asking for it, even hurt!

Anyway, a couple of years ago, he built another MR2 that I would have really liked to have called my own! This time however, he opted against the peaky "little engine, big turbo" combo and went straight for the flat-curved torque of a supercharged V6!!

Here are his build pictures.

Shortly after completing the car, he entered it in Sport Compact Car's Ultimate Street Car Challenge... and won! Here's his write-up on it. It is a gruelling test where cars compete head-to-head in braking, acceleration, handling, power, comfort, MPG and more!

Brad continues to build bad-ass cars, and you'll see more on here for sure. Keep up the good work Brad!

Monday, July 23, 2007

Hemi Sprite

This is one of the more memorable cars I've stumbled across on the web in the past, an Internet legend if you will. It's Dave Marian's 1959 Sprite with a 478 Hemi. The following pretty much sums up why I think it's so cool:

"The rear wheels are 17x9.5 ZR1 corvette wheels, the fronts are the same wheels but they had to be narrowed to avoid hitting the valve covers at full lock."


More photos and build information can be seen at the
Hemi Sprite page hosted by the
North Texas Austin Healy Club.