GrabberGT Ev. 5

Too bad you are not closer, I'd come over and fill it with nitrogen for you.

 

oooh and how welcome you would be.

 

OK first road block putting it back together... My power steering rack sprung a leak. This thing is brand new and should not be leaking at all. The rubber boot on the end had a hole in it so fluid would just come pouring out. Well I dont think there should be fluid there to begin with so now the rack is back out and will be delivered to a shop today for inspection.

Another problem came from clearance with the rear end. I thought I would have enough but after thinking through it, I decided not to take a chance. I really didnt want to cut into the floor of the car but there was no other way. That is after all the reason I went with this suspension design.

 

Yep. The hole is indeed supposed to let air in and out, along with fluid (only out). The seal is made 'before' the boot, on the outer rod. Definitely a sealing problem.

 

just looking at what youve got going on with your custom suspension. what are the two arms coming off the top of the diff for?
it looks like to me that you are running a 4 link set up with a torque arm. that will cause a bind. am i just not seeing this right?

 

special..nice ride brother , but did i see aftermarket guages in the dash? if so take a photo of them in the cluster and show off your work..

 

Yeah... I called a few RRS dealers and spoke with them about the problem. Each of them mentioned that they had received several racks with this problem. Once they had them rebuilt though, they were excellent racks. (Theres something about that last statement that makes me laugh. )

 

Thats actually the pinion support/angle adjusters. They attach to the torque arm just forward of the pinion snout. Thats the part that is giving me grief. At the top end of my suspension travel they come into contact with my floor pan.




I ended up cutting 2 holes in the rear seat pan to make room.

 

ah ok. now i under stand and see the light.

 

Update time...

I made the trip to Biloxi!!!! It took a lot of work to get there. Looking at my last posts, I left off with my steering rack problem.

Steering rack: I had the RRS rack rebuilt by a local builder. They had to replace all the seals in it. The next day I took it home to reinstall it and found out I have a clearance problem between the rack and my oil pan. I ended up spacing the rack down from the frame mounts by 3/8's to clear it. After talking with RRS one night, I found out that the problem was with my transmission install. When I installed my T-5 I refused to cut my tunnel to correct the angle of the transmission resulting in the oil pan being lower than stock. The pic below shows 3 1/8" spacers between the rack and the frame. This has since been replaced with a single 3/8" spacer to reduce flex and tension on the mounting bolts. I'll remove the spacers later on when the transmission is replaced in the months to come.



The next problem was getting the exhaust done. Not too big of a deal but the exhaust shop spent a full 8hrs on a Saturday to only get dumps at the rear axle. I'll have to move my muffles behind the axle to get enough room to get the tubes over the rear end and have the exhaust exit out the back. These Flowmaster Super 44's are huge.





After getting the exhaust in the car, it wasnt long before finding my next hurdle... or 2. First, while pulling the car out of the lift bay, I quickly realized that I had limited steering capabilities. It turns out that the header flange was in the way of the universal joint on my steering shaft. I was able to muscle it around and work through this though. A few days later it went back to them to be corrected.

The second problem was an interesting noise that I could not hear before due to my open headers. The noise sounded like my driveshaft was rubbing on something or a bad u-joint. So I replace the front u-joint and still it made noise. I spent hours trying different things to try and isolate the sound. Finding and fixing small things here and there that it might be it. I eventually ended up removing the rear suspension to get at the 3'rd member. I had a mech friend of mine take it apart and inspect. We found several teeth on the ring gear had been hammered on. That has to be the problem. He just happened to have a set of gears that I could buy and would be able to replace them the next day. Now its Monday and I am supposed to be leaving on Wed morning for Biloxi. I leave from work Monday night and pic up my rebuilt 3'rd member. He shows me how the previous builder stripped the ring gear bolts during installation and did not fully seat the pinion bearing against the pinion. I get the rear end installed around midnight and take the car for a drive. Yeah... the noise is gone... but there is another noise now. At first I think its just some thing I reinstalled incorrectly, e-brake cable might be rubbing on a tire or something. No luck... I took the car back to the mech the next night to listen to it.

There is now no-way I am going to make the trip on Wed. The rear end has to come out again... That night I tear it apart again to get the 3rd member back to him early Wed morning. He gets it and can find no problems. But he assures me he can put it back together and I will hear no noises. With no other options than to buy another 9" from some other seller, I trust him to get it right. I install it Wed evening in a record 3 hrs. (record for me that is. You'd have to see how complex the rear suspension is to understand) At 5pm I take it for a test drive and finally, everything is quiet. I immediately take it to the tire shop for new tires.

New Tires are Nitto NT555's 245/45-17 front and I upsized from a 275 to a 285/40-17 in the rear. It looks awesome but I have a little rubbing from the rear tires that I still dont understand. With the 275's and the old rear housing, I had no issues. The new rear housing is .5" narrower resulting in more room for tires. So now gong to a 285 should be no problem. Why is it rubbing? I trim my inner wheel lips a little to add clearance on Thursday morning. Take it for a ride and things are just fine. We leave the house at 1pm for Biloxi. Its not very far down the road before we find the next problem. I clearanced the wheel wells in an unloaded car. :16suspect Now, I've got my wife in the front, full tank of gas, 80 lbs of tools, donut spare tire, luggage, ice chest, and all other road trip necessities in the car. What was I thinking. Time to head back to the house and lighten the load. The first to go is my subwoofer box. This thing weighs a good 90+ lbs and adds about 1" back to the height of the car. I add a few clicks of rebound to the rear shocks and we head off again. Things are much better now... until we get to Louisiana. Those casinos owe the state some new roads. Its just terrible. My only option at 9pm is to max out the settings on the shocks to try and keep it as stiff as possible. My tires are getting shredded. Its a very rough ride for the next 3 hours. We stay the night in Lafayette. I get up the next day and head to a local shop who was kind enough to let me use their lift. I adjust my rear coils up as high as they will go in hopes of being able to add a little more comfort back into the suspension. No luck. It has to stay tight for the rest of the trip.

We make it to Biloxi and have a good time. Never run across RayzorSharp though we saw him several time from the balcony overlooking the strip. Its Sunday now and time to head home. My Dads car, 09 Impala, has a dead battery and needs a jump. No problem, I can do it. I guess I wasnt paying close enough attention as when I connected the positive terminal I grounded it out on the battery hold down bolt. Now my car wont start. The starter solenoid is clicking like its dead so we push it off and head to Autozone. We replace the solenoid and still, it wont start. Its not 2 hrs after the time we are supposed to leave and I still cant get it to start. We decide to push it off again and plan on not turning the car off for the next 12 hrs going home. The car hard other plans.

We make it to I-10 only minutes later and as soon as we hit the on-ramp, all power to the car goes. Now on the side of the road, I drop the steering column and have my Dad run back to the Autozone to get a new ignition switch. Replace ignition switch and still nothing. Time to start chasing power wires. I notice that after each try of the ignition, the battery side of the solenoid loses power until the circuit is reset. I decide that the main hot wire from the trunk battery must have shorted out. So out comes the all the luggage and tools and the back seat, and the side panel molding to chase this cable. I cant find it. I use the battery neg side as the ground and test from the rear going forward and everything shows hot. I test using the rocker panel as a ground going back towards the trunk and I have nothing. hmmm Maybe its not the hot that is going bad, its the ground. I clean my ground wire connection which bolts to the frame under the trunk and walla! It fires instantly. 4.5 hrs of trying to figure this out and its the easiest bolt to get to on the car that fixes it.

Stories not over yet. We get back into Dallas and I notice my ride has gotten nicer. It must be the better roads. WRONG! We are not but 30 miles from home and its 1am. We hit a few bumps doing 70mph when I realize what is going on. My rear shocks that I've been counting on to keep the tires safe for the last 1200 miles are giving out on me. Over the next couple miles I loose more and more shock. Its not long before Im ALL spring. I spend almost the next hr driving 30 mph or slower to keep the car from bottoming out on every last bump in the rd.

What a trip. I've spent just about every weekend since March working on the car to get ready for this. Its something I'll always remember but Im not sure I'll be doing it again any time soon. The cars been parked in the garage for the week and I've hardly even unpacked it. I need a break. Time to spend some quality time with the family. My wife and son have been so incredibly patient with every passing weekend. Im ready to pay them back. I've got an extra set of coilovers I'll be installing soon. Aiden cant wait to go for a ride in the cool car and I cant wait to take him. Short trips only for a while. :Handshake

 

Holy cow Chris!
I really hate that we never got hooked up. I really wanted to see your handiwork. I
Really sorry you had all the problems. I was worried about it when you were still going strong on it those last couple of days. I had my share of problems too this year. I had to take it home for repairs 4 out of 8 days. Mine too is sitting in the garage untouched since ctc. Helping my son with his newly purchased silver Stallion right now. This year has pretty much made me decide to either go back to automatic or have something else ready for next year. The traffic was SO much worse this year. Friday and Saturday night made it hard to enjoy cruising. No telling what I might be driving next year.

 

Chris, Ive been watching your build because I was thinking about that same suspension system. Keep tweaking it till you get it supposed to be awesome for a track car and not many people have got what it takes to even try that with a Maverick. Take your break and return to it fresh mind and all your all set. looks great man I really dig the look of the car overall as well.

 

Thanks guys. Its going to take a lot of tweaking to get the suspension right but I will. The spring rate is going to be the biggest hurdle. 150lb springs are too loose and 250lb springs are too tight. That leave a lot of room in the middle to play with. I need to get it on some corner scales to find its weight bias. That will help to narrow it down a lot. I dont plan to track the car seriously, just for some spirited runs. I would like to be fairly competitive in the autocross though so a street/auto-x setup is what I am looking for.

I am have been thinking over the last several days of all the things I still have to do with the car. The big ticket items are done. Besides replacing the rear main seal and swapping out the tranny, its just tweaking to get all the parts to work the way they are supposed to.

 

ahh yes that's what I thought an autox enthusiast. I run a 06 Si in G stock when the funds are available, quick and nimble car but I dream of pulling in with my Maverick someday and turn some heads. I keep going back and forth about my build and how I'm setting it up. Do I go straight and fast or build a cornering monster. If I had a boatload of cash I would have to decide but for now well....

 

I asked her what she weighed today and got slapped pretty hard. She weighs 3350 with me in it (180#) and a full tank of gas (100#). The good news is my Front to rear balance is 51.4/48.6 with a cross weight of 49%.

Ttl 3348

LF 884 RF 839
LR 811 RR 814

Front total 1721 51.4%
Rear total 1626 48.5%
Cross 1641 49%

I need to find a way to get her to drop a few lbs but Im not sure were to start and dont want to make any drastic changes like a full tubular front end. I'd prefer to remove weight from the front end and not the rear but theres not much I want to sacrifice up front. Ive already got Alu heads, intake and radiator. I want to keep my power rack/pinion and AC. Its got tubular upper and lower control arms as well as coil over shocks. I might replace my rad support with an aluminum one but I dont see that saving much weight. I could pull up the sound deadener (peal-n-stick) and go back in with lizard skin but thats a bunch of work and I'd only save 25lbs or so. Im planning on going to 18" wheels but the rumor is that will add weight over 17's. If I did all of these things and find a way to get a Carbon Cowl hood from MaverickMan (shipping issues) I might be able to shave 100 lbs off the car. That wouldnt be too bad. Anyone have any other ideas?