progress update Bent the drivers side front bar this morning, cut the hole in the firewall the same place as the passenger side. Inside there is the plastic piece that makes up the cowl vent inlet into the car. I just continued in the car with the same hole saw and it worked perfectly. The bar slid in (you do have to finese this side because of the dash support and the plastic vent) and lined up first try, just have to trim it and notch it and weld it in today. Will post more pics later. These are some pictures, as you can see the wires are close when you hole saw, but they are easy to miss. In the one picture labeled "pipe to weld to", the black object in the middle of the picture is my front cage down tube to weld to. This is looking through the hole from the front of the car, you can see the plastic vent and flapper.
Progress so far Both bars are now in and welded. The drivers side took anout 4 hours between the test fitting and notching and test fitting again. But it fits nicely around everything. I have the lower shock mount on the pass side and am figuring out a upper shock mount. It will be offset from the bar to clear the upper control arm at the ball joint end. Will be calling a couple of coil over shock companys tomorrow to get there input on spring rates and such. The shocks will lay at a 30 degree angle which from what I read make the spring need to be 25% heavier than a vertical mounting. The weight on the right front is 734 and it is 818 on the left front. These were done before the work, but I believe them to be pretty close. I think all of the components were just a trade off.
Shouldn't the mounting ears on the lower shock mount be heavier than they are? You are supporting 30% of the vehicle's weight with each one. It looks like you are using 1/8" stock for the bracket. I would thing that it would take about 3/8" mounting ears.
Actually this mount is just for test fitting, I will be making the mount out of 1/4" wall square tubing and 1/4" thick tabs, good eye though! I am planning on bracing it behind the shock some way down to the frame also. I have yet to mock that up.
I guess my safety training is zeroing in on you - I am sorry, I don't mean to be challenging. You are doing a fantastic job and I enjoy watching the work progress. It does sound like you have your bases well covered. I will just sit back and watch with my hands off the keys...(for as long as I can)Handshake
Top shock mount in I got the top shock mount in, it is installed so that the shock at ride height will be 14". I left the ears long so that I can trim them once I have the shocks and decide if I want to leave enough for a support of some sort to go to the frame. I don't believe I am going to need it, but I am going to do some tests once I get the motor back in it to see if the upper bar deflects any. I am thinking of a cable with swedged ends to attach to the upper brace and to the frame. Kind of like a suspension limiter, but linking the frame to the upper bar. The bar is .134 wall thickness, 1 5/8 D.O.M. tubing and I am going to brace it down to the frame in one place, so I am thinking it won't move.
Cost of Shocks I ordered Strange double adjustable shocks and springs for the car, the pair was 627.00. Could have gone single adjustable for about 300.00, but I plan a pretty substantial horsepower increase. So the total cash outlay so far has been about 850.00.
different way to do it without a roll cage. If a person did not want to go to the extent of caging the car, but only wanted coil overs and thats it, it would be very easy to have an upper coil over mount that would straddle the a arm shaft, and attach to the frame on both sides. I would think that it would require a support brace under the engine connecting the frame members, that too would not be that big of a deal. You could also go with single adjustable coil overs and that would keep the price down. Started thinking that everyone might not want to cage their car, just have more room to either work on the 302 or install a 351. If anyone is interested I could come up with a plan for one while my car is down this far.
Alignment Got the front end aligned, ended up with -7 degrees of caster and 0 degrees camber, plenty of adjustment left. Now I can weld everything up permanent. Got my strange coil overs in, will get them on the car this weekend and start putting the motor back in.
Steve, Good job so far! I want to know how it handles... so hurry up and get it out on the road so you can tell us how it works.
any plan for just coil overs yet? this is what i want without the cage. i just want my shock towers gone
