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Hackster's LSA / T56 2 door

Haven’t had a lot of motivation to drop by the forums - this changed things!! First time back for me in years. Keep up the great work!
 
What broke?

Power steering boiled

Lets get a run down on the weekend....

Got the pit setup on Thursday afternoon, picked up the wife and nephew from the airport Thursday evening.

Friday morning it was go time. Drivers meeting at 8:45 first run at 9 am. Had 2 ok runs in on autocross course, then headed over to the road course.

Car was doing good so far, no issues.

Road course well....got in 4 good laps, car felt great. Probably needs a rear regear to a 3.27 to get some mile per hour in 4th.

I was coming back towards the front straight on the carousel turn and lost all power steering. Luckily I was close to pit area.

Car was smoking, good times :)

Popped the hood to find this mess.

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So it boiled the fluid until it melted the reservoir and the cap. The cap melted, the spring and retainer dropped into the pump, blew the cap off. Destroyed the pump in the process.

Got a tow back to the truck and parked the car. Walked away for a little bit. Hot frustrated.

Towed the car over to the LSX clothing booth.

Went and got some dinner, and said **** it. 3 auto parts stores later, we had the biggest power steering cooler ever, new lines, a pump, a cap and a puller/installer tool.

Got back to the car about 7ish. Sent the wife and kid to watch some drifting and got to work.

Pulley has to come off to pull the pump =) Luckily I was able to do that without pulling the radiator, glad I moved that radiator forward....

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New pump on

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GIANT power steering cooler mounted up and plumbed.

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Peaceful evening wrenching on the car, nice to clear a foggy head.

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Little test drive around the parking lot, rack isnt cooked, no leaks, bled the system.

****ing go time!!!

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Back on track, auto cross for the morning, ran 8 or so passes and got the hang of the track. Had a blast. Kept running till I wasnt getting any faster.

Car feels great, brakes are phenomenal, have way more brake than tire.

Poker run off site.

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Ran the drag strip for the first time in at least 8 years. First pass was the best of the 2. Managed a 13.0 at 110. 2.0 60 foot. Considering I hit the rev limiter in 2nd and short shifted to 4th I know it has 12's in it easy. Pretty damn happy with that.

In line waiting to run.

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Today was the 3s challenge. I beat on the car for the morning, 6 runs (3 per course) and the car did awesome. I have no clue where I finished, this was way more of a shake down than anything else for me. I was hanging with some proper built pro touring cars. I need more tire.......and more driver, lots more driver.

Ill get some video up a little later.

Beat on the car for 3 days, had a couple issues, had a blast, car got loaded in the trailer on its own power, call that success!!

Nephew and wife took some laps around the complex, he had the biggest smile when he got back.

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All in all, awesome week. Lots more seat time to needed on my part.

Sean
 
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Wooooooowwww. I thought it took off quick, but my God that thing can STOP! Looked like you were trying to reverse the rotation of the earth :lol:

Always fun to watch you work, but damn it's nice to see that thing beating up some tires, great work man, I hope you keep this one a while :cool::cool:
 
Wooooooowwww. I thought it took off quick, but my God that thing can STOP! Looked like you were trying to reverse the rotation of the earth :lol:

Always fun to watch you work, but damn it's nice to see that thing beating up some tires, great work man, I hope you keep this one a while :cool::cool:

Thanks man, would stop even better if I had a little more tire :cool:

Back home now, had been planning this trip for quite some time and it didnt dissapoint. All in all I did a little under 3,000 miles in 11 days. Portland to Davis, Thousand Oaks, El Segundo, Fontana, Vegas, Twin Falls, Boise and home. This is my first road trip with this tow rig. It did awesome. Comfortable, awesome sound system and one of the last 6 speed manual trucks to ever roll off a Ram assembly line.

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For building a car from just a shell I think it did pretty good for the little shakedown time I had.

Couple issues I did run into.

I had a coolant leak under the dash the entire time. I tightened up the hose clamps in Davis at the Motel 6 Parking Lot but that didnt cure it so I just dealt with it. Once I got home I tore it apart (That afternoon) and found that I didnt quite have the hose pushed on all the way, and also didnt have the hose clamp all the way on the hose. So pushed the hose on all the way, got the clamp on properly and it seems as though I fixed the leak.

I have a gas leak somewhere. The filler neck is all messed up where the nozzle goes, so that is part of it. On hard left turns it would spill fuel out of the filler neck and down the side of the car. Ill replace the filler neck with a good one (round opening instead of an egg shape). But there is still a fuel vapor inside the car all the time. I believe that something is leaking at the fuel tank so we are going to put the smoke machine on it and see what happens. Hope to mess with that this week or weekend.

It needs an alignment badly. The frontend has settled down quite a bit, it has a lot of toe and more negative camber than I think it should have. Will get ride height set again and go from there.

Steering wheel shake. At freeway speeds I have a shake in the steering wheel. I dont believe that its wheel and tire so I need to put a dial indicator on it and see what the runout is on the rotors and hubs. I am suspecting hubs as that is what was wrong on my last blue car.

All in all I had a killer time, I met some great new people, got to see some super cool cars and scenery along the way.

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This one is for any of you that are curious about the handling. The car feels very, very planted, turn in is phenomenal even on the 275's. It is not super stiff on the road course or the auto cross but is quite stiff on the roads around town.

The front springs are 650 with a tender, rear springs are 450 with a tender. Front struts are JRZ RSOne's set to 5 clicks in from full soft in the front. Rear shocks are Ride tech Coilovers with 8 clicks in from full soft. I am running no rear bar, running a 25mm (I Believe) V8 drop bar in the front.

I think the only change I am going to make before my next track day is to try a 28mm non drop front bar. I would like to lower the back of the car a little more as well, but going to have to do even more rear fender work back there to do that.

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Even used it to tow my buddy Scott back after his truck broke down on the poker run.

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One last image just cause I love this shot!!

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450 rear springs sounds way too stiff from my past experience.

Thanks......

I had nowhere to start (even though I inquired with people about rear spring rates and got no info back). I know that 250 is too soft, and 500 is likely too stiff.

The little seat time I have so far in the car it did well, not bouncy, didnt lose traction on corners, wasnt lifting a rear tire, was able to get the car to rotate pretty easy, very neutral.

I am sure I will change them down the road once I have a little more seat time.
 
450 rear springs sounds way too stiff from my past experience.

Thanks......

I had nowhere to start (even though I inquired with people about rear spring rates and got no info back). I know that 250 is too soft, and 500 is likely too stiff.

The little seat time I have so far in the car it did well, not bouncy, didnt lose traction on corners, wasnt lifting a rear tire, was able to get the car to rotate pretty easy, very neutral.

I am sure I will change them down the road once I have a little more seat time.

I know Sean's rear springs are still aft of the axle, but are they perhaps a bit further forward than stock? Kinda looks that way from the photos. If so that would reduce the distance to the <strike>LCA front pivot point</strike> edit: instant center and reduce the effective wheel rate, so it would be softer vs. a 450 lb/in spring in the stock location.
 
^^ I was thinking the same thing - a little shorter motion ratio = stiffer spring for the same wheel rate.

I'd add - if you're serious, Sean, about even more tire (and possible more wheel to support it) -- those will weigh more and that will impact things. So I'd consider getting the wheel/tire package you ultimately want before you start fine tuning the set up. As for camber - seems like for me in a variety of McPher strut cars over the decades, I was always looking for ways to get even more negative camber up front than I had....
 
I know Sean's rear springs are still aft of the axle, but are they perhaps a bit further forward than stock? Kinda looks that way from the photos. If so that would reduce the distance to the <strike>LCA front pivot point</strike> edit: instant center and reduce the effective wheel rate, so it would be softer vs. a 450 lb/in spring in the stock location.

^^ I was thinking the same thing - a little shorter motion ratio = stiffer spring for the same wheel rate.

I'd add - if you're serious, Sean, about even more tire (and possible more wheel to support it) -- those will weigh more and that will impact things. So I'd consider getting the wheel/tire package you ultimately want before you start fine tuning the set up. As for camber - seems like for me in a variety of McPher strut cars over the decades, I was always looking for ways to get even more negative camber up front than I had....

These are both true statements, also, my rear shocks have a little bit of lean to them to the rear of the car, this also is going to affect motion ratio on the rear shocks/ springs.

Its going to get bigger tires, but probably not until after the summer so Ill get it dialed in with this setup first.

Car has a lot of negative Camber up front. Once the springs settled it is drastic. I am guessing close to 3 Degrees. Ill get an initial measurement on Camber next week when it goes in for an alignment. I would like to be between 2.5 and 2.75 front.

Appreciate the input guys, keep it coming, this is how we learn.

Sean
 
This thread is full of so much awesome information. I never would have known about the effects of spring location on spring rates. Considering I want to shamelessly rip off your setup, this is good to know :lol:
 
If the rear spring location is somewhat close to stock, the wheel rate is 1.5x the spring rate.
So a 450lb/in spring comes out to 675lb/in at the wheel.
 
This thread is full of so much awesome information. I never would have known about the effects of spring location on spring rates. Considering I want to shamelessly rip off your setup, this is good to know :lol:

That's the entire point of these build threads right? No shame dude, have at it, hit me up if you have any specific questions I am always happy to help.

If the rear spring location is somewhat close to stock, the wheel rate is 1.5x the spring rate.
So a 450lb/in spring comes out to 675lb/in at the wheel.

You are damn close. I do however know that the angle of the shock and spring will also affect spring rate. It would take a bit of math to figure out but someone in that world could easily calculate it. great to know what the stock rate it is though. Thank you for sharing.

Had a little settling going on in the frontend so jacked the car up to adjust the coilover to find that something was going wrong. I was able to move the entire wheel assembly 1" front to back, it was super weird. Started checking things out and narrowed it down to the lower control arm bushing, at first I thought it was the bolt was wrong, but more disassembly led me to these gems.

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I have never seen a bushing fail in that amount of time. Approx 300 or maybe a little more miles. 10 auto cross runs, 6 speed stops and 4 laps around a track.

These things are like gum. Super soft. We compared them to new in the package super blue bushings (IPD) and these were softer but not by a ton.

I thought that possibly the ATF from the power steering leak had hurt them but it did it on both sides.

So I tore everything down, first side fought me but the pass side was 30 mins tops.

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Late Friday night trip to the twins and they whipped up these awesome pieces.

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These are delrin with new sleeves. They pressed in the lower control arms pretty easy and we were off to the races.

Curious to try these out. We have no idea how long these will last at all, they are just a test. Initial drive was a massive improvement in turn in and steering feel and feedback. Little additional NVH was added by changing these out for some reason. Car is night and day difference with these installed.

Huge shoutout to these guys too. They have been a huge part of this thing, helping out with motor mounts, steering shaft, custom one off bits here and there like the dash insert, these lower control arm bushings, the LSX badges and lots of hard to find bits and pieces.

Thanks Scott and Taylor!!

Got the car together at 1 am, up at 5 for the portland transmission show, its a low key show but a great event tons of variety, mostly hot rods but some killer VW's.

Asher gave me a hand on Sunday trying to isolate my fuel leak. We used the smoke machine to find it and its the filler neck gas cap, we dropped the tank and replaced the filler neck to be safe as it was all ovaled out. Still leaks....so I need a new gas cap.

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Hardest job was getting the clamp on the filler neck at the tank.

Definately helped but still need a new cap. Smell is much better than before.

Drove it around town a bunch this weekend. Exhaust is too raspy for me, I think its the front muffler making the raspy sound so that might be on its way out.

Car is a riot to drive, badly needs an alignment and even more important a stereo.

Killer pics from LS Fest came in.

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Weather depending.......Track day on Friday Night, IPD Saturday.

Lets hope for good weather.

Sean
 
Whoa you toasted those bushings. Should brake harder without locking up now. How much toe in are you running? With more rigidity i would guess you could get away with less toe in.
 
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