Home built 67 Firebird

[waynieZ]

The car looks great with the wheels.

[n77nxc]

Awesome Tu....I'm hoping to have your old wheels to that same shop in the next week or two.

[KPC67]

Awesome update Tu!

[rickpaw]

Originally Posted by n77nxc

Awesome Tu....I'm hoping to have your old wheels to that same shop in the next week or two.

Thanks for the tip on the shop Jason. They did a great job on the wheels/tires. Make sure to post some pictures.

Originally Posted by KPC67

Awesome update Tu!

Thanks for the compliment Kevin.

Spent about 90 minutes yesterday to go over the front end alignment.

Adjusting the toe.


Checking camber/caster.


I went with -0.5 degree camber, 0 toe, and pos 5 degrees caster.

[NvrDun71]

Tu did you end up going with the short or tall versions of the ATS spindles? Car looks great with the new wheels BTW!

[rickpaw]

Originally Posted by NvrDun71

Tu did you end up going with the short or tall versions of the ATS spindles? Car looks great with the new wheels BTW!

Tall spindle. Got them from Ron Sutton.

Thanks.

[Beach Cruiser]

Nice job, car looks great. I'm a member of the home built crew too. Saw some pics of your car at the USCA Texas event, Good luck today! I'll be in the Charlotte event.

[NvrDun71]

Originally Posted by rickpaw

Tall spindle. Got them from Ron Sutton.

Thanks.

Appreciate the info, how do you like them? Noticeable seat of the pants improvement? Did the spindle swap necessitate the wheel change? The kore 3 brakes transfer over without issue? Also did you pick up your DBA rotors thru Kore3 or another source? Sorry for all the questions but appreciate the info in advance..... have a very similar set of plans currently in the works for my car. One of these days would like to see the car in person, I believe Niftee Fiftees starts up again next Saturday and I hope to head out there with a few friends.

[rickpaw]

Originally Posted by Beach Cruiser

Nice job, car looks great. I'm a member of the home built crew too. Saw some pics of your car at the USCA Texas event, Good luck today! I'll be in the Charlotte event.

Thanks. I've been keeping up with your build thread as well. Wonder where you saw the pics of my car? USCA website?

Originally Posted by NvrDun71

Appreciate the info, how do you like them? Noticeable seat of the pants improvement? Did the spindle swap necessitate the wheel change? The kore 3 brakes transfer over without issue? Also did you pick up your DBA rotors thru Kore3 or another source? Sorry for all the questions but appreciate the info in advance..... have a very similar set of plans currently in the works for my car. One of these days would like to see the car in person, I believe Niftee Fiftees starts up again next Saturday and I hope to head out there with a few friends.

So far I like the spindles. Be honest with you I did not notice any improvement. But I did see noticable camber gain when working the suspensions with the shocks removed.

I changed the wheels because I wanted to take the advantage of the Thanksgiving sale Ron Sutton was having, not because of the spindle swap. The spindles did not change the track width at all. In fact, my old wheels mounted up just fine.

The Kore3 stuff transferred over just fine. The parts that were not used were the brackets/hubs. The spindles were designed to use Corvette brakes, so stock GM or aftermarket brakes will work. In fact, I'm about to change the calipers out to Wilwood's Aero6 calipers.

I bought the rotors thru Autoanything. They were having a sale on DBA rotors, and at the time had the lowest prices compared to anyone else.

Hope that helps.

Tu

[rickpaw]

Attended USCA Texas event at Texas Motor Speedway this last weekend for the first time, and had a blast. Got to meet fellow lateral-g members (carbuff, gerno, grabbergt, chichirone), and checked out some really cool cars.

Some pictures at the event. I'm still looking for some action shots of the car.



Lining up for tech/check in.


All stickered up and ready to go.


Got to park next to 2 really cool cars (carbuf's Firebird and gerno's Camaro) in the hotel parking lot, at the early morning hour.


Mechanically, the car did great. I knew the car is low in power, compared to the rest of the cars at the event, and this showed in the road course. The stock transmission would up shift half way thru the apex, and that killed the acceleration. My current seats sucked, and those will be changed out before I do another track event.

For those who's been contemplating about attending this event, do it. It's well run, and the instructors provided by Jet Hot were invaluable.

Overall I finished 13th out of 19 entries in my class (vintage-GTV) which was surprising. Guess I did not do too bad for a complete newbie who has never done a track day before.

Hope Optima brings back the event to Texas next year.

Tu