Slammed - Pt.2

Here you go... The moment you may not even know you were waiting for.

Nii trimming the strut for new collars, the rest after... the... break... :-P

Slammed

I slammed my car to the ground... Pictures in the morning.
Still a little leveling to do and I need some good light. It is pretty goofy.

Parts!

My Ground Control kit showed up this afternoon. We have a few other parts on the way (camber bolts and steering rack bushings). I'll probably cave in and want to put them on Sunday before the temps start diving further.

The big trick/task will be establishing a good base alignment without equipment. The plan is to go as negative as possible since my last alignment bottomed out at 0° with the stock bolts. The camber bolts will move me in the right direction and we will see how far we can go before doing camber plates.

Bill Caswell Is Still My Hero

Well still haven't finished talking about his first project because it was so cool but now he has raised the bar. For those who can't remember Bill, think low budget Craigslist BMW Rally car. Where is he going now? You might wonder. BAJA, thats where he is going. Right after he stops off a SEMA.

Be sure to read more! craigslist rally car becomes Baja beast

We're Still Doing It Wrong.

I was just flipping through the Drift union Flikr set. Its totally time for some seriour RWD action.

 

Couple more pictures after the break. But please be sure to check out all their cool stuff on their blog:

http://driftunion.com/blog/

Yint's Weekly Update 10/23/2010

Okay, so--Squarebush asked me to do a log of what I am up to, so here is my first installment detailing what I have done (of interest) over the course of the last week. 

So, I started of the week by cleaning my garage. Seeing as it is now primarily my work space, I went about re-organizing everything, and in general making it a much nicer place to work. I couple of key features of my renovated work space are a newly installed car radio(on my work bench) that is powered by an ATX power supply, and a new tool box made using an old dresser, some plywood, and drawer sliders bought at Home Depot for about $7 each set.

My first car work of the week was replacing the brake pads and rotors on a 2002 Ford Expedition. Brakes are generally pretty easy, but I have to say Ford really must have given these brakes about 5 minutes of total design time. The brake is entirely put together in a grooved track design, and in order to put it back together a mechanic need about twelve hands. Mostly my complaint about them is that you can't simply put the pads in. You have to assemble the brake in a specific order. Starting with the caliper, you add the outside brake pad, slide on the brake bracket PART of the way, insert the inner brake pad and then finish sliding the bracket into place. Not a terribly great design.

Just now, I went to AutoZone to meet up with my next client who owns a 2004 Legacy. He came to me expressing that he needs new head gaskets. After Some discussion, leading to me finding out his car is about to hit 100k, I recommended replacing the trimming belt while we were at it, and then also the clutch. We bought the necessary parts and set a date for next weekend. In the process of ordering parts we talked quite a bit about his car history and I was shocked. He has near literately been raped on ever minor difficulty he has had with his cars. The best example of this was when he told my about the CV boot that was torn on his car. He took it to a local dealership and ended up paying over $500 to have all 4 CV joints on his front axles replaced. I just spent 2 minutes on Google and found NEW whole axles for less than $60 each. Factor in 1.5 hours of labor, and I am still not coming up with $500; and all they did was rebuild the existing axles. Why do people pay so much for such un-necessary work?

Squarebush Legacy

I'm starting a ever growing suspension project on my 98 wagon. The couple major things done to it this year and I setting up some thing big right now. However I still have no idea what I am doing or why.

So its time to come up with a plan.

Right now I have my car sitting on a fresh set of KYB GR2's. These provide about 25% stiffer damping over stock plus however much I lost from high mileage. I'm running the uprated rear sway bar I mentioned before which did a bit to help stiffen up the rear.

Now I am in search of some added anti roll effect. I looked into and purchased an impreza ground control spring set up. I crunched a bunch of number, read countless forum posts and did everything I could to end up more confused about what is going to happen to my vehicle when I put them on. Basically it is all going to be a fairly useful experiment in struts and springs. Also on the way are extra camber bolts for front and rear along with TIC steering rack bushings.

More suspension nonsense after the break

Scooby Moddification #1

Someday we will find a picture of Scooby Doo riding a Vespa and the joke will be complete.

In the mean time I've got a down and dirty low budget suspension mod for yous guys. I did this mod right after getting my second gen Legacy wagon. The wagons are known to have smaller (15mm) rear sway bars to compensate for higher loads. I scoured an uprated large diameter (18mm) bar from the Outback version of the car, which is larger to reduce roll with the greater suspension height. Bingo Bango reduced understeer.

Most think that this is the end of sway bar work and discussion. However I have more for you. When swapping one factory sway bar for another you need to make sure you are using the same generation and body styles. When switching generations Subaru switches rear suspension types for the Legacy from 2000 (from strut to multi-link). What this means is a third gen legacy sway bar is much smaller and an entirely different shape than a second gen's, so it's not really an option. Wagons and sedans might have different front and rear track widths along with different load classifications.  Legacys don't change width, but if you had an Impreza and wanted to swap in a turbo'd Impreza rear sway bar (pretty much the only thing that causes the sway bar to get thicker is the presence of a turbo on the Imprezas) you'd have to consider.

Many enthusiasts opt for non-factory sway bar upgrades. However anyone who has worked with these systems learns rule number 2 of sway bar modification. More isn't always more. When you start working with nonfactory uprated sway bars you remove the invisible safety net of factory conservatism.  Say I asked you how your car behaves under midcorner liftoff? If you don't know how to answer you might want to hold off on and major upgrades. A bigger rear bar can introduce liftoff oversteer and an unstable ride on rough terrain.  Another factory consideration thrown to the wind is reliability. Even after staying in the conservative realm of factory bars I quickly wore out my original rear struts and had to install new ones. If you are driving a higher millage vehicle you have to take these factors into account before a cheap modification becomes a potentially expensive suspension rework.

This brings us onto rule number 3, too much sway bar. A little stiffness upgrade limits the rear body roll so that you have a better handle of it at the wheel and don't have to take the car from lock to lock to get the rear end to shift. Too much leverage from the sway bar causes the suspension to bind up and loose traction on rough surfaces. Turns minor weight shift and steering correction into snap over steer and spin outs and stress out the rear suspension and bushings.

Whiteline and other brands offer a versatile adjustable sway bar system. At first the adjust ability sounds appealing so you can provide yourself a road and a track set up.  The aftermarket systems are designed to work with a wider range of setups and spring rates. What this means for the user is a little experimentation is required to find the sweet spot.

More Breaking Late News

God everyone will be sick of reading my blast from the past "news" articles. Hopefully I can move on to more fresh items later this week, it is just that the backlog on cool stuff that already happened is really long.

Anyways, local race news is that Boston American LeMans team Black Swan Racing took the overall win this season. I was introduced to the team when the technical engineer was buying bicycles from us this summer at my local shop. Working at the shop is a fantastic way to meet exciting people from all sorts of unique backgrounds. I'll be looking forward to seeing how 2011 turns out as they head back as defending GTC champions. Enjoy the pics and site: http://blackswanracing.com/

Climb to the Clouds

Yeah... we missed it. However in our defense the event hasn't been run since 2001. You don't even want to know how old we were in 2001. Not old enough to appriecate real hillclimb, that is for sure.
Anyways missing this historic auto race up Mt Washington has caught my attention. Next year expect some great coverage and other goodies.
If the event shapes up for a few more good years you should expect to us try our hand in the next couple seasons. read all about it after the break

Nii - Part.1

Nii, reporting in. Late. What was this a homework assignment? More widely known as Soul Shinobi on almost every Subaru forum (and just about everyplace else on the net since I was 12), offline I'm J. Nicholas "Nick" Sarris, or more affectionately, Nii (said nee).

With a passion for driving feel and the pleasant sensations associated, I frown on heavy aesthetic and even more function modification (if not everything). I started off lowly, driving my father's Mercury Mountaineer, and not to let any vehicle live below its potential I'd gladly pull U-turns over medians in the snow, and get it stuck off road, and get the truck I was trying to rescue it with stuck, and putting off telling my father until the next day, and having to pay a tow company $300 to nearly get their trucks stuck. What were we talking about?

Well then, my first real car, a 1992 Subaru Legacy L AWD 5MT purchased from a friend's family for the cost of the brake work that it needed. With no rear stabilizer bar to speak of, I could still get it to oversteer with just strut tower braces (eBay special) and weight shift technique the car so thoughtfully taught me. It certainly had more guts than the Mercury, and has been responsibly for at least two snow/mud rescues of squarebush (in a Mercedes Diesel wagon, and no less than a 2003 Subaru Legacy Outback). Like every car I've owned since, I fell in love with it, because I'm just naïve like that. I'd like to tell you it's still with me, and if I had the room it would be. I know it tried its best, it really did, but fate was cruel to it, and our home owner's association crueler still.

Lovingly adorned with fiberglass and body filler, as well as the cheapest fog lights money could buy.

The grounding kit helped, I swear. Notice the recess where an ABS unit should be. This car was a fine learning experience.

Detailed with q-tips and toothpicks. I rebuilt the tan vents by hand, as individual blades would break loose.

If You Put Your Mind to It...

Found this floating around the blog roll:
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=8834
ex-a-busa

What we are looking at is a exoframe a-la Ariel Atom with a totally new power plant...a Hayabusa heart.

There isn't a reason it the world that you can't see a EJ powered one of these coming out of our work shop, well I mean other than funding.

Check out this blog for more exciting works of art:

Got Some Pics I'll Just Leave Here...

These are a few teasers from a future write up. It is a little stale but the pictures arn't. Anyways, a little bit of exciting car porn from a Fort Devens SCCA AutoCross event this summer.

Check out this site for sore eyes. It has a great poker face though.

Hey..um is that a GT-R? Well of course it is. Much more on that later.

Yint - Part.1

I too will be contributing to this Blog. I'm Mike Carlstrom, also know as: Yint. I got my start in driving with a 1995 Dodge Neon. Not my first choice of cars, but it was the "kids car" for my family. It took me about 2 years to blow that up, and I was rewarded with my second car, a... 2000 Dodge Neon, but at least this one had power steering. I drove that for another 2 years, before finally I entered the world of proper cars and got my 2002 Subaru Impreza TS. (only slightly photoshoped)

Having reached a point in my life where I could actually make enough money to do anything considerable to the car, I decided the best place to start modifying it would be to put a WRX engine in it. So I did. I will likely do a full right up on the swap, but that is a job for another day. In short, I bought a 1997 impreza base model that had already been swapped to a WRX engine and a Legacy GT drive train, all the guts from that car and put it into my TS, and took the TS engine and drive train and put it into the 97.

 
Now I am working as a backyard mechanic while finishing up my BS in mechanical engineering. I have done quite a few jobs now, ranging from a brake light switch on a 1988 Volvo 244, to a top end rebuild on a Ford Windstar. My next big job I already have lined up will be buying a junkyard engine, rebuilding it, and swapping it into a 1997 Hyundai Accent. I will be starting that job in the next week (I hope.) The customer hasn't responded to my last email where I detailed out all of what I would be doing, and how much it would cost.

Squarebush - Part.1

So I will be contributing a lot of content to this blog/project. I'm Paige "Squarebush" Rowntree.

I like to mold a variety of automotive styles and ideas into my work. I'm a fan of anything different no matter how not different it really is. I've grown up with a variety of different types of cars in the family. We started off with Volvos, moved onto a Landrover, had a Mazda hatchback, a couple of Mercedes, a couple of Jetta diesels, and recently a couple of Subaru Legacy wagons.

I got my start working on my vintage Mercedes projects. The main work was on a fantastic 1972.

Here is a little background for you.

1972 Mercedes 280se 4.5

Dirty engine from years of use

Getting cleaner

Final product of months of work resulting in basically abandonment of the project due to electrical complications

Join us later for Part.2 of my introduction, I will be discussing my more recent and sucessful mods and projects, or at least stuff I can still find pictures of.

YNS Production

Yint, Nii, and Squarebush Production.

We are dysfunctional group of dysfunctionals* who are united to work to improve the function and quality of our cars, any cars that land in our driveways, and all the ones we get begged to work with.

Most of our work is based on the principle that new OEM parts work better then worn out OEM parts and maybe we can make a buck or two at the end of the day if we don't break too many bolts in the process.

The three of us have acquired many different helpful skills in the art of bullshit and generally faking that we know how something goes back together once we have broken all the plastic clips. This and other valuable skills have allowed us to break out with some exciting starter projects.

Following this post we will add our bios and a brief description of vehicle history and projects.

After that we will take some time to get full project write ups for a couple major projects that are already tied up, and move forward to bring you exciting picturefull* gloss write ups on tasty projects on the calender.

Also we will have an in-depth look at the local automotive scenes, competitions and hopefully full feature interviews with local rally drives, autoX champions, and generally cool smart people.

So to wrap this up, the basic plan for YNS Production is to provide interesting DIY auto work, in-depth how-we-did-its, and cool comprehensive information and photographs

*these are words I made up, feel free to use them and rip them off