Norval, the shorter arm is a necessity in combination with a bigger kingpin inclination angle. If you stick to the stock inclination the normal arms will be fine. The pics on page 1 show that that race car has the arms mounted further inboard witha spacer to take up for the extra angle of the kingpin.

Oh, a camera eh... I can't wait to see pics.

 

You guys are nutz! :crazy:

Maybe we should just pool our money and hire a suspension designer to fix it once and for all, then sell the resulting parts for an upgrade kit :smash:

Then again what fun would that be eh?

 

Do you anticipate that they'll be out-of-balance enough to impact the balance of the wheel-tire-rotor-hub assembly?

mayberg I was cleaning one of the rotors yesterday and even though each of my rotors has been lightened by 3 pounds they still weigh alot and they are almost 12 inches in diameter. If you are looking for the last ounce of out of balance for high speed running everything counts. I can make a jig to balance them, you just install it on the special machined flange with a very low friction bearing and the heavy spot will go to the bottom. I will slowly remove weight for this spot until the rotor doesn't keep stopping at the same spot. It is easy to machine a flange and put it on a low friction mounted shaft.
I will make the jig and take pictures.

 

The pics on page 1 show that that race car has the arms mounted further inboard witha spacer to take up for the extra angle of the kingpin.

That's it ?? It is a race car and as such doesn't drive in a straight line for most of it's life. Sure stock cars always race in a circle so they start with alot of negative camber. We need very little camber for straight line tire wear but add it as we going into a curve. An extended spindle, stock A arms will get you at least 3 degrees negative camber and that is lots for a street driven car, even one driven hard.
Yes the camera is here in my hand. I just need to start taking pictures and download them to my computer.

 

That's where the difference in desire comes from, I'm not interested in straight line stuff, you should see the roads here, there's a lot of bends and cornerrs and I hate having to go through them slow to avoid getting oversteer and stuff. And I think the C3 handling just plain sucks.

If you need space to host pics, I have more than enough server space.

 

If you need space to host pics, I have more than enough server space.

Thanks Twin Turbo but space is not a problem, downloading from the camera is. My work computer had to be programed and I am still having problems. My home computer is not accessable from the back so until I can get a permanent cable for it i will not pull it out just to install a cable that needs to come out again. I have a really nice oak desk that the computer is in and I don't want to scratch the wood pulling the tower in and out. The cable is on order and was promised before the week is out.

Sure you want to turn corners but just not all left hand, Could be hard to leave home if you couldn't turn right :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

2 left handers make 1 right hand don't they :)

As for the camera, why not get one of those little USB card readers? You will never have to pull a cable again and they're dirt cheap too.

 

As for the camera, why not get one of those little USB card readers

Your right Twin Turbo I could easily do just that.

As far as 2 lefts making a right I don't think so. It requires 3 lefts to make a right.

 

LOL hahaha yeah 3 lefts OOOPS :bb :bb :bb

See, that's why I need a better suspension, with driving skills like that I must be able to corner precisely :D


[Modified by Twin_Turbo, 2:39 PM 1/19/2004]

 

I agree that completely modifying the front and rear suspension is the correct path for a C3 to get some real performance handling.

I'm willing to completely chop my existing suspension off and start over. My difficulties are not in designing the new suspension, but in the implementation of attaching a new suspension to the frame.

The frames on these cars were not perfect from the factory and have seen 30 years or so of service. The frame can not be used as a reference for installing the suspension.

If we are going to work with new mounting points we have to come up with some way to jig and reference the new parts.

More later...

Ryan

 

I hope you don't mind me asking something stupid, but if you alter a suspension like that, how do you get your car approved?


[Modified by JP's C4, 5:27 PM 1/24/2004]

 

There is no problem with gettig it approved, as long as it's a strong and safe enough suspension and you don't alter the track witdh too much there will be no problem. A lot of people with older Opels change out their suspensions for beefier units and none of them have any problem getting theirs APK approved.

Also, there's probably no one who will even notice if things have changed, most APK stations here have never seen a corvette before so they won't know what it should look like from the factory.

 

.... here's the more.

I'm working on a suspension design for the front end of my '69. The goals are Improved Geometry and Front Steer Rack and Pinion. I'm not reusing any of the existing suspension pickup points and I'm going to full coilovers. It looks like the front crossmember will require some fairly extensive modifications on the spring cups and the crossmember itself. The cross member extends too far forward for good rack placement therefore it will have to be narrowed. I'll be using an appleton rack and pinion, modified stock spindles, monoball upper and lower joints.

Like I said earlier the hard part is not designing the suspension, the hard part comes when you go to mount it on the car. The only references you can use is the rear axle centerline, a perpendicular to the rear axle centerline and the rear axle track dimensions.

I intend to fabricate a jig to hold all the new mounting points completely separate from the car. The new mounting plates/studs/etc will be registered and attached to the jig. The jig will be built from sections machined on my milling machine it will be adjustable at first, then squared on a 4 x 8 granite surface plate at work. After squaring and final measurement the jig have points that will be welded rigid in triangulation.

This is the only method one could use short of a frame jig like factories and mass production plants have. Even Car Creations uses a frame jig to do the C4 suspension conversion.

I've also looked at the C4 conversion. In fact I was at the NCRS show in Orlando today where I got to meet Olivier and see the GrandSport C3 up close and personal - very cool ride. :cool: Also met some other forum members. While there I was looking at C4 front suspensions again. That looks good, but I'm not sure about how difficult the front frame extensions would be to fab to get the tire to body clearance correct. Probably be like Norvals rear coilover mounts, try try again. :) Then there's the fact that you'd have high negative offset rims in front and stock in the back. Now we'd have to look at the rear C4 suspension.

Regardless of how you want to go it's a major undertaking to correct the poor geometry.

Ryan

 

I don't know why you're wasting your time on mods like this TT. Just get the kit from VB&P and your car will drive like a c5.

:lolg: