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Last Cars and Coffee of the summer is tomorrow....so that lit a fire and I wanted to make the car look a little....better(?) for that. I just bought a rear wing for the thing last week from our local classifieds; $30. I like $30.
I bought some 1" round tube for the support/frame work, so this afternoon, I started chopping and welding. Got it all done tonight. It looks O.K. It could have been a little lower maybe, but it did what I wanted it to -the rear of the car no longer has that "sloped down" *** like an AMC Gremlin.
Here are a few pics from the rear wing erection...
This was a "recycled" version of the adjusting mechanism that came with the wing. It was overwrought in it's original configuration and took up way too much space (it was like 5" tall). So I ditched most of it and reconfigured it like this. Gives me all the adjustment that I could possible want...
I wonder how many people will ask me what kind of Datsun it is....
So yeah...there is that. Anyone who doesn't like my wing...it was $30. There was a nicer one on our classifies too; it was bigger and carbon fiber, but it was $350. $350 for a wing doesn't fit w/in the 'Vette Kart budget matrix. $30 does fith though. For $30, I'll put that wing on there and have a wing.
Do it. It's been SO FUN and rewarding, all the progress, solved problems....all the custom little bits and pieces I've done to make it work right. It's such a cool thing to work on and such a fun toy to go rip on! Sell all the parts off a beater 'Vette and it almost pays for itself.
IDK what it's worth. My main goal (financially) were these:
1. Try to get the car to pay for itself
2. have the initial cost be LOW
3. Always be able to "get out" and at least break even. -I figured that a good L98, a ZF6/DMF, and a good D44...just w/those parts alone I'd be "safe" financially - could get my $2k back if I had to.
Took the Kart to it's first Auto-x yesterday. My wife and I dual drove it, so it got a workout. 17 runs in total. The upsides were:
*raw times were not terrible. 41'st out of 93...similar to how I'd place in the stock, 92. Maybe a little worse.
*It passed tech inspection
*The exhaust sounds so awesome, when you can get on it.
*It was a good learning experience about the kart. A real eye opener.
*It was....kind of fun. :-/
*People loved it.
The down sides?
*The car was totally undriveable. It was borderline dangerous. There is NO WAY that I would push it past 8/10 on a real track or on the road. Yikes...it was bad.
*The exhaust WOULD sound awesome, if you could ever get on it and stay on it...but you can't unless you don't mind spinning out, wiping out massive amounts of cones and doing donuts.
*It bottomed out at least twice on every run. The exhaust would hit the ground. That sucked.
*The highly lauded "TPI TORK MONSTER" torque curve sucks, in the kart. It might be O.K. in a heavy car, but all it does in the kart is "hit" at ~3000 RPM and cause wheel spin. Then it's all done by 4. The result is that once your rear is loose (which IS happening), it's hard to (at least) "keep it going". It kicks the *** out easy/all the time/every corner exit, so you counter steer, anticipate a nice drift/slid....and then it'd dead in the water, over reving. The rear tires grab and now you're steering the wrong way. You jerk the wheel back, shift and out goes the *** again, for a second. I ended up getting my FTD by running the whole course in 3rd gear.
*The brakes need more rear bias. Front brakes lock way too soon....then you're pushing into turns way too much.
So that's what I learned yesterday. Overall, I came away from the day feeling somewhat disappointed. The car needs shocks badly. It wasn't that noticeable on the street...but it was on the course w/elevation changes. Yikes. It also needs tires. The tires are "Futura" brand, so they were garbage to start with. Now, they're "finely aged" Futuras that have a nice "sheen" to them, They're old, hard and have no bite at all. They suck, but their shortcomings were exacerbated by the engine's midrange "hit", -it's inconsistent tq output. The engine needs a different intake that eliminates that midrange hit. It needs to have a much broader RPM range....and it needs to be consistent. I need shocks, tires, intake, brake bias and probably some more aligning and fine tuning. Then try again.
Tom do u think sticky tires and new shocks would solve the issue or are you thinking due to the lightness and the torque curve a modded intake is a must?
I think they'd help...for sure. I think the intake has got to go. The midrange "hit"...which feels great in a stock 3200 lb car, is way "too much" in this lighter car. Tires would help...but a linear tq curve is better, no matter what, IMO for competition. And 1000 more usable RPM would also help a lot.
On the street, where you don't care about performance (time), the midrange hit feels awesome....explosive in the kart. But when you're trying to accomplish something precise with that tq curve, it's really difficult...I'd say nearly impossible. It's literally, quite like the hit of a small turbo. And yesterday that was combined with very poor traction.
i wouldnt do much until you fix your tire situation....
mine was scary (on street and autocross) on NEW sumitomo (315s on all corners) 160 treadwear tires. so scary i thought about selliing. The rear was uncontrollable and wanted to snap around on every corner...
Enter decent tires, Toyo R88rs, again 315s on all four and the car is awesome! so much fun, you can drive into corner with confidence now and when it starts to slip it doesnt snap!
Buy tires, another set of cheapo wheels,if required, then give it another go before changing much else!!!!
Enter decent tires, Toyo R88rs, again 315s on all four and the car is awesome! so much fun, you can drive into corner with confidence now and when it starts to slip it doesnt snap
Thanks for this....that is GOOD to read. O.K. I'll make shocks and tires my next step. The bold is exactly what is completely missing from my car right now. Right now we're just "tip-toeing" around the course.
Thanks!Thanks for this....that is GOOD to read. O.K. I'll make shocks and tires my next step. The bold is exactly what is completely missing from my car right now. Right now we're just "tip-toeing" around the course.
Hi Tom, I think you might remember how I had that strange rear end movement in my GrandSport. I had the Banski rear suspension, Mickey Thompson Street Comps and stock Z51 Bilstein shocks (bought a new set of Bilsteins and it made no difference). The car was not fun the way I drove it, very unpredictable in the tight corners or on the gas.
I replaced the tires to Goodyear GSD3s, it made a difference but the rear end was still out of control. Replacing the shocks with the Ridetech adjustable shocks made a huge difference, I still love these shocks.
I am running 13 turns which is pretty firm on the street. But I still have 3 more turns for full firm.
11 turns is probably satisfactory for most drivers but I drive pretty hard and don't mind sacrificing a stiff ride for responsive handling.
Shocks made the biggest difference for me.
Thanks for posting this too. I really appreciate it. I was thinking the same thing and so I started THIS dead-beat thread (so far).
Here's why *I* think shocks are a big deal on this car: I feel that even with garbage tires, the car should be driveable up to it's limit. Kind of like (in my mind) a go-kart at an indoor kart racing place? Those things have terrible traction on the smooth concrete....but they're still driveable. You can drive and control the wee out of them. The Vette kart was the biggest handful I've ever driven. My feeling is that better tires would improve times and limits...but not the experience. -I still think it would feel like an out of control bomb going off.
Anyway...Ridetech, huh? I'm hearing you. The budget for this project is more like "Carquest" shocks....but yeah, I definitely hear what you're saying. I'm going to have to stew on Ridetechs for a bit. My '92 has Koni adjustables on it...I've thought of putting some Ridetech shocks on it and then putting the Koni's on the Kart...but the '92's handling is already quite good, so IDK right now. Thanks for the input.
Thanks for posting this too. I really appreciate it. I was thinking the same thing and so I started THIS dead-beat thread (so far).
Here's why *I* think shocks are a big deal on this car: I feel that even with garbage tires, the car should be driveable up to it's limit. Kind of like (in my mind) a go-kart at an indoor kart racing place? Those things have terrible traction on the smooth concrete....but they're still driveable. You can drive and control the wee out of them. The Vette kart was the biggest handful I've ever driven. My feeling is that better tires would improve times and limits...but not the experience. -I still think it would feel like an out of control bomb going off.
Anyway...Ridetech, huh? I'm hearing you. The budget for this project is more like "Carquest" shocks....but yeah, I definitely hear what you're saying. I'm going to have to stew on Ridetechs for a bit. My '92 has Koni adjustables on it...I've thought of putting some Ridetech shocks on it and then putting the Koni's on the Kart...but the '92's handling is already quite good, so IDK right now. Thanks for the input.
Your welcome
By the way I didn't like the QA1s (junk in my opinion) bit I see cars running them. I don't think they are valved properly for our Vettes.
I hear you on the budget for your Vette Kart (which again I think is pretty cool by the way).
Also the weight reduction of your Kart may not give you the same results with the Ridetech adjustable shocks. Then again it might be better at a less firm setting.
Good luck, I am enjoying your posts on the Kart.
This is a rapid subject shift, but I've been perusing the classifieds for a while now, looking for a Borg Warner T5 trans for the kart. Why in my right mind would I get rid of the ZF6 for a....T5!?
1. The ZF6 weighs ~145 lbs, I've read (never weighed one myself). The flywheel that goes with it is another 35 lbs. The T5 weighs ~75 lbs and 13 lb flywheels are not hard to come by. That's ~90 lbs saving in the front half of the car.
2. The ZF6 is bomb proof...but the Kart doesn't weigh anything and I'm never going to hook big tq with it. I can't even hook 300 lbs, so my concern for breaking a T5 is low.
3. I can buy an F-bod T5 for ~$500. I believe that I could sell the DM fw, clutch, and ZF6 for ~$1500. That leaves me with ~$1k that I can spend on other things.
I had the Borg Warner T5 in my 1983 Z28 I used to own/race. I rebuilt that tranny so many times even with the weak 190 horse 305ci. I changed the input shaft bearings, synchros, shift forks, reverse gear, etc. I use to keep spare parts because I would break it so often. After many rebuilds I found that it shifted better with 5W30 motor oil rather than the factory fill red fluid (I believe the red fluid was a modified GM ATF fluid).
Mustang GT/LX 5.0 cars that had the T5 seemed to hold up better than the GM T5. The splines were different on the input shaft, and I believe the Ford T5 version was rated for almost 290HP. The Mustangs were also lighter than the GM F body which is probably why the Mustangs T5 held up better with the stock power.
Swapping to a T5 is not worth it in my opinion, keep the ZF6!
ALL winter, I wanted to work on the Kart. Unfortunately for the kart, I work in the ski industry. The resort I work at got a lot of snow; 711" year to date -we still have over 100" base. More snow = more work, and I only had 3 days off from Jan 1 until mid April. If I wasn't working, or snow blowing....I was sleeping.
Anyway, winter has finally started to let up here and I put the kart up on stands today to start prepping the frame for paint. step 1 is filling all the holes in the frame, and smoothing all the frame rails (eliminating the lip seams).
I'll be filling all the holes, but I started with the ~1" hole in the bottom left of the picture. The bigger holes, like the one in this pic, for the door harness, I'll cut a piece out of sheet, weld it in. The holes that were smaller than ~1/2", I just welded them in. The medium holes, I cut out little sheet strips that were just a hair smaller than the hole...
Then I stuck it to a magnet, and slid it into the hole...
Then held it tight against the inside of the frame rail and tacked it...
Next was the seams at the front and rear of the rocker rails. That seam is very visible...and it looks like poo. So, I ground out the paint and filled them both in with weld. Same as above; I'll skim/sand/prime.
The ugly weld at the top isn't the finished product. I'm going to cut a strip of sheet the length of the rocker rail, and about 2" wide, then "cap" the top of the rail to smooth and hide the pinch weld at the top/inside of the rocker rail. I'll tie and blend the ends of that strip into where that messy weld is and make it all look seamless/smooth. Finally, I'm going to weld a grab bar on top of that top sheet for the passenger.
10-20-2018, 11:51 PM
