Early Thursday morning I eagerly headed over to Autocomp Racecars. Marty and I had been discussing what direction we wanted to head with my car. If you remember, Marty is also the one to help my ARB setup come to life.

( http://www.stewartleask.com/build/adjustable-arbs )

Marty and I are on a very similar mindset when it comes to the direction I want to go with this car. I have the knowledge to know what I want my car to do and how I want it to act and react to my driving style thanks to ASD Motorsports. Marty knows how to help me apply it. Without any delay we got through our quick hello’s and got busy on the car.

The first 4-5 hours were dedicated specifically to bumpstop adjustments and tooling around with preloads. Finally we’d found the stroke lengths we were satisfied with for both compression and rebound so it was immediately onto the scales.

Considering the car had just been base assembled we didn’t have to change a lot. The chassis reacted very well to even 1/4 and 1/2 turns on the collars representing a very sturdy shell to base all this work off of. By the time it was said and done, fronts were within 5lbs of eachother with swaybar unhooked. Once the swaybar was hooked up the numbers changed no more than 1 lb in either direction, the fronts actually got 1-2lbs closer. We were very excited to say the least. Marty and I discussed a new alignment for the car which was something I hadn’t tried before. After seeing what results he’d produced for my car in the past I knew to trust his instincts and go forward with the new settings.

As soon as I was done at Autocomp I thanked Marty infinitely and headed down to Houston where I’d be going to PowerFAB Automotive to final assemble the car and break in my new ring and pinion gear from the 350z differential install. As always I got all the help I needed from Jeremy and the guys at PowerFAB. We were up very late getting some fresh livery on the car as well as breaking in the ring and pinion. Afterwards we called it a night knowing tomorrow was gonna be a long day!

I showed up to the track early so I could drive the car around, test out the new OS Giken differential and feel out the car. Immediately I confirmed the diff was working and everything on the car seemed to be good to go. It was time, I’d been installing custom parts on this thing since November. I had no idea at all how everything was going to work together (nothing ever works as well in real life as it does in your head). I dialed in my shock damping and went out for my cars first lap since 2011.

…Its for the best that I wear a tinted visor, because I was grinning ear to ear. Like a child almost! The car was miraculous! It had on demand grip that it had never had before. The harder you tossed the car, the harder it dug in and went for it. It could seat at whatever angle I wanted it to and just pushed through the course. During the day we even tested a visual on the rebound issue I’d noticed late last year and found out it was gone! The car was reacting just as it should to the upset in the suspension. Not only that, I was told that visually it was the ONLY car that hit that bump at whatever angle it wanted to and did not get upset by it at all. The car stayed steady, the suspension complied and the power was put down the entire time. Unfortunately a sensor issue came up halfway through practice. We searched and searched for solutions and ended up swapping out the crank/cam and map sensors which ended up fixing the issue right before qualifying. I swapped seats over winter (Recaro SPG to Recaro SPG Pro) and doing so changed the height I sat at in the car. Because of this, it was a bit harder to judge the nose of my car. My splitter took down a good 2-3 cones each one of my qualifying runs which set me back to 6th place qualifier.

The tandem field was full this event (Fabricated Motorsports turned out over 50 drivers!) so we got right to the competition. I went against Kevin Spoolin in the first round. Kevin seemed to have a good follow but ended up making a mistake and spun out near the end of the run. I was finally starting to get comfortable with the car again since the sensor issue and ended up laying down a follow I was really proud of to lock in the win.

In top 8 I was going to go against one of my favorite Texas drivers, Will Parsons. Will and I have a history of laying down incredible tandem runs. Neither of us holds back and it usually shows, this day was no exception. Round 1 was incredibly close, we both aimed at eachothers cars and went into a one more time. Round 2 was good, but my follow was lacking a little bit. I caught myself making a small mistake and couldn’t close the gap back up unfortunately, Will went on for the win.

Other than the tough loss in top 8, the event went great. I had massive support from PowerFAB when it came to the sensor issue and anything else that happened with the car. I had great support as well from parents and friends that had come from all over Texas. Without all you guys, these events are often times too much for me to handle on my own. I’m very thankful for all that helped me at the event!

The next step is a good one, the car stayed in Houston at PowerFAB. Jeremy and the group are thirsty for more horsepower from the car. By the time I go pick it up it will be outfitted with a freshly ported set of 243 heads. The car will be going back to Autocomp Racecars after reviewing footage of the suspension mid-driving. Marty’s got some stuff he wants to talk about and some changes we’re going to try out. I feel like I should make it more known that Texas truly is growing and expanding right now. Our events are very competitive (and very well organized and thrown, thank you Aaron Losey!), our fanbase is growing rapidly and the shops that are becoming involved are amazing. Anybody in Houston with any car work necessary should go by and see PowerFAB. Check out the shop, see what they can do for you. Its a very talented group of individuals that run a very solid business! And anybody thats interested in exploring the route I’ve been taking in car setup needn’t go any further than Autocomp Racecars. Marty will assess your car, he will take in your input and he will point you in the right direction. He’s been gracious enough to extend his services to us drivers, now we need to use it and take advantage of it! Proper chassis setup will change your car for the best and I strongly influence any and everybody interested in furthering their cars to give it a shot and see what kind of difference it really makes.

Kryptonite idler pivot comparison

Kryptonite tie rod comparison

fresh Timken wheel bearing, the old one felt like the race was knocked completely loose inside!

There’s still lots of cleaning to do but that’ll come later. All in all it was a very chill and relaxed afternoon. My dad was in the garage working on the ’78 Skyline as its the next car on the chopping block. It was nice to have a change of pace before the craziness of this week comes, the first event of the year is in 6 days!

More on the 13 soon, stay tuned!

Additionally, since the ASD Mob seminar I’d realized I wanted a new approach at my spring rates and decided to change them up to better suit my car. So I sent in the shocks for a full revalve and overhaul at Tein USA. I am very happy with both the turnaround time and the product received. In my eyes, it says a lot when a company supports products stateside and works with the customer when he or she wants to alter the product. Tein was extremely helpful and had good communication when it came to fixing and diagnosing the particular issues my car was having.

Another partner acquired during my search for the best product possible was Swift Springs. When I came to Swift for help with my particular situation not only were they easy to work with but they were very knowledgeable when it came to my issues as well. We talked about the spring rate possibilities, what I was valving for, what I could do with my helper spring and came up with a combination that we felt worked best.

I’m very proud to have both Tein and Swift Springs on board this year. Combining the two gives me the best of both worlds and the adjustability/functionality I require in my suspension. Definitely looking forward to a winning year!

While the coilovers were off for rebuild I needed to address one issue that arose when I installed my rear spindles. I had to raise my coilovers so much that I almost ran out of threads in my rear shock buckets. Never a problem, decided to kill two birds with one stone. I opted for a 20mm ID rod end which gave me not only height adjustability in the bucket itself but also eliminated bushing deflection.

Again, just another instance of Marty and his amazing TIG work. Huge thanks as usual goes out to Autocomp Racecars!

It seems right as the buckets were done and prepped the coilovers had arrived. Much like a kid in a candy store I got out the WD-40 and got to cleaning. I religiously clean every single bit of the suspension to make on the fly adjustments that much easier.

Upon installation I was presented with one more surprise. This is the first time I’ve installed coilovers onto the spindles with the new 350z axles in place. I gained a surprising amount of bucket room from the axle body which is a big sigh of relief. Before it was so close that when my axle broke it put a huge gash in the coilover bucket and collar.

Old:

(its a deceivingly bad picture, the distance was very very little between the two)

New:

Additionally I also have play around my RUCA now by playing around with offset spacers my friend Drew lathed for me.

I can now offset where the coil bucket sits on the shaft as I’ve run into RUCA clearance issues in the past.

A couple more for good measure, it sure is coming together nicely!

Again, its absolutely amazing to have so much help from such great companies. I now have full control and adjustability out of my differential, my coilovers, my springs, my swaybars and every other part of the car I wish to change. Additionally, thanks to Tein’s amazing EDFC design I even have the ability to adjust dampening from inside my drivers seat. Without amazing products and companies like these we wouldn’t have competitive cars or all these different parts we can change or tweak. I genuinely thank every single partner I’ve made for the 2012 season, you guys are making every last bit of this possible.

All thats left now is another visit to Autocomp Racecars to set up the chassis for Fabricated Motorsports FD Pro-AM Round 1! Stay tuned!

First I selected a pre-bent bar. Size didn’t matter as much as material and weight at this point. Tanabe was just the swaybar I was looking for. Good size, thick wall, 4130 chromoly construction. The only problem was those fixed position blades. A little time behind the computer screen and I had come up with my new end blades with 5 adjustment points. Time is against me so I ordered a piece of 1/2″ 4130 chromoly plate and had 4 cutouts waterjetted ASAP.

My next hurdle was a big one. I went back to researching and spoke to many people about the issue I had at hand. It ultimately comes down to the spring property of the sway bar itself and how welding can effect it. I had yet to come across a shop that would take the job (as its too much for my little Lincoln MIG) and understand the goal at hand. Eventually, I found one person. Not only was he capable, but he loved the idea. His enthusiasm fueled the project and was a big part of its success. Marty at Autocomp Racecars was going to be helping with the difficult job of welding the end blades on all while making sure the concentrated heat doesn’t reach past the first 90° bends. We knew heat wouldn’t exactly ruin the area the end blades attached to, it has no spring property. But once you get past the 90s you can get into all sorts of trouble. We got our game plan together and got straight to work.

I got the blades cleaned up, deburred the adjustment holes and knocked out the measurements of our cuts. Marty’s shop has quite an interesting and extensive history in racing. For instance, the deburring tool I used was given to him by Carroll Smith.

Next up Marty prepped and slotted the bars for the blades to be housed inside.

After that it was time to jig the bar and clamp the blades down and go to town. Marty got busy laying down some amazing TIG work and the final product was breathtaking. It really is fascinating watching custom fabricated parts come to life.

That concludes the work necessary for the ARBs. All work shown was done on both the front and rear. So now we have adjustable sway bars, but no endlinks. The endlinks need to serve two purposes. Number one, they must be height adjustable for potential preloading or height differences on different corners of the car. Number two, they must allow for misalignment as the suspension articulates. Sure, this is nothing groundbreaking and its not rocket science, just stating the thought process out loud. The simplest approach is and has always been using rod ends, high misalignment preferred. Without any delay I ordered my parts and got to it!

The pile of parts needed to make both the clevises and the endlinks themselves. I used size 6ID and 6 shank on each of my endlinks. I used a male/female method not because its preferred but because I didn’t have enough room for a turnbuckle setup with LH/RH thread. Sometimes things don’t always work out as we plan I suppose! I started building some simple clevises to house the female QA1 rod ends.

SS square tube is perfect for small projects like this.

Checking inner clearance.

Had an issue with my regulator on the back one but it works just fine for my purposes. Welded in bolts as studs on the inside, washers on the outside due to the fact that the inner seam unfortunately landed on the wrong edge of the tube. No biggy, just have to work around it.

I then assembled the endlinks and articulated the suspension to get the right rotation on my clevises. This is the most crucial of steps as binding can result in the rod ends loosening themselves, premature wear of the liners and abuse on the rod ends themselves and all sorts of headaches.

After confirming I had found the correct front and rear position of the clevises I realized the swaybar got rather close to my z33 pinion flange. To fix this I made some spacers for the D-bushings out of 1/2″ 6061 tooling plate. I also ordered some new Tanabe D-bushings to remove any additional deflection or slop. 2-piece 27mm ID two piece shaft collars will also be utilized to keep the swaybar centered.

It was time to bolt the finished product on for the last time! However it can’t go on ugly and unfinished haha. I’m too much of a clean freak for that!

And finally…

A quick shot of some more suspension articulation tests. This is also my suspension geometry at static height.

And that is the finished product. I now have full control of my ARB rates (within reason) and can play with them at track, while altering spring rates, etc. The possibilities of this setup are endless and you can even mimic this setup with swaybars you may already have on your car. Next up, the coilovers and springs are ready to go on!

Interestingly enough Nissan themselves has presented the S-chassis and Skyline communities with a few options of their own over the years. They’ve created a 6×1 pattern inner CV with ball/cage outters for many chassis that are very strong and can stand up to big horsepower numbers (such examples include GTRs, Q45s, Z33s and Z32 TTs). I’ve done my research, I’ve explored many options and I’ve played with many combinations to figure out what works best for my program. I wanted my solution to be economical in a sense that it came out of another OEM car and could be had relatively easy in case of problems. I wanted my solution to retain my current ring and pinion sizing (while physically upping the size and strength of both the ring gear and the pinion themselves). Most importantly I wanted a strong CV with the option of purchasing an abundant amount of axles without breaking the bank. I purchased everything from Q45 axles to an entire R33 GTR subframe assembly before I found what worked best for my combination.

(as you can tell, there’s no combination I haven’t tried or thought of)

My final effort was a 350z differential setup. They came with the offering of a 3.3, a 3.5, a 3.7, a 3.9, 4.1, 4.3, 4.6 and even a 4.9 ring and pinion offering. The LSD units are as stout as the GTR units and their output shafts are the beefed up Nissan OEM 6×1 pattern and design. The pinion size alone puts the 240sx R200 to shame and comes from another Nissan so it all stays within the family (a 2005 Nissan Frontier 2wd unit). The axles are just long enough to be in a good operating range on my car and will solve my overextending issues as well. For a car that doesn’t have a wide rear end setup like mine you can also you (1) Z32 TT axle and (1) Q45 axle to get an oem width combination to receive all of the exact same benefits, but you will have to swap to a 31 spline outer hub.

As you can tell, I’m very proud to display my choice of LSD manufacturer, and here’s why. OS Giken offers quite a few benefits that you won’t find with other LSD manufacturers. For starters there is no initial break-in required on an OS Giken LSD. The machine tolerances and finish quality is set to a very high standard and therefore no wearing of the plates is needed before the differential is ready and operational. OS Giken utilizes more plates than most, if not all, LSD manufacturers per application. This results in less wear and a longer lifespan from your differential. Upon ordering you do not simply offer them a part number and receive a product. OS Giken can tune each differential to your individual application should you wish to utilize this option and can increase the ramp-up or reaction time inside the diff. Preload adjustments can be made and internal cones can be swapped to adjust aggressiveness of the unit itself. I found this to work very well for me as I’m a firm believer in 3 things being custom suited to each car:

-shocks and springs
-differential
-suspension and alignment

Each should suit the driver and the application at hand, and OS Giken offers you that adjustability. I can’t even express how proud I am to be working with such a prestigious company and I look forward to a great year with them! Additionally, I knew that the installation was going to require a professional approach as pinion heights had to be reset and measured to make sure everything meshed well inside the differential. When you’re in there its a good idea to go ahead and order all fresh parts so you don’t find yourself having to dig into the differential later down the road. For the installation I looked no further than Jason at Texas Drivetrain Performance. Jason researched the specific application I’m going for and made sure everything was going to be suited for my particular car and work out well. There’s a lot of myths floating around about Z33 output shafts and Jason knew just the answers we were looking for. His knowledge and professional installation has been above and beyond each and every time I needed his help and I just can’t thank him enough for wanting to be a part of this car.

So now we approach the installation. The Z33 differential doesn’t just bolt into my subframe, I had to modify the front upper bolt holes to set the differential height similar to that of the 350z and keep my pinion angle in check. The rear cover however, does line up with (1) existing bolt hole in the s14 rear subframe. Here’s sort of a quick glance at some of the work required.

Nobody knows these products better than the OEM manufacturer, they built them. So when Nissan chose to leave the upper diff nuts as a “caged nut” setup I knew it’d be in my best interest to take the extra time and retain it.

Additionally the pinion flange had to be drilled out to accept the bolt pattern of the 240sx driveshaft. So that takes care of the drivetrain. The transmission is built strong and sturdy thanks to Texas Drivetrain Performance, my 1 piece steel driveshaft is still holding up great, and now I have a fully built and 100% brand new z33 rear differential and OS Giken 1.5 LSD with newer/longer/stronger rear axles. The motors fully built, what could be left? Well, Powerfab Automotive has a little something up their sleeves. Keep checking in, we’ll be waking up the motor rather soon with quite a large power upgrade for the 2012 season!

The other thing I noticed in practice, was the transmission. This thing is no longer a T56. I didn’t have to think about a single shift, it felt like an SR transmission in healthy condition. Just enough give so the gates weren’t narrowed out, with the smoothest shifting I’ve ever felt. Not once did the transmission grind and not once did I miss a single gear. In one run in particular during the first turn I was able to do 3/2, nope feels dumb, 2/3, maybe there’s more, 3/4, nope, 4/3. The car never left drift, never grinded, never hesitated. If you’re a T56 owner, you’re very aware that during this acrobatic act your transmissions gonna tell you NOPE. I’m happy Jason talked me out of the T101a setup, this T56 suites me more. If any of you guys feel your T56 is a lost cause feel free to hit me up, I can get you in touch with Jason and you can talk to him about transmissions and what your options are. These things really CAN feel great believe it or not.

So I got some good practice in, fun tandem with good friends. A lot of these people I haven’t driven with in forever so it was a pretty epic time for me. It was also very exciting to have Chelsea back out and driving at another Texas event. I pulled up for my qualifying run and blew my cv housing into oblivion doing tire warmup, hauled ass back to the pit and swapped it out in a hair under 5 minutes with Powerfab’s help and got back to the line just as Aaron called out the end of qualifying. The new axle held up and we had acquired 1st place in qualifying.

In competition I started off with a cool s14 that had a lot of circle track’esque parts on it that I wasn’t familiar with/hadn’t seen before. I took the win and moved on to top 8 against Robert Turnbow and ended up moving on again. In final 4 I ended up going against Chelsea in Josh Steele’s 350z. It was a very fun battle which I think gave us more seat time than we had anticipated haha. It went through 2 1 more times and a couple light hits before I moved on in the 3rd round. The last person to go against was Will Parsons for 1-2. All I have to say is I shouldn’t have ever given him that dream catcher. Will was a maniac all weekend and was hungrier than anybody for that win and it showed! We had 1 OMT and on the 2nd pair of runs I knew I had to try something crazy so I threw my car in harder than I had all weekend and thankfully it caught. I got the advantage on my lead run and had an advantage on my follow until the axle snapped before the last turn. I think this axle took out more than just itself though as my wheel now was rotating like 10° when the car rolled forward and there’s a lot of clicking and popping back there (moreso than just CV machine gun). So the weekend ended with 1st place qualifier, 2nd place finish! I’m so proud of my car and how its performing right now and so thankful for all the people that helped get it to where its at. Thanks Powerfab Automotive, WFSU, Texas Drivetrain Performance, Kenda Tires (such an awesome grassroots driver support program!), NST and Fabricated Motorsports for making local stuff cool again! Anyways enough rambling here’s some pics

And now the car goes into hibernation until 2012. There are many changes and many obstacles ahead. None of this driving or work would’ve been possible without help from Powerfab Automotive, Texas Drivetrain Performance, Chargespeed, DMax USA and Tein USA. I look forward to continuing to work with the existing partners I’ve made and the new companies I’ll be working with in 2012.

http://wfsu.net/blog/auto/zeus-molecules-pt-2/

I don’t want to sound like some sort of gimmicky sales ad, but I had been searching long and hard for a good place to have my T56 rebuilt. I’ve heard bad things about a lot of different companies and, since transmission breaks can no longer be what prevent me from driving, I had to make sure it was done right. Oddly enough I was talking to a buddy of mine from up north and he referred me to Jason from Texas Drivetrain Performance. I spoke with Jason about some of my options for this particular application, T101a, glorified and beefed up grandpa T10, magnum 6060, facing the gears in my box, etc. We both agreed that the T56 had another shot left in it so we did a full stage 2 along with triple cone synchros and replacing all the gears I banged up (since 1-4 looked like a crime scene). Anyways, got it back with a very quick turn around time (the only delay was him finding a C5 core for the triple cones) and its ready to rock!

Upon removal of my bellhousing and Exedy Hypersingle I noticed it was a little thin, then I got a good laugh

That thing was hammered and the disk was damn near dead (by no fault of its own, I had shown it 2 years of some serious abuse). I showed Jason the clutch and he hooked me up with his stage 3 which acquired almost 2″ larger diameter of actual clutch material and a 4130 chromoly flywheel right on the spot! Sweet! There probably wasn’t a good chance that Exedy would’ve continued on anyways.

If you guys have a T56 thats dead or dieing, I’d seriously give him a fighting chance at it. He can go as far or as little as you’d like, ships without problems, and can knock out about 6-7 T56 builds a day…and the shop was living proof. There is a floor covered in built ones and a 25ft. transmission table covered in “in progress” transmissions. Twas a true T56 heaven! www.texasdrivetrainperformance.com

Next up I started disassembling the car for my dual z32 caliper install and I found this

Turns out one of the axles that exploded at XDC took out my shock body pretty bad. I called Tein and as usual they were more than willing to help. In the upcoming offseason I’ll be sending my full set of coils in for a respring and revalve for something a bit more optimal and refreshed for my car, very excited!

So beyond the Tein shock being damaged everything went without a hitch, here is the progress on the dual brake install with my own custom made rear hardlines and softlines utilizing George Martsanovic’s dual e-brake caliper brackets (which can be found here Dual Caliper Bracket for sale thread).

Next up was the installation of the ASD Motorsports 16″ pull back hydraulic e-brake with the stand alone 3/4″ reservoir option. I came up with custom brackets that put it real close to my steering wheel and plumbed it with a short section of soft line inside the car in case I ever needed to move it around for any reason

We spent the night bleeding everything and making sure it was good to go because coming up soon was Fabricated Motorsports Pro-AM round 3 event at GGP!

Got it aligned on Thursday and these were the specs it laid down…

camber: -5.25 front, -1 rear
toe: 1/16 total in front/rear
caster: 8

since my FLCA are finally adjustable it was nice to not have to do those settings with my plates maxed in which i’m used to normally having to do.

We went to XDC for practice feeling real confident about the car and went straight out on to the. On the 2nd lap out I blew my last remaining Driveshaft Shop 600HP axle, whoops. It was a good thing we rebuilt 3 for spares that day, 5 minutes later itwas back out on track. We had been diagnosing some braking issues all weekend and here’s what we discovered: the BMC was leaking from reservoir to cylinder (front gasket) so we ziptied it down to the cylinder and brakes felt great, I had zero e-brake at a track that requires some e-brake out back for adjustments in the final horseshoe. I quickly decided I wasn’t going to waste all of practice trying to fix the e-brake so I opted to drive around it. We then ended up having a GREAT day of practice! Tandems with Aaron, Will, Robert, George, Rapper Dan, Angerman, etc. It was FUN to drive like this again with all those cool dudes. I think that was some of Aaron and I’s most exciting tandem possibly ever? The car was simply amazing. 15 hotlaps in a row got it up to…90C! My SR couldn’t even dream of temps that cold! The motor runs SO cold now! Round 1 of practice felt a little slow so we bumped tire pressures down, 32psi cold fronts and 20-22psi cold rears. At that point it literally came alive. So much more grip than its ever had, I couldn’t believe it was my own car. It could be placed wherever you wanted it, it was absolutely amazing. We called it a day after Friday practices and came back Saturday morning for what we anticipated to be a really really great day…until the car lost 3rd gear. I think I bent a shift fork following Nick (3-4 fork). So now, there was no e-brake for the horseshoe turn adjustment and no 3rd gear for the horseshoe downshift. I said sorry to my Exedy, this ones gonna hurt! In qualifying I gave that thing the kicking of its life and netted 13th spot, which I’m not ashamed of necessarily given all the problems the car had. I ended up going against Rapper dan and I think I beat myself because I transitioned into the horseshoe a tad early and, though I finished close, it was because I cut the turn off (couldn’t extend out really without an e-brake). Also I heard he had a great follow, you looked killer that weekend dude!

So, in general, this sums up my mumbled posts and thoughts…

-My car does not overheat, George had a lot to do with this as he helped me set up my rad/cooling setup and I can’t thank you enough dude!
-My car finally has front brakes that do NOT overpower the car, the Sentra Brembos are amazing even on stock pads! Again, George, thanks buddy!
-My car finally has grip! As long as the front tires are good, it doesn’t sail anymore, it grabs. It doesn’t overshoot anymore, it bites in. It digs under throttle, it feels fantastic!
-My car has no wiring issues!
-It no longer spits up diff fluid, it no longer has oil leaks everywhere, it no longer leaks fuel out of the tank

I could not be more proud of the final product. And I’m not patting myself on the back either, a lot of people helped me setup the car and pick a correct slew of parts. Without those people I definitely could’ve ended up going the wrong direction with everything. Thanks George, Al, Jake, Drew, Lovis, Aubre, etc. You guys are rad for helping out so much!