V-12 Engine into 308 Build, over on Grassroots

I started blasting the a-arms for paint and remembered the blaster is mostly shot. Ordered a new handle and moved on to designing the balljoint spacer and order material to make it.

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I've decided rollcenters hurt my brain. I set the rear very close to OEM....about 25% of the CG. Everything I read tells me about 15-30% is generally good and it should be lower at the drive axle end than the undriven. So , yeah, ferrari didn't do that, the front was about 18% stock. It can be compensated for with spring and sway bar choices.....last night I drew the spacers to set it at 25%.....but I this morning I'm thinking make them on the long side and target like 35% and then cut them down if I'm unhappy. Then this all got me wondering about the guidelines in general.....using roll centers to control body roll causes jacking or lifting of the car in the corner....but that is a WAY bigger concern with soft springs than stiff springs. For me, setting the front roll center at 35% would result in a max of 0.5" jacking, but the stock at 18% could be 1.5-2" using the same math because the stock front springs are really soft so a little unloading will cause a lot of motion. Which all brings me back to set it fairly high, it's probably fine but its not hard to shorten the spacers if I don't like it.

 

I'm kind of waiting on stuff....but I fought with the blaster to get the a-arm forks clean and painted and made the barrel nuts to hold the balljoint spacers on.

In the suspension software I settled on a 40mm spacer which puts the front anti-roll at 35% with the rear at 25%. In my mind this should be pretty good and between this and the anti-drive I added with the forks it should mean I need about 35% less compression damping in the shocks for the same stability on the brakes and corner turn-in which, also in my mind, means a nicer ride. This and the spherical bearing are why I want to drive it before adding more compression damping to the shocks. So I was feeling pretty good about it all until I did a mock-up and looked at 40mm

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hmmmmm......maybe it'll stay together????....20mm looks like it might actually be ok......this it doesn't look like one of my best ideas and I suspect I'll be making new front spindles shortly. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I got confirmation the shock was delivered, so that should start the 3-4week clock. Then the new blaster came to day so I put it to work.

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I was out of black paint and dusty from blasting so tomorrow I'll get the bearing adapters welded in and a-arms painted.

I did some math and convinced myself that the spacer plan had a 100% chance of resulting in a broken ball joint and the car on the ground. the stud gets like 90ksi/g load....the metal files so is probably good to like 70kpi? and the tires good to 1.2g? So all around no good. But the guys on grassroots have me pretty convinced the spindle is forged not cast iron which means I can weld it....and you all know how I love to weld! I'm going to proceed with the spacer but weld the snot out of it and it should be fine.

 

I got the bearing adapters in the a-arms and a-arms painted.
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I made the balljoint spacers and its all seems to fit nice, ball joints lock in the the spacers and spacers in the the spindle

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Tomorrow I weld.

 

They are steel and weld nice. I still need to make it pretty but....
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Looks pretty good from here

Won't this have an impact on bump steer?

 

I did get it cleaned up a bit and painted. Not perfect because it turns out steel sands way slower than aluminum but OEM at a glance so...."yeah, I don't know, I guess when you ordered the V12 it came with a sportier suspension setup."

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Now don't worry too much about me sanding welds to make them pretty.....I did weld preps on everything so the spacers have not less than 3/16 and the gussets are thru welded
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but now they look almost factory

Bump steer...yeah.....probably but I'm unclear how much. My thought is try it but I may need to lower the tie rod mount some too. You my notice in the pic I removed the 1 kind of thinking about bump correction.....I did not remove the 2nd and we just flat won't talk about the lessons I learned removing the 1st beyond I expect it to be repaired and ready to paint tomorrow.

I honestly don't think the bump will be bad....it could be 3 - 4x what stock is and not be more noticeable than stock because of all the ways I'm limiting the bump travel. fingerers crossed, but if I need to address it I will.

 

Nothing really photo worthy today...well, cutting threads with a fil maybe in a very sad way. but the steering arm is fixed and painted.
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Then I tore out the power steering. I looked long and hard at switching to a prius unit because the control CAN code is now available which is why I passed on it the first time around....but I decided I'm a glutton for punishment's and ordered another fiesta unit because it will be way faster to swap the new parts into my modified unit than to start over. This time I'll make some extender cables for the control box so nothing is getting pulled on of kicked.

I also finally got the tracking number for the rubber bits I orders for the front, so hopefully I can have the all back together by the time the PS unit gets here.

The ECU boards got held up with the new tariff's.....but it looks like rescheduled for delivery to my partner in Washington Monday. I probably have 2-3 weeks before I have one in my hands....but I need to get the wiring done.

 

I was asked how much the PS weighs...10lbs
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That made me start thinking about weight savings to counter it and I haven't used to the sawzall in a bit (not for all audience, you my want to advert your eyes)









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so 0.35lbs removed!

Actually the lock broke many years ago the this bit makes it a bugger to remove the column but its still a weight reduction.

Then masked the bajesus out of the ball joints so I could blast and paint them....I was terrified of getting beads inside but I rally wanted them painted.
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I also started looking at the ECU connectors with serious thoughts for starting the swap....but I need to take my old pinout info and move it to the new pinout in CAD first but that has to start soon.

 

sawzall And Ferrari??? Oh the humanity!!! How could you?

 

I think you missed the early days when I was sawzalling like a madman...throw-back pic

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I cut the lock off the outlaw as well, car is .005 faster now (but you know that)

 

I am trying to catch up with the madness.

 

Im pretty seriously considering filling the whole in the dash with a pust to start button.....that has got to add another 0.01 of fastness right?

 

Uh hello, science

 

Trying to get the front end back together. Steering billows came as a set.....or 1 that fits and 1 that doesn't. I cobbled the second on some I'm not stalled while I hunt for the right one.
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I'm adding camber....so the the toe will be wrong, I guessed 2 revolutions on the tierod ends....but as soon as its driveable it need to find an alignment rack.

Then a-arms on....what the what is going on with the upper? The spacers are all wrong?
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Doh!
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tomorrow I'll paint the hubs then make new spacers while they dry and hopefully wrap it up. The new power steering unbit will be here tomorrow too so I know what I'm doing this weekend.

The ecu parts are all in the US, the hardware guy is doing 1st round testing, then the firmware guy will do his testing, then to my to do my thing. We have been slowly working through a few oddities and I thing the acceleration enrich is now much better, at least on the bench....well....table...with a not actual ECU so more testing needed.
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If I do a blue led back lit version of push to start is that 5ph?.... and it kind of falls into the "if you've got it, flaunt it!" category as well I'd think?

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This was just not my day. I stared out cleaning up the front hubs for paint.....fiat. Its one thing to "know" its another to KNOW.

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Then the spacers took forever to sort out. Don't know why but it did but I got the upper a-arms installed and nice and figured I'd pop the spindles in the see...I wanted more camber but wtf!

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There is a slight chance that I built them upside down.
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Tomorrow is a new day. It shouldn't take more than a few hours to fix this blunder so I still could have it back together tomorrow. Everything's nice, cuz I do it all twice.......

Also a buddy and one of his buddy's are popping over to have me take a look at a head of and bwm M44 for an autox car. I guess its making about 120rwhp now but they asked me to see what dynomation had to say.....322crankhp on E85, 300 on pump gas using off the shelf cams and advertised flow numbers. So now the question is what might it take to get those flow numbers other than a 3-4K check to the internet guys? I think I saw a broken tube on the flow bench...one more thing.
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So I'm pretty sure I understand why take 2 on the upper a-arm spacer had some drama and rework.....there's 2 sizes. Doh!...I never learn.
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then onto fixing spindles....cut around the weld
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smack it with a big hammer
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clean it up....and just like it never happened
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Then spacer in the lather to recut the weld prep and on the spindles.
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And back to where I thought I had started from
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Front end together tomorrow....if nothing else goes wrong.

There was a 90 minute delay when my grinder died 1/2 way through cutting the second one apart. Who had what? how much? I had a boss a while back who worked at dewalt, he told me "buy cheap grinders, we could have make them last any longer than the cheap one" so I settled on a $40 HF option. So far I kind of like it...they claim its rated as the same power as my old one but its noticeably light so I kind of wonder....but it works and its noticeably lighter. The wrench is black and get lost instantly on the bench, when I grab another can of yellow paint that wrench need some.
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As I put the spray can down the BWM racers showed up to talk ports and engine theory in general...so now there is a bmw head on the floor waiting on the some love.

 

This looks a whole lot more right
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Unlike in the rear where the shock is on the upper so moving the a-arm mount didn't really change anything else and liwering the car mwans shortening the shock, up front the shock attaches to the a-arm so I had to spin the spring collar most of the way down to make up the 1.57" i moved the aarm. Well see how close the guess is.
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I think I've gone as far as I can with the front end for today and as much as I know it won't look like this for long, and it took a couple tries, but I'm pretty happy with how it looks right now....properly racecar like imo.
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Installing the sway bar I noticed it has a little preload, I'll recheck that when its sitting level and adjust the end links if needed. 3/8 black pipe is just about perfect for the spacers, that was a good find at lowes this morning.
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The hubs can't go on because I have the wrong seal.....these are apparently GT4 seals so they will get the right ones out monday.
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In the lower balljoint barrel bolts I decided to go with blue loctite on the OD so in theory the bolt, which is a tight fit will not turn out but if I need to disassemble there is less chance of the bolt just spinning the ball joint...at least in my mind.
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I guess I'll play with the power steering now. I have a plan that involves cutting up the broken stuff to steal the connectors so I can make extensions and not have the controller where my feet feet kind of want to be or falling and pulling on wires that shouldn't be pulled on I'm guessing.

 

I picked up a bit and decided I just didn't have the steering in me today. I started, found the ballpeen hammers that have been lost and making me insane the past couple days. Now if only I could find the oil tank cap.
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Then after looking a bit I decide I can probably get both the steering controller and speaker cross-over boxes up inside the dash behind the instrument panel....and I did get the screwdriver before just giving up for the day.

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Forgot, steering rack boots. My 308QV/328 parts book shows the shorter boot and say qty2l, as in they should be exactly what the guy sent me so I have no idea what's in my car......"I guess when you ordered the V12 option it came with the lowered ride height and a different rack to match?"

I was explaining my "I don't' know, I guess that's part of the V12 package" joke to my some and younger son and he came back with "it looks like an assembly error, the guy on the line must have just grabbed the wrong engine." also pretty funny.

 

Today night I pulled the dash out and after a little playing found a configuration that put the steering controller and speaker cross-overs in the and let the instrument panel also fit back onto place
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then on to looking at the steering unit. my plan was swap all the new guts into my modified housings.....but I took a short cut and welded the quicker to the PS unit so there is no way to disassemble that. ok, that is just a sensors, I can still swap the motor and that is probably the issue.....wait a minute.....my sensor unit is 8 wire and the new one 4 wire

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the other unit I bought and broke by swapping the controller on to may old unit is also 4 wire. Why I do not know, but there is about a 0% change the new controller will work with that old sensor section even if that is not the actual broken part. So....I need to redesign the joint to make it not welded...or maybe just cut it apart and weld the new bits to it. tomorrow problem

 

I got looking at the steering unit and kind of remembered why I made the choices I did....and its not that hard to do so I cut out the old bits and prepped everything the reweld.
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The one harness is hard to reach once I weld so I got started making a new longer one, but needed more heatshrink and kind of lost interest by the time I got back from the store.....tomorrow. My plan is make this cable, put it together and test it, then make the other cables and finish up.
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