firbird

The car has been resurrected from a 5 year hiatus while I have been going school. Since then I have had some time to think of what I would like to do to it.

Here are a few pictures of things I have been working on since I have been out and the income has been good.

Ford 9 inch with brembo rear calipers. Rotors are from the corvette Z51, Calipers are from dodge SRT8, Detroit True-Trac, 3.27 gears, 31 spline axles










Another thing I have been working on is a radiator shroud. I am not sure if this will work yet but I will be interested in finding out. The theory is at idle the fans will produce a vacuum in the shroud area and will close down the flap and at higher speeds where the fan cannot keep up a positive pressure will build allowing the flap to open. I have put hinges with springs that keep resistance on it, I also put tabs where I have space to put springs on it to provide more resistance and limit the angle it opens. I will place little low profile rubber tabs to keep it from vibrating.




I ended up putting the bypass on top thinking that most of the air will come from the bottom therefore will have travel the farthest to be realeased for best cooling and the top has more room to play with.

firbird

I have also been playing around with a bi-xenon HID that uses a solenoid for high beams. I have taken the module and sealed it






I have since striped my car back down to a shell and to refine everything and in the process I trying to vacuum a lexan bezel/shell that will form around the front to the outside cover. If that does not work I will make a carbon fiber unit.

I converted my little Tran Am flashlight found in the overhead unit into LED. I can’t find pictures now but will look later. This is probably one of the most handy modifications :-)

Like I mentioned above the car is being completely redone. 10 years ago I did not know what I was doing and did things I probably should not have done. I am taking the splices, butt connectors and doing things the right way. This has lead me to strip down my car to the shell.
What I have which will go in soon…

Spohn front coil over kit, tubular K member, tubular A arms, Eibach pro-kit rear springs, bmr short Torque arm, and CTS-V front calipers.

There are other things I need to get to complete the package. The engine bay is stripped down and seam welded and AC del box is trimmed and welded to the firewall

Interesting things to come will include carbon fiber center counsel and a carbon fiber rear wing







The design has changed significantly but above is a old design. New design will not be just a plate of carbon fiber or aluminum. It will be molded with aluminum lugs for the struts with better flowing lines.

duckmanquacker

Nice designs, your theory for the radiator shroud looks sound.

Rich2279

iTrader: (7)

What rims do you have? Really nice looking.

_87TA_

Nice work.
What program are you using to design these?
Do you have any reference site(s) or threads about HID?
also do you have any pics of the lights from behind them?

Red87SC

Those wheels are ROH Snypers. I have a set on my ta as well.

I really like how you're thinking off the wall and doing things that noone else has! Kudos!

Orinackra

That would be Solidworks. 2009? at least thats what my 2009 bar looks like at the top.

firbird

Sorry for the slow response. I have been on travel and about to leave again for another week.

The software is solidworks 2010, however I prefer Autodesk Inventor. I have been making various things on Solid works to get familiar with the program.

I do not have any reference sites to the HID projectors. I knew I wanted HID’s and Hella was the brand to go with. I did not have much of a choice if I wanted to keep my brights. I do not have my camera now, its being loaned out to a family member. I will get it back next weekend when I return. The units are sealed and mounted into the stock stamped metal mounts. I had to cut out the back for clearance and I can still use the stock adjusters to position the beam.

Those are indeed ROH Snypers. Heavy wheels if you ask me

TPI TERR

iTrader: (9)

im running 14' brembo ctsv kit up front, i haven't seen the rear kit yet til i came across yours. i usually run 18s all around but 17s out back on some ets. and im really interested in doing the rears. will they clear 17s?? btw did you just weld on the backing plate onto the housing?

Stephen

iTrader: (12)

So you don't know what model projectors those are? Any pics of them without the lights on, to see how they are mounted to the buckets?

Orinackra

Same here. I learned Inventor in school, and love it. I dont know if because I know Inventor better so I can do more with it, but I dont see what the big deal is with Solidworks.

Orinackra

arent those Snypers usually only found in 17" variety? That'd be great if they do clear though, might have to start shopping for parts

firbird

Here are a few pictures of the HID currently. Everything on my car is apart but I hope this can answer your questions.





I completely sealed the case and submerged it underwater and put positive pressure to see if there were any leaks. I have a vent on each assembly that will be routed to a dry area where the pressures can equalize.

Not sure if you can see but this is the only current picture of the aluminum rotating assembly for the headlights that has been modified. The material that was removed which caused interference was touching the solenoid control box on the bottom of the projector



Yes, Snypers are only found in 17”. I had the 14” rotors ordered to see if they would fit, the larger rotor was not a good fit because the outside dia of the rotor protruded past the top of the pad on the caliper. I decided to go with the smaller Z51 corvette rotor which is 13.4 X 1.26 inches.
Here is a link that may be helpful that looked in to this as well…

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/brak...iper-swap.html


Here are some aluminum access panels that I had made to fit the front fender. They use a hinge and a quarter turn latch. On the back sides, I will place my relays and ballasts so they are hidden but are in easy access.



My car in current status:



The green tape is there to protect the existing paint from being scrached.

TPI TERR

iTrader: (9)

car looks good man!
i always wondered how that copper colored paint would look on the car. but on my car it would remind me of the sti scheme.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

looks good man! lovin the rad idea...

check out my thread im startin as we speak i just did a HID projector install on my firebird

firbird

I am on travel and stopped by Summit Racing in OH. I saw this:



The black rubber rectangles that go around the radiator open up with positive pressure. Neat unfortunately it is $2,059.95, cheeper for plastic versions

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/BCI-81768/?rtype=10

Twin_Turbo

iTrader: (25)

Spal has dual fan setups in a plastic shorud that already has those flaps.

firbird

Yea, I am seeing that companies have that now, I guess I need to get out more. I think this design should offer a little more than the little squares with the rubber gaskets over them

Twin_Turbo

iTrader: (25)

They have had them for years, I could swear the spal setup has been around for at least 5 years if not ten. But, home built/DIY is always better because you know you did it, anyone can write a check

The only thing I would do is maybe attach some felt stri[s on the back so that it won't rattle when making contact.

firbird

That would explain a lot. I have been out of the picture completely for the last 5-6 years going to school. A lot has happened since then.

I agree with the felt or rubber backing, should help

Orinackra

You're running the SRT-8 rear calipers, the CTS-V front calipers, and the 13.4 Z51 rotor up front, right? Are you running the same rotor on the back, or the vette rear rotor? I have no clue if theres any difference.

firbird

It is the z51 vette rear rotor. 13" rotor with a thickness of 1" (330mmX26mm)

iansane

iTrader: (1)

Car and mods look cool. I always love seeing decently modded thirdgens.

Wouldn't you have less interruption of the air flow by getting rid of the front adjusters and running one or two more on the rear side?

Orinackra

another question. Do you have a plan for an e-brake with this setup?

firbird

That would be correct. However, the front adjusters are the major structural component to prevent the bending moment of the wing from flipping over the back. I could mount it on to the bumper but this would take away the function of the back hatch. Another method would be to make the brackets longer on the hatch to withstand the moment.

I plan on 1 of two things;

As soon as I can find the parts for a rear hub assembly out of a corvette with a z51 package I will get it. Dealer part numbers would be nice to find. I believe I have adequate room inside the axle ends to fit the brake shoes and a modified back plate in there.

If that proves not to work, a second caliper will be used. Willwood has a small mechanical single piston calipers made just for this application. Build a bracket and mount. I am intrigued with the idea of using a hydraulic second set of calipers despite the risk. Find a two piece motorcycle or small compact caliper and machine a spacer to put in between the two pieces so that it would fit on the thicker caliper.


Since I am on travel again, I have some down time. Here is my current status;

I ended up getting Racecraft drop spindles and making these brackets to fit the cts-v calipers. Made of 4340 ½ inch sheet

firbird

I finished mounting the radiator. I moved it up and down a couple of inches to make room for the plumbing that will be necessary for my next stage.



I mounted my b&m supercooler below the passenger side battery box. It should get enough air as is but will add something to scoop in more air



I made a battery relocation box. I put installed in place of the spare tire. I added angle a piece of aluminum attached to studs to hold the battery down. I designed it to fit a red top



The bmr transpack torque arm was installed in conjunction with the Alison subframes. Believe this is a better way to go.



Read about the Frost King ducting insulation and I figured I would give it a try. Put 3 layers over the rear section over the differential and places where I think the exhaust would make the most resonance.



Picture of the car on the ground. I could use more ground clearance, but I may give this a try.

iansane

iTrader: (1)

Those front adjusters mount at the same location as the rears. How much force do you think you'll see on that?

firbird

That’s a good question, I am not sure how much force. Will be something I will need to look into when I start designing it for fabrication. The design was based around the front struts. The front struts are in tension transferring the wing into compression onto the corner bracket. If the front struts are taken out, the bracket on the corner hatch would experience a pure moment on just the bracket.

When I was putting this thing together I noticed when the wing is layed down to be less aggressive, the angle to extension ratio was large and therefore unstable. The rear struts would provide extra support in this condition and also provide preload to keep it from flapping in the wind.

With that being said, the design can be changed to where the corner bracket that bolts to the hatch be extended out towards the front of the car such as rails on the back hatch. This could fix the problem removing the front strut and form them into raised air guides if wanted. It would also simplify adjustments significantly and reduce parts.

Any detailed ideas? I think I’ll draw something up when I find some time.

racing geek

iTrader: (5)

The front supports are pointless. You're thinking about this too much. These have been used on road race cars for years going 100+mph.

http://www.blainefabrication.com/spoiler.html

I'm working on building one for my car atm but things have been getting side tracked a lot.

firbird

Thanks!

I like it alot, think your right. Simple and effective.

Orinackra

cars looking great. I like that idea about the smaller caliper for the ebrake. I wonder how much a vette setup would cost as opposed to doing the wilwood setup and cost vs cost, which would be a better bet.

I love the look of those calipers under the 17 inch wheels. Its going to be awesome when you're all done. I'm gonna need to get me some of those brackets soon, I wanna do this haha.

racing geek

iTrader: (5)

To the OP, stick with the mechanical e-brake. Sure the hydraulic one may sound cool but it isn't worth the possible hassle if the caliper would lock up on you.

There is a very good chance the Corvette components will be cheaper then the Wilwood or Brembo components. Most of the corvette components are a floating setup while the Wilwood and Brembo are fixed calipers. The aftermarket parts have better pad wear and are a stronger design which when combined with the brand name makes them so much more expensive.

firbird

I will post the drawing with all the dimensions for the bracket the week after next when I get home. It should have the critical data points for the holes and the geometry can be changed to whatever you like depending on material used and your machining capabilities. This bracket is made for race craft drop spindles, more than likely will not work the same using a stock spindle.

As of now I really do not use the E-Brake. Living in Florida and having a automatic, Park is good enough. When I get a new motor and Manuel transmission it will become more of a concern. There are risks with hydraulics are defiantly there and logically not the route to go, however I have been known to defy logic for good and bad reasons.

I have not looked into the e-brake too much. When I get around to it I will get it done. The internal drum makes since for what I have right now. No reason to have rotors with an internal drum machined into it and not use it. Wasted weight. Only concern would be the difficulties in clearances, I believe I can overcome that.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

brakes look sick! i always wanted to do a front brake swap... right now i have the SSBC force 10 aluminum dual piston calipers, diamond drilled and slotted rotors, ceramic pads. the rear i have ford 8.8 11" disks with single piston calipers. the rear rotors have the machined drum inside for the stock crown vic parking brake but i deleted them for weight and that id never use them (auto means PARK! no need for ebrake) the machined drum doesnt seem to add more weight honestly but your front brakes make mine looks tiny lol.

I wanted to upgrade to ford front brakes so i can run ford rims without an adapter. and your racecraft spindals look like theyd work but not the ford lug pattern.

also your B&M cooler is that the 24,000GVW? i can tell u that with a 2900 stall on my 700r4 and some 90 degree weather with city driving and my trans temps got up to 190-200 degrees. and i had the B&M 24,000GVW mounted in front of my rad about 1" off the radiator, i used the cooler after the stock rad cooler and i was running raptor blood trans fluid and a deep pan. only way i could overcome it was with an extra trans cooler run after the B&M with its own 8" fan. so 2 coolers run after the stock rad cooler and a deep pan netted me a decent 170-190 degree trans temp, depending on how i drove and flashed the converter. just sayin u might want to think about the cooling aspect of cooler and how much air ull get, even with a scoop to force air into it.

overall the cars looking great. how much it cost for the front brakes total?

firbird

Here is a link that would describe the process better:
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/brak...iper-swap.html

The link for the spindles:
http://www.racecraft.com/index.php?m...products_id=70

I machined the stock rotors to make a hub. Bolt pattern has nothing to do with the spindle. You would have difficulty changing the bolt pattern on the stock hubs, if i remmeber correctly there is a rib that would interfier

The weight saved from taking out an internal drum brake is next to nothing. The parking pin appreciates E brakes as well :-)

I will defiantly keep an eye out on the transmission and be ready to put a air dam up if necessary. I have never had a problem with overheating the transmission. It has always stayed relatively cool at around 150. I have a 9.5” vigilante torque converter with lockup. I can adjust the speed at which it locks up. This is usually around 35-40mph. The torque converter has very little slop to it and seems to be very efficient, drives like a stock tq converter.

customblackbird

iTrader: (15)

sounds like a good deal for that setup. how much do u have in it?

i wouldnt change the hub, ive been looking for wheel adapters, from a 5x4.75 to a 5x4.5". lol the ebrake on a crown vic is kinda big, and its rotational weight! every little bit helps!!!

i never had a prob with my trans either until summer weather, a 383 with a stock rad, underdrive pulleys and a 2900 stall 12" converter. your converter is much more efficient than mine which will help tremendously, im going to have to get a smaller one like a 9.5-10" for my C6 trans and 521 BBF im throwing in now. the 383 was great but my car was stolen and they took the engine/trans/ECM/rad/fans and hacked up my wiring harness bad and it all only had 3,000 miles on it . wat speed is the converter locking up at usually?

racing geek

iTrader: (5)

You're right it may be more efficient for cooling the radiator but you will be introducing a lot of hot air to the engine bay that doesn't really have anywhere to go. I think you should redo the flap and put it back on the bottom, especially if you are still using an air dam below the radiator.

While driving, the air dam creates a low pressure area behind it which causes the air the go up through the radiator and then get sucked back down under the car. Putting the flap on top allows the air to get trapped above the motor before finally working its way out of the engine bay either through the gap by the cowl (if you removed that seal) or back under the car. This is why many people that remove the air damn from their car often report back saying their engine temp went through the roof for city driving. They lost their low pressure behind the radiator.

I'm not sure if highway cruising will create enough low pressure to suck all the hot air down. The only thing I can think of that may help it out is if you limit the angle like you mentioned so the flap only opens to shoot the air down in front of the motor at that low pressure area. Since you've a;ready had your hood painted this probably won't happen, but I suppose you can toss the idea of limiting the angle of the flap and make yourself a heat extracting hood.

If nothing else you can spend your down time modeling it in Solidworks and running it through the FlowXpress or whatever it's called on there. I was playing with that feature when I was designing a new intake setup for my car so I know a flow test like I mentioned will work. If you do test some of this out let me know the results. I'd love to find out if my theories are actually fact.

Mike

firbird

Mike,

You may be correct with your assumption. I am not too worried about hot air in the engine bay, this probably even means less hp with current conditions. I am more concerned about the future plans for the plumbing and the method of forced induction. This will determine the orientation of the bypass. I am able to take and flip the shroud upside-down to where the fans are on top and the flap is on the bottom, I just have to put the hinges on the other side.

With my current condition I will run the car down the road and see when and if it opens up at speed. With the resistance of the spring and gravity I am thinking the flap will not open past 30 deg as it sits. When I determine this I will likely tie the lock-up for my tq converter to the fans. The plan is to turn the fans off at when the TC locks up. When I convert to a manual transmission I’ll keep the dial adjuster for the lockup speed for just the fans.

I have been interested in a heat extracting hood and it would complement this design. This could also benefit the heat exchanger for the forced induction if placed there. I need to figure out the end configuration I will have first to see what kind of hood I can get away with. The current hood I could care less about. I have enough paint left over to paint a new hood and any other component I need. Know where I can buy a stock firebird hood in fiberglass? I would like to modify it from there and keep it low profile.

I have not used floXpress. I will mess around with it some to see what I can do. It would be interesting to see how the air flows across the rear of the car with the new wing design.

firbird

Well not sure on how much. The major components were:

300 for new loaded cts-v calipers
330 for used srt-8 calipers and rotors
~600 for race craft spindles
60 for willwood proportioning valve
200 for good used rotors X 4

Free: Machined hubs, and brackets

Other parts include banjo fittings, AN lines, AN adaptors, Grade 8 bolts, adaptor lines to proportioning valve, and other small random parts

Eventually I will get better rotors but the ones I received were in excellent condition and I turned them down slightly.

Sorry to hear about the loss. I am not sure what the new stall will be at because I changed the differentials ratio. With the 3.73 it moves at and off idle ~600 rpm and can peak around 3K at the track with good traction conditions. With the 2.73 I use to have long ago it was higher so I am expecting it to be higher with the new ratio.

racing geek

iTrader: (5)

I know some cars came with fiberglass power bulge hoods from the factory but VFN makes fiberglass reproduction hoods. Their flat pin on hood (12#) is $299 and the bolt on (18#) is $399
http://www.vfnfiberglass.com/8292firebird.htm

Here is a heat extracting hood a TGO member built if you haven't already seen the thread.
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/fabr...tor-build.html

Or you could go with something a little more agressive looking like this Mecham hood on a 4th gen TA.

LT1_IROCZ_KID

Hey Ive got a question about the pad fitment on the rotor, I too have solidworks 2010 and a pair of the camaro calipers and Z06 rotors and when I lay the pad on the rotor surface, I notice that it overhangs the either in inside or outside diameter of the rotor by almost a 1/4 of an inch. From what I can tell from the pictures that Ive found, this happens to all of the kits using the Z06 rotor and Brembo calipers. I would think that the pads overhanging the edges of the rotor would be an issue. Can anyone tell me if theyve run into this as well?

Heres a screenshot of what im talking about, 14" Z06 rotor with front pad from Brembo 4 piston off the new Camaro SS