Andrew91GT

Decided to minitub my bird, going to stick a 315/60/15 under it, or at least have the option to.

Picked up the wolfe 4th gen minitub kit, we'll see how it goes. I'm going to go with a mini coil spring as well to make more room.

Assembling minitubs - what a PITA!


Ready to cut the car up


First pass on the passenger side, trying to remove less material than is necessary so I can get a real clean install.

Andrew91GT

Did some more cutting, almost ready to notch the framerail. This is some dirty *** work!











Gotta finish trimming up the sheetmetal and fab up plates to box the framerails in. I've still got to cut the stock upper spring locator out and install the wolfe piece, and relocate the torquearm bracket for extra clearance.




Made some more progress, spring height adjusters are getting ready to go in. I've had to trim the plate that the adjuster is mounted on somewhat to get everything to fit nicely as it's made for stock tubs as it came. I've got some minor trimming left to do to get everything to fit nice, then it's time to weld these things in!

//<86TA>\\

iTrader: (15)

ahhh, memories....

its a lot of work, but when its done its worth it. Looking good so far. What are you doing with the interior? is is there going to be none?

Andrew91GT

In fact, I read many of your posts when I was researching it trying to figure out what was involved. I am planning on carpeting the tubs to match the interior, and putting the body panels back in and perhaps modifying the rear seat to fit. Do you have any pics of the way yours ended up? I looked but don't remember finding anything.

//<86TA>\\

iTrader: (15)

rear seat wont even come close to fitting in mine.

I dont thiink i ever posted finished pics

i cant find the complete pics, all i can find are older ones of the driverside.




the other side looks the same, i can get some pics later.

but the rear seats will defiantly not fit, they dont even fit between the sheetmetal of my tubs, and it looks like you may have gone in just as far, or maybe a little further

Pablo

iTrader: (1)

Very cool, I'm in the process of doing the same thing on my car to fit 335s. I still need the wolfe springs and mounts but I already have custom tubs courtesy of Jerrywho.

I'm not cutting into the frame rail though, I am however cutting down the ribs on the outer plate on the frame rail. Tomorrow I hope to weld in the tubs. I will post pics.

The only thing I'm worried about is losing some structural support for the upper shock mount. I may be welding in some supports.

Andrew91GT

The wolfe minitub kit surprisingly looks like it will work pretty well. After cutting out some more of the metal which supports the spring mount, making a template and getting ready to cut it out of 10ga steel, I said "for grins, lets put that wolfe piece in there and see if it fits....."

Whatta ya know? Only thing I had to do was some minor grinding on the top edge of the steel, and I had to bend the bottom left corner to follow the sheetmetal contours.



Unfortunately I cut a little extra out as you can see in the pic, I'll have to make another piece to fill that in after I move the torquearm mount.

FWIW it looks that by cutting the front of the tub and rotating it towards the front of the car that the bodylines will line up rather nicely!

Yes I know that my MIG skills are pathetic! Please don't hate too much on my spring mount welds! lol

What you can't see are the TIG welds for the spring mount for the 90 degree bracket that I built to reinforce the structure vertically. Those turned out quite nicely!

Andrew91GT

Got the frame boxed, everything is pretty close to fitting. I need to trim the front of the tub a bit more so I can rotate it slightly more clockwise, then it's time to weld it in and seamseal!

Andrew91GT

Finished final fitting and tacked the passenger tub in this last weekend. I went real slow and overlapped the tacks until they all butted up... here are a couple pics from the middle of the process:





Once I was done with that, I fabbed up a panel for the rear of the tub, folded the remainder of the outer tub up to meet the new inner tub, tacked it all and finished it with seamsealer. I'm waiting for the seamsealer to dry, then will sand and paint it.

Andrew91GT

Ever get a chance to get some more interior pics? What you did post looks REAL clean!

//<86TA>\\

iTrader: (15)

havent had time, been fixing some other issues. I will grab some more soon

Andrew91GT

Got a rough cut done on the driver's side. This side really ought to go much faster I'm thinking.





On the second pic you can see a little rust that was forming at the top of the cut near the shock mount and at the bottom close to the framerail. Glad I'm getting rid of that old metal!

Andrew91GT

got a little more done.

Pile of metal on the ground



Rough cuts and rough fit for driver's minitub.

matthufham

iTrader: (5)

are you going with offset lower control arms? that's going to be the first thing the tire will hit looks like from the top down view, post 1

Andrew91GT

I am planning on relocating the control arms between the framerail and the inside of the existing torque boxes.

grover85

iTrader: (1)

Ok I have seen those adjustable spring mounts installed three times now. Why does no one put them on the axle side instead? It seems like it would be a whole lot easier since you would not have to take your tires off to adjust the rear springs. I see its an option looking on wolfe's web site.

Andrew91GT

Got a little more done. Passenger side frame plate is fitted and tacked in.





Need to finish welding, grind the tacks down smooth, and get the tub in.

Andrew91GT

It is, but it isn't. The stock spring has a pigtail on the bottom of it that locates on the rearend. The spring brackets on the rearend that hold the pigtail are the right size to hold a coilover spring in place. The body side spring locators are NOT the right size to locate a coilover spring, so you would have to mod the body side of the spring locator either way. If you're going to cut out the body side of the spring locator, why not put the adjuster there?

grover85

iTrader: (1)

This is true. I didn't know if the springs you get with the kit were different from the stock springs.

1MeanZ

iTrader: (9)

...so after all this, what do you do for bumpstops?

//<86TA>\\

iTrader: (15)

curious to see as well.

I fabbed up bumpstops to the inner part of the frame rail after i minitubbed my car. Similar setup to the stock location, just on the other part of the frame.

I'll have to grab some pics of them sometime.

1MeanZ

iTrader: (9)

I see. I guess I'm farming for ideas because with the IRS I'm runnign it's not that simple, I wish it was. I think Pablo ran some sort of bumper on his shock shafts in his thread but I've not seen them fully assembled yet.

Andrew91GT

Finished! Well just about.

Boxed in the passenger side, you can see the extension I had to make in the rear.





Pic of the wolfe spring adjuster and afco chrome springs on both sides - yes, I know the passenger side torquearm mount needs a little work, but I want to see how much it needs to move before I mod it.

Andrew91GT

One more of the inside:

grover85

iTrader: (1)

Looks good. Do you recommend the mini tub kit?

Andrew91GT

Overall I was pretty pleased with it. I do have a few tips:

1. when assembling the tubs the alignment of the top portion which wraps around the tub is critical. The front of the tub on both sides meets up with the top of the torquebox and if you don't get it aligned right (like me) you'll get to trim 1-3" off of each side, following the torquebox contour, in 1/8" increments until it fits right.

2. It would be SUPER helpful to build some templates which sit on the top of the stock tub and butt up to the UPPER layer of sheetmetal only. This would save a HUGE amount of time since it would be obvious where to cut from the get go. Really the two layers of sheetmetal in front of the wheel wells, as well as the metal that the bumpstops, etc. are mounted to are what take the longest amount of time.

3. The passenger side tub fit better in my experience than the driver side tub. either way, the plates they provide will require grinding/trimming to make them fit. On the driver side the plate seemed to require to bend the metal in the car up in order to meet up with it. Also, the driver tub seemed to not match up as well to the inside sheetmetal contour and I required a 3/4" strip between the outside of the tub and the sheetmetal to make it look right. Of course, that could be installer error too.

ditchbangr

iTrader: (1)

What do you guys do with the rear? Narrow it or go with more backspace?

1MeanZ

iTrader: (9)

So you don't box in the outer wall of the spring bucket like it originally was? This is concerning to me. The outer wall of the spring bucket (that has the ribs) is pretty thick and made of 2 layers of steel. As far as I can tell, it is a load bearing area and GM beefed it up for a reason. To cut it completely out and not replace it seems questionable as far as strength goes. Is the wheel tub so far in that the spring and shock stick out farther than the back of the wheel tub? I did similar when I minitubbed my car, but I put the structure back. My car is not minitubbed as far as yours, but I moved the wheel houses in an inch, which will be fine for a 12" road race wheel. You can see how I put the spring bucket wall back in these pix.

Andrew91GT

It is not as beefed up as stock, I'll give you that. I boxed the outside of the spring bucket with 1/8" plate that was welded in.

I minitubbed it far enough that the upper shock bushing and washer are almost touching the tub when the shock is installed. Quite a bit of the stock spring mount diameter was cut out before I put the spring adjusters in.

1MeanZ

iTrader: (9)

So you are saying you did box the outside of the spring bucket similar to how I did? It would be great to see this pictured. If you did box the outside of the bucket I'd say your are pretty close or as strong as stock, which is fine.

Andrew91GT

I guess I misunderstood.

I boxed the outside upper edge of the spring bucket, but what you see is what is there. Truely boxing the spring bucket like your car would make it extremely difficult to adjust the coilover spring adjuster and change ride height.

The car will get a cage before I really beat on it. I'll have to consider the best way to reinforce that portion of the car. In any case I'll keep an eye on it for any stress cracks, etc. that may form.

Andrew91GT

Figured I'd snap a couple pics showing clearance.

Wheels are stock C6 rears, 19 x 10, I've got 2" spacers on the rear along with the disc conversion.

Driver's side clearance


Passenger side clearance


Still need to mod this bracket, you can see how much clearance to the panhard bracket


Picture showing car, rear is lowered as far as it goes with 10" long 200 lb/in springs

Andrew91GT

Modding the panhard bracket. I got the panhard from Steve @ madman & co. It's a shorter panhard to use the other hole in the bracket.

//<86TA>\\

iTrader: (15)

how much backspacing are you planning to end up with? i have 8.5" of backspacing on a stock 3rd gen width rear, no spacers, and i didnt have to modify the panhard mount at all? I dont see why you are having problems with it. Especially with the larger 19" wheels? mine are only 18" and i have plenty of clearance.

you are changing the roll height by moving the panhard bar up, maybe make a different bracket and put it back down?

and what are you doing about the control arms? if you are going inboard farther then i am (dont think you are), you need some massively offset or relocated arms.

Andrew91GT

I am going to get a 9" 57.75" axle flange to axle flange (4" narrower than stock) and run a 315/60/15 on a 12" wide 7.5" bs wheel at the track, will give me 5/8" to the inside of the tub on both sides. I will have to relocate the control arm to between the inside of the torque box and the framerail. For the street I will use my 2" adapters and run c6z06 rears, will have almost 1.25" clearance to inside of tub with this.

//<86TA>\\

iTrader: (15)

ah, ok then

Andrew91GT

last picture..... I'm DONE!

Panhard bracket modified and boxed with 1/8" steel plate.

Roostmeyer

iTrader: (3)

Do you have any way of bolting back in the panhard brace/bar? Thats putting a pretty large bending moment into the stock panhard mount thats now cantelevered out and unsuported. Raising the panhard mount is going to put more roll forces into that mount as well. If its a lightweight drag car it may be marginal as is, but sounds like the car will see a few street miles as well.

What I would do at this point is cut the flanges off the mounting ears, weld a flat plate off that surface on each side and lower both the brace bar down as well as the panhard bar. Of course your probably not worried about rear roll center height if the car doesn't have a front sway bar...

mightymaro94

The tubs look great! keep us updated

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

You made that look easy...

that's an absolute killer stance in the pic with the c6 wheels installed, what's done to the front to get it down that low/clear the tires?

As far as the adjustable spring seats are concerned... I'm not sure I buy your argument there... If you were trying to keep using stock parts then sure, but if you're going with custom springs and axle anyway, what difference does it make if they have a pigtail or not on either end. A better argument for an all out handling application would be that you're trying to save a little unsprung weight, but even then i would probably just use some weight jacks so you could adjust the height from inside the car.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

86 TA, is yours the setup that you spent a bunch of time trying to figure out how to widen the interior panels?

//<86TA>\\

iTrader: (15)

yeah it is, and im finnished with the interior panels. Im pretty happy with them. I still dont have pics. Hopefully this spring.

Andrew91GT

Thanks! It was some real work, but not super hard... just tedious.

I understand your point about the custom springs. I wanted maximum clearance which meant using the smallest diameter spring that I could. I'm also in Wolfe's backyard so maybe I'm just a little blind to other alternatives.

One thing that I HAVE thought about is a 'reverse travel limiter' setup of sorts. With the stock shocks in stock location, the wolfe spring adjusters using 12" springs, I have noticed that if you jack the car up, put jackstands under the frame and lower the rearend to simulate full suspension travel, the springs will fall out from between the body and rearend very easily. I'm considering making a cable style adjustable 'travel limiter' to keep the springs from falling out if I were to hit a large bump in the road. Who knows, perhaps at that amount of suspension travel I've got MUCH bigger things to worry about than the springs falling out (such as dying) but I am concerned about losing a spring.

onefast85

i done this to my 85camaro last fall...i made my own tubs and used the wolfe spring adjuster...mine has a 605inch pump gas bbc.

someone mentioned the panhard bar mount and lack of you having the support brace...what i done was to weld an extra peice to the mount and redrilled the hole for the panhard bar and shortened my lakewood panhard to fit..only had to take out an inch or so and i reused the support brace.

your build looks good to me...welding that factory metal was a pain wasnt it.LOL.

and all my plastic is back in,i carpeted the tubs and i still have my back seat.

Andrew91GT

Thanks man, saw the pics, looks good!

Andrew91GT

I made the backseat fit. I figured I owed it to everyone to show how.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/post...9-post100.html

dennisbernal91z

iTrader: (2)

Anyone know why so many pics are dead in this thread? I want to get as much help installing the Wolfe minitub as possible.

Thanks.

articwhiteZ

iTrader: (56)

The post is almost 4 years old.some time sites that host pics dont keep them up long..