02-14-10 Starting Assembly

Some of the parts I've been waiting for the first steps of assembly arrived, so I was able to get to work on it. First up is the suspension...I was waiting on a set of aluminum differential bushings from Mike Forte to replace the sloppy rubber stock bushings.

Might as well get the nastiest part of it done first, shoehorning the differential into place. There simply is no graceful way to do it and not enough clearance for a straight shot into position. Without a helper on hand it was a matter of bench-pressing a rather heavy chunk of cast iron (the pretty aluminum color is just a fancy ceramic spray-on coating a friend had used on his FFR) into place while twisting it this way and that, cursing a blue streak, trying to find the right angle to wiggle it past the framework. I ended up having to somersault it upside down past the rear X-member, then rotate it about the longitudinal axis before I could bolt it into place.

I'll have to see if I can find some blue paint to touch up the gouges on the frame, though it's almost all just cosmetic and won't be visible once the car is done:

And a shot from the side...

And this shot has the best angle on the aluminum bushings up front. These should, along with the poly knuckle bushings to be installed later, eliminate most of the wheel hop issues on hard launches off the line. We'll see once she's back on the road.

Also on Friday I got a call from the engine shop saying they needed my flywheel so they could complete the balance work on the rotating assembly, so while I was there they let me grab a few photos of the work in progress on the motor.

Here's the block...the cylinders are being honed with a torque plate attached to duplicate the minute changing the block will see with the heads torqued in place. #2 is being worked on in this shot:

And the crankshaft and damper on the balancing machine, waiting for a flywheel...

And the factory rods, cleaned up and with ARP fasteners attached. Went with a Keith Black piston that should yield about 10.5-to-1 compression on the final assembly, with valve reliefs big enough to clear the 2.02 valves in the heads.

And back to assembly work today... the parts I needed to work on the front arrived as well...the David Borden-designed SAI mod kit from Whity Motorcars. Borden's kit modifies the front suspension geometry a bit to improve handling, high-speed stability and steering response by removing some of the compromises in the Mk I through Mk III FFR kits.

First up is the lower control arms. The mounting tabs were a bit closer together on the front, so I used a piece of threaded rod, washers and nuts to persuade the tabs apart just enough to wiggle the arm into place:

One of the pieces of the SAI mod kit (Steering Axis Inclination), these brackets relocate the upper control arm mounting point. The UCA normally attached directly to the plate using the vertical bolt holes in this shot, but will be attached on the horizontal bolts instead...notice the angle change in the height of the bolts. The closest bolt had some interference with the frame tab, so...

Get out the grinder and zip off a corner of the bolt head and washer...

Like so...

And the bracket fits right into place. If I had been thinking ahead well enough I would have gotten these parts much sooner, and just had the brackets welded on before the powdercoating. Oh well, this will do just fine.

I'll need the steering rack in place to complete the SAI mod and front suspension assembly. From all accounts I've read about the improvement from the mod kit, it should be well worth all the trouble.