Well, builds are never straight forward but i'm starting to think someones trying to put a spanner in the works every step recently, no pun intended. Pretty much every part thats been ordered has been delayed and same goes for any 3rd party work. Soldier on though!
After whats felt like an eternity i finally got the suspension arms and knuckles back after being in the local stealers for 3 days. Counter shaft also rebuilt with the 5.8 shaft.
Decided to do the front first as i'm waiting on rear LCA's and an ASR brace to ship from the states which finally went today.
All bushes have been replaced with hard race bushes bar the rear upper hub bush, credit for that with SPD.
Front arms: (caster offset)
Arms fitted without much hassle, just had to ratchet the bolts in/out a few times to clear the threads of paint. Same went for the threads for the ABS sensors, took my time with them due to snapping a bolt in one of the original knuckles. Noticed these bolts from lungs don't come in the usual parts bags to not 100% convinced they're made of the same quality steel.
Fitted the first knuckle (now with new bearings), bolted up the shock then jacked the lower arm to compress the spring for fitting the tie rod end then noticed this….
Went onto google straight away and checked if anyone else had this issue. Turns out they used to come with a groove machined into them and a cir clip. New ones don't. Phoned SPD, solution apparently is to put a couple of spot welds on them to stop it. Seems like a bit of a bizarre solution but made sense. Can't figure out why the changed the original design though….
Both sides sorted time for the Trophy's! One thing i wasn't aware of is the mounting brackets need to be shimmed so the disc sits equidistant between the pads. Tolerance for this is .001thou. Kit comes with .001-.005 shims, tells you to fit two per bolt so used a .003 + .004 on each. Calliper on and it was .50+thou out easy. Pretty much attributable to the paint. Only had half a day at it today so tomorrow i'll sand down the mounting points on the knuckles tomorrow and get them fully fitted and shimmed correctly….
I'll get the rears done over tomorrow and Friday. I'll just use the Skunk2 LCA's I've got till the replacements turn up or someone buys them. Doesn't need an arb for now.
Box will be rebuilt Friday once the rear's done and car dropped on it's wheels (finally!). Engine's getting taken out the road to the car on Saturday, Sunday i'll bolt box to engine minus clutch/flywheel and finally drop it in to check for sump pulley clearance.
I've also got a swirl pot mount frame to fabricate then a cover for the wheel well. MSA rules won't allow the pot as it is, needs to be enclosed. Should be easy enough with some alu channel / box, rivets, tiger seal and carbon sheet!
Oh, and the solution for the intake side of life, two words….Titan / Reverie.