I've been able to get out and test drive the car. Went on around a 30 mile drive least week and other than some tuning needing to be addressed the car drove well. Stopped for ice cream to prove it's still a street mod class legal car. With the temperature around 75 it barely went over 170 cruising with the cooling system changes.
I had also swapped out exh gaskets to remflex after pulling the driver's side header to take care of the steering shaft rub.
Then while the garage was open I took care of oil changes and maintenance on the daily and more importantly my truck so it'll be ready to tow to Blackhawk this week. Noticed a rub on the lower radiator hose that could have been bad news and re secured it away from the steering link.
Once the Cutlass was back in the shop I needed to get the accusump hooked back up. I wasn't happy with the way I routed the hose last year and tried to find a better solution. After a lot of trial and error fits I figured out a route that gives way more clearance to the header, not touching the bell housing and keeps the line tucked up to the floor. Plus I could install the line before the sandwich plate went on so it's actually tight. Track side install last year was lots of not getting things ideally tight and compromise on routing.
Thursday night the new coilovers for the rear showed up! Viking Crusader double adjustable with "GP" valving to match the front. I went with a 250lbs spring as a starter with 300lbs as spares for possible need once aero and going 3 link come into play.
They installed right in place of the old shocked without any extra work. When I did all the chassis stiffening I had plated and braced the upper mount and the lowers I fabricated for the 9" so they're plenty strong to handle the spring loads already.
With the major chassis changes over the winter I reset the rear control arms to as close to level as I could. This is the uppers in the 2" raised chassis side I made last year and the lowers at the 1-3/4" drop hole on the axle side. Lowers are still slightly up to the front. Uppers look very close to level. This should be a pretty neutral rear steer position to baseline from.
Saturday I was able to go test at Black River Motorsports Park ( which finally got their land use permit last week and can now hold events). I was sharing the afternoon with a couple drift cars which worked out to take turns as I spent several outings just getting the brakes figured out. I've only had a couple sessions at Road America on these Hawk dct60 pads and it took some figuring out. I'm not particularly impressed with them. They're weak and horrible pedal feel until up to temp then they were so aggressive that I had near immediate lock up. Had to make a massive bias adjustment just to get the tears working on par and minimize lock up. The Wilwood BP-30 was a way more friction linear compound and easier to modulate. Backordered until next year where I've looked despite online claims of in stock or only a couple weeks out...
I was also figuring out what shock settings to have as my baseline. I was paying close attention to the travel and increasing resistance until the compression under cornering and slalom was about an inch from the bumpstop front and rear. At this point the car would push/understeer past a certain steering input or on transition. Increasing the rear stiffness reduces the push back to a neutral handling car. Ended the day with a decent baseline and plenty of room for shock adjustments further.
Before going home I had a short list of small thing that needed addressing. Some bolt were working loose, as the suspension settled I had to adjust the ride height a little and I gained significant toe out somewhere along the lines. Fixed all this on Sunday morning.
Overall first impression is that I'm happy I didn't create myself a basket case. The splined swaybar setup keeps the car very flat in turns, the new suspension geometry seems to be less upset by movement near the limits and the softer sprung coilovers are handling rough surfaces and bumps much better. The steering is quick and predictable with a little more effort needed than before. But there is some slop at center and one side of the cylinder is leaking a little (used rack after all, but it's completely rebuild able). With the slightly faster ratio getting my arms crossed up finds a point where it it too much steering angle to maintain grip but shock adjustments were helping with that. The rear now hooks up really well. I can tell the car is lacking rotation from the significant rear steer before but there's so much more drive off corner. This may or may not help in autocross situations but should be better on the road course.
Testing was on last year's end but of season tires and without aero. I'm attempting to get the mechanical grip sorted before aero and new sticky tires. I intend to bring the tires to Blackhawk but not the aero. Probably swap tires at some point during the weekend and get a scrub session on them, then feel out the difference before Midwest Fest in a few weeks.