ShadowBolt
05-18-2017, 10:09 AM
Okay so after the great run we had a MSRC we paid to do a practice day at TWS. All we had was six shit tires to run on Friday and a set of stickers on Sat. and Sunday. The car was not all that bad Friday but this was on 16-17 heat cycle RR's. On Sat. morning we put the stickers on. The car was loose. This was a theme that we would fight the balance of the weekend. After R1 a good friend and racer in another class told me he could see how loose the car was. I agreed but Jay kept saying it was not all that bad. We tightened the front struts all the way and softened the rears all the way. The car was just crazy loose. The same racer/friend came over after R3 and told me (and I agreed) that the car was almost un-drivable it was so loose. Prior to R4 we added all the spacers to the rear that we could and that added another 1" to the rear track width. Jay said after the race he was almost crashing in every corner and the harder he tried to go the worse it got.
Jump to last weekend and I had the car up on the lift to get it ready for COTA. I had the new shocks and struts from ATS and was going to change them all out since the old units were at least three if not four years old and had never been refreshed. While changing out the rears I noticed one of the rear shocks had leaked a small amount of fluid. No big deal since I was changing them anyway. I removed the rear upper control arms and found the right side rubber torn all the way through. This normally makes the car push when turning one direction (remember it was wicked loose). The only other thing I was going to do was to change out the brake fluid. I run ATE Super Blue (and yes I still have some of the Blue). I had not changed out the fluid on this car in two years and it looked and smelled great. No off color or burnt smell at all. I loaned out my pressure bleeder so I can't find it (so if you have it please return it). In a pinch you can get away with gravity bleeding. Just start with the right rear then left rear then right front and last left front. If needed Jay and I can pump a few ounces through with the pedal at COTA on Friday. I also had the power steering pump shit the bed at TWS so I ordered one from Rock Auto. While removing the pump I noticed a rather large hole in the lower left front control arm. What the hell is this I thought? Then I saw it (and the reason the car had so much front grip and zero rear grip).......sway bar end link nut and bushing were gone so this in effect gave us no sway bar at all at TWS! I felt like a fool (still do). I assumed there was something wrong with the rear binding up causing an extremely high spring rate and we would have to get through the weekend before I could find the problem and fix it.
All of this crap I have written is just to let you all know what one small nut falling off the car can do. If I had gone over the car as I should have prior to TWS it is possible we could have avoided all the issues we had. While at Cresson working on the wrecked right front I was pulling the right side front lower control arm completely out of the car to have the new ball joint pressed in. I had to disconnect the sway bar end link on the left side so I could rotate the bar up and out of the way. I'm betting I only hand tightened the nut on the left side when I re-installed the sway bar! We were trying to make R2 and I was in a hurry. The car was so damned good at Cresson I really did not want to mess with it. My bad. I new set of sway bar end links from LMR and try and do an at Home alignment this weekend and I hope we are good to go.
One more thing. If you have been raped by Maximum Motorsports on new rear upper control arms in the past take heart. The old Ford arms that you paid $300.00 to $400.00 a set for are all gone. The new batch MM had made are only $99.00 per set and they look great. I always have a spare with me.
JJ
Jump to last weekend and I had the car up on the lift to get it ready for COTA. I had the new shocks and struts from ATS and was going to change them all out since the old units were at least three if not four years old and had never been refreshed. While changing out the rears I noticed one of the rear shocks had leaked a small amount of fluid. No big deal since I was changing them anyway. I removed the rear upper control arms and found the right side rubber torn all the way through. This normally makes the car push when turning one direction (remember it was wicked loose). The only other thing I was going to do was to change out the brake fluid. I run ATE Super Blue (and yes I still have some of the Blue). I had not changed out the fluid on this car in two years and it looked and smelled great. No off color or burnt smell at all. I loaned out my pressure bleeder so I can't find it (so if you have it please return it). In a pinch you can get away with gravity bleeding. Just start with the right rear then left rear then right front and last left front. If needed Jay and I can pump a few ounces through with the pedal at COTA on Friday. I also had the power steering pump shit the bed at TWS so I ordered one from Rock Auto. While removing the pump I noticed a rather large hole in the lower left front control arm. What the hell is this I thought? Then I saw it (and the reason the car had so much front grip and zero rear grip).......sway bar end link nut and bushing were gone so this in effect gave us no sway bar at all at TWS! I felt like a fool (still do). I assumed there was something wrong with the rear binding up causing an extremely high spring rate and we would have to get through the weekend before I could find the problem and fix it.
All of this crap I have written is just to let you all know what one small nut falling off the car can do. If I had gone over the car as I should have prior to TWS it is possible we could have avoided all the issues we had. While at Cresson working on the wrecked right front I was pulling the right side front lower control arm completely out of the car to have the new ball joint pressed in. I had to disconnect the sway bar end link on the left side so I could rotate the bar up and out of the way. I'm betting I only hand tightened the nut on the left side when I re-installed the sway bar! We were trying to make R2 and I was in a hurry. The car was so damned good at Cresson I really did not want to mess with it. My bad. I new set of sway bar end links from LMR and try and do an at Home alignment this weekend and I hope we are good to go.
One more thing. If you have been raped by Maximum Motorsports on new rear upper control arms in the past take heart. The old Ford arms that you paid $300.00 to $400.00 a set for are all gone. The new batch MM had made are only $99.00 per set and they look great. I always have a spare with me.
JJ