Weather held out on Friday so I snuck out of work a little early headed home, grabbed the trailer and the old **** box and headed to PIR for Track Night in America.
Great group of cars, interesting group of drivers.
I didnt take too many pics was busy driving and doing some tuning on suspension bits.
First session out, much much better turn in with the delrin bushings, front control arms still have a little wiggle in them, assuming its the bubble gum rear bushings still in there. Does it on hard braking entering a corner, probably need to do more braking before the corner
Had a little shimmy on the rear of the car on corner exits in the first session but the car was doing well, full 20 minute session, no steering issues, got to 217 (Still on the stock 190 degree stat).
Pitted the car, adjusted the rears 4 clicks softer, adjusted the fronts 4 clicks stiffer. checked tire press, 30 front 27 rear. Good notes.
Rear diff needs a hose on the vent tube, losing a little oil out of that but not enough to stop from running again.
Session 2, much better, less rear wheel hop on corner exits, able to drive the car much harder, notice a little understeer mid corner, car rotates really welll, turn in is excellent.
Had a hell of a time, passed everything in our session except an RS3 that I had an awesome time running with, he was a better driver than I was so once he got around me I hung with him and followed his lead.
There was a guy out there in a McLaren that was a horrible driver, didnt watch his mirrors, wouldnt let anyone around him and though because he had the fastest car out there that he was the fastest driver....he was not, by a long stretch. Passing only on a point by and I wasnt going to break the rules but we both had him covered by a long shot. I was starting to get a little angry, realized it was just for fun and tuning and pull off track a few minutes before the end of the session, a solid 18 minutes out.
Car is getting better, getting used to it. Power and grip in corner exits is awesome, its much faster than I am used to in the F100.
Needs a little softer rear springs, I have 450's in now, ordered some 400's and 350's to try out next week.
I still believe it needs more front bar, I have a 25 on it now, going to go up to a 28mm and see how it does, could make the understeer worse.
I need more front camber.....more on that later.
Rear Diff Breather needs addressed as well as a 160 degree thermostat.
Was stoked to have Robert drop by with his father in law, we had a great evening, car drove into the trailer. Good Day!!!
Saturday was IPD's big annual car show and garage sale, car was pretty well received there and I took home a best of show trophy. Thanks to IPD for putting on this event, its a great time for all of us Volvo Folks was good to see some old friends and make some new ones as well.
I took half the day off today and cleaned up the shop, ordered a bunch of parts and then got too it.
Havent been looking forward to this but its got to be done.
These are Kaplhenke adjustable caster/camber plates with his strut bar as well. There are no instructions included with the kit so for anyone that needs to do this in the future here is what I did to get the camber gains but still keep the structure in the tops.
I then traced out the inner shape of the strut tower opening on the top of the strut tower so I had an exact location of where I needed to cut.
Taped up and protected.
You can see the pencil line
Drilled the corners so I had a nice radius and gave myself a big hole to start with the airsaw.
Rough cut.
I cleaned up the hole with a 1.5" round sanding disc on a die grinder and several different files. I then touched up all of the bare surfaces with color matched paint. Its not perfect but 90% of it is hidden away,
I think it actually looks better now than before so I call that success!!
I am not quite sure how much camber I gained, but I gained a bunch of tire clearance, and the strut top moved in a good .75" I still have a little more to gain.
Will get it all buttoned up tomorrow before the rest of the parts show up, hope to have it all together before next Fridays TNIA in Seattle.
This write up came out today, pretty stoked to see this posted up from our shoot a few weeks ago.
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/perfect-v8-swapped-volvo/
All in all pretty awesome weekend and last few weeks, fun to see people dig the car.
Thanks for all the help and support over the past year, its been fun as hell!!!
Sean
