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Messages - Jim Herrud

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121
The Lounge / Re: Photo Posting Poll
« on: June 09, 2018, 03:53:55 PM »
Let's not be condescending.
(That's when you talk down to people.)

122
The Lounge / Re: Undercoating Recommendations
« on: April 22, 2018, 02:27:59 PM »
Upon the recommendation of my enthusiast group, in 2003 I applied POR-15 to the chassis of my '65 Fastback. I am aware (ad nauseum) of the ensuing controversy surrounding rust preventative products in general and POR-15 in particular. There are many new choices for these products available today. However, my lot is cast, so at least that’s one decision I don’t have to make as I proceed with my build.

I was instructed to closely follow the POR-15 application recommendations and we tried to do so. Our chassis was completely stripped, soda-blasted and all compromised sheet metal was replaced. There was no rust present at this point. The chassis was cleaned, prepped with the POR-15 Metal-Ready and then POR-15 was applied with brushes. We complied with the temperature and humidity recommendations. The application was actually a fun experience as my wife and kids – including my 8-year-old daughter - joined me in the body shop on a Saturday & painted alongside me as the chassis hung on the rotisserie. The actual application is easy as the paint smooths out well and results in a hard, shiny surface. I’ve got a few drips and runs where I didn’t catch them in time, but overall, I am happy with the result. You can find some underside pictures in one of my previous posts: http://www.saacforum.com/index.php?topic=822.msg6077#msg6077

Since the car has been in unheated storage for 13 years and in my garage for 2, the paint hasn’t really been stressed yet. That said, I have seen no problems so far. Time will tell.

My concern now is that there are no front inner fenders to protect the underside of the fender metal. It is covered only with the POR-15. Friends have warned me about rocks or road debris getting kicked up, striking the underside of the fenders and creating damage visible in the paint on the outside top of the fenders. Similar to Nick’s thinking (the OP), I am considering applying some type of rubberized/compliant undercoating, but in my case the purpose would be to cushion the impact damage of road debris. My car will be driven in anger. So, I have a few questions:
•   Do those of you who drive your cars at speed experience this damage? Or am I making a mountain out of a molehill?
•   If you do get damage, how are your front fenders coated?
•   Does anyone have experience they can share with applying a rubberized or other type of coating to the inner fenders?
     o  Has anyone tried bed-liner-type material like Line-X or Rhino-Lining?
•   Has anyone tried other solutions? I was thinking it wouldn't be too hard to make a rubber or plastic inner fender to line the bottom of the metal between the splash guards.

Thx!

123
SAAC Forum Discussion Area / Re: What valve covers to use
« on: March 19, 2018, 11:03:16 PM »
I like the look of the open letter valve Cobra covers as well. After a bit of forum research, I chose a pair from Scott Drake as they seemed to get good marks: P/N 6A582-CP. These are designed to be used with roller rockers, but SD hedges a bit saying that they fit "most" rocker arms. They fit my Edelbrock Performer RPM heads with roller rockers.

http://www.drakeautomotivegroup.com/Store/Product/6A582-CP.aspx?wid=141








124
Ford GT / Re: 2018 Ford GT at 2018 Boise Roadster Show
« on: March 18, 2018, 02:11:45 PM »
One more photo:


125
Ford GT / 2018 Ford GT at 2018 Boise Roadster Show
« on: March 18, 2018, 02:11:01 PM »
One Show entry from the Treasure Valley Mustang & Ford Club:





126
SAAC-43 / Re: Revised Open Track Driver's Guide
« on: March 18, 2018, 01:41:52 PM »
Excellent summary, Howard. Thank you.

127
The Lounge / Re: 100 Worst Cars of all time. Do you agree?
« on: March 12, 2018, 03:54:47 PM »
Mixed reaction on the BMW E38. I was the first owner of a 1996 BMW 740iL. I should have taken a hint from all the trips to the dealership while it was under warranty. I used to describe owning this car like having a mistress: Exciting to have, but expensive to maintain. It was a great driving experience. Unfortunately, even though it was thoroughly pampered, it required over $22K in unscheduled maintenance and repairs. I was relieved to sell it.

128
With regards to doing clutch work, I was recently educated about the importance of "indexing" the bellhousing to check for proper centerline alignment and promote long bushing life. Some folks experience driveline vibration and occasionally have repeated bushing and clutch failures. One cause is a bellhousing that is not accurately aligned with the flywheel/crankshaft. If the bellhousing is more than approximately 0.005" out of alignment, the out-of-round condition can cause this vibration and lead to premature failure of the bushing and other clutch components. Bellhousing offset pins are available to bring it into proper alignment. MD and other resources have documentation on how to perform the indexing procedure. MD's procedure is located here: http://www.moderndriveline.com/Technical_Bits/proper-bellhousing-alignment-indexing.htm

I did this on my car since it will see extensive driving and rather severe duty. It checked out OK - just inside the acceptable limits.  My standard size magnetic base was too large to fit on the flywheel without interfering with the inside of the bellhousing when I rotated the crankshaft. I purchased a mini-magnetic base for my small dial indicator from Grainger that did the trick.

Shelbydoug mentioned an actual bearing that is now available to replace the pilot bushing. I had also recently discovered this and spoke with MD to get their take on it. They said that so far, the bearings seem to work OK, but at the same time, the bushings work just fine and have less chance of causing a problem. KISS principle.

129
When is too much HP too much, why never I guess.
Don't know if it's true, but I was told that one of Carroll Shelby's quotes was: "There's no such thing as too much horsepower, only too little traction".

130
Replicas and Tribute / Re: Vintage Shelby Mustang Suspension Mods
« on: February 25, 2018, 07:28:20 PM »
How are you mounting your Panhard bars?l

I have an 80's-vintage Maier Racing Panhard Rod kit. Maier's current kit is larger and appears to have more adjustability.  My left-side mount is welded to the frame & sheetmetal behind the axle. The right mount is welded to the back of the axle tube. The 4 photos show the mounts. The rod itself is not currently installed. The left side mount is painted grey - the right-side is black:






The Watts linkage allows axle movement up and down while constraining it to a straight vertical line, whereas the Panhard Rod forces the axle to travel in a slight arc as it travels up and down.  To see if I can eliminate the Panhard Rod, I am experimenting with another product from Global West called the “Del-A-Lum” bushing shackle kit. It is supposed to locate the leaf springs more precisely and reduce the axle side-to-side movement. GW recommends that no Panhard Rod be used along with their kit because the side-to-side arc-motion forced by the Panhard Rod can cause the bushing shackle kit to bind.


Hi Earl, I blame Frank S. for infecting me with the Shelby bug. I only talked to the guy once and that was a quarter-century ago, but he's still OK in my book.

Thx,
Jim

131
Replicas and Tribute / Vintage Shelby Mustang Suspension Mods
« on: February 25, 2018, 02:00:46 AM »
This topic is inspired by comments from shelbydoug and zray in the thread on “Recommendations on Street/Track Tires”.
Quote
"........Also, regardless of what the factory did with the Boss 302's, a rear anti-sway bars on these cars is a no-no. ......."
Quote
I have yet to see a rear sway bar (on a 65/66) that actually helped anything.
My input seemed to be a bit off topic there, so I thought I’d start a new and more generic one. Since many Shelby owners are unmotivated to modify their cars in this manner, I thought it more appropriate to put this in the Replica/Tribute section.

I autocrossed my 65 Fastback in the 80’s/90's and it initially had stock-suspension with the classic vintage Mustang understeer. It was, by far, the oldest and slowest Mustang in the class.

One of the club guys suggested I contact a “vintage” Mustang racer that he knew in California by the name of Frank Stagnaro and gave me his phone number. I didn’t know him from Adam. One evening, I called him out of the blue. He was very gracious and over next 2 hours, he gave me tons of info – much of which I had insufficient background to appreciate. Note that Stagnaro’s car was (and still is) technically light-years ahead of mine.

Based on his suggestions, I made a number of suspension changes: Shelby/Arning drop, stiffer/lower front & 4.5 leaf rear springs, bigger front bar, 5/8” rear-bar, Panhard rod, Koni shocks and of course, better tires. I know I should have made changes one at a time, but then again, in autocross, you don’t have a consistent track to quantify the changes.

The car performance improved considerably and the balance went from understeer to oversteer. The changes didn’t shoot me to class champion, but I was thankfully now less slow and almost mid-pack. (Driver skill is likely a constraint here ;)) It’s difficult to conclude that the rear anti-roll bar is responsible for the oversteer, but I’ve heard from several sources that it definitely contributes (as the gentlemen above have inferred). The biggest benefit (for me) is that driving an oversteering car is a hell of a lot more entertaining than an understeering one, if not necessarily faster.

I’m currently completing more upgrades to the car, aiming for better balance. Adjusting/disconnecting the rear bar will be one of the tuning variables. There’s tons of info available now on suspension physics and setup, but it is geared mostly for modern cars. I’d be interested to see what others have done to their vintage Shelby Mustang suspension and what experience they’ve had.

Thx,
Jim

132
SAAC-43 / Re: SAAC-43 Preliminary Highlights
« on: February 24, 2018, 11:38:15 PM »
Regarding the Track Day event at SAAC-43, the "Highlights" sheet says:

Quote
Open Track will have run groups on all three days of the convention. The Intermediate and Advanced
run groups will be allowed to have passengers. Forms and track schedule will be available in the
Downloads section of the website.

Anybody know what driving credentials qualify as Intermediate and Advanced? Driving schools? Number of HPDE events? Racing experience?

Thx,
Jim

133
SAAC-43 / Re: Host Hotel
« on: February 24, 2018, 11:07:01 PM »
An update on the lodging situation at the Embassy Suites: The online reservation system indicates that there are no more "SAC" room rates available, so I called their number to speak to an agent. It appears that all the “SAC” rate rooms are filled for Aug 3 and Aug 5, but are available for the other dates. The online reservation system can't handle the dual rates in this case, so it defaults to the normal rates for all nights. The normal rate for these two non-SAC nights was $287+tax for a King room. The SAC rate on the other 4 nights was the expected $215+tax. The agent booking the room told me I got the last King room that is available for all 6 nights of the event, but there are still Double-Queen rooms available.

Regarding parking: I don’t want to start a false rumor, so consider the source, but the agent told me that the $7 parking is not waived for these nights. In contrast to this report, recall that in the "SAAC-43 Host Hotel Information" thread, the Forum Guide told us:

Quote
5. No matter what is says on the forms, all SAAC reservations get free parking (normally $7/night).

So SAAC may have made other parking arrangements of which the agent is unaware.

Thx,
Jim

134
1966 Shelby GT350/GT350H / Re: 5 speed trans options
« on: February 13, 2018, 06:11:27 PM »
+1: Jim's reply. I discussed the T-5 variants with MD and they assured me theirs is of the preferred, robust design. (Then again, what would you expect them to say;)  MD offers a Tremec T-56 6-speed with a higher design torque limit. I looked at this unit, but it requires some clearance modification in the '65-66 tunnel area - something i didn't want to do. My 289 dyno'ed at 340 torque and I plan to use it for autocross. MD felt that the T-5z would work fine in this application. Besides, it fits without mods and is lighter to boot.

Jim

135
Wanted to Buy / Re: Late 65/66 heater box
« on: February 12, 2018, 05:27:13 PM »
In the Doghouse, I sent you a PM.

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