Yeah, I know. Some of you are going to freak out about this. Get over it. There are two reasons why this is happening:
1. The previous owner of the car decided to hack the top of the shock towers to fit really craptastic ho-made plates. While the design of the suspension places less load on the shock towers than your typical coilover later model suspension or even crappier later model strut junk, this is a race car with very thick torsion bars and shocks valved to control the rid. If the top of the shock tower moves, that means the shock is not actually able to properly dampen the suspension. This is not ideal. I will be addressing the shock tops on one of my next trips up to see the car.
2. It is what the owners want.
Now that that explanation is over with, lets get on to the pics!
Making sure everything is centered up:
The X-axis on my DRO is . . . strange. I think I have it figured out, but have to go through the heavy Engrish again to figure out how to change a setting.
And, for the record: No, you cannot have too many machinist scales. There are three on hand with another spare somewhere.You can be pretty effing precise with good eyesight (and/or good magnification).
Once I determine center on the X-axis, the center finder is used to find the edges and use the DRO center function to find the exact center of the side, where the clearance hole for the tap will be drilled.
Without moving anything,the center drill is installed into the chuck and the spotting hole is drilled:
This prevents the drill bit used to actually drill the hole wandering around, making it much more precise.
Here is the drilled and tapped hole:
The threads are M8x1.25. This size was decided on as it is a substantial enough bolt/stud in order to withstand the anticipated loads while not being so large that it would compromise the strength of the adjuster base plate.
As a side note, while Chedda's Auto makes some bang-on totally awesome parts, I absolutely detest SAE hardware on a metric car. Chedda, if you read this, please, pretty please don't use SAE fasteners on stuff? It is super annoying.
Next up on the list is actually making the sandwich plate. This will be bolted in below the shock tower sheet metal and provide excellent triangulation for the weakened shock tower top. (It will still be weakened after it is repaired, compared to unmolested sheetmetal.)
After the sandwich plate is figured out, the next thing on the to-do list is fix these splitter mounts:
The mounting holes are backwards. *sighs* It is an easy enough fix, but, well, DUH!
1. The previous owner of the car decided to hack the top of the shock towers to fit really craptastic ho-made plates. While the design of the suspension places less load on the shock towers than your typical coilover later model suspension or even crappier later model strut junk, this is a race car with very thick torsion bars and shocks valved to control the rid. If the top of the shock tower moves, that means the shock is not actually able to properly dampen the suspension. This is not ideal. I will be addressing the shock tops on one of my next trips up to see the car.
2. It is what the owners want.
Now that that explanation is over with, lets get on to the pics!
Making sure everything is centered up:
And, for the record: No, you cannot have too many machinist scales. There are three on hand with another spare somewhere.You can be pretty effing precise with good eyesight (and/or good magnification).
Once I determine center on the X-axis, the center finder is used to find the edges and use the DRO center function to find the exact center of the side, where the clearance hole for the tap will be drilled.
Without moving anything,the center drill is installed into the chuck and the spotting hole is drilled:
Here is the drilled and tapped hole:
As a side note, while Chedda's Auto makes some bang-on totally awesome parts, I absolutely detest SAE hardware on a metric car. Chedda, if you read this, please, pretty please don't use SAE fasteners on stuff? It is super annoying.
Next up on the list is actually making the sandwich plate. This will be bolted in below the shock tower sheet metal and provide excellent triangulation for the weakened shock tower top. (It will still be weakened after it is repaired, compared to unmolested sheetmetal.)
After the sandwich plate is figured out, the next thing on the to-do list is fix these splitter mounts:
The mounting holes are backwards. *sighs* It is an easy enough fix, but, well, DUH!
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