Importing a Car from the US

Oneball

Oneball

Member
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11,117
Some progress since Christmas, I've finished seam welding and gusseting the chassis and taken it to Dudley to be dipped and e-coated

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Front end removed as it's been repaired so many times it's not worth the effort of painting it for it to crack and craze in a couple of months

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Diff stripped in preparation for changing the LSD to a more aggressive setup than standard, also need to tap the case for oil cooler lines, but I have at last got something shiny!

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Gearbox strip down today.

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Sidecover off, two of the threads are buggered so they’ll need helicoils.

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The selector forks are worn, especially for 4th so new ones of those to the list.

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Extension off and gears out, reverse fork also needs changing.

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I’m changing the gearset from the M20 that’s in there to an M22 which a stronger semi heilcal cut gearset that was homologated in period
so most of this is useless.

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The only bit that could have been reused is reverse gear but that’s trashed too. Bearing in mind this car has done 80k just shows how bad driving can damage things when you compare it with the box in Bebs 100k F360

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Time to give the cases a proper clean and order a load of bits.

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philw696

philw696

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25,423
Good Work indeed coming along nicely.
Bet there's a whiff of gearbox oil in the garage now from the box and diff being stripped ?
 
Oishi

Oishi

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Messages
825
I'm chiming in uninvited here, but as I have owned several C3 corvettes, and raced them too, thought it would be ok. Be mindful of the more aggressive LSD. These cars are very sensitive to changes in the clutch pack. Too much lock in the diff will induce throttle understeer. You will find on corner exit, getting on the gas hard will cause the car to "push" badly. Run the lightest pack that will keep the wheels spinning together. Ed
 
Oneball

Oneball

Member
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11,117
Oishi said:
I'm chiming in uninvited here, but as I have owned several C3 corvettes, and raced them too, thought it would be ok. Be mindful of the more aggressive LSD. These cars are very sensitive to changes in the clutch pack. Too much lock in the diff will induce throttle understeer. You will find on corner exit, getting on the gas hard will cause the car to "push" badly. Run the lightest pack that will keep the wheels spinning together. Ed
Click to expand...

Hi Ed

Any advice is welcome. I’ve gone for a 22 disc metal clutch pack and 400lb pre load spring. Factory Posis come with 200lb. The Yanks run an 800lb spring for “road courses” but I thought that was too aggressive so have gone for middle of the road. We’ll see how it goes.
 
Oishi

Oishi

Member
Messages
825
That sounds good, getting these to handle well can be a bit counterintuitive. The chassis is so flexible, even with welding and cross bracing, that things like spring rates, shocks, and roll bar size can be critical. If I may, the bounce and rebound of the wheels can be controlled by the dampers, but when you load the chassis and it flexes, then unloads uncontrollably the handling can get dicey. The trick is to find a balance between grip (lateral especially) and chassis stiffness. With a lot of tuning my '72 will see 1.1g's on a right turn, and close to 1.2 left. Ed
 
Oneball

Oneball

Member
Messages
11,117
Oishi said:
That sounds good, getting these to handle well can be a bit counterintuitive. The chassis is so flexible, even with welding and cross bracing, that things like spring rates, shocks, and roll bar size can be critical. If I may, the bounce and rebound of the wheels can be controlled by the dampers, but when you load the chassis and it flexes, then unloads uncontrollably the handling can get dicey. The trick is to find a balance between grip (lateral especially) and chassis stiffness. With a lot of tuning my '72 will see 1.1g's on a right turn, and close to 1.2 left. Ed
Click to expand...

I’ve gone with a 330lb rear spring and 474lb front, which is similar to the HD factory setup but a fair bit softer than some race cars run, especially in the States where they’re often trying to control compression on banking. 1 1/4” front ARB and the stock big block rear. My mate who’s a chassis engineer is making me up a set of custom mono tube dampers based on Bilstein units.

Fingers crossed it’ll be in the ballpark. To be honest I’ve lost that stone cold killer thing that makes a good racing driver. I can put in stonking lap times but don’t have it anymore when it comes to overtaking so just a bit of fun.
 
Oishi

Oishi

Member
Messages
825
You are exactly right. The mistake people make with C3's is running stiff springs, heavy roll bars and heavy dampers, causing even more chassis flex. Then wonder why its so unpredictable. I'm with you on racing too, at my age its more about fun than absolute speed. Besides, getting blackflagged for the doors popping open is not good. I am following your build with great interest, keep it coming. Ed
 
Bebs

Bebs

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3,351
Thanks for the kind gearbox comment Oneball!
That’s quite a project you’ve got going there.. you must be quite handy with a spanner by the looks of things! Well done you for taking something like that on. Bravo.
 
Oishi

Oishi

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Messages
825
Great! I scored a killer set of chromoly tube offset arms with Heim joint ball ends for mine. Light weight, stiff and easily adjusted.
 
Oishi

Oishi

Member
Messages
825
I'll dig some up. She's in pieces right now, I bought my Mas because I was tired of turning wenches instead of driving. Low and behold I rediscovered the joy of Maserati. To me, the price/fun ratio of a 4200 is off the scale. Ed
 
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