do you run an IPD front sway bar? What springs?

i think i'll have to leave it all stock for the first one with some sticky-ish (17x7.5") rubber and see how the car handles. I wonder how different the weight distribution is with the wagon. That's a lot of glass.

IPD front and rear sways. Bilstein HD shocks. Springs unknown but I suspect they are early IPD lowering springs which were a complete bust. Apparently they dropped the front about 5" and the rear none...

They coulda been the early Vperformance springs too, as I understand they were horrible. Progressive rate too, which I'm not sure the IPDs were (though I really don't know why I would know).

I believe the weight distribution is 51(front) and 49 back. This was a classic ice-racer, as the rear-end stayed in the rear. I set the record for rally-racing on Vancouver island with it. Ok, ahem, sort-of. We never had a rally, but I beat everyone-else, and there were no actual rally-cars. My clapped-out B18 did however beat a lot of other cars (and trucks) on a very, very windey road with lots of switch-backs, and seeeerious drop-offs. I just never slowed-down for the corners - four-wheel drifts. It was the road from Gold River to Tahsis, in case anyone knows it.

Anyway, I'm pretty-sure about the weight distribution.

(Darn, darn about the control-arm mounts - I didn't know anyone actually tried it.)

Jim

sweet deal! I may need some ballast then because i'm not a small guy

I guess i'll Paint it, and keep it stock, see if i can salvage the rear axle for now, and see where it needs improvement.

It's got brand new rebuilt front suspension and brakes all around. Can anyone comment on how these cars stop on stock brakes w/o the booster? this car has a non-booster Master Cylinder, or do i just have to wait until i drive it?

There is a really good reason Craig and I have both upgraded to Wilwood brakes. I never drove my car with the stock brakes. I drove Craig's car ONCE with the stock brakes and they scared the crap out of me. I'm not entirely sure my leg was strong enough to get it to stop in any reasonable distance. Those people who claim these cars are fine with the stock brakes have never driven a car with good brakes...I'll put money on it...

Good point. I CAN leg press 800lbs but it would be a good thing to plan on doing soon. Any idea roughly what they cost? Around 1k? 2k? I'd like to take care of the whole shebang when I swap to a disc brake rear axle. Hmm. Gonna have to go through your conversions now and have a look-see.

http://www.avalancheperformance.com/pro ... _kits.html

Don't have time this morning to go through what each "kit" includes and the freshly-finished write-up I had for the website went bye-bye when my laptop decided to re-boot in the middle of the night on the weekend. Maybe Craig can fill us in on his setup and what it cost. His would be the "Stage 2" kit we list on the site...

can't search at work, but this would be the 12.19" rotors and what series of caliper? FS7?

There are two kits. Craig has the one where we supply only caliper adapter brackets. The rest are off-the-shelf Wilwood parts. Rotors are 11.75"X.81". Caliper are FSL or Forged Billet SuperLite with 1.38" pistons. This kit is set up to use the stock 5X114.3 bolt circle and uses Wilwood rotor hats.

The kit that's on my car is quite similar in that the rotors are 11.75" but are 1.25" thick. The calipers are a different part number because they're for 1.25" rotors but the same sized pistons. Mine uses custom-made rotor hats because I've swapped in 1800 front hubs with 5X108 bolt circle to match the read end (240).

These calipers are sized, in both situations, to work with a stock 240 disc-brake rear end. The drum brakes may have similar braking ability so the setup may work with the stock rear end. We have not tested this theory though...

There is another option. We have seen pictures of a Panamericana rally 122 with some Wilwood calipers mounted in the stock location, using the stock rotor. Haven't done a tone of research on what calipers they are...

so, correct me if i'm wrong, this will use pretty well any of those calipers with the 3.50" mounting lugs... and i can size my rotor thickness to the calipers i choose... I'm intending on keeping the 114.3 bolt pattern... Just gotta figure out what this will do with wheel fitment.

I'm of the school of thought that bigger is better, and i'd may as well get the best i can so i don't have to upgrade later.

So, it sounds like a sweet setup, what kind of lead time would i be looking at?

Sorry Gents. I've been busy. My set up cost about $750 for rotors, hats, calipers and pads - adapters are extra. Dale has the rest of the details correct and I didn't run the car with the drum rear with this set up out front - quite certain that it would be not great as the rear isn't exactly doing much anyway in the stock configuration. I did run the 240 rear with the stock front brakes and the rear was more effective than the fronts (larger rotors, similar pad area, but smaller pistons). That was very weird braking at speed. It is just way easier to swap in the Wilwood hats and rotors - they are only about $100 a side as a unit and $70 of that is the hat. Then change rotors for $30 a side when ever you like.

Lots of calipers with 3.50" lug mounts. How many of them have the correct "offset" to work with our setup, I don't know. The FSL calipers are what everything was based on. You may find others with the same offset that might work but you are not just dealing with offset, you are dealing with radial positioning as well. Wilwood has drawings of most, if not all, of their calipers on their website. Wouldn't be too difficult to compare them. The reason we went with the FSL was it had the right piston size and was relatively inexpensive.

Awesome, so are different hats reuqired for different rotor thicknesses too? Or different caliper adapters, or is it all taken up with the calipers? I'll have to go do some reading, looks like fsl's can be had for around 350-400 per pair. Nice.

You're on your own with mixing and matching. Our brackets designed for one specific caliper and one specific rotor. It may be that the hats and brackets will work with other combinations of rotors and calipers but there are no promises.

Looks like some part numbers might be changing. http://www.carshopinc.com was the cheapest place to find most of the parts but I see they don't have a listing anymore for the 120-7431 or 120-7432. It seems they have been replaced by a slightly different caliper that has internal crossover tubes. Looks like prices are $160 so have gone up slightly...