Mustang Boss 302 – Made in America
Ran across this on Youtube the other day. Like any TV show, it has its hokey parts, but still cool to see how a car gets made. I got to visit the old Dearborn Mustang factory back in 2000 and it was a great experience. Looks like the one in Flat Rock isn’t too much different!
Source: YouTube
The Wheels of Miami…
My Wife and I just returned from a friend’s wedding in Miami. While not a city that I’d choose to visit again, I had to admit that some of the cars were cool to see. On the flip side, some of the rides were pretty hilarious as well!
First up was South Beach. A lot of the hotels had some pretty cool rides out front, like this one. (more…)
Truth in 24 – Video for the Weekend
I know this is old news, but I never got around to watching the movie Truth in 24 (available for FREE on iTunes).
It was a pretty good movie and really put in perspective that even a dominant team like Audi at Le Mans has its share of struggles and what it takes to put a team on top! If you’re a fan of Steve McQueen’s Le Mans, you should check it out. The thing that spurred my interest this weekend was news that they were working on Truth in 24 II, something to look forward too!
Source: Truth in 24
Mustang Progress
Little work on the Mustang this weekend and cleaning up a bit at the shop! Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, but was stuck using my camera phone for the day…
First on the task list was pulling the rearend out of the Mustang. The car has had an odd “hop” in reverse that I hadn’t been able to trace down. Coupled withe some old rearend housing damage that I’d never gotten fixed, it was time to pull the axle and get some work done.
This is what happens when you buy a junkyard 9″ which has a bent axle… (more…)
Alcatraz – Bullitt Chase Remake!
If you couldn’t tell, I’m a big Bullitt fan. It might be a little slow by today’s standards, but it’s still a great film and it has one of the best, if not the best, car chase ever filmed. If you’ve forgotten, or just need another excuse to watch the chase, click below!
Bullitt Chase on StreetFire.net
When I heard the show Alcatraz on Fox was going to redo it “shot for shot” I was a little dubious. I mean, how can you replicate the awesomeness of the original? Truth is that you can’t, but they actually a pretty fair job of it!
Ford is a sponsor on the show and the heroine normally drives a certain Highland Green 1968 Fastback, but borrows this 2013 GT for this scene. You can catch show more information on the chase (and the show) at the link below. There’s no telling how long my video will be up before Fox censors it, so have a look while you can!
Source: <a href="http://www.legendsofalcatraz.com"Alcatraz
The Golden Age – Trans Am Challenge
Stolen shamelessly from SpeedHunters, but it was too cool not to share. Hands down, the golden age of Trans Am racing in America. Can’t say that an AMX would have been my choice (greatly prefer the 1969 Boss 302!)!
Mark Donohue wrote a great book called “The Unfair Advantage” that I featured earlier in my Recommended Holiday Reading post. Have to recommend it again as a great read!
Source: SpeedHunters
2012 Sunbelt National Tour
Just got back from one heck of a great weekend of racing. This past weekend was the Sunbelt National Tour in College Station, TX held on Texas A&M’s Riverside Campus.
It’s an old WWII airbase and where the Texas A&M Sports Car Club regularly autocrosses. We’re lucky to have the site within such a short distance and I’ve got to say it’s one of the best in the nation. (more…)
Suspension Modeling – Spindle
Made a little further progress today! Using an example C4 spindle I started modeling it into Alibre as a first step towards an assembly. The spindle came out pretty decent – note I’m not concerned with it looking exactly like a real one, the geometry/attachment points just need to be accurate. I’d love to model the thing down to the millimeter, but that doesn’t really accomplish too much!
This is a right hand spindle with front steering. After this part is complete I can upload into an assembly with the subframe and eventually the rest of the components.
You can see clearly here that the subframe is by no means accurate. The sketches I was working off of clearly were not drawn to scale (at least the hand drawn ‘frame’ wasn’t, the dimensions marked actually do scale correctly). I’m going to try to get my hands on a subframe this week to work out that part of it.
Thanks to information from Dougie I was able to have some reference C4 suspension information. Unknown to me there are actually 2 different C4 spindles. It appears that the one that I have is NOT the later spindle which is ~1″ taller. I modeled the one that I’ve got since Dougie’s drawings weren’t quite complete, but based on how the 1″ height difference affects the motion in Suspension Analyzer, I might be tracking down a later model spindle!
Here’s Dougie’s information for reference:
These spindles are really cool. I haven’t weighed them or the boat anchors that are on the Camaro, but there’s going to be a significant unsprung weight savings here.
More progress later this week hopefully, though the National Tour in College Station will probably delay it somewhat.
Cool Shop / The Other Hobby
Something a little off topic here, but considering how cool it was and the attention to detail I had to share. Spotted on Build-Threads was this horse barn conversion into a bike fab shop. As a former bicycle mechanic and frequent mountain biker I had to check it out.
It’s a shop build for 44 Bike Company, builders of custom frames, right here in the USA. You can click through at the links below to check this thread out for some really smart ideas in shop construction and what a really well done build thread should look like!
Source: Build-Threads
Complete Thread: @ Garage Journal
Work on a Rainy Day – Suspension Modeling
With much of Texas drowning in rain I decided to push forward some on the new front suspension project for the Camaro that had been sitting on the backburner for quite a while. I’d somewhat settled on geometry after deciding on a spindle and rack combo, but was worried about the overall fitment since the Suspension Analyzer software doesn’t do anything more than model the points and do the math on motion.
I turned elsewhere for a 3D modeling solution and settled on Alibre Design’s software (more on that in a bit). First up was modeling the subframe.
Here’s the subframe partially modeled. (more…)
Sponsors
GoPro
Red Line Oil
Oversteer Garage 