November 10, 2007

Steering Rod Bushings

After seeing quite a few cars with excessive wear on the inner bushings I decided it was time to work on a replacement. The factory bushings are only available with the arms $$$.. Well a few hours in the machine shop and a little urethane later i had some decent prototypes to try.

I decided to install them in my Viggen since it has about 20K miles no wear was expected. I found a decent about of wear on the factory bushings which was a little amazing in this short time. I would guess that many of the higher mileage cars are far worse.

The actual install was pretty easy took a leisurely 30 min. Basic hand tools. I used a long 10mm bolt and a 34mm 1/2" drive socket to pull the old bushings from the arms. This is probably not necessary for the higher mileage cars. Installation was very easy once the old ones were out. I did it with the car on the ground making it a little harder than necessary. It took a helper to get the arms aligned and the bolts into the steering gear. Used a little thread locker there too just as a precaution.

Initial feelings are improved on center feel and less of the mushy steering response. I will see after the road trip to StLouis tomorrow.

Posted by nick at 2:57 PM | Comments (0)

November 7, 2007

Fuel delivery

Once we started playing with e85 and the higher volume needed it was apparent that the stock fuel pump even at 20K miles was not up to the task. I installed a Walbro 340 pump one of the high pressure variants It makes a little more sound. That is you can hear it in the car at idle with the radio off, but hey this is a 400hp monster right. Check this for the before and after fuel pressures. Fuel pressure is labeled OilP. Data Plot

Posted by nick at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2007

Dyno Videos

Posted by nick at 4:08 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2007

Viggen Track Day

Had the Viggen out on the track AT SOC07 in Michigan.

You can hear the rear brakes later in the video. Seems the factory pads were not really happy. They were starting to glaze on the way up there. I did not have time to switch the rears to the Hawk blacks. After many years of karting and SCCA autocross including class championships this was the first time on a road course.

This was also the first time having the Viggen on regular street tires. 225 Kumho MX It would get front ABS much faster than with the Pzero corsa slicks. It was a bit difficult to adapt too. Power was around 365hp on Gas 91 with the flex fuel soft. Could not find E85 on the highway there. Found a station on the way out of town though. Just the luck. Not that I needed any more power. You can hear it spin all the time.

Thanks ED and GM.. Was a blast. Now we need about 4 other people down here and go rent a local track for the day.

Posted by nick at 2:17 PM | Comments (3)

October 15, 2007

viggen updates

The vig is now running top mount manifold gt2871r .64 making 312wh but running low on fuel press should have a lot more with proper fueling. More updates soon

Posted by nick at 2:13 PM | Comments (0)