MONTE CARLO "COPO" Monte Carlo SS - Turbosaurus Build (Swinging Dick Racing's c*ck got bent... she bounced a little too high & hard, & came down awkwardly)

[scoti]

Woooweee..... NEG ~3 is AGGRESSIVE 😳

 

[motorheadmike]

Woooweee..... NEG ~3 is AGGRESSIVE 😳

Wagon is at -2.5ish and drives like a dream. Tire wear is going to come from a jacked up toe setting more than anything.

 

[Supercharged111]

Woooweee..... NEG ~3 is AGGRESSIVE 😳

Not really, it's probably damn close to what the car wants in a corner given the weight and crappy geometry. Just because the hacks that usually do alignments say so doesn't make it so, but I personally would probably compromise more with a -2 setting. I run -3 in my 4th gen and the Mustangs run 3.5+.

 

[melloelky]

always with the stance Mike
love it

 

[motorheadmike]

always with the stance Mike
love it

Thanks, my Dude. The future plan is to be able to get the car to sit square on 19x12s and not have as much static camber (eg. get the suspension set up to have lots of gain under compression). Granted this will require modifications to both the fenders and fender liners. I have a spare set of fenders (so no issues there), but I need to source another pair of liners or build them from scratch.

But, that is a battle for another day... unless I get bored.

 

[melloelky]

i am..

 

[81cutlass]

Suh-lammed

 

[motorheadmike]

Gave her a toe job.

Now that I got that wrapped up... It's time for next steps.

 

[DSPbuilt]

So who would have guessed the front end to drop to 24.25" once the car was leveled? Not this guy. Definitely going to need some healthy bump stop action before I hit the road.

View attachment 199540

It's very much like the wagon... just lower. If you look under the tire you can see my cardboard and oil/grease sandwiches.

After being disappointed by the starting settings (in line with the factory ranges (http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/suspension/alignment.html)) I got to pushing the limits of the stock bolts. It wasn't long before I was disappointed again. Not nearly enough adjustment to get the camber right.

So I grabbed some longer units and quickly modified them. Then I added some left over spacers to net a better starting point.

View attachment 199546

View attachment 199547

After more ****ery I got it better.

View attachment 199544

View attachment 199545

But, not done yet. I have find my stash of shims and fine tune it... And then set the toe.

View attachment 199542

View attachment 199543

Thanks for the ideas I want thinking of doing longer bolts. I’m at neg1* and at the limit now. Kinda wanna just wanna wait and get the taller ball joints before I keep putting more time into it. Thinking of the 1” upper and 1/2” lowers. Want more lows but don’t want to cut the 5660 anymore.
Edit: I should mention I’m on UMI arms and mostly going by their spec but more camber

 

[64nailhead]

Thanks for the ideas I want thinking of doing longer bolts. I’m at neg1* and at the limit now. Kinda wanna just wanna wait and get the taller ball joints before I keep putting more time into it. Thinking of the 1” upper and 1/2” lowers. Want more lows but don’t want to cut the 5660 anymore.
Edit: I should mention I’m on UMI arms and mostly going by their spec but more camber

-1 is not bad for something that will get driven a ton. Mike's setup should make for some crazy cornering improvements. Both yours and his will need an alignment that has no concern for the factory settings. My son's Cutlass was at -1 degree with 10" of tire contact pattern and it made a humongous difference cornering at speed. But it needed man size sway bars in the front and rear. It took several whacks at the alignment to get it working though. He was getting well over 15K miles out of a set of fronts. And he drove the car as a daily driver if there wasn't salt on the roads. Of course the rear tires would last for 2 burnout contests lol.

I'm very curious of Mike's final settings for camber and caster, and awaiting to see what he has to do to get a to full turning radius. The tires he's referencing to put on the front are going to be challenging to not rub and wear reasonably. Of course I can't believe that he'll get 10K miles in two years unless he parks everything else. Personally, I don't know how he lets the wagon sit for much more than a day - I'd be cruisin' that beetch every chance I had.