92 Black GT

I have been building a deck by myself and haven't had a lot of car time. I got the 2nd piece cut and ready to weld. My MIG welding skills have improved which is going to be necessary before I get to the outer panel. I had ordered up some rear Cusco top mounts for the BC BR coilovers and they finally arrived yesterday. Now I am excited about getting everything back together.

Note about Cusco top mounts:
They are super light weight, but quite well built part. I bought them through Black Hawk Japan instead of another Ebay seller. The price listed on the surface was way cheaper, but only came out slightly cheaper when you throw in shipping and tarrifs. I got hit with a $100 tariff (crap fest there) + plus shipping. If you check the Ebay sites for buying the Cusco top mounts for AA34S (Suzuki Cultus) you can see the directions for measuring to fit top mounts to strut top can be seen. I will post the numbers for the parts listed since it looks like there is a slight variation used between sellers (both might work) but the ones received are slightly better fit from Black Hawk Japan. The inside diameter spacer/collar on Ebay sites collar #1 is 15.1 mm which is not tight fit around upper strut shaft which is 12mm. The collars used by Black Hawk Japan is #6 which has a diameter of 12.5 mm which I know rest against the bottom edge of the pillow ball. All of them list the correct pillow ball nut (part that goes into pillow ball from top #28.
 
2nd piece is welded on, and I'm going to try to get to the outer piece tomorrow. I will post pictures of everything when I'm done. I'm anxious to get her back on the road. I don't care if I get to the paint at this point.
 
Outer fender is on. I need to adjust the seam back out after welding/grinding but should work out okay with some thin layers of bondo. I will have to do some ligh pulls on the fender arch also to flatten it back out also. I'm hoping to get a layer of epoxy on today or tomorrow to seal everything up.

I have to pull the Wilwood ebrake cable to bring the bracket down to the shop to get the alignment just right before welding it back together. That is on the Wilwood MC4 brakes. I really don't like the MC4 e-brake and eventually I will get around to installing a 2nd Wilwood Dynapro caliper on the rear and use a hydrualic hand brake with a parking lock on the line. The MC4 system is just a tempermental setup.

I also have to weld up the bumper support bracket holes, and plastic weld back on some bumper tabs. I would be nice to paint the bumper itself. Lots of work still.
 
All the fender parts are back on and welded, sanded and epoxyied. The bumper support bracket holes are fixed, welded, and epoxied. I got the panels as good as I could, and I don't think the bondo will have to be too thick to smooth everything out. This was definitely a learning experience. I won't have time for a while to complete the the filler, primer, and paint. I'm concentrating on making sure everything is water tight. The epoxy layer should protect everything for quite some time. I still need to get the seam sealer on, and then I will put everything back together fixing the bumper tabs, and e-brake bracket. I will have to find time to get the BC Racing coilover on before I align the car. I have to get back to the deck project first.
 
Seam sealer is on, and I welded up the MC-4 ebrake bracket. I aslo cleaned out the bore and piston before assembly. The ebrake cable was frayed when I removed it, but I have 25 feet of the cable on hand. I just need to lube the cable install and put crimp on the end, and cut the other end to fit.
 
I'm running into a fitment issue between the BC Racing BR coilover for rear and my Wilwood MC4 e-brake caliper. The BC Racing coilover base is about an 1" wider after the part that slides into the knuckle. I had to shortened the arm out the back by a wooping 1/8", and will have to slot the bracket to move the whole thing rearward abouta 1/4". Frustrating, but finding a solution is at least some what comforting.
 
I got the fitment issue for the BC racing BR coilover and the Wilwood MC4 parking brake/emergency brake sorted. Along with moving the swing arm in I shorten the adjuster rod 1/4" and now I don't need to slot the bracket for clearance. It created about an 1/8" clearance which is fine for nonmoving parts (they're are both locked together).

I brought the whole rear control arm up with floor jack checking for clearance and at the very end of the travel the BC BR coilovers wider body would hit the bottom of the strut body tunnel wall. I had already cut a small section out for when I originally installed the MC4 caliper, and that is exactly where it would contact. I don't think on any normal use the strut body would ever make contact (I'm talking maybe 100 mph hitting a deep pot hole kind of movement/off road ralley stuff). However, I like being thorough and am glad I checked. Those memebers who are doing off road racing this is good infomation for them as the BC coilovers is the main option avaliable. The good news is it can be clearanced without too much work. The piece I cut out I deemed to be not structural.

Now I need to repeat for other side. I have already taken off the MC4 caliper.

Side notes: The H&R rear springs do not fit the divorced adjuster for the BC BR Racing and therefore will not work with them. Not to mention they're are quite a bit longer. I will post the rear sping size both inside/outside diameter, and height for the rear coilover spring. It is thicker and wider diameter then o.e.m. spring but quite a bit shorter. My rear air bags for increasing carrying compacity does not fit inside the BR divorced spring.

BC BR Racing Coilover divorced rear spring is: 104.96.180.005
This means: v-barrel spring
top inside diameter is: 104 mm
bottom inside diameter is 96 mm
the static length is 180 mm
the spring rate is 5 kgf/mm 5 kgf/mm x 56 = 280 lbs/in

As below they might only have one spring for the rear, but I will check with BC Racing to see if they can custom order. I'm pretty sure I will be just fine with that spring rate for daily driving. If they cannot custom order the v-barrel spring I will see if they have a linear spring that is around 96 mm then figure out if they have a top adjuster hat to fit that. The top adjuster slides over the o.e.m coil spring isolator with just a little bit of meat on it. There are poly Energy Suspension coil spring isolators of many inside/outside configurations. Something should be able to be used to round up or down to match a linear spring. I'm also pretty sure the groove on the control arm can be modified to fit bit larger and then an isolater could be used to eat up inside diameter differences.

Copying for BR Racing Fitment Notes:
BC Racing utilizes 3 main spring designs: linear, S-barrel, and V-barrel. All of these springs have their intended uses in our coilover systems depending on the OEM suspension design, as well as the design of our kits. Every one of our springs is made of SAE9254 steel material and utilizes a Zinc coating under the outer powder coating to ensure rust does not penetrate the metal of the spring and compromise performance/reliability. We have springs available in as small as 120mm length and as great as 300mm length. Spring rates are available in select spring lengths from 2KG up to 22KG.

Many manufacturers now use different sized mounting points for OEM springs. In these instances, we create a custom wound spring classified as a V-barrel. Utilizing a V-barrel allows our spring to fit in the OEM spring cup while allowing us to size the other end for our height adjusters. Full height adjustability is retained to our specifications but there is a draw back; since the spring is custom wound for the application, your choices in shorter and stiffer/softer springs are limited, sometimes to a single option per vehicle application. On a V-barrel spring you will notice 4 sets of numbers instead of the 3. The rubric to decipher this is:

First set of numbers- Refers to the ID of the smaller end of the spring
Second set of numbers- Refers to the ID of the spring where it mates to the OEM spring bucket
Third set of numbers- Refers to the static length of the spring in mm
Fourth set of numbers- Refers to the spring rate in Kgf/mm
 
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Teeth said:
It's a hard suggestion to make to someone that is rocking some wheels like that, but there's really nothing wrong with the cheapo aluminum wheel spacers. They aren't as pretty I suppose, but it's not like you can see them when the wheels are on--$20 and problem fixed...

Also, if you didn't know already, the track is different front and rear anyway, so there's no reason to space out the rear wheels other than how it looks (and IMO 10mm is not a huge difference visually) and you'll get more neutral or rear-biased handling if you don't.
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cheapo wheel spacers crush and fail - cant keep lug nuts tight due to cheap aluminum spacers. personally never did like wheel spacers, seen too many wheels off incidents when wheel spacers are used-
at least those spacers look solid, and arent as thick as some of the spacers i have seen-
 
The spacers I'm using are not cheap and are hub centered which mean they run more true and solid to the vehicle then anything else. Infact the spacers and the ARP wheel studs survived unscathed taking a 70 mph impact. The wheel while it still rolled did not. I also have over 100,000 miles on the setup; what more testing do you need. There doesn't exsist a Ray's wheel that comes stock to our hub diameter. This is the only way to true them to the hub instead of relying upon wheels studs only. The ARP studs that I use are going to last forever. The lugnuts bottom out exactly in the Ray's wheels. I cannot imagine how you would squish the wheel spacer in between the wheel and the hub. I would have to torque the lugnuts to something off the chart (way more then the studs could ever handle). 6061-t6 aluminum actually has a higher compressive yield strength then mild steel.
 
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I didn't get a chance to do anymore work to the car, but I wanted to note to myself that I rechecked the air bags and they will fit the inside width, but they are little bit too tall if you have the ride height more then 1/2" lowered. I left them off as I don't plan on hauling anything heavy anymore with this vehicle.
 
the cheap wheel spacers are very porous and fail often. was in the tire industry 30 years, seen many spacer failures when used incorrectly, ie on road use- they were generally frowned upon by vast majority of tire shops, mainly used on ''trailer queen'' type cars that get very little drive time.

nowdays anybody can build any garbage item and sell them with no regard for human life-
and yes, hub centric makes for the best fit. thats why i bought oem wheels for my son's toyota highlander- he inherited the vehicle with aftermarket muti-fit 10 bolt aluminum wheels-and we have been trying to pin-point a vibe in the vehicle-the wheels arent hub centric, but have those plastic rings- i still dont trust them, plus the aftermarket wheels are UGLY-
how the spacers sound, they are well built. it was a comment, not a diss-

now back to the build, i like the details
 
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