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  • This Week in the Vorshlag Shop

    I'm starting this "announce" thread to show some of the random things we're working on here at the Vorshlag shop. This includes fabrication and race prep work on customer cars, Vorshlag vehicles, new product development and production work. Enjoy.

    July 29, 2014

    The work below has happened in the last week or two around Vorshlag. We get some itneresting fab jobs from time to time...

    Ed's Trans Am - Drag Car



    One of our friends, who is also one of our vendors, keeps his 4th gen Trans Am at our shop and we do work on it from time to time. We even went with him to the drag strip last year for some shake down runs (above).



    This is an LT1 powered car which had a TH400 transmission until very recently. The car has a beautiful chromoly cage and extensive lightening which resulted in a sub 2900 pound weight - and still has an iron block, all the glass, factory sheet metal and a full interior. This is an impressive amount of weight loss on this car (normally 3500 pounds).



    In July a set of custom valved monotube drag shocks were added, but to allow the rears to fit required a custom "eye" style upper rear shock mount.



    Those were fabricated and welded into the chassis, and a new tubular chromoly transmission crossmember and trans mount were added to hold a new, lightweight, built Powerglide transmission in place of the TH400.



    We also welded up some custom shock reservoir mounts and made a new mounting bracket for the programmable shifter, shown above.

    Eric's BMW 335 5.0



    Eric brought us his track toy, a 2007 BMW 335 which already had a 5.0 Ford Coyote V8 installed. We have been working on the car since late May and just handed it over to the owner today.



    This car came to us with a long list of safety and fabrication errors to fix, and the amount of work we did was extensive.



    The work included cosmetic, structural, plumbing, cooling, wiring, and fabrication. We took the car down to the bare tub and had to re-do most of the previous work on the car, front to back. I cannot show a lot of the old work, as it will only cause grief and pain, but take my word for it - there was some scary stuff that we cut off of this car. Without trying we managed to knock 122 pounds out of this car, while doing many safety and longevity upgrades.



    The car came in with transmission and diff fluid coolers mounted incorrectly and one of the coolers had been ruined. We relocated the diff cooler to exhaust out the back of the trunk and moved the pump into the trunk on a new aluminum mount. We also relocated the fuel pump and filters to a safer location and replumbed all of the fuel lines and diff cooler lines.



    You can see the final location of the diff cooler, which was mounted in the trunk and exhausts out the back of the carbon trunk lid. Our fabricators made a custom shroud to duct air through this cooler, and a 3" hose draws in cool air from the rear side Lexan window, via a clear NACA duct. Lots of re-finish work was done to all four previously installed Lexan windows, which included adding painted borders, all new flush-mounted stainless steel hardware, and the proper sealant between the window and the body.



    The interior was removed and a fuel cell was added to the rear by another shop, but the big gaping hole to the trunk area was left wide open. So we made a sheet aluminum rear firewall and added bulkhead connectors for the diff cooler hose, the main battery cable and an 8-pin connector for all rear chassis wiring.



    We built an extensive number of aluminum patch panels in the firewall and floor, redesigned and correctly positioned the steering column and firewall mount, built new motor mounts that incorporate bushings for some NVH isolation, new brake lines throughout, and so much more.



    The customer picked up the car today and it should be running on track with us at ECR on October 25th at the Five Star Ford track day. This car sounds amazing and goes like stink! Can't wait to see it hooning around Eagles Canyon.
    Last edited by modernbeat; 07-30-2014, 03:20 PM.
    Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
    2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
    EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

  • #2
    Re: This Week in the Vorshlag Shop

    MR2 Spyder Recaro Seat Install



    Many of you know that Vorshlag sells racing seats in both fixed back and reclining versions. For a daily driver a reclining seat is nice, and we can recommend ones that add a lot more support, that we know fit in many types of cars, and that have shoulder harness and seat bottom racing harness pass-thrus, like these Recaros shown above and below.



    Improving the seating in your car, especially when combined with racing harnesses in a track or autocross car, makes a HUGE difference in driver fatigue, driver feel and driver comfort - when driven hard. Last year we put a similar set of reclining Recaros in Stephen Mathews' BMW 135 (above), which had holes in the seat bottoms for a 5-point racing harness. That set-up needed a completely custom set of chassis brackets and sliders to fit his tall frame.



    Even when there are off-the-shelf "bolt-in" seat brackets and sliders available for a given seat, they don't always work. For Stephen the seats sat too high and didn't give him enough rearward movement to fit in the car with a helmet on. So we made custom brackets.



    On Amir's MR2, which came in today with a worn out set of factory seats, there was a better set of brackets available for this seat. Still, the brackets/sliders needed to be reworked heavily to fit the car and to allow the supplied slider to move back without hitting the mounting bolts that this kit came with.



    This is all too common, and we try to warn people about "seat mounting kits" that don't always work. They actually rarely do.



    No worries - one of our fabricators Olof reworked these brackets, trimming everything and modifying the mounts and hardware to allow them to fit this chassis and slide fully fore and aft. Customer loved the work and left happy - which is always our goal.

    Endurance Corvette Cooling Mods



    We've done work on this endurance race car in the past, including a full cage and safety gear (fire system, nets, cool suit cooler, kill switches, wiring, etc). It came in again for some driver cooling mods, brake cooling mods, radiator cooling mods and oil cooler mods.



    The radiator was already "rolled" and sitting at about a 25° angle towards the front, with a big hole in the hood and a scoop structure under the car to force air into and through the radiator. Now we worked on building a duct box to seal back side of the radiator to the hood opening. We made it all air tight, to force more air through the radiator and power steering cooler in this ducted air stream.



    This took a bit of custom aluminum duct box work, but Olof got it done with some input from our head fabricator Ryan. It always seems you can NEVER have too much cooling in an endurance vehicle, or for any fluid system on a race car.



    There are some lines that have to pass through the radiator ducting, namely the power steering cooler lines, but those were carefully protected and still allow 99.9% of the air to flow through the duct box and not into the engine bay.



    The previously installed oil cooler was getting some airflow through some openings in the lower bumper and a missing LF headlight door, but not quite enough air flow to keep the oil temps in check. So we started on a new duct box for this cooler, which has a lower scoop (see above) and ducted box to exhaust out of the top of the hood as well.



    The bottom of this box forms the "scoop" that pokes through an opening in the front bumper cover. There are brackets that bolt to the chassis to hold it in place. And finally there is a foam seal along the top edge that will soon meet up with a plastic cover with a matching hole in it, to exhaust the heat from the oil cooler out the hood surface.



    To route around the large duct boxes for the radiator and oil coolers, new radiator hoses/tubes were formed using mandrel bent aluminum tubing and short sections of radiator hoses. Notice the long run on the left has a custom saddle bracket that is riveted to the duct box. The radiator tube on that side will be strapped to that saddle mount for more reliability.



    A new cold air inlet tube assembly was also built to go around the radiator duct box. The new tubing size is now 4" (up from 3") and should allow for a better air flow, even with the extra bends to clear the duct box. The filter will draw cool air from another small scoop under the bumper cover and forced air will flow into a sealed airbox under the RF headlight opening.
    Last edited by modernbeat; 07-30-2014, 03:33 PM.
    Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
    2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
    EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: This Week in the Vorshlag Shop

      Jamie Beck's 2013 Mustang GT - ST3 Build

      We're taking a long time customer's 2013 Mustang GT and turning it from a track toy to a wheel to wheel race car. Jamie wants to build around NASA ST3/TT3 classes and we're glad we can help.



      Jamie's car has already had AST coilovers, 18x11" Forgestar wheels, custom gears/Torsen, Whiteline Watts and bars, and Cobra seats with custom mounts/sliders installed or heavily reconfigured by Vorshlag.



      We had also installed an oil catch can system, meshed the GT500 grill opening (to prevent bugs and tire klag from damaging the radiator), and we built a custom Vorshlag/Magnaflow super lightweight race exhaust for him earlier this year.



      Soon after getting an enclosed trailer Jamie quit street driving the car and longed for more safety than the 4-point Maximum Motorsports roll bar, so he gutted the interior and spent days pulling out seam sealer from the floor pan. All told 171 pounds of radio, carpet and interior bits were removed before he brought the car to us.



      Add in the weight of the passenger seat (which will sometimes be used at test events) and 62 pound roll bar (being replaced with a cage) and the GT now sat at 3276 pounds soaking wet. It still has door panels, door glass, door structure, full A/C - all of which are coming out next!



      Ryan started on the custom wing installation using a new trunk and an AJ Hartman carbon fiber 14" chord wing. The uprights we design on this car will (hopefully) become the basis of an S197 wing mounting kit for the 2010-14 Mustangs. This one is being built to ST3/TT3 rules, so up to 8" above roof height with no rearward placement limit. The final version of the aluminum uprights will be CNC cut, lightweight, and strong.



      We have installed the same AJ Hartman Racing wings on two cars recently - our 2011 TT3 Mustang as well as Brianne Corn's Pikes Peak Subaru, and the results have been great on both (see below). We are taking the best aspects of the uprights from both of those cars and combining them on Jamie's ST3 car.



      Stay tuned as we pull more weight out of Jamie's car, and show weights of everything along the way. We will also show construction of the custom wing uprights and in-house built roll cage and safety gear added to this race car.

      1997 M3 LS1 + Alpha Miata LS1 + Alpha FR-S LS1 Swaps

      There's been one development LS1 BMW that has been fighting us, but the custom A/C kit we're designing is finally coming to a close. Shop Manager Brad has been working on this one for a couple of weeks and after replacing a leaky condenser and installing some missing seals, this is almost ready to be charged with freon and then it can go to the dyno for custom tune on the 5.7L LS1.



      We also have two new Japanese chassis that are getting our normal LS1 aluminum V8 swaps and they both have been worked on in the past week as well.



      The Alpha Miata has been getting some more engineering attention, after the front suspension fab work hit a dead end. Ryan has been measuring parts for custom control arm fabrication, after the RX8 arms proved troublesome - but we are keeping the RX8 uprights/hubs/brakes. This is, by far, the hardest swap we have ever attempted - mostly due to the sheer number of parts that we feel NEED to be upgraded. Having to create all new front and rear subframes, and everything that attaches to them, is not an easy task. Ryan is working hard on this and we should have more progress soon. The header fabrication will begin shortly after the front suspension work is completed (the mandrel bends, exhaust flanges and merge collectors are standing by).



      The Alpha Scion FR-S LS1 swap is also getting attention this week from our fabricator Olof. After waiting for the correct merge collectors to be built by our production header manufacturer, we finally got a chance to attack this car this week and put those in place.



      Olof has been working on the header fabrication, with assistance from Ryan and Brad. With the correct header collectors held in place on brackets the ICE engine works header kit can be used to try dozens of tubing layouts before the final, ideal routing can be found.



      The hardest side is the driver's side, as the primaries have to snake around the steering shaft and avoid both fuel and brake lines. Luckily this car's chassis is SUPER wide, so it all fits nicely.



      One thing this chassis doesn't have is a LONG engine bay - it was set up for a short, opposed 4 cylinder engine - so only 2 cylinders deep front to back. But since we moved the back of the V8 LSx motor 11" closer to the firewall than the Subaru designers, it is still sitting in there pretty good (and we might even improve front to rear weight bias). The final LS1 engine is here and our engineer Jason has been tracking down the right GM part numbers for the front engine accessories, pulleys and brackets (all picked to minimize width, height and front to back depth). Those parts should arrive starting this week from a number of sources, along with a starter, clutch, pressure plate and flywheel. This way we can make certain the final header primary runs don't interfere with anything at the front of the motor. So far it looks very promising!



      Look for more updates on Jamie's ST3 build in our S197 project build thread and updates on the Miata and FR-S LS1 Alphas in their build threads. That's all until next week...

      Cheers!
      Last edited by modernbeat; 07-30-2014, 03:39 PM.
      Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
      2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
      EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: This Week in the Vorshlag Shop

        This Week at Vorshlag - August 16th, 2014

        We had a lot going on in the shop over the last 2 weeks. Here's some of the projects and installations we worked on. This short 4 minute video below covers much of it.


        click the video above for some highlights, filmed at Vorshlag on August 15th

        The last two weeks we did a lot of fun stuff here. Here's a few of the Mustangs and/or 5.0 Coyote powered cars that are being worked on now as well as many other models of cars...

        Steve's 2014 Track Pack GT



        Steve is an existing customer who recently brought us his 2014 Mustang up from Houston area for ARH full length headers, catted X-pipe, K&N cold air, a track-worthy dyno tune (at True Street), and some other work. Steve currently tracks this car regularly in Houston running on D-force 18x10" wheels and 285 Michelin PSS tires. For suspension he has Vorshlag camber plates and Ford Racing shocks and P springs.



        As I tell a lot of people, we're not a traditional "horsepower shop" and mainly focus on suspension, chassis, fabrication and track prep - but we do offer a few bolt-on power parts, like the K&N cold air kit shown above. This is an easy bolt-on cold air intake that complements the headers.



        Another mod we did to Steve's car was installing ARH 1-7/8" Full Length headers and their catted X-pipe. We've done a lot of these but the install never gets easier, heh. Due to the massive girth of the 5.0 Coyote motor getting access to remove the stock exhaust headers is difficult. There's a half dozen ways to do this, but we've found that it goes easier (least time and least busted knuckles) by dropping the front crossmember down about 12 inches.




        The factory service manual shows a custom engine hanger, but we use an off the shelf hanger, which sits on the front fender rails just under the hood. We set it forward, just above the front of the engine. After adding longer M8 bolts and chains to the only two access bolts at the front of the block (goes through the front of the heads, through the front cover), the front of the motor can be secured. Then you raise the car on the lift, remove the front motor mounts, starter, disconnect the steering shaft, loosen the front crossmember bolts, and drop the crossmember down while supported on a telescoping hydraulic jack. On this 2014 model we had to drop the A/C compressor (didn't have to on 2011-13s, so something must have changed slightly) to access the right front header bolt.



        Once the crossmember is down it is a game of wrenches, extensions and patience, but the stock stuff comes out and the new bits go back in. We've done a half dozen of these and it always takes about 7-8 hours, with a lift and all of these specialized hangers, jacks and tools. But the results, the added power at all RPMs, there's just nothing else that adds this much horsepower for the money. We typically see peak gains of 35-40 whp with these headers and cats and low to mid RPM gains of 60 whp. No other single bolt-on can do that without adding boost or nitrous.




        And as we show above, there is also a weight savings when going from the stock tubular manifolds, cats and H-pipe to the 304 stainless ARH long tubes, high flow cats and X-pipe. We call this a Win Win: a nine pounds drop isn't anything to sneeze at, and there's even more weight to be found in the axle-back exhaust, which we recommend MagnaFlow for. One question we get a lot when choosing the ARH header primary size is: Won't the larger 1-7/8" primaries give up power at low RPMs to the smaller 1-3/4" primaries? The answer is NO. We've seen the data, and talked to the owner at American Racing Headers, and they only offer the 1-3/4" version "because people asked for it", but the 1-7/8" version "always makes more power, at all RPMs. Its the obvious choice". We couldn't agree more.

        Eric's Boss 302 powered BMW - Fabrication and Rework



        Vorshlag has been known for V8 swaps for over a decade, and lately we're getting cars in that other shops have attempted a difficult swap on and didn't quite get the details 100% on, and we're asked to "fix it". We inspected this '07 BMW 335 for the owner over 3 months ago, where we documented 100s of errors in the fabrication and plumbing. It left our shop until last week with many of the safety and plumbing issues corrected, and a few longevity and aesthetics issues were taken care of too.



        I'm not going to bash anyone here, and I won't even show some of the sins we removed, just wanted to warn people: do you research on any shop, and even ask for a list of customers you can contact to ask about the work they do. When it requires substantial fabrication or engine swap work like this, there aren't a long list of places that can do the work cleanly and make it safe for track use.



        We had to remove everything and take this car down tot he tub, then re-do substantial fabrication work that included new motor mounts, almost a 100% replumb of fuel/oil/cooler/brake lines, aero rework, Lexan rework, cage removal/rework, and so much more.



        Without trying to, we managed to lop 122 pounds out of this car, just doing fabrication rework and track worthy/safety related upgrades. The customer left with his BMW a rip snorting beast that will be safer, run cooler, and looking a lot cleaner than before.

        Reney's Fox Mustang Coyote 5.0 IRS Swap - Fabrication and Rework


        Reney's 1992 Mustang LX "5.0" is the real deal - Coyote V8, Saleen 17x9s, Cobra 13" brakes, 2004 Cobra IRS, Tremec T56

        We just got another Coyote V8 swapped car in the shop and I am strangely excited to work on this. If you didn't know I owned and raced in a half dozen Fox Mustang V8s in college and after, and even worked at a shop in Houston for a bit that specialized in Mustang work where we did engine builds, dyno tuning, suspension work, fab work and cages and more. So this one... Hnnnggggg, it hits me in the gut!


        Some of my old 5.0 LX notchback Mustangs - including a white 1992, similar in looks to Reney's notchback

        The owner bought this in an eBay auction and it was built a couple of years ago by a shop up north, and again - it has a lot of short cuts and errors that we are being tasked to fix. Its got 99 problems, but a motor ain't one! Unlike the BMW above, this is not a track-only car but more of a fun street car that might see some track use in the future. We hope to get this one ready enough to go on track at the October 25th Five Star Ford track day at ECR and invite Reney to come out and do his first track event with us then. The BMW 5.0 above should be out there, also. That might be our last event in our TT3 Mustang at ECR, too.



        The main concerns with Reney's notchback include fixing some heinous exhaust rattles, and it didn't take our shop long to find the contact points (3 places hitting badly). It has a tubular front crossmember, so the plan is to remove the aftermarket shorty headers (likely from an S197 chassis, that do not fit) and replace them wit the only Coyote 5.0 / Fox swap headers we can find, the ones from BBK.



        After a year of tinkering with the car, Reney is ready for a shop like Vorshlag to take over and complete the difficult work that remains. We already have the BBK long tubes - which will fit much better than the shorties, strangely enough - and matching catted X-pipe. That's the first work we will tackle, then it will get some new front struts, swaybar rework, fender rolling out back, and lots of plumbing rework (fuel lines are beat to snot) and the battery relocated and wired properly. Lots of little things were noted in the inspection we did and it might be in and back a few times to get everything right.


        The issues that this car has are all underneath - and they are many.

        We neglected to weigh the car while it was here for a day but we will before we start work on the headers/exhaust, which should kick off in about 3-4 weeks. I know one of my old, nearly stock 1987 LX 5.0 notchbacks was light, and weighed it several times at 2980 pounds soaking wet - that was a full interior car, with A/C, an iron block and iron heads, and heavy cast wheels. Reney's car has a 5.0 Coyote and a T56, plus the IRS, so who knows? Reney has already repainted the car in a Lexus white pearl paint and it looks AMAZING! We are so overbooked at the shop right now we had him take the car back but it should return in September and get the first round up repairs. I will update this thread as we attack each set of issues.

        Jamie's 2013 Mustang GT - ST3 Prep



        I showed Jamie's GT briefly in my last S197 build post, as it was after we had received the car with much of the interior removed. We weighed it at 3276 pounds with one front seat, which was down from 3553 pound weight before the interior was removed (no back seat, race seats, AST coilovers, Maximum 4-point roll bar).



        Jamie brought what he pulled out and we weighed 171 pounds of interior bits, not including the front seats, which consisted of the interior panels, carpet insulation, and 3 days worth of scraping of seam sealer from the floor pan. It has lost a lot of bits and pieces since then as well as gained a wing.




        Let's start with the wing upright design and fabrication work. Ryan started off by swapping on another new Ford sourced rear trunk, as Jamie wanted to keep his stock one unmolested. The trunk rework on the inside will be shown in more detail in my next post, but we started by laying out the center line then measuring. The guys used a laser and measured the maximum height allowed in ST3/TT3, which was 8" above the roofline, and kept the top of the wing at 7.5" above the roof at maximum AoA.



        These lower brackets are similar to what Ryan built on the Pikes Peak Subaru, shown at right above. Those worked so well and these were built with an eye towards a production kit with patterns made for laser cut parts. While the Subaru brackets mounted to the fenders, per the crew chief's request, the Mustang brackets are mounting onto the trunk structure itself - which we have shown is plenty strong with our AJ Harman wing mounted similarly and tested to over 160 mph. There will be some under-side trunk reinforcement, don't worry.

        continued below
        Last edited by Fair!; 08-18-2014, 10:45 AM.
        Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
        2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
        EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: This Week in the Vorshlag Shop

          continued from above



          After Ryan made mock-up parts for the uprights, Jason scanned them and put them into SolidWorks to create CAD files. I emailed these to our friends at Friction Circle Fabrications and then I drove over and met the owner, Todd, who also is one of the principles at MyShopAssist (our service tracking and customer interface software we use) as well as a fellow Optima Challenge, GTA and NASA TT competitor. We used these uprights and trunk brackets to mount the AJ Hartman Racing carbon fiber wing, which Jamie ordered directly at 68" wide. We are an AJH dealer (his first) and we would have ordered it in the 14" chord and the full 72" width, because more is better here.



          The finished uprights came out great, and have a lot of hand rework to bull nose the leading edges and knife edge the trailing edges, for lower drag. Jason and Ryan both fought me on the "windows" added to these uprights, but the mechanical engineer in me wanted to drop some weight with those holes, and it was worth 1.9 pounds. Will it add some drag? A small amount. We will play with this set-up and do some testing to see if blocking off these windows is worth any time, especially near the bottom of the wing where airflow is critical.



          Brad removed the door panels, the side window glass and regulators he cut out the structure on the right side door. Ryan cut out the structure on the left side door, as both sides will have cage tubing in those areas. Next Ryan began removing the dash to be able to extract most of the HVAC hardware. The airbags were already removed.



          Here is the interior - before (at left) and after (at right). In this last picture Ryan has reinstalled the tubular and steel sheet metal inner dash structure, which the factory "dash bar" is welded to. This structure will be replaced soon.



          We are going to add a simpler and much lighter defroster, then the dash pad will go back on, as will the factory gauges and main gauge binnacle. The wipers, lights and a few other bits will stay but the A/C and a lot of interior and under-dash bits are coming out.



          We've started removing and weighing lots of parts, and you can see the lightweight defrost unit that will go back in (above right). The glass is all out and weighed, as is the A/C bits. Look for more updates on this project in my next update in this thread with more weights and cage pics. The rear and side quarter glass will be Lexan in the final iteration.



          Ryan bent and fitted all of the tubing, and the main hoop is where you always start. After some questions to the National ST Director went completely unanswered, we moved forward with the main hoop plates to the letter of the rules and Ryan got the hoop fitting tight inside the confines of the bare interior.



          Ryan also made .125" thick reinforced plinth blocks for the rear shock mounts, which are tacked together and tacked in place during the initial steps of fabrication. There are similar plinth blocks at the front downbars (below the A-pillars) which we will show in the next installment. The rear downbars and diagonals are also completed at this stage. More on this car next week!

          Daniel Byrd's E90 M3 - MCS TT1 Coilover Install

          Daniel purchased camber plates from Vorshlag a while ago for his track worthy and fast 4 door V8 powered 2008 BMW M3. The camber plates kept front tire wear in check but as he got faster on track he needed more control, less roll, and more spring rate to keep the car planted.



          We do coilover sales and installations every week, but this one was a little different, since it was our first E9X BMWM3 install using MCS parts. We have installed countless AST coilovers on this chassis but hadn't worked out some of the tricks with this brand of shocks. The installation started with MCS TT1 dampers and then we added our own parts to complete the suspension kit.



          The front suspension install went along as planned, and as we know from past experience, the only way to remove the front strut and spring is to drop the lower control arm out of the way. The stock strut and spring have SO much stroke that you cannot simple allow the suspension to droop normally and remove it. The new MCS coilovers fit perfectly - no "strut adapter" sleeve was needed, as with other brands of coilovers - and the new perches were mated to the existing Vorshlag camber plates.



          Out back was a little more interesting. As with the front, the rear spring is too long to allow a "drooped out" removal and another control arm has to be removed to get the spring out. Of course the control arm was supported by a telescoping jack and eased down, to remove spring tension slowly - just like up front. We used our new adjustable spring platforms out back, which are discussed below.



          Here's the final install at the back (rear under shot at left) and the front all buttoned up (engine shot at right). The ride height was measured and set, camber and toe were checked and reset, and the test drive was smooth and silent. The ride quality was superb for such a significant change in spring rates and we're positive Daniel will both drop time on track and enjoy his street driving experience more than ever. Nothing matches the ride quality AND track performance of quality, adjustable, monotube coilovers.



          The top of the rear shocks are hidden under interior panels in the E90/92 cars, so our technician Olof talked to the customer and worked out a way to access these. In the upper right image you can see the interior panel marked with tape where a "U" shaped flap was cut. Not to access the rear damper Rebound adjuster knobs this flap is pulled up, knobs are turned, and the flap falls back into place. Otherwise it looks OEM and untouched back there.



          Daniel already had Vorshlag camber plates, but they were set-up for the OEM perch design, shown above at left. Luckily all Vorshlag camber plates are MODULAR and can be switched form OEM springs to coilover springs by a simple perch change, which in this case was only a $75 alteration.

          The MCS TT1 coilover kit is sold with the front struts and rear dampers only. The kits include the knobs, sometimes some rear lower shock mount adapters, but little else. The top mounts, springs and ride height platforms have to be supplied by the various MCS dealers, or left up to the customers to figure out on their own. Of course Vorshlag is known for COMPLETE coilover kits, and this time was no different. We sourced Hyperco springs for the front and Swift springs for the rear from our inventory. The rear shocks do not fit this car well with coilover spring mounting, so we kept the spring in the OEM (divorced) location and came up with an adjustable platform solution. We even included two of Vorshlag's T2-62B6-01 pin-drive spanner wrenches, that fit the perches (2-piece locking spring perches up front), for future ride height changes.



          Of course the front top mounts are Vorshlag camber plates, and all we changed were the perches. Last but not least were the rear spring platforms. We used the new Vorshlag Rear Ride Height Adjusters (61-60MM-PR) along with a custom machined adapter made for the E9X/E8X platform and it worked like a charm. It worked so well we are making a run of these parts so we can provide all E9X/E8X customers with a full mounting and spring solution for the various MCS coilover shocks.



          Vorshlag Alpha Scion FR-S LS1 Swap Headers

          Another big step completed this week was the final welding on the 1-.75" primary, full length, stainless steel headers we built to fit the Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ LS1 V8 swap.



          Olof managed to get some time and tacked the primaries to the exhaust flanges and collectors on both sides. Most of the development work was finished last week, and these tack welds are done so that these can be taken apart and each primary tube measured by laser scanner.



          Once the production fixtures are made, and each tube is measured, our header supplier will send all the parts back to Vorshlag and we'll get this set assembled and finish welded so we can crank up this car!



          We've done a lot of work on the accessories and brackets, oil pan and radiator, and all of that will go together with the final LS1 motor before the headers return. This project is getting closer every day.

          1987 "Poorvette" Endurance Race Car - Upgrades



          We've done a lot of aero and cooling tricks on Marc Sherrin's Corvette endurance racer, which are shown in the video in the post above. The picture above was from a race at Daytona, and you can see a small " spoiler" added tot he oil cooler opening (LF headlight) and mesh over the hood duct opening. Here's a few pictures of the latest upgrades.



          To be able to survive 24+ hour endurance races this Corvette has some special ducting and extra heat exchangers. To maximize air flor through these we have "reverse ducted" the hood in two places, then made formed aluminum duct boxes to these holes and sealed them to the radiators and added scoops underneath the car to force air into them.



          In an effort to help draw air through these ducts we are adding louvered covers for radiator hood opening, as shown above. Almost done - just a few more louvers to add.



          The rear brake ducting was needed because this car was eating rear brake pads at an alarming rate, due to high temperatures.



          That's all for this week - tune in next week to see what's up at Vorshlag!
          Last edited by Fair!; 08-16-2014, 04:42 PM.
          Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
          2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
          EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: This Week in the Vorshlag Shop

            Some more weekly updates from work being done at the Vorshlag shop to share:


            Our second weekly video, August 29, 2014


            Another video from the week of Sept 5, 2014


            Video walk-thru of our new shop, Sept 13, 2014


            A lot of things are going on in the background here at Vorshlag, namely construction at the new shop. We should be moving into the new space sometime in late October, which will double both our shop space and our office space up front. There's a big new customer lounge upstairs as well, which you can see in the video above.

            We're going to be thrashing a bit to get everything built and moved, while we prep our 2011 Mustang GT to be in the Ford booth at SEMA then run in the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car Invitational the 2 days following the show, in Vegas.

            Check back here in the next few weeks for more updates!
            Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
            2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
            EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

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            • #7
              Re: This Week in the Vorshlag Shop

              We have done a number of these weekly videos and finally moved them all to our Vorshlag YouTube Channel.



              Please feel free to SUBSCRIBE to that channel (we might add two video a month) and you can see the stuff we're working on...

              http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/TechArti...Vorshlag-Shop/

              You can also watch them at our SmugMug page above, which is dedicated to these "This Week At Vorshlag" videos.

              Thanks,
              Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
              2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
              EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: This Week in the Vorshlag Shop

                Yah this forum is making a dfference. I love it.

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