View single post by Jensenman
 Posted: 03-09-2009 12:43 pm
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Jensenman

 

Joined: 04-14-2005
Location: Columbia, South Carolina USA
Posts: 156
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 The front end mods will work on a street car but it's pretty extensive. I went the way I did because I want to be able to raise/lower and corner weight the car without using shims, etc.

The knuckles I used are from an early 1.6 Miata. The later 1.8 cars have larger diameter brakes and some 13 inch wheels won't clear the later calipers. The front track width remains the same.

I'm using a Panhard rod in the rear, mostly for simplicity. A Watts works fine but takes a lot more bracketry and if you want to change the roll center you have to move the whole thing. Its only real advantage is the axle does not move side to side as it goes up/down. If a Panhard is long enough, the axle's side to side movement is pretty minimal. My Panhard is 39" long which should keep the side to side at around 3/8" max.

The rear axle project is still ongoing; I wound up using an RX2 housing and axles (53" from wheel face to wheel face, the J-H is 54"), a 1st gen RX7 diff with clutch type limited slip and 4:87-1 gears and 1st gen RX7 rear calipers and rotors. It's just been time consuming gathering all the bits and pieces plus I had to make my own rear caliper adapter brackets so I could mount the calipers at the front of the axle rather than the rear (more room for the Panhard rod bracket). That's all pretty much done, final assembly will be done sometime in the next few weeks, then I have to fab the rear shock upper mounts.

Then the noisemaker goes in. :-D