So it’s been a while since my last update, but this one should be good.

We scrapped the narrowed C4 idea because… well, it just wasn’t working out that well.  It was going to cost us about $500 to get the thing narrowed, which was unacceptable.  Instead, we went out and found an XJ6 Jaguar rear-end.  We removed the cage, narrowed the drive shafts and the lower control arms, by 5″ on each side, and what do you know?  $200 later, the issue was solved.  We have the IRS in place, and are now working on the front end. 

To do this, we’ve gone back and Zee’d the front frame rails upwards by about 4 1/2″ at a point around 20″ forward from the middle x-member.  The front x-member now has a 4″ drop on a 60 degree angle towards the middle, and crosses at the centerline of the front wheels.  The center line of the spindle is supposed to sit 3/8″ up from the bottom of the frame rail.  This will give up the appropriate ride height and lower control arm clearance during upward wheel motion. 

By the way, thank you Welder Series for posting your instructions up to the web, it would have really been difficult to figure this out without those instructions.

NOW, we have a new problem.  It appears as though the LS1 is a 27″ tall motor.  That’s fine for most cars, but the Devin only has 20 inches of vertical room, accommodating 7″ of ground clearance.  In all reality, that means we have zero clearance with the engine in.    WTF!?

We’re going to try to find an engine cheap that we can prototype around, cause this may require a lot of custom fiberglass work in order to get it to fit, which doesn’t thrill me.  I’ll post back with more details as we are able to figure this out, but it has suddenly become the new 800 lb. gorilla in the garage.

No tags

We’ve made a lot of progress on the Devin this weekend. We narrowed the C4 rear-end by 16 inches! That thing looks like a dragster now, and looks really mean… from the back. We are also in the process of cutting the rear frame rails to support the rear-end. Next on the list, we need to get two new half-shafts made that are 8 inches long (not including the end caps). This will give us enough suspension travel (should be around 6.33 inches), and width on the rear-end to fit the car properly. Once I get back to an ipod cable, I’ll be uploading some videos I took documenting what we’ve done. All-in-all, it’s a lot of work, but it’s not too difficult. The most challenging part so far has been making sure that we are considering all possible scenarios.

Check back later this evening for my vids.

car, Devin, frame, SS

I’m looking for an old Jaguar IRS with an overall measurement of about 50″. If someone can source one for me on the cheap (<$500), please contact me cause I’m interested.

Cars

A) Cleaning the garage?

B) Laying around being lazy until 11 AM?

C) Doing burnouts in the Mustang?

Answer:

No tags