Then I bolted the hubs and new crossdrilled/slotted rotors into the CNC and recut the hole pattern at 5 x 4.75 and made the holes in the hub press fit for 7/16 x 20 studs. (.460" diameter for extra long NAPA studs) The holes in the rotor simply got slotted to accept the new pattern.

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

Last but not least I assembled it all together with new calipers, long wheel studs, and ceramic brake pads. The calipers I received look nothing like the picture, they are simply remanufactured stock ones. I can not find any aluminum calipers for G6 so these will have to do for now.

Project for the weekend is to design the trailing arm out of cardboard so I can transfer it to 10ga sheet metal and work on getting it broke into shape.

Reason for the G6 hubs is so the hub splines match up with the F40 6 speed inner splines. I will be able to buy G6 cv joints/axles and have them shortened to whatever I need.

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2013 03:40PM by VairKing.

Is there any negative to rotating the engine to the degree that you did as far as oiling? I have been scheming up a similar configuration for a week using the same transmission, and happened across this thread.

With 15 degrees of angle the oil level is fine in relation to the oil pickup which was my main concern. With more angle a deeper sump oil pan would probably be a good plan.

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

VairKing Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Last but not least I assembled it all together
> with new calipers, long wheel studs, and ceramic
> brake pads. The calipers I received look nothing
> like the picture, they are simply remanufactured
> stock ones. I can not find any aluminum calipers
> for G6 so these will have to do for now.
>
> Project for the weekend is to design the trailing
> arm out of cardboard so I can transfer it to 10ga
> sheet metal and work on getting it broke into
> shape.
>
> Reason for the G6 hubs is so the hub splines match
> up with the F40 6 speed inner splines. I will be
> able to buy G6 cv joints/axles and have them
> shortened to whatever I need.

The finned calipers you had pictured look like the aluminum single piston calipers that the 99-05 Grand Am and Aleros used. I have a used set I took off my Grand Am when I upgraded to the dual piston 98-02 F body calipers and 12" rotors.
They are yours for the cost of shipping.

Wow its been almost a year since my last real update. To summarize, not much has really happened. Planning the 2013 Convention really used up most of my "Corvair Time." As I had some time over the holidays I started doing a lot of research, researching things like SLA rear suspension theories, shifter mechanism, and GM CV axle options. I have a design worked out for the custom trailing arms, that will accept the modern GM wheel bearing and disk brake. In the front of the arm I will use a mono-ball spherical bearing. This I ordered the other day, and today I machined cylinders that will hold it with snap rings. Hopefully I will have the trailing arms done in the next month or two, and can then focus on the axles.

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

After 3 trips to the local pick and pull, I was able to obtain a complete axle set from a 2005 Saab 9-5. Since the F40 6 speed manual is a Saab transmission, the axles, even though they were from an automatic car, have the correct splines on the trans end. Since the Saab is a 2005 and basically a GM in a lot of aspects, it uses the modern 30 spline wheel bearing instead of the older 33 spline that most 90s era GMs use. The short intermediate shaft is not available new like the axles are, so this was a great way to acquire the part.

The axles will need to be shortened, and I am happy to report that there is enough thickness to recut the splines, and the axles are not very hard, so I will be able to respline it myself at work.

Slowly but surely!

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

Work continues, I am trying really hard to get these custom trailing arms fabricated so I can wrap up the rear suspension and move on to something else. I had a buddy with a press brake bend these to start with, 9 gauge mild steel. Then I cut and bent it into the angles I needed based off my CAD drawings. Hopefully today I will get the holes cut for the front bearing and the wheel bearing to mount.

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

How did you get those cut and weld angles figured out? Did you build a jig or just tack 'em up and pound them into the angles you already knew you needed?

=================================================

'65 Black Monza Coupe w/black interior
110HP w/4-spd

Greetings from Oakland, CA!

no trim badges anywhere (and there never will be!)

I used my CAD drawings to get the exact angle, then cut with a cutoff wheel, then heated and bent using my protractor to verify the angles. Today I mounted the wheel hub and made some measurements compared to the stock arm. Things are looking good.

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

Update time! I only seem to find time to work on this project in January and February, as after February its race season and I am thinking about the race car, then summer is in full swing, and I really have trouble just focusing on one project.

So here we go! When we last left off, I had fabricated the rear trailing arms. These are about 80% complete, I need to verify a few more things, then finish welding them and box them in for strength. I have revised the rear of the trailing arm where the heims joints will attached for added strength, more on that later...

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

So here is what I have been doing over the last couple weeks. When I made my aluminum subframe/cradle, I included 4 1/2" reinforced holes to use to mount the center mount for the heims joints (long and short arms, or LSA style suspension). Sorry about the crude paint drawing, I am terrible at drawing freehand with a mouse. Hope you get the idea...

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

I used V-Suspension Design Software Online to calculate the ideal length and location of both the upper and lower locating arms. Then I used CAD to draw the bracket that would mount to the aluminum subframe, taking into figure all these calculations. I bought some used 10 gauge sheet metal that had a thick yellow paint on them and cut them out on one of our CNC mills at work.

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2015 09:13PM by VairKing.

After this I had all that ugly yellow paint sand blasted off, and made exact fit tabs to offset the two metal brackets exactly an inch apart from each other. I carefully TIG welded this all together. Need to let the part cool before I can mock it up. Now is where I need to decide how I am going to protect these parts. I am DONE using the weld through primer, I primed the backsides of these parts and it gave me a little bit of porosity (not enough to hurt anything) but it still irritates me, and I had everything squeaky clean to avoid any porosity. That is all I have for now!

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

Nice work Ryan! Great to see this project making some progress. You're lucky you have the talent and facilities to make it happen.

Looking forward to future updates....

Marty Scarr

I have been plugging away, progressing a little at a time. I reworked the ends of the trailing arms so that the mounting point for the locator arms was inside the trailing arm instead of outside. I still need to box these in with light sheet metal (probably 14 gauge) to help make them really strong, especially in the area between the upper and lower locator arms. The next thing to do is figure out how I am going to mount coilover springs, and what length and spring rate I need. Then I just need to shell out the cash. I am glad pictures are working again, I did not want to have to recreate this thread!

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

2 more pics

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

Looks very interesting.

Sorry if I missed this earlier in the thread, but how will the suspension react with your dramatically different length upper/lower control arms? And how do inboard mounting points compare to the center-line of the drives hafts?

I ask because I would still like to fabricate upper control arms for my V8 car instead of stressing the drive shafts as in the OEM setup.

Thanks

Chance Parker
Golden, Colorado
Auminum LS-powered 1965 Corsa Convertible




More Pictures

Interesting is right Chance. What I have learned during the last serveral years of working on this rear suspension is one thing. Most people never build their own rear suspensions from scratch, or if they do, they don't publish it on the internet. I have read almost every thread over at LocostUSA.com as these guys build their own Lotus 7 replicas from scratch and openly discuss suspension designs. I have gleamed a lot from that site, and followed as they do. They use an online software called VSusp where you input a ton of information about your car, then can alter different things until you find the ultimate combination that gives you the right camber angles during jounce and droop. If later I feel a different combination of lengths and locations might be better, I can always remake the center bracket and order new length arms.

_________________________________________
Ryan Counterman (Moderator)
1965 Corsa Kelmark V8 ///1965 Monza Sedan 110/PG /// Ultimate Corvair Hauler/// Don Eichstaedt's 1965 Corsa Racecar
West Michigan Corvair Club /// 1966 Corsa GTP Convertible Mid Engine 3.8L Supercharged

Suspensions are interesting - they always require compromises.
The different length upper and lower A-arms, and difference in distance between the inner mounting points and outer mounting points, affect the camber angle the wheel takes at any point in its travel.
If you're building a suspension for cornering, you might want to keep the tires pretty much vertical to the ground as the car leans in a corner. That's what the camber change is for.

Of course, then if the car squats under acceleration, the tires won't be flat on the ground.

oops, what did you want to do with it, again?

This suspension looks pretty nice. Once he puts it on the road, he can find out if it needs adjusting or not.