Clever Idiot

Thanks! Boss 338, 18x8, 4.5" backspacing, 5x4.75 bolt circle (of course). Front tires are Nitto 555 255/45, rears are 265/50. I got them from Summit, since they were about the same price wherever I found them, free shipping from Summit, and it's a big company easy to get back to if there was a problem. Here's the product link.

Just now seeing this. I had something like what you're talking about installed when I was driving mine, although I'm not sure if it's the exact same thing. Sounds like you might be talking about something like what I've seen on F1 cars, NASCAR cars, etc. Mine was the Grant security system. It added about 2" to the column and was installed on the stock tilt column.

Man that looks great!

Haha! I know, I know. I was in a hurry. Once I get some more weight on it, I know the rear will settle down a bit, and the front a lot. Right now it's nothing but the body shell with 2" drop springs on the front and cargo springs on the rear. Here we go:

Got the tires mounted this weekend, put them on - THEY LOOK AWESOME! I have about 1/2" clearance from the outside wheel well lip to the sidewall on both sides. More room on the inside. I'm extremely happy; I don't think I could have gotten it any better, and I'm thrilled I got it on the first try.

Thanks! I have BMR stuff all around. Great quality stuff at about half the price of Hotchkis. Clicky-click. 2" drop springs for front, 1" drop for rear, tall ball joints. Everything else is their standard A-body stuff. Here's an explanation why I went with tall ball joints when I was considering a tall spindle swap. Originally Posted By: cudax DJ, just got mine aligned last year and when I priced around, they all had the shims. I went with a guy here locally, believe it or not a GM dealership, that does a lot of older/muscle cars there. Paid like $60.00 which was a little cheaper than most. Nice! I got some DSE shims from OPG and threw them in for now, just to get them in the ball park. Ended up with 3/8" worth of shims.

I was planning on going with Dynamat plus mass backing - a big concern of mine is heat as well as noise. Does the mass backing on the ACC do anything for thermal insulation, or is it primarily sound?

Cool, thanks for the input. It felt a bit too tight for my tastes - I don't want to do any lip trimming or grinding for fear of messing something up. But I went out just now with the 265/50 specs on a 18x8 w/ 4.5"BS and it has plenty of clearance (theoretically). Wheels should be here tomorrow, then I'll drop by the tire shop when I can and get them put on. Woohoo!! By the way, downset71, love your car. I think it was one of your posts/car that made me look at Kore3 brakes. Pretty sure you're on their website somewhere!

Exactly, Scott. The last thing I want is to push it so close that I destroy a $200 tire (or the body work that I spent a bit more than that on) the first time I go over a road that isn't perfectly flat and level, or the first time I make a turn faster than 5mph. I ordered the 18x8 wheels last night. I'm thinking for the back tires I might see what 265/50 looks like on that 8" wheel. According the Nitto website, that tire is a little more than half an inch narrower than the 285/40 I was looking at. Plus it's almost an inch and a half larger overall diameter, so it may add to the rake a bit (which I like).

Yeah, I did tilt it like it would be in a turn, but it's sooooo close. I think I'd rather play it safe with the 18x8, 4.5"BS, 255/45 that will be on the front. Thanks for the input, y'all.

So I got this wheel/tire sizing tool from Summit so I could try and get it right the first time. It has a solid piece of #12 wire to approximate the outline of the tire along with the plastic pieces to give you diameter, width, and backspacing. I set it up for 18x9.5 with 5.5" backspacing, and used the website to get the specs for Nitto 555 285/40r18 tires (width given, did math for the sidewall). Then basically used the TLAR (that looks about right) method for turning those dimensions into how I thought the tire would behave on that wheel width. Put the frame on jack stands, removed the shocks and springs, and left the suspension connected so I could use my jack to move the rear end through its suspension travel. Mounted the tool to the wheel mounting surface on each side and put the suspension at different points to see the most possibilities. Bottom line: I have about 1/4" clearance on the inside wheel well with the "tire". The wheel clears no problem. But the tire gets closer because it's actually wider than the wheel. I did this with the stock drum brakes on, because that's what I'm going to have until I get it on the road, but eventually I'll be putting Corvette C6 disc brakes on there. I think that pushes the mounting surface out even more? Is this enough clearance? I don't know if there's a lot of lateral movement in the suspension under real world conditions, but I couldn't get it to move sideways. Well, not with putting as much force as I dared on it - it was on jack stands after all. I really like the super wide rear tire, but I don't want to cut it too close because it theoretically fits and then have it tear itself up in the actual application. I'm ok with putting 4 tires of the same size on the car, I just liked the wider rear tires. So is 1/4" clearance enough, or should I play it safer?

Well, I ordered the stuff yesterday. Hotchkis steering linkage kit from Summit as well as the AGR 12:1 box. Tilt column for A/T floor shift from NPD, pitman arm from OPG, rag joint and various bolts from NPD and OPG. Going for a Borgeson shaft once I have the column and box installed to measure necessary length. I'll let y'all know how it comes together. In like 3 months.

Heh, believe it or not that's actually the corrected wheel. The little phone camera kinda fish-eyed it though, so it does look goofy. Before I let the bolts out it was almost a quarter-bubble off with my level.

Thanks! It's 2011 Imperial Blue Metallic - it was available as a color on that year Camaro. I went by the dealership to look at color samples on cars, since I wanted an easy-to-get color plus it's hard to judge what it will look like from just a paint chip. Found the color, got the paint code, and let my paint guy know. Originally I was going to do Navy Blue Metallic from a 2000 'Vette, but I liked this color more plus it was more current. It really comes out in the sun, where the pic was taken. At night it looks almost black, in cloudy weather it's just a dark blue, but then in the sun you see the flake and the subtle hints of purple.

Got it. Thanks again!

I have cargo coils in mine as well. I liked them when I was driving it, they kept the rear up a bit. I'm replacing them with 1" drop springs, but I'm going to keep the cargos in case I decide I want it up higher. I say roll with them a while after installing them correctly. You may find you like them, and they're easy to change once you get together money for new springs.

Ok, so it's not abnormal then. I was worried I had made an expensive boo-boo. So the alignment shop will take care of shims? Should I even bother pre-shimming it?

I think body mounts and body busyings are the same thing. Is there a difference in the kits as far as whether they come with hardware, or whether the bushings are poly or rubber? Links?

Got everything on yesterday, and I have some serious camber. Nothing is on the suspension other than the body. Loosening up the upper a-arm bolts until the wheel was level (just using a small bubble-level), you can see how much space I have between the mounting shaft and the frame mounting points. This seems excessive to me. 2" drop springs, stock spindles, tall upper ball joint, stock-style a-arms. Don't think it makes a difference, but in case it does these aren't the wheels I'll be using - these are 16x8. I'm going to be using 18x8. Thoughts?

Yeah I have some parts headed my way from Leo. Wasn't sure if I could get these clip nuts from a local hardware or if it needed to be NPD or OPG or Leo or something like that. Guess I'll drop by NAPA.

Hey all, I got my core support blasted and powder coated after taking it apart as much as possible. Ordered a front end hardware kit from Parts Place (#HB2885Z) to put it all back together; thought it would have everything I needed. So far the only thing it's lacking are some of the fold-over clip nuts that are used to bolt various brackets onto the core support. Does anyone have a source for these? In disassembly, some snapped, all were pretty badly rusted, and all were bent in order to take them off. So blasting and powder coating the originals isn't really an option.

This is the tall ball joint from BMR.

Cool. Thanks guys! Wonder why they wouldn't just have it installed already...

Looks like a key ring. It doesn't go in the back of the cotter pin, does it?

I may be a bit late, but here are my thoughts: BMR Suspension has complete kits for much less than Hotchkis, and they're extremely good to work with. Rich is their A-body guy, IIRC. All their stuff is made here, and the quality is top notch. Myself and a few other members have BMR stuff. Here's a thread talking about what I learned from them. BMR packages link For brakes, Kore3 sells bolt-on kits to upgrade to C5 or C6 brakes all around. Tobin knows his stuff, and is also very helpful. I emailed him with a bunch of questions and he quickly replied with detailed answers. Kore3 GM big brake kits. Lots of options. Good luck with the build and let's see some pics!