PhoCup's 408 Exo Build

[colin]

I love that Yellow color! Going to look fantastic!!!

[phocup]

Got the PPF mostly back together .. running out of space here in the garage .. 



Then proceeded to try and torque everything back together.  Torque for these 3 nuts says 34 to 49 ft lbs .. I got it to just over the bare minimum at 35 by holding the bolt end with a wrench and torquing the nut end.   However, it seems already too tight. It now requires ALOT of pressure to move the arm up or down.  I could tip the other side up with the pressure required to move these arms up / down.



What am I doing wrong ?

[gwnwar]

You shouldn't fully tighten any of the control arms or lower shock bolts till you have the full weight of the car on the wheels.
You have the right torque.. Camber bolts are 54>70 ft lb.. Is the wrench in good working order..

[phocup]

Gwnwar, I believe the wrench is okay. 35# wasn't that much pressure at all. I wasn't cranking down on it.

I posted this same question on miataturbo and have realized I should have just left those fingertight until the suspension was fully loaded.

Looking at the bushing, by design the metal tube inside the rubber bushing protrudes the most, about 1/8" beyond the rubber on each side just like OEM bushing.   From that, I think by design when properly torqued, the bushing metal is supposed to be making contact with the subframe brackets and 'lock' the control arm into that angle ( coincidentally ruining powdercoat! ).  

This kind of jives with what the mturbo folks are telling me.  That the only articulation for those arm comes from the flex of the rubber.   So with the 40% stiffer rubber, I should expect 40% more force required to flex that rubber and articular the control arm ?

[Fin]

Oct 29, 2016 6:17:28 GMT gwnwar said:

You shouldn't fully tighten any of the control arms or lower shock bolts till you have the full weight of the car on the wheels.
You have the right torque.. Camber bolts are 54>70 ft lb.. Is the wrench in good working order..

I'm just about to start the same process, and have compiled a torque setting list from the MX5 Owner's Club that has the rear camber bolts @ 54-70 but the front @ 69-83.  Does that sound right for an NB as there seem to be varying setting all over the place?

[gwnwar]

FIN.. Front camber bolts are 69>83 NA/NB.. Above specs were posted for rear only..
Per load all points before torquing..

[gwnwar]

phocup.. right the tube is torqued to the frames. and stiffer rubber would take more force to flex..
For me if you aren't going to be an all out race car I would use OEM rubber bushings..
Car is lighter then MX5 more force needed to torque the rubber so like heavy duty rubber bushings, no maintenance lubing, no noise..

[Fin]

Oct 29, 2016 15:33:09 GMT gwnwar said:

FIN.. Front camber bolts are 69>83 NA/NB.. Above specs were posted for rear only..
Per load all points before torquing..

Thanks for the confirmation

[phocup]

My Exo is going to be mostly a autox and trackday toy. Some weekend driver to Starbucks / car meets too, but the main purpose is for lap time. Though I don't want a trainer queen so it will be driven to and from events. This is why I went with the 40% stiffer rubber.  I had wanted the Delrin until Keith talked me out of it. They're only for cars that will live on trailers he said ..  

[phocup]

Thanks to all those who adviced me to tape the crap out of my interior. Without that, mine would be scratched to hell right now trying to fit the seats. It was a 2 day endeavor that ended up with 1 drill bit permanently lodged into the frame ( in a hidden-ish location ). It took that long also because I wanted the driver side to be slidable, and it was very difficult to figure out a mounting method to enable the seat to slide its full 6" range. I gave up on that and opted for a 4" range. Hopefully that will be enough for everyone who might need to drive it ( IE driving instructors / ect ).  Waiting for one more flat bar of aluminum to come from Amazon before I can bolt everything together.

Also, I found out that this project is a great excuse to get all those little tools you always kinda wanted but never forked up the cash for. Got this in the mail today and it worked great. My holes in the chassis are way straighter than what would have been possible with just my eyeball. The last thing I needed on this project was a bunch of crocked screws poking out the bottom of the car.

[phocup]

Quite a riveting day today.  I answered my own question about why its probably not the best idea to riv nut all the floor panel.   The angles on some of those holes are pretty tight.  No way to get the tool in straight so your nut wont sit perfectly straight either.   I decided to only do the battery panel and center console with rivnut.  The other ones will all be riveted in.

Also figured out that an engine hoist and a couple of jackstands can totally be a 'friend' to help hold and lift stuff.   Was able to move the frame on to jackstand so I could get underneath to drill the mount points for the brake / fuel lines.   Then diff on one dolly, engine on another .. both rolls easily under the frame.



I think doing it this way, mating the chassis to PPF could be a one person job.

[phocup]

And two half became a whole .. 



Doing it this way was pretty easy for one person to mate the chassis to PPF, however it was a bit tricky to align the bolt holes where the PPF meets the engine.  It took a few tries raising / lowering the tranny to get the right angle to join the two.   During the process, there wasn't much space available in the tunnel.  While trying to mount the seat, I didn't understand why the tunnel was designed with those angles to make it so hard but now I do.   Finally have the PPF in and the bolt slides in / out pretty easily, and could be tightened with finger pressure alone, so I'm pretty sure its in correctly.  However from the top, it looks misaligned to me.



I'm so close to a rolling frame, however, I lost the short PPF bolt that attaches to that bracket below the trans.   Spent about an hour cleaning the garage already and still can't find it.  Anyone know the size of that bolt ?  If not I'll have to order on ebay and wait about a week for shipping.  

Also, anyone have experience with a PPF brace in an Exo ?  For $200, it comes with a little spacer to take the slack out of the diff as well as the actual brace, and seems to get pretty good review in miatas.

[SeanW]

Oct 30, 2016 9:52:21 GMT phocup said:

Thanks to all those who adviced me to tape the crap out of my interior. Without that, mine would be scratched to hell right now trying to fit the seats. It was a 2 day endeavor that ended up with 1 drill bit permanently lodged into the frame ( in a hidden-ish location ). It took that long also because I wanted the driver side to be slidable, and it was very difficult to figure out a mounting method to enable the seat to slide its full 6" range. I gave up on that and opted for a 4" range. Hopefully that will be enough for everyone who might need to drive it ( IE driving instructors / ect ).  Waiting for one more flat bar of aluminum to come from Amazon before I can bolt everything together.

Also, I found out that this project is a great excuse to get all those little tools you always kinda wanted but never forked up the cash for. Got this in the mail today and it worked great. My holes in the chassis are way straighter than what would have been possible with just my eyeball. The last thing I needed on this project was a bunch of crocked screws poking out the bottom of the car.

Oh damn. I totally could have used that when drilling for my seat mounts!  Got a link for it?

[nickmpower]

I might have an extra bolt you could have

[phocup]

Nov 1, 2016 20:16:59 GMT SeanW said:

Oh damn. I totally could have used that when drilling for my seat mounts!  Got a link for it?

Here you go .. Wolfcraft Drill Guide Attachment.

You're more than welcome to borrow mine if you need to.  I can drop it off along with the tools I borrowed from you!