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PostPosted: December 13, 2013, 12:38 pm 
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Bubba said there'd be days like this, there'd be days like this Bubba said......... :mrgreen:

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PostPosted: December 16, 2013, 12:08 pm 
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GonzoRacer wrote:
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Now git back ta work!"


Yes back to work while the diff discussion was ragging on and on I did not find my cobra axles locally new or rebuilt at all. The one that I found would have run me over $700 used from out of state .. After much thought and discussion of other options I finally became comfortable with the price my one and only hang up was serviceability.. So back to the drawing board after a little thought and discussion I found I could convert the center section to 28 spline that would allow me to run 99 cobra axles which are easily available around hear .. Not sure why when they only ran those axles one year, but they are directly related to the t bird axles... The problem I ran in to with this option was finding a shaft seal to work properly with the explorer center section and t bird axles. To remedy this I could also just start over and buy a Lincoln mk viii center section already set up for 28 spline and then install the correct ratio and LSD.. All of this lead me to my third option which is to use all the explorer parts , center section , axles, bearings and hubs.. Simply build a upright to accommodate the bearing and mountings for a arms and break !! So after a week of all these options running around in my head my wife couldn't stand it any longer she sat me down and had me list prod and cons to come up with a solution .... Drum roll please ....... I have decided to build custom upright for the rear using the explorer parts which will more than likely alway be available and plentifully. The other reason is for the price of cobra axles or a mk viii rear and starting all over I should have more than enough money to finance building my own upright..

Here's the plan
1 have mild steel tube turned so the bearing can be pressed in and have a retaining clip just like the ford factory part

2 use a simple cut 3/16 plate steel for the extent ins of the tube .. Think origami ..this will make up the caliper mount and a arm connection points

3 machine small steel blocks to accept a screw in style ball joint.. Think mustang ii.. And then use adapted tie rod ends to control toe..those would be welded at the end of the upright

On paper it appears to be a good plan and cost effective for parts if any one has any ideas on the matter or point I may have overlooked please feel free to chime in its always appreciated. I probably won't be ordering parts for a while I've got to sit down and plan out my rear geometry and get my design for the bearing sleeves finalized ...thx

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PostPosted: December 16, 2013, 3:18 pm 
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Something like these only made from plate and welded vs machined


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PostPosted: December 16, 2013, 3:32 pm 
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The I-beam shape is nice and strong in one direction and not so much in the other. Uprights are loaded both ways (cornering in one direction and braking/accelerating in the other) so you need a shape that can withstand both.

Free edges are also bad - they can flex and bend and cause all sorts of deflection. If you add one more face to that design and create a box you will end up with a much stiffer and stronger design. CNC doesn't really allow you to do this but welding steel plates like you are proposing does so you might as well take advantage of it.

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PostPosted: December 26, 2013, 11:32 pm 
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a.moore wrote:
The I-beam shape is nice and strong in one direction and not so much in the other. Uprights are loaded both ways (cornering in one direction and braking/accelerating in the other) so you need a shape that can withstand both.

Free edges are also bad - they can flex and bend and cause all sorts of deflection. If you add one more face to that design and create a box you will end up with a much stiffer and stronger design. CNC doesn't really allow you to do this but welding steel plates like you are proposing does so you might as well take advantage of it.


Yes I do plan on boxing the brackets extending off the bearing sleeves hopefully the bearings leaves will be thick enough for the job the materials I found so far on e machined will give me a 5/16 side wall I would anticipate this to be sturdy enough for the task. I believe the original ford nuckles we're not much thicker and they were cast aluminum not cold rolled steel. The only side age t could be from warpage from welding the brackets, first thought is to have it machined post weld vs pre weld ... Not sure if the machine shop can tur a pice of pipe spinning around w brackets hanging off .. Second thought was to steel some one else's idea of having a mock bearing turned from solid round stock steel and pressed in during welding.. I had thought about that route only useing the old bearing ..?

Andrew I want to thank you for inspiring me with your camber adjustable lower A arm. I was thinking of revisiting my suspention bushings and adjustability issues .. What I came up with for the front and rear camber is a sleeved bolt and bushing instead of rod ends the big difference will be the bushing and adjustment sleeve will be on the chassis side vs the A arm the reason being on the f27 lca the forward tube heads straight to the chassis .. No angle for adjusemt bolts.. So in order to do this the tubes on the lca tubes would have a U shaped bracket to attach in double shear to the bushing on the fame side. Bending of the U bracket at the end of the A arm tube would be my first consern I think it could be helped by useing a cross bar between the A Arm tubes. The second consern is the mounting of the adjustable sleeve to the frame. Initialey my thought was to weld it ON the frame rails at connecting points or second to create a frame " node " using tubing connected TO the adjuster.. Iput together a quick sketch of the part let me know what you guys think..

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PostPosted: December 26, 2013, 11:37 pm 
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Here is the idea for the a arm link with the bushing and adjuster mounted on the chassis

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Last edited by JNS2SEVEN on April 6, 2015, 3:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: January 15, 2014, 12:06 pm 
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Wow who thought the holidays could be so intense??!! Now that every thing has settled down I've been working on trying to get my geometry for the front settled. I had started with a version of free cad ( great for beginners ) and entered in all my suspension points only to find out that because of the use of American ford parts vs English ford it have me a very odd geometry set up with extremely long swing arm lengths and a below ground roll center ??....!...so back to square one .. Again... Once I began to re configure the suspension ( rough numbers ) i found out the upper rocker arm (A arm wanted to be right where the frame was .. So then I re did it all and found my swing arm lengths to be to short or the roll center to high ... Being dedicated to ford only parts can some times be very interesting.. It's as if all the parts want to be in the exact same place at the exact same time...reminds me of my family a 2400 sq ft house and every one wants to be in the same place at the same time and it usually happens that it's the smallest room of the house .. Go figure.. So after a lot of fussing and figuring I found that if I trade out my stock mustang ii spindles for a 2" drop version I end up avoiding all of my problems and keep the same KPI and scrub radii. Now that that is out of the way I've been working on trying to get WISHBONE suspension program torun properly on my computer i also found the updated version but it won't even open for me. I know there a lot of tech savvy folk out there if any one could help I'd greatly appreciate it. Right now I'm running windows vista when I get home I'll put up the rest of the stats on my computer Thx

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PostPosted: January 23, 2014, 11:23 pm 
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so i found vsusp and am going to work on it but for the sake of reference here it is


f27

holly hyper link???...

I final got wish bone working "the updated windows version" thx kf2qd for making it available what a help.
so far ive roughed in my frame points and entered the mustang ii rack along with 2"drop spindles also from a mustang ii ill se if i can figure out how to do a screen shot otherwise the data will eventually end up on vsusp.

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PostPosted: April 7, 2017, 2:51 am 
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BACK FROM THE DEAD...or at least near dead ..the last few years have been interesting to say the least I quite my job and started my own business so as you can imagine the F27 took a back seat a very distant back seat. about a month or two ago i had packed all of the books, drawings, and parts away for what i thought would be an undetermined amount of time and thus causing the car to possibly never see the light of day.. BUT... some times in life it is beneficial, possibly health inspiring to follow through on ones dreams despite there lack of profit making or application to real world needs...its good for the soul to reflect upon ones work and to find a sens of fulfillment regardless of its practicality..

so here the deal....

I have re broken the car down into separate sections so that the I can focus on buying parts on that particulate section until complete..in theory this should help keep me motivated and seeing progress in a specific area and not to get spread to thin trying to buy every thing at once and seeing no discernible progress..

so here is the purchase / construction order

part 1
1. corner parts...tires, rims, rotors, calipers, pads, hubs, lug nuts, upper/lower ball joints
2. drive train components...engine, fly wheel, clutch, through out bearing, transmission, drive shaft, rear end, 1/2 shafts
3. cockpit area...make sure I fit, and my feet (size 13)

part 2
1. roll bar and built in cage..modify the original frame to use an integrated rollcage or at least partial
2. windshield..use narrowed vw wind screen and do a glue in with trim on a roll hoop type frame ?
3. suspension points
4. steering column and wheel

part 3
1. gas tank
2. heater
3. header tank
4. battery
5. radiator

part 4
1. E brake cables
2. gas lines
3. heater hoses
4. wiring harness

In retrospect I've learned many things the last few years and i believe the car will reflect that in its build..they are that one can get caught up in endless theory, speculation and hair splitting to the point you are doubtful to make a move and accomplish any thing.. the word is not so much compromise but the balance of ideals to achieve a quality build from the perspective of its intended use.. dont major on the minors and minor on the majors..

so what will this F27 attempt to achieve?
95%+ of its use will be seen on the street..it should demonstrate a robustness in its components and serviceability in readily available parts and aesthetic appeal this is usually done at the cost of weight savings.. but seeing these cars tend to weigh in at 1600 plds or so in this trim Im sure there will be plenty of power on tap for those twisty cures to put a smile on my face..


picking up were I left off... Im currently purchasing the front corner components. I've decided to run 04 mustang cobra front rotors and calipers, probably hawk hp+ pads ( unless there are better suggestions )the rims are Enike 17x9 all around on nitto 555 rubber, the front hubs i plan on using 04 crown Victoria front hub and bearings and building custom front spindles to allow for better geometry then the previous mustang ii spindles, I still plan on running the screw in style mustang ii ball joint set up, and to cap it all off open ended lug nuts..this combination of parts seems to offer the best bang for the buck and Im sure will have a large aftermarket following for many years to come..

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PostPosted: April 7, 2017, 11:29 am 
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Welcome back, Mike! It's a reasonable choice to keep puttering away on the car and may provide a bit of therapy from your other efforts. Like you are thinking, when you look at the entire thing it can be overwhelming. Do a little bit at a time and it will get done.

I took a quick look at your Vsusp link. It's a little unusual what you are trying to do, not sure why the front roll center is buried under ground so deep. There are downsides to everything you try to do with suspension design so when you give with one hand you are taking away with another. The design here will also be affected by choice or design of uprights.

Especially considering your constraints on time think of going with Pinto and T'Bird uprights. What you will need is wheels with a large offset, but I don't see any problems with the Pinto ( Mustang II ) front uprights. The brakes and hubs you are picking are huge and would slow you down more than any benefit they provide. Considering how light your car will be choosing the smallest brakes from a base model car will be overkill.

:cheers:

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PostPosted: April 7, 2017, 3:27 pm 
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Ditto on the brakes. You'll barely heat them up.


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PostPosted: April 8, 2017, 1:32 am 
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yes the vsup was original an attempt to carry over the information and suspension points from wish bone so they could be looked at .. as you can see that didn't come out to well.. what are peoples opinion of vsup vs wish bone .. I'm personally more partial to wish bone but the vesup program seems to have more people using it. I do plan on doing more work on the suspension possibly (more than likely) a redo with custom spindles and not the mustang ii

as for the brake ... I already have the cobra mustang calipers and two of the 17x9 rims with mounted tires .. i should know better but i got caught up in the fact that all those parts are single marque donor and very easily obtainable and upgrade able ... sigh..any one have an idea of how badly the car would perform with the mentioned parts selection or would it be very noticeable on a 95% street driven car..

from my original understanding the rotor are simply kinetic to thermal storage/dissipation devices thus the larger the rotor ( with in reason ) the larger the thermal capacity, less fade, heat damage ,exc.. obviously the rotor size do do come with a weight penalty both rotational and unsprung

I did look quickly here are the numbers
weight diamiter
04 base v6 mustang 16 plds 10.88

04 cobra 19.5 plds 12.99

two piece
circle track 15.6 plds 12.19

i could save roughly 4 plds by going to two piece hat and rotor combo.. the price is quite reasonable too

as for the wheel bearing they would be readily available VERY robust and make for a nice place to build a up right around.. i couldn't find any wights for this one vs spindle and hub..the biggest appeal is that it is modular in nature and i can have my ball joint suspension points located any where along with brake bracket ..im not dedicated to suspension points or brake caliper points for mounting

what should my brakes weigh and what size is optimal for them to be in the correct heat range ?
dose any one have any other suggestions that would match the criteria of
1. ford parts
2. based on 5x4.5 bolt pattern
3. easily available

thx for all the help ..

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PostPosted: April 11, 2017, 12:36 am 
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So I pulled the trigger on a set of two piece rotors....

originally I had for what ever reason settled on the mustang cobra brakes a while ago (years) and had purchased the calipers ..the exact reason escapes me now .. however i believe it was due to the large aftermarket support and flexibility in rotor and pad choice should I ever decide to track the car..after my OP I thought a lot about what choices I have within the Ford parts bin and possible use of the mustang ii spindle set up ..heres my train of thought and out come on the situation

1. yes cobra front rotors are very heavy and very much over kill..the weight alone on a mustang cobra rotors comes in at a supposed 19.5 plds..thats all rotating mass wicth i heard some consider to be in the order of 1:6 or even 1:7 worth of static weight, so for every 1 pld of rotating mass theres a theoretical 6 or 7 plds of weight added to the unsprung weight. that dose not even include the hub ( 66 mustang v8 drum brake minus the drum) , I weighed the one I was planning on using with the mustang ii spindles at 5.59 plds...
however the larger diameter offers better leverage to stop the car..

2. so I went and re looked at rotors
mustang cobra 12.99" with hub 25.45 plds
base mustang 10.88" with hub 21.95 plds
granada 11" rotor hub combo 21.65 plds
stock mustang ii 9.25" with 5 bolt 13.95 plds
but... something else caught my eye..
willwood 12.19" 2 piece rotor and a low profile hat I found, should come in at 20.29 plds
so I did order them up to go with the cobra calipers i already have.
side note apparently the PBR cobra caliper save a few plds vs. the stock gt calipers..

3. so from my understanding the longer the leverage force the better the braking power , because the pad can only clamp so much or have so much clamping area per given rotor area (diameter). I would think the larger rotor you can run for the weight the better. in my case a 12.19 dia rotor vs. 10.88 or 11" dia rotor.
so now I have to deal with running around on rotors that may never get hot during daily driving how ever I do plan on compensating for that with a pad that has a very high initial bite cold and for any high spirited driving I would think the rotors will warm to a lower but optimal temp for the pads..

as they say hind sight is 20/20 hopefully this set up will pan out .. if not i can always fall back to smaller rotors and calipers..
any thoughts ?

btw any suggestions for a pad that dosnt mind being cold and has a high bite ... im all ears.. ive been looking at hawk hps / ebc red / dba 500 / even thinking of ford factory for the cobra..

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PostPosted: April 12, 2017, 1:53 am 
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here's an up dated front in vsusp using 2" drop mustang ii spindles and slightly modified F27 chassis point

F27 mii drop

heres another one i tried to import some wishbone numbers ..

F27 Mii 2 DROP wb no.

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PostPosted: April 12, 2017, 2:06 pm 
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the numbers between wishbone and vsusp dint quite line up in the modeling..

i just need to do some more clean up work..its late..


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