BRUCE'S SPYDER PROGRESS

Awesome Bruce!  DannyP actually ordered that R&P from the guy in Finland a couple years back.  I grabbed it from him when he decided he didn't want to cut the firewall in his car to make it fit.  Being that our cars will be under construction, making clearance at the firewall shouldn't be as much of an issue.

I'm assuming your beam is narrowed, as that will be needed to fit a front disc brake kit.

It would be nice if the steering shaft is a straight shot to the r&p so it can hook up via a VW rag joint and not have to use any u-joint connection.

Rick....The position looks pretty close to where the VW box was.  I forgot to ask Greg about the narrowed axle but will. I know he knows I want discs up there but I will ask about that too because I think  it gets welded in.

Finland huh !  Geez ! Two years ago ? Hope he can get it again.  Perhaps he has already found another source in the USA.  Greg is very resourceful. He surprise's me sometimes with his ability to come up with stuff or ways to get something done that, to me, seems impossible !  Like that little filler neck for the coolant and placement of all the components in the cooling system such that there are no air locks.

When he was down to the guy's shop that built the rear suspension, I recall that he asked how it was possible to remove the rear disc calipers. The fabricator hadn't thought about that because he was just welding things together with no thought about how to remove certain componets once they were welded in. Greg recognized it right away and things got changed ! Whew !!  That's what experience does and is !....Bruce

Got a call from Greg.  Frame is getting the welding completed, top and bottom. Next is installation is the shift tube (not cables since I'm using a Suby transaxle)   This will most likely travel down the left side of center to the rear of the trans. After that it goes out for Powder-coating (Ferrari Red) and then back to the shop.  Sorry, no photos this time. He has to order the R & P steering box. He used Rick's to do the fit-up. Hey Rick ! It's gonna work perfect !.

Stan Galat............I liked your post. Especially the part on the wheels-tires and brakes.  I am going to go with 5-130 Porsche style bolt pattern. I'm leaning towards fake Fuch's  but would really like something more similar to the ones on some of the newer models of Porsche. The ones with seemingly 20 spokes in them. I want the brake calipers to be shown.  I have plenty of time to decide so suggestions would be welcome.  I'm also paying attention to an everyone's comments about summer tires. Especially some ":sticky" ones like the NLA Verd's that don't cost an arm and a leg.............Bruce

For what it's worth, see if you can talk Carey into showing his Suby transaxle shift linkage to Greg.  In my Coupe the shifter was really nice and crisp.

Hey Bruce, the tie rods with my rack and pinion kit that Rick bought from me are supposed to be for a 2" narrowed beam.

I'd highly recommend a narrowed beam,  but it depends on what brakes and wheels you are using. Since Airkewld brakes have 7/8" per side track increase,  and the Vintage 190 4.5" steelie might have 1/8" less back space than a steel 4.5" I ended up with a net zero track width change.

I hope you both get your cars soon.

Thanks for the rapid comments ! Lane......I'll talk to Greg about getting with Carey regarding the shifter system. I wrote a note to myself about this.

Danny ........I opted to not narrow the beam.  Based on the calculations from a retired brake engineer friend from Kelsey Hayes , I'm gonna go with EMPI (or similar) disc's all around (incl rear parking brake ashy's.  If I did the more spirited driving of some of you Pros on the site I would definitely go with more spirited brakes. Hmmm.....Are brakes spiritual ?   I am very grateful of Rick allowing Greg to use his frt. steering system to fit up on my car too.  I believe you guys are close ?..............Bruce

We are less than 2 hours apart.

I will be getting the R&P front steering in my speedster whenever it is built. Greg says he plans on R&P in all new orders. Says he can also retro my Spyder. Steering was always the weak link in the Spyder.

@550 Phil posted:

I will be getting the R&P front steering in my speedster whenever it is built. Greg says he plans on R&P in all new orders. Says he can also retro my Spyder. Steering was always the weak link in the Spyder.

I'd love to borrow Greg for that service on my car. The front end is a lot tighter in Spyders and fiberglass work is required. If my car was unpainted, not carpeted or finished, I would have cut it up and redone mine. I really didn't want to make a mess.

@DannyP posted:

We are less than 2 hours apart.

Or 4 hours, depending on traffic through NYC!

@aircooled posted:

Thanks for the rapid comments ! Lane......I'll talk to Greg about getting with Carey regarding the shifter system. I wrote a note to myself about this.

Danny ........I opted to not narrow the beam.  Based on the calculations from a retired brake engineer friend from Kelsey Hayes , I'm gonna go with EMPI (or similar) disc's all around (incl rear parking brake ashy's.  If I did the more spirited driving of some of you Pros on the site I would definitely go with more spirited brakes. Hmmm.....Are brakes spiritual ?   I am very grateful of Rick allowing Greg to use his frt. steering system to fit up on my car too.  I believe you guys are close ?..............Bruce

No problem Bruce, it needed to get to Greg anyway.  Thanks Danny for making it available when you changed your mind.

Unlike Bruce, I don’t like the idea of all the unsprung weight of the Empi disc brake kits.  When David L had the misfortune of buying the CB front disc kit for his car, not realizing it would not fit without a narrowed beam, I bought them as I knew I would go with a 2” narrowed beam in my build.  These brakes use an aluminum hub to save weight. Thanks David.  
For the rear, a few days ago I ordered the new CB rear wide 5 brakes. Unlike the one piece cast iron rotors that are barbells, about 23 lbs each, the new CB ones use a small steel hub, with a large aluminum plate to mount the wheel. These are 17 lbs, saving about 6 lbs of unsprung weight a wheel.

The new CB wide 5 disc brake kit arrived yesterday.  I pulled it apart to weigh the rotor and the hub assemblies separately.  

Steel Hub with Aluminum wheel mount plate   7 lb 15.8 oz

Rotor  8 lb 8.1 oz

Rotor bolts  6.7 oz

Total of the assembly is 16 lb 14.6 oz

Caliper  6 lb 7.5 oz

Pads   10.4 oz

The caliper brakes are cast iron, and weigh 3 lb 14.7 oz

CB does not have drilled and slotted rotors available for this kit, so I think I'm going to do this myself.  Probably save a few ounces and make @ALB happy.

Excellent work, Rick. Can we get a photo of caliper and caliper bracket, please?

@DannyP posted:

Excellent work, Rick. Can we get a photo of caliper and caliper bracket, please?

Interestingly, the packing list says the caliper brackets should be aluminum.  I sent CB an email asking about this, and they said they have changed to cast iron. I wonder if the aluminum ones weren't strong enough?

I also spent some time this morning tracking down the OEM application for the rotors. It appears they were used on the Chrysler Crossfire and a whole slew of Mercedes from the early 2000's to about 2012.  

The calipers have no markings other than CB and JL20. Does anyone know their origin?

Same calipers as on mine, which were Empi, I think. I'd love to know the cross reference.

That caliper looks exactly like what Pete at Airkewld supplies(and I have on my car).

I remember some of those anal thesamba.com members lambasting Pete because he used different thickness washers as shims. If they work, they work. And they do work, you just need to shim the slider bracket so it doesn't hit the rotor.

@LI-Rick posted:

The calipers have no markings other than CB and JL20. Does anyone know their origin?

@edsnova posted:

Same calipers as on mine, which were Empi, I think. I'd love to know the cross reference.

Everybody uses that same caliper. They're from a Ford Taurus SHO, or at least the pads are. That was part of the rabbit hole I went down with my brakes.

There are better semi-metallic pads available (I got Bosch pads from Rock Auto).

Looks about right:

https://www.1aauto.com/ford-li...2EAQYASABEgIP0PD_BwE

I was looking at front disc brakes last night for my Vee. For a LINK PIN beam CSP makes a "zero offset" front wide5 setup, which gives 3.5mm wider than stock track width per side. That's about an 1/8" wider per side. For $1350 or so. Pricy, but not as pricy as a bunch I've seen.

Unfortunately, I don't think a "zero offset" front brake system exists for ball joint AND wide5.

I think AC Industries does...I bought such a kit and installed it on my Spyder.  Purchased through So Cal Imports.  The business owner was very helpful.  The brakes work fine.

Good to know. I didn't specify, but I was looking for lighter ones using aluminum hubs like Rick showed above.

For Vees you want the weight about the same as a drum and backing plate. Otherwise there's no point in swapping them out.

@DannyP posted:

Looks about right:

https://www.1aauto.com/ford-li...2EAQYASABEgIP0PD_BwE

I don't think those are correct.  You need the ones from an earlier Taurus, that uses the D-610 style pad. Like these.

The later Taurus used  D-1612 pads. Like these.

@Stan Galat, did you buy these? https://www.rockauto.com/en/mo...pt=1684&jsn=1091

@DannyP posted:

Good to know. I didn't specify, but I was looking for lighter ones using aluminum hubs like Rick showed above.

For Vees you want the weight about the same as a drum and backing plate. Otherwise there's no point in swapping them out.

Except for better braking performance in the Spyder/Speedster world...

I think my research on the AC Industries product found that the fronts were 171-615-123B and 171-615-174B late 70s/80s Rabbit.  The rears are Volvo and look alot like those pictured above.

They work fine so far..

@LI-Rick, yes. Early Taurus SHO.

In case anyone is interested, I cross drilled the rotors.  I set up on my mill, and used a rotary table to do the indexing.  I looked at a lot of pictures of how some of the bigger companies, like Brembo, Wilwood, and PowerStop, laid out their patterns.  I  determined that they all do it differently, and it probably doesn't matter, on a solid rotor.  On a vented disc, you would not want to drill into a vane.

Before drilling, 8 lb 8.1 oz, after 8 lb 6.6 oz.  Saves a whopping 1.5 oz per rotor.

A few pictures showing the process.

Nice. Excellent work!

Mills are just great !  Nice work too !  Where did you chuck it up ? On the inside of the bearing race counterbore ?..............Bruce

@aircooled posted:

Mills are just great !  Nice work too !  Where did you chuck it up ? On the inside of the bearing race counterbore ?..............Bruce

No bearing races, this is a slip on rotor.  I chucked it up on the centering ring.  It was very concentric.