My Duster Adventures
Long time, little progress. Haven’t been working on the car near as much as I should have been but I did get some more work done on the front suspension. Installed the coilovers last week, then this evening, I set the car down off the wheel cribs and got the ride height mostly set. I wasn’t expecting I was gonna be able to get the car quite this low but as long as the fender and tire don’t try to occupy the same space at the same time, I’m THRILLED to get it this low! Heck, I’m gonna get me a fender lip roller and roll the fender lips as much as I can and maybe see about dropping the front lower yet! Currently I have the center of the front wheel openings set at 23 7/8”. If clearance allows, I might see if I can’t get it down to 23 1/4-23 1/2”!
:steering:
I did take a bunch of measurements for ground clearance at different points, here’s that list.
Header tube 3”
Header flange 3.5”
Bellhousing 4.5”
Oil drain plug 5 1/4”
Front Frame rail by angle brace 5 3/8”
Front rocker pinch 7 1/4”
Fender corner behind tire 8 3/16”
Rocker under front corner of door 8 3/8”
Frame by spring hanger 7 3/4”
Rear of rocker pinch 8 3/4”
Rear rocker 9 3/4”
Front wheel opening 23 7/8”
Rear wheel opening 26 3/4”
And now here are pictures.
As can be seen in list of measurements and in this picture ^ the backend needs to come down about 1-1 1/4” and hopefully this next picture will help with that… MP circle track springs, new bushings and new u-bolts. Just waiting on my new two position hangers to come in from Mancini racing. If that doesn’t get it down quite low enough, I’ll add a small drop block as needed, I know I’m going to need to add a few pinion shims anyway as my pinion angle is going the wrong direction.
One issue I did discover this evening is that the machined area on the back side of my rotors is a smaller diameter than the outer diameter of my hubs, so the rotors aren’t filling seating on the hubs like they should. I’ll either need to take the hubs off and take them to a machine shop (best fix but most work now) or take the rotors and have them clearanced a little bit (easiest fix for now, but would probably have to do it to all future rotors).
Long time, little progress. Haven’t been working on the car near as much as I should have been but I did get some more work done on the front suspension. Installed the coilovers last week, then this evening, I set the car down off the wheel cribs and got the ride height mostly set. I wasn’t expecting I was gonna be able to get the car quite this low but as long as the fender and tire don’t try to occupy the same space at the same time, I’m THRILLED to get it this low! Heck, I’m gonna get me a fender lip roller and roll the fender lips as much as I can and maybe see about dropping the front lower yet! Currently I have the center of the front wheel openings set at 23 7/8”. If clearance allows, I might see if I can’t get it down to 23 1/4-23 1/2”!
:steering:
I did take a bunch of measurements for ground clearance at different points, here’s that list.
Header tube 3”
Header flange 3.5”
Bellhousing 4.5”
Oil drain plug 5 1/4”
Front Frame rail by angle brace 5 3/8”
Front rocker pinch 7 1/4”
Fender corner behind tire 8 3/16”
Rocker under front corner of door 8 3/8”
Frame by spring hanger 7 3/4”
Rear of rocker pinch 8 3/4”
Rear rocker 9 3/4”
Front wheel opening 23 7/8”
Rear wheel opening 26 3/4”
And now here are pictures.
As can be seen in list of measurements and in this picture ^ the backend needs to come down about 1-1 1/4” and hopefully this next picture will help with that… MP circle track springs, new bushings and new u-bolts. Just waiting on my new two position hangers to come in from Mancini racing. If that doesn’t get it down quite low enough, I’ll add a small drop block as needed, I know I’m going to need to add a few pinion shims anyway as my pinion angle is going the wrong direction.
One issue I did discover this evening is that the machined area on the back side of my rotors is a smaller diameter than the outer diameter of my hubs, so the rotors aren’t filling seating on the hubs like they should. I’ll either need to take the hubs off and take them to a machine shop (best fix but most work now) or take the rotors and have them clearanced a little bit (easiest fix for now, but would probably have to do it to all future rotors).
