I pulled the engine out of my X. I had an interested buyer so that was motivating. Anyhow, I forget to measure the stock ride height. Can someone tell me the "normal" height between the rear wheel center and the bottom edge of the fender?
 
Mine measures 13" on the passenger side and 12.5" on the driers side. o_O

Brian
That is the point of corner balancing. It's not exactly about height, it's about having equal weight on the tires. Kind of like having a chair that rocks because one leg is a wee bit longer, with coilovers, you can adjust each corner individually. Which will be in the distant future based on my current funds....

And thank you for the info!
 
I am looking to do the engine bay with the engine out. What is the stuff to use? I considered rocker guard but that may not like being too the exhaust. Any thoughts on a tough rust protecting coating?
 
I have read that the rear suspension mounts should be moved up which involves cutting the "frame" section under the trunk and raising it something like 1/2" or so. I am wondering what the general consensus is about this procedure.
 
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This section. Sorry for the extreme closeup.
 
I think it came from the PBS book on X19. It is probably overkill. Not much gain for a lot of work. I don't know anybody who done this.
 
The reason PBS moved the rear cross member up was to lower the center of gravity. It's not difficult to do, pretty easy actually. The book details the process.
The hard part, is moving the front pickup points - correctly. The method to raise the front pickup points that PBS recommends doesn't optimize the front suspension geometry. The strut rod pickup points need to be moved up too, PBS didn't do that.
My racecar has these mods. Moving the pickup points is probably the easiest part of modifying the car. But, you'll need to modify the struts when you do this. They need to be shorter.
Of course there are many other things that can be done to lower the center of gravity too.
In my opinion there's little need to raise the pickup points on a street driven car, but lowering the center of gravity, done with the correct suspension geometry, is a great way to improve the handling of just about any car. But don't think you're going to run circles around your competition on the racetrack by just raising up the pickup points. There's A LOT of things that need to be done to compliment those mods.
 
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I've moved it on my race car, because the car was quite lowered (exactly like the PBS book). When you lower it, the control arm sits out of the designed position (reduced arc) and you get more rapid camber changes (increased negative camber when the suspension goes into bump). Raising it somewhat restores the original suspension geometry - but you need to do that to the front pick up points as well, not just the rear one. You would also need to raise the steering rack to prevent bump steer.

For a street car - not worth it. My street car is lowered, rear control arms are parallel to the ground (still not ideal, but it works) - camber is adjusted to stock.

When you raise that rear suspension pickup point, you also need to make a lowering block for the motor/transmission cross brace, otherwise the engine will be tilted. Forget that you even read about raising that thing :)

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Thanks for the information. I guess I didn't get to the part about the front end, I read about the rear and it just seemed to end. Maybe I only saw part of the article it was years ago. Seems like an easy enough mod with the engine already out, but if there is that much involved I won't bother.
 
Does anyone have experience with electric fuel pumps? Specifically would I need to remove the whole pump or can I just pull the pulley and leave the pump in place? These seem hard to find north of the border so I'm looking ad a Davies Craig from Summit racing. Any thoughts?
 
Most people with twin carbs, switched to electric fuel pump. To do that, you may replace your mechanical fuel pump and put a blank plate (with gasket) in place. The electric fuel pumps are easy to come by and universal. You may find them even at Canadian Tire or Princess Auto. The Facet cube fuel pump is probably the most popular one in this forum. They are often installed in place of the carb cooling fan. You will need to route the hoses and find a circuit to feed it. I think mine got it power from one side of the coil. Relay are also a good thing and an inertia kill switch.
 
Shoot, I have been looking into fuel pumps so long... What I meant was water pumps. Same question but water pumps!?
 
Does anyone have experience with electric fuel pumps? Specifically would I need to remove the whole pump or can I just pull the pulley and leave the pump in place? These seem hard to find north of the border so I'm looking ad a Davies Craig from Summit racing. Any thoughts?

You would need to remove the impeller and seal the housing. I would put the pump near the thermostat housing versus somewhere else.

There are a limited number of people who have installed one of the Davies Craig systems. They used a pump with too much flow and the engine is running too cold all the time.


You might contact Ulix directly or add onto that thread.
 
My issue is not with the X's engine, I am looking at another engine and I the water pump pulley will be close, maybe too close to the frame where it angles out from the fire wall to join the the rail on the passenger side. I could just dimple the frame but I'm not fond of that process, I could weld in a window, which I may do but the choice of this engine was it's small stature. I'm hoping not to cut too much. That being said, I did trim off the X's engine mount tabs today, but they are not structural. Anyhow, a remote water pump ends that.

Anyone know off chance about how much the X pump moves? Obviously dependent on RPMs.
 
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Trimming weight!
 

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I think the things Ulix has run into would still apply. The bigger DC pumps are adequate for a V8, so sizing the pump appropriately would still be of value.
 
I think the things Ulix has run into would still apply. The bigger DC pumps are adequate for a V8, so sizing the pump appropriately would still be of value.
I do appreciate your input. I'm not sure where I'm going with this.
 
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