FrankenFerrari - V12 Ferrari 308

Those last crimps looked way better. 

In reply to mke :

Ferrari loves peened nuts   I have a theory that a far sighted "sales engineer" at an Italian hardware maker contributed a chapter and some lire to a textbook publisher. The peened nut is everywhere on Italian machinery, and the manual always says use a new nut.

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

It looked like a lot of grease but yeah, the boots on everything are shot, the plan is replace it all i guess.

The shock and brake line are challenging my budget...but.... 

In reply to Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) :

Yes!  It looks like 3 pins, 3 crimpers needed.  I have almost $100 into them so  that's a pretty big big expense compared to a $500 ecu and makes a flying lead harness look cheap. I think its going to be like $200 for a 3m 154 wire harness.  But I think it probably also makes sense to offer a crimper set rental....$20 a month or something like that. 

Future problems, now I'm ready to start swapping the new connector onto my harness to be ready when the ecu arrives. 

Mostly popped the front end apart today.  The ball joints and tie rod ends all seem fine....the boots not so much.  

I ordered replacement boots, billows for the steering ($13 for the pair...I'll see what shows up) and the hub grease seals.  I need to clean and paint everything and try to be ready to reassemble when the bits arrive from CA.  I need to design and make a spacer for the lower balljoint too to fix the front roll center.  Then the power steering.....tick tock....

I started blasting the a-arms for paint and remembered the blaster is mostly shot.  Ordered a new handle and moved on to designing the balljoint spacer and order material to make it.

I've decided rollcenters hurt my brain.  I set the rear very close to OEM....about 25% of the CG.  Everything I read tells me about 15-30% is generally good and it should be lower at the drive axle end than the undriven.  So , yeah, ferrari didn't do that, the front was about 18% stock.  It can be compensated for with spring and sway bar choices.....last night I drew the spacers to set it at 25%.....but I this morning I'm thinking make them on the long side and target like 35% and then cut them down if I'm unhappy.  Then this all got me wondering about the guidelines in general.....using roll centers to control body roll causes jacking or lifting of the car in the corner....but that is a WAY bigger concern with soft springs than stiff springs.  For me, setting the front roll center at 35% would result in a max of 0.5" jacking, but the stock at 18% could be 1.5-2" using the same math because the stock front springs are really soft so a little unloading will cause a lot of motion.  Which all brings me back to set it fairly high, it's probably fine but its not hard to shorten the spacers if I don't like it.

I'm kind of waiting on stuff....but I fought with the blaster to get the a-arm forks clean and painted and made the barrel nuts to hold the balljoint spacers on.  

In the suspension software I settled on a 40mm spacer which puts the front anti-roll at 35% with the rear at 25%.  In my mind this should be pretty good and between this and the anti-drive I added with the forks it should mean I need about 35% less compression damping in the shocks for the same stability on the brakes and corner turn-in which, also in my mind, means a nicer ride.  This and the spherical bearing are why I want to drive it before adding more compression damping to the shocks.  So I was feeling pretty good about it all until I did a mock-up and looked at 40mm

hmmmmm......maybe it'll stay together????....20mm looks like it might actually be ok......this it doesn't look like one of my best ideas and I suspect I'll be making new front spindles shortly.  

You must make a tapered sleeve with a top hat section to go with the deep nut. I did tech for a while . I consider it doable.

mke said:

I'm kind of waiting on stuff....but I fought with the blaster to get the a-arm forks clean and painted and made the barrel nuts to hold the balljoint spacers on.  

In the suspension software I settled on a 40mm spacer which puts the front anti-roll at 35% with the rear at 25%.  In my mind this should be pretty good and between this and the anti-drive I added with the forks it should mean I need about 35% less compression damping in the shocks for the same stability on the brakes and corner turn-in which, also in my mind, means a nicer ride.  This and the spherical bearing are why I want to drive it before adding more compression damping to the shocks.  So I was feeling pretty good about it all until I did a mock-up and looked at 40mm

hmmmmm......maybe it'll stay together????....20mm looks like it might actually be ok......this it doesn't look like one of my best ideas and I suspect I'll be making new front spindles shortly.  

Do eet!  Take it easy for awhile if you are worried.  That bolt is stupid strong.

I'd be more concerned about the root of the threads, which were never meant to take any side load.  Or the joint running out of travel.

Granted, the higher you space it up, the lower those loads get 

Yeah, I am going to ad that the spacer must taper lock to the ball joint, and Pete's correct about where the failure will be. Very doable.

TurnerX19 said:

Yeah, I am going to ad that the spacer must taper lock to the ball joint, and Pete's correct about where the failure will be. Very doable.

Yeah, it has all that, maybe not obvious in the 3D but here's the 2D sketch

I think the problem is the bending loads where the spacer meets the spindle....I'll do some math and see what that says.  The steel to make it arrives thursday so tonight I'll be working on blasting a-arms.

And ECU boards have shipped and will be in the US in about a week?  Then the HW and FW guys need maybe 2 weeks for bench testing testing....then installs begin.  tick tock.....

What about welding the spacer TO the spindle?

In reply to SkinnyG :

Its been a number of years, but I'm pretty sure the top will pop off the balljoint.  I'm getting 90kpsi/ g corner load.

Welding the spacer does fix it.....but cast iron is tricky.  I feel better about brazing it I think, at least my ability to braze it vs weld it....I'm thinking that is the direction I should head

Are the spindles for sure cast iron? I know most are cast steel, but going back this far in Italy, I can't be sure.

Parker with too many Projects said:

Are the spindles for sure cast iron? I know most are cast steel, but going back this far in Italy, I can't be sure.

Hmmmmm.... looking at them it honesty never occurred to me they might be cast steel or even that a was a normal thing for spindles.  Spark test I guess?

I never learned the spark test myself, but it should let you know! Cast steel spindles can be welded well if you're careful about preheating and cool down.

I've MIG welded cast steel spindles before with no special preparation or technique, and everything was fine.  It's good to be cautious but it's still just steel.

Cast steel will have silvery slivers when you file it.  Cast iron will be more like pencil graphite.

I thought they were forgings myself. 

In reply to TurnerX19 :

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Cast steel or forged I can probably weld to my hearts content......is it steel needs to be resolved this evening.  I have no idea why I thought/assumed its cast iron other that at a glance appearance but it absolutely could be a forging.   If its steel I'm wasting my time with bolt-on anything.

Broken ball joints at the least will stop traffic (saw this on my drive home today) and far worse could happen .... I am sure it scared the poor girl driving the Honda sedan !

In reply to mke :

What I welded was a broken off ear on a Mazda front strut/spindle assembly.  I had half of a 12x1.25 threaded hole where the steering arm/ball joint holder attached.  I thought the part was scrap until I realized that it wasn't iron, so I welded a thick strap across it and tapped the hole.  It lasted longer than the spindle snout did.

Not sure if cast or forged, but it MIG welded very nicely.  I've tried to MIG iron before and it wasn't pretty.

I got confirmation the shock was delivered, so that should start the 3-4week clock.  Then the new blaster came to day so I put it to work.

I was out of black paint and dusty from blasting so tomorrow I'll get the bearing adapters welded in and a-arms painted.

Ok, you  guys  have me pretty convinced the spindle is forged not cast iron which means I can weld it....and you all know how I love to weld!  I'm going to proceed with the spacer but weld the snot out of it and it should be fine.

I got the bearing adapters in the a-arms and a-arms painted.

I made the balljoint spacers and its all seems to fit nice, ball joints lock in the the spacers and spacers in the the spindle

Tomorrow I weld.