Quote:About 2.5 years ago we started making some suspension changes to the car to try to take it to the next level. We took out what we did to the track to test and, well went back to the drawing board.

Here's what we ended up with:

We started by taking the entire rear cross member, mounts and all, and moved it UP into the chassis by 1.5". This was pretty tricky and we needed to clearance the frame for the tire but it came out prefect.

The idea is not new, and we wanted to "lower" the car without compromising the suspension geometry. Having the mass of the car 1.5" lower helps out dramatically on a track car, but lowering the car too much on the coil overs causes the control arms to begin pointing up towards the ball joint. This will get you into all sorts of fun scrub issues with the radius changing dramatically as the car compresses.

The issue now was what to do with the front suspension? If you look under the engine, the FT cross member is very close to the bottom on the engine, so we were not just able to "move" the front up as we did in the rear. We were thinking of moving the engine back, behind the crank pulley, and that would allow us to move the cross member up. The problem is the engine would need to go back a good 16"+ to clear. That would mean the trans would be back 16", driver would need to go back 16", pedals, seat, on and on. It would be good, but time and cost prevented us from going this route. We even considered using a 4 banger like the 2AZFE, or 3SGTE, but couldn't part with the 2J power.

The solution was in the front hub.

What we did to start is we made a set of Billet Aluminum, 7075 aluminum uber light weight uprights for a drag customer over seas. Those along with our LCA's dropped almost 22 lbs of unsprung off the front suspension. When we made them we moved the wheel bearing up 1.5" to drop the ft some. We took a set of the Billet uprights (we made 2 sets) and created a fixture that would allow us to cut up and re make a factory set of uprights out of chrome molly steel.

We could have used the aluminum uprights, but we were worried about the side load with 12" slicks up front. A drag car just goes up and down. a RR car sees all sorts of different loads in the suspension. We thought steel was a better bet for long term life.

So here are some pics of the current state of the car. Rebuilt engine, new turbo, LCA's, FT uprights, rear cross member.
Hopefully we can make Button Willow in less than 2 weeks from now.

fiveoh2go Wrote:

Goodspeed Wrote:

fiveoh2go Wrote:

Grrr. Always loved the New Edge Saleen cars :twisted:

D_Eclipse9916 Wrote:Win..

Quote:To start off, this was the most intensive photo shoot I have ever done to date. It spanned a total of 5 days, contained 26 hours of shooting time, and probably at least 3 times that in editing time alone. One shot I have close to 10 hours of editing time into.

Would I do this again for another Eleanor owner? Not a chance in hell. I've done it once and in my opinion thats all it can be done. The concept that the owner wanted was to replicate screen captures from the Gone In 60 Seconds movie - not an easy task when the movie was filmed on the exact opposite end of the country in and around Long Beach CA. Not all the shots are a dead match, but they're close. Some shots were given our own spin, something that looks like it belonged in the movie. Other shots I gave my usual treatment to. As you can see in the shots below recreating a movie still completely goes against my normal method of shooting a car so it was difficult to un-learn what I usually do, and then do something completely different.

Highlights of the shoot: We had a run in with some State Troopers in Albany, I witnessed a Mexican gentleman dry hump the rear quarter panel of the car in South Troy, we had countless people stare, one guy back his car up down a one way street in Troy, a visit from a Government security guard at an old Navy Yard, shooting in 96*F high noon sun, and probably a lot more things I am forgetting.

The hood of this Eleanor is the one used in the movie before he jumps the ambulance, which I am told took two months of constant phone calls to get them to sell. The wheels and exhaust tips also came from movie cars.

premiershine9 Wrote:Eleanor is another reason why I love Chip Foose's work Sucks that Unique went out of business and stopped producing them......

fiveoh2go Wrote:

premiershine9 Wrote:Eleanor is another reason why I love Chip Foose's work Sucks that Unique went out of business and stopped producing them......

Yeah, Chip is a great designer (and a really cool guy in general) but Steve Stanford is actually the guy responsible for coming up with the initial renderings of Eleanor and then further developing them with Foose into the car that eventually hit the silver screen.

premiershine9 Wrote:Anyone know exactly why unique went out of business? Something about messing around with the vins?

Goodspeed Wrote:You may not be aware, but I like Eleanor. A lot. And one day I will have her.

Which is why this photoshoot makes me happy.

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