November 10, 2007
Steering Rod Bushings
After seeing quite a few cars with excessive wear on the inner bushings I decided it was time to work on a replacement. The factory bushings are only available with the arms $$$.. Well a few hours in the machine shop and a little urethane later i had some decent prototypes to try.
I decided to install them in my Viggen since it has about 20K miles no wear was expected. I found a decent about of wear on the factory bushings which was a little amazing in this short time. I would guess that many of the higher mileage cars are far worse.
The actual install was pretty easy took a leisurely 30 min. Basic hand tools. I used a long 10mm bolt and a 34mm 1/2" drive socket to pull the old bushings from the arms. This is probably not necessary for the higher mileage cars. Installation was very easy once the old ones were out. I did it with the car on the ground making it a little harder than necessary. It took a helper to get the arms aligned and the bolts into the steering gear. Used a little thread locker there too just as a precaution.
Initial feelings are improved on center feel and less of the mushy steering response. I will see after the road trip to StLouis tomorrow.
Posted by nick at 2:57 PM | Comments (0)
November 7, 2007
Fuel delivery
Once we started playing with e85 and the higher volume needed it was apparent that the stock fuel pump even at 20K miles was not up to the task. I installed a Walbro 340 pump one of the high pressure variants It makes a little more sound. That is you can hear it in the car at idle with the radio off, but hey this is a 400hp monster right.
Check this for the before and after fuel pressures. Fuel pressure is labeled OilP.
Data Plot
Posted by nick at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)