COMET CENTRAL

Ok, so its been forever since an update here,,
I insured Sassy today and took it out for a shake down.
Went up the curvey lake road about 20 miles and back they shot across the valley on the longest piece of straight highway around here.
Love the way I can be hard on the brakes into a corner and the steering is neutral. The front end seems to carve into the pavement.
I feel a little vibration in the Swheel, probably from the bearings in the spring perches.
The front tires were squealing a bit in hard corners but grip was solid so either the alignment settings need tweaking or I'm just at the tire limits,,, very addicting!!!!
The bump steer must be gone cause I never noticed any direction change without Swheel input.
Was hoping the increased caster would forse return to center, and it almost does but the EPS still holds position without input.
But, with the decreased turns lock to lock and big Castor the EPS is now warranted.
Straight across the valley was,,,, BORING!!! Car goes straight, I just need to quit moving the Swheel for no reason.
Next is to get the tire temperatures.
Having too much fun, forgot to take a pic!
Fred

Cool! weird about the eps & return to center. would have thought you'd have more with all that caster you built in to it.

SASSY wrote:Ok, so its been forever since an update here

Yes it has

Good to hear you are having fun with it.

See Ya,
Mike

SASSY wrote: Was hoping the increased caster would forse return to center, and it almost does but the EPS still holds position without input.
Fred

Well happy to report that the EPS is allowing almost complete return to center now.
All but the last 1/2 turn or so comes out of the swheel when released.
I can only attribute it to the steering components settling in as they were all new, I'm sure the caster increase made it happen though.
I will post a video soon of this.
On a more sour note I can see excessive wear on the inside edge of the tire so will have to rethink my camber/toe settings.

Another thing I did that I never posted was oblong the front hole for the inner lower control arm mount about 3/32s of an inch.
This allowed me get up to 10 degrees caster with no bind in that bushing. Once I got the caster setting I tacked a heavy washer over the
hole and bolted it down tight in ride height position. I was under the car last night and all is well, no sign of any movement.

Fred now that you've driven it quite a bit give us a ''Compared to 64 steering'' rundown . how did the car drive before? what if anything does it do better now? was it worth all the trouble?

You shortened your spindle arms which reduced the lock to lock turns. while most guys wont do that,they can achieve the same effects by getting a different ratio sector box or shelby quick steer kit. do you like having less turns of the wheel? & how does that make the car feel?

And which EPS unit did you use? I think I'm goin down that street.

Lip Ripper wrote:And which EPS unit did you use? I think I'm goin down that street.

This article will give you everything you need. There are other options to check out as well.
http://tffn.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f= ... 1&start=15

poboyjo65 wrote:Fred now that you've driven it quite a bit give us a ''Compared to 64 steering'' rundown . how did the car drive before? what if anything does it do better now? was it worth all the trouble?

You shortened your spindle arms which reduced the lock to lock turns. while most guys wont do that,they can achieve the same effects by getting a different ratio sector box or shelby quick steer kit. do you like having less turns of the wheel? & how does that make the car feel?

I have made many changes over several years so trying to compare to 64 steering is tough cause memory is short.
The steering wasn't a major problem for me it was handling and brakes. The roads around here are great for spirited driving if you enjoy deceleration, apex, acceleration so that was my goal.
The disc brakes were the single best investment to that goal then the 1 1/8th anti sway bar. The upgrade to 65 steering was probably next but going from worn to new parts plus better geometry most likely exaggerated the change.
The car feels way different, it gives me confidence that I can attack a corner and not worry about the darting about.
Sassy is fun to drive and drive HARD when I want to!
My only problem now is that big lump on the rear springs throwing the car around.
As far as "was it worth the trouble" YES!
But, I'm the guy that took out a 351C and put in a V6 so you need to take what I say with a grain of salt.

SASSY wrote:

Lip Ripper wrote:And which EPS unit did you use? I think I'm goin down that street.

This article will give you everything you need. There are other options to check out as well.
http://tffn.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f= ... 1&start=15

That just takes me to a sign in page. I'm not a member as I've been banished from his kingdom. Can you send a link directly from the article?

" I'm not a member as I've been banished from his kingdom"
That's too bad in this case as most of the info is there.
I tried the link I posted and it takes me to the article.
This link will get you too all the info I posted in my Showing Off thread.
http://www.cometcentral.com/forum/viewt ... &start=465

lipripper the guy who wrote the article on tffn named waid ,whose background was with fomoco ps, has done more research & found other units that dont need the control box from ebay, & work in a failsafe mode . he has a few videos that will probably help more than the tffn thread. the 4th one is of the different kinds of failsafe units that you could use.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXG1ii ... 7ZtEaQZ-vA

Tracy...I'll be going down the EPS road, too, along with a T-5 swap. I'm curious about whether the VSS signal from the T-5 could be used to control the variable assist on the EPS, as well as an electronic speedometer.

Jim

Thank you.

Jim, no idea on using the VSS for the column.