The coming year will give me plenty of track time to really give this setup a proper test. I think Paul has also run his car a bit already . So by the fall of 2019 we will have a pretty good evaluation of the merits of the whole thing.
I want to thank a few people: First Fran, We talked a few times about this whole thing and he was the one who first led me on the path of reclocking the rear upright to accommodate the C7 bearing. I have forgotten the name of the other RCR staff member that I asked about the spherical bearing upgrade and I should thank him also. At that point I didn't even know what it looked like and he described how it worked in detail and assured me that it was just really a direct bolt on arraignment. RCR and Fran have been a lot of help to me over the years. He has never given me grief over my sometimes painfully shadetree designs and offered good practical advice when I asked. I could not have done this car without him, thanks Fran.
Paul, Paul and I have spent hours on the phone talking about this whole thing. He offered to try and include me in his one off rear hub project at no financial gain to himself before I realized I could reuse my uprights and I feel like I have made a new friend as result. Good guy!
Driveshaft Shop, It is clear that without the stub shafts they supply this whole thing becomes a whole lot more difficult, custom, and expensive. But beyond that, they never were in a hurry to get off the phone when I was asking question after question about all this stuff. A lot of them about things they don't even sell. The tech department is full of real race car/hotrod guys who know their stuff.
John, He was willing to investigate having a full prototype suspension designed and made for my car. We spent a lot of time talking about this project early on discussing just what I needed and how far my budget would allow me to go. In the end the full racecar stuff just costs too much, at least for me, but the information he provided greatly informed my decision and was very useful.
Ken, kens solution may well be the most useful for the guys who find that they what to consider making these changes. His is a new design and illustrates better than my car what is needed to upgrade a current SLC.
New Braunfels Machine Shop, thanks for the great work for such a good price. I couldn't have done it better, cheaper, or faster anywhere else.
Do you need to do this? If you are running slicks and pushing the car to it's grip limit on race tracks then I would say yes. If you intend to run your car like this and haven't bought it yet then ask Fran about the race suspension option, especially if you want a track only car.
If you intend to build a road car with all the interior and custom streetcar stuff and drive it like you would a Corvette on the street (more or less legally) then I would say no you don't. I also think that the stub shafts currently in use are better (material and strength) than the ones originally supplied with my car. That was about 10 years ago after all.
Somewhere in between? That's what this thread was all about I guess. Only the guy with his hands on the wheel, foot on the peddle, and checkbook in his pocket can answer that one for himself.
What I have LEARNED from all this is what I knew before I started. Race cars are designed STARTING with the tire selected and then everything else is built, selected, and designed to suit them. It's funny how that works, you really don't KNOW something until you DO something. Or something like that...……………………….
Stay tuned for future testing updates from time to time.