Plastic Fantastic tew

[fatguyzinc]

how about "rodent under glass"?
or maybe the glass rat...
or spaztic glass...
or the fiberglass coffin....

wait, youre in washington state?
pacific northwest rodentus dementus....

[Deaf Bob]

Glass Rat?

Any Vette with a potent big block is kinda rare...
Seen maybe 2-3 in my life..
Would love to put a BBC that has compression in something light and a muncie or something equally strong.. No Saginaw

[SuperBuickGuy]

this is not a saginaw and
transmission together


gasket - not so much, but useful for what I'm doing now..

[fatguyzinc]

tho my eyes aint what they used to be
i *think* i see 2 rings on the input so...
muncie M20 wide ratio?

if it is, thats the same type that i got
(guess where---drum roll please....)
sitting in the closet.

SUPPOSED to go in the white 454 vette--
just like that dang 2x4 intake manifold.....

[SuperBuickGuy]

nope, super t-10

[Deaf Bob]

nope, super t-10

If memory serves me right, Muncie has a flat top, no bulge like this..

[fatguyzinc]

If memory serves me right, Muncie has a flat top, no bulge like this..

right--and i *think* the reverse shaft isnt on the
tailshaft housing in a muncie. hope that thing
holds up, ive crunched MANY a ST-10 in my
cars over the years.....

[SuperBuickGuy]

the reverse is on the same place on a muncie - it's the saginaw that doesn't have it on the tail shaft.

are you certain it was Super T-10s? There is a t-10 that is unremarkable in the strength department but those are easy to tell because they have cast-iron cases like the Saginaw. Super T-10s are stronger then Muncies, and the late Super T-10 (which mine is) is stronger still.

[SuperBuickGuy]

onward
time to start on the grinding (blech)

inventory.... no mandrels...

[SuperBuickGuy]

Loren.... this

is the DSE front suspension. Note how they made brackets to shorten the upper control arm? I'm seriously considering copying the idea (though I'm cutting the brackets off). What do you think the upper to lower ratio is (length of upper control arm to lower control arm)? of course, if I hit the lottery I'll be spending the 6k for this - sorry Ryan at Ridetech, I like you but I think this is several orders of magnitude better then what you offer....

[fatguyzinc]

the reverse is on the same place on a muncie - it's the saginaw that doesn't have it on the tail shaft.

are you certain it was Super T-10s? There is a t-10 that is unremarkable in the strength department but those are easy to tell because they have cast-iron cases like the Saginaw. Super T-10s are stronger then Muncies, and the late Super T-10 (which mine is) is stronger still.

yep, several late model super T-10's (out of 76-80 vettes/firebirds)
i pushed the countershaft out the bottom of the case. always broke same way.
its nominally rated at 375ftlbs, 400ftlbs with a steel midplate.
as for being stronger than a muncie, i dunno. ill take the muncie anyday, those i
bent a few shift forks but never dropped a countershaft.. just my own experience,
your mileage may differ.....

[SuperBuickGuy]

there are some who can break rocks in a sandbox... just sayin'

[Loren]

this...

...is the DSE front suspension.

I think that's pretty dang trick, all adapting to the original frame architecture.. By retaining the "rear-steer", theoretically you should be able to keep the stock-type deep-offset front wheels which IMO do a lot for C3 Corvettes, they just don't look quite right with the newer-style negative offset wheels required with C4-and-up-type front-steer.

Of-course you could make your own upper a-arm pivots, I imagine the shaft deal is just to keep it a bolt-in.

You'd need to figure out what application rack they are using there, that would be critical...but...

...here's the main thing, they appear to be (and would have to be) using their own "upright", built especially for this with pivot points (particularly the tie rod) in the right place, all to work off of the original C3 inner points and get the geometry they wanted with whatever a-arm length able to be packaged in there, plus wherever it is they were able to put the rack. Nothing from an OEM application (as far as I imagine) would work. Whatever you could make yourself, you'd have to score a set of those uprights, or engineer-build your own somehow which I don't think I would attempt.

As far as the RideTech stuff goes, I think they and DSE are shooting at a little bit different markets although I'm not very familiar with either (I shall have to fix that going forward I suppose).

The DSE setup, I'd be jazzed...just a matter of confirming original-type offset wheels would work, and then, if you were going to copy and not just buy the whole deal from them...those uprights.

[fatguyzinc]

there are some who can break rocks in a sandbox... just sayin'

this is true.

[SuperBuickGuy]

In no way should it be said that I think one is better or worse then the other - I like both companies a lot. I just think the DSE makes more sense for my application. The steering rack is actually pretty easy - I follow the discussion (talk about deep water stuff, I keep a dictionary to keep up) on vettemod.com. They use a Chevy Venture rack, and there's even a CAD file so that you can have your own brackets cut out. I'm not sure that system would work because the DSE looks like they use longer, lower A arms. Initially I was planning on grafting a C4 front and rear suspension, then using the guldstrand rear suspension and a C4 front... but this makes me consider doing the a-arms myself with uniballs....

as for racks - for $1000 and either

http://www.flamingriver.com/index.php/service/tips/rack-and-pinion-FAQs

or

http://www.unisteer.com/

will build you one custom