What in the hell are we talking about? Well, this update is going to be all about the newly installed Pedders Front Suspension on the Wally’s World GTO, but we would be remiss if we didn’t also mention the fact that we have a couple more new sponsors on board as well. And as exciting at the cool new Ring Brothers teardrop hood pins are, the thing that we are most excited about is the new Recaro seats that will keep us cool while racing thanks to seat air conditioners! Of course they also are power everything and adjust for any size or shape person, and are heated for cold days on the track, but they are also super light at only 35 pounds. And since they will hold us in the car exceptionally well, we’ll be able to take full advantage of the newly installed Pedders suspension system instead of trying to keep ourselves in the factory seats at insane G levels.
If you haven’t seen all the plans for the Wally’s World GTO project, and the fun story behind it, then CLICK THIS LINK to see our full introduction and list of parts and companies that will be involved. It’s going to be a fun project and one you will want to follow along with as we are going to be getting into regular weekly updates now through LS Fest and beyond.
Here is the complete front suspension install by Pete with Pedders along with Mike and Bruce from Indy Hot Rods.
(Words and Photos by Pete Basica, Mike Norris, And Bruce Raymond)
You can take a GTO owner out of his GTO, but you can’t take the GTO out of the owner. Wally will be doing things with his 2006 GTO that his classic GTO never did with the goal of earning an invitation to the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational in 2013. Can we make a 2006 GTO competitive with the over the top machinery running at the OUSCI? With the group of people, and quality of parts we have assembled, we certainly think so. And based on the results from the 2013 Camaro5FEST IV, we know that Pedders suspension is the leader in late model GM suspension like is on our GTO. We saw four of the top 5 competitors at the CamaroCross running Pedders suspension systems. That says a lot.
1. 99 Danny Popp 34.868 – Camaro LPE / Pedders
2. 29 Todd Rumpke 35.344 – Camaro Raymonds Performance / Pedders
3. 725 Jordan Priestly 35.429 – Camaro JDP Motorsports
4. 8 Ryan Matthews 35.516 – Camaro Detroit Speed
5. 3 Rob Anderson 35.570 – GTO Wretched Motorsports / Pedders
Rob put a factory powered GTO in 5th giving away 100 RWHP or more to his other competitors. Wally will be chasing his invitation with 150 more RWHP, better brakes, wheels, tires and a purpose built Pedders suspension. Wally, can we talk about that 150lb stereo in this thing?
From the factory, the 2004 to 2006 GTO delivers as a well mannered automobile driven up to 7/10ths of it’s potential. Driven beyond 7/10ths the GTO becomes sloppy and under-steers heavily. The reasons behind this drop off in performance are directly related the age of the platform. Up front we find the tie rods from the steering rack mount behind the control arm. The radius rod connects to the lower control arm well inboard. The struts and control arms are located by a rubber upper strut mount, forward liquid filled radius bushing and rear radius rod rubber bushing. The dated geometry and soft mounting points allow a very wide range of dynamic alignment changes. Long story short, the front wheels splay under load and on hard braking. All these soft mounting points are great for a nice ride, but horrible for performance driving.
The new Pedders 5851 HD strut mount is the same size and the OEM part. The OEM strut mount has compressed under load. It is 10mm sorter on the lowest side than it was when installed. In this worn condition strut mount performance is severely compromised.
This is the cup that holds the rubber strut mount.
The center of the OEM strut mount is pushed up and the outer lugs well worn. On the right is the all new Wally’s World GTO Dual Bearing Camber Plate that will correct all the deficiencies of the OEM style mount and provide camber adjustment.
GTO SSR Bushing Kit
- Pedders 5892 F SSR Radius Arm Bushings, Front
- Pedders 5843 F SSR Radius Arm Bushings, Rear
- Pedders 5823 F SSR Lower Arm to Frame Bushings
- Pedders 5409 Replacement Nut
The front lower control arm is completely rebuilt with new bushing and a HD PBJ8036 ball joint.
The new SRR Solid Rubber radius bushing is loosely fit to the GTO with a new Pedders HD5309 Radius Rod.
Out with the old and in with the new EP2105 Steering Rack Bushing and PTE3049 tie rod end with castle nut because we like it that way.
Dave taps the steering rack bushing and strap into place.
The steering rack mount is secure.
The tired rubber steering rack bushing is replaced with a firmer EP2105 urethane part and new PTE3049 tie rod end installed.
Eric Pitts separates the knuckle from the hub.
It is all hands on deck in shop. We put Wally to work cleaning up the knuckles.
Wally does nice work.
Goodbye tired and rusty hub and ABS sensor. Hello Pedders 401005L/R shiny new hubs.
Eric mates the knuckle to the hub.
DSC_0083 Good thing we planned on replacing the front endlinks.
Switching to Supercar coilovers the Rube Goldberg OEM endlinks are replaced with Pedders OEM Quiet Spherical Efficiency Adjustable Endlinks. No one ever said perfection would be cheap.
With the front suspension completely rebuilt we move to Wally’s World GTO Dual Bearing Camber Plate installation. This is a part that had been kicked around in Pedders USA R & D for some time. Testing had been done with cut-a-way G8 and GTO strut towers. Wally’s World GTO is getting the first installation at Raymond’s Performance. Pedders had considered using the 5th Gen Camaro Camber plates, but the GTO strut mount cups were so small they didn’t fit. Using a much larger four stud 18mm thick billet aluminum plate replaces the strut lost by removing the cups. A little Texas style machining had the mounts dialed in for Wally’s GTO. Erik and Dave did excellent work carefully drilling out the welds that held the cup in place. Taking their time, they were able to remove the cups without any damage to the finished surfaces under the hood. With the cups removed the new camber plates had to be carefully aligned. Using a blank billet plate, the retaining plates from the OE strut installation and a clevis bolt as a clamp, the plates could be aligned and the holes for the studs marked. With the plates loose fit Pedders Supercar coilovers are hung. Back on the ground we tighten the camber plate nuts down and torque them to 29 pounds. When we get the GTO over to the alignment machine we’ll determine how much slotting of the towers will be required to get to our desired alignment settings.
Dave starts drilling out the spot welds to remove the strut cup.
Banging away with a hammer and chisel is always fun. Doing it with Wally watching is PRICELESS.
This strut cup surrendered.
Pete and Bruce index the camber plate.
The camber plate blank is indexed and held in place by the clamp made from takeoff GTO parts.
Here we go.
Will it fit?
Looks good from down under.
Loose fit and in place.
The Supercar is hung from the camber plate and we identify a small problem. The upper standoff was machined using a GSR strut for fit. The Supercar strut shaft is shorter to allow room for the adjusting knob. We can fix that.
The very first GTO with Supercars and Dual Bearing Camber Plates.
The nuts are torqued to 23 pounds and we made an adjuster from some spare parts. A 4mm Hex key will do the job, but we like to play with red knobs. They are good for 5 RWHP!
It should have left the factory like this.
Pedders dual bearing camber plate uses a banded thrust bearing for turning. It is smoother than the OE plastic cased bearing. The monoball allows the strut to articulate. The most critical function is that the strut is now fixed in place. Combine the benefits of the strut mount with all the other front suspension upgrades and driving above 7/10ths is a precision exercise. Understeer correction is part of the plan. We retained the OEM front sway bar with increased function from urethane sway bar bushings and dual ball joint endlinks. The effectively larger front bar will increase understeer. To bring things in balance we will control the massive weight transfer under braking with a slight increase in coil rate from the standard 8kg Supercar coil to 10kg. The lightens the load on the too small front tires dictated by the too small wheel wells. A custom offset set by Weld Wheels will increase the front track and front tire size. We’ll run a true square wheel and tire package along with a larger Pedders rear bar. The result will be a far more neutral car that Wally can drive faster. Much faster.
Hello Hollywood!
I approve of the work done on the shop floor. Just like home.
5HP from essentially a strut bearing?
10 with a Pedders sticker.
You don’t gain RWHP with a strut bearing. You gain 5 RWHP just by having a red rebound adjustment knob on your coilovers!