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 5^th 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 7/10^ths  of it’s potential. Driven beyond 7/10^ths 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.

 

• 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DSC_0083 Good thing we planned on replacing the front endlinks.

 

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 5^th 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.