I had a thread at c-c.com. http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=117634.15
Not sure if its taboo to bring up threads from c-c?
This is the plan. Will buy these next week unless I am making a mistake.... http://www.manciniracing.com/maebo19.html $99
Chrycho Psycho and Brad make their own, but I dont have time or the tools so Im thinking the above link is my best option to stiffen the old Cuda up some and not break the bank.
Should I install them now or after the car is media blasted?
I was planning on having them welded in after I install them.
I was told (I will not share the source) that the Mopar Performance ones http://www.manciniracing.com/mopebod19.html are the same as the mancini ones but because Chrysler has their name attached to the Mopar Performance ones the price jumps to like $159
You can bring up any CC thread you want. The more information the better, we're all one big E-Body family. Here's my take on sub-frame connectors. For a non high dollar E-Bodies that will not sustain a major hit on price if modified, I think they are great. There's three ways to do it. Bolt in, Weld in or Custom made. The bolt in is by far the easiest and cheapest way and they work great. Wait until after it's blasted and epoxy primed. If you want to weld the bolt in subframes that works good too. The one thing you must account for is the E-Brake cable. It wants to occupy the same space as the Subframe connector. So plan to test fit the E-Brake with the Subframe connectors before going in to final paint.
With that said, I've made them from scratch and it will take a few days to get them perfect and looking like factory. Probably not with the time for most. But I'll share some photos on how I did it. Maybe Brad has some more thoughts on this?
More Photos
Wow, you are good!!!
No need to bother Brad. I already quizzed him on this topic. I am thinking the bolt on option with some welding will work best.
Thanks
Wow, Nice work Cody!
What gauge steel is that?
I had a good teacher that really knew a lot about metal work. The steel is the same gauge as the frame rails. Drilling the holes after really sucked. If I could change anything I would have drilled them first on the drill press. With a power drill through that thick metal I about lost my arm a few times when the drill bit grabbed.
Great work Cody, much better looking than mine. :bradsthumb:
I made mine with Neils suggestion of 1 x 2" x 1/8" wall square tubing. I had the US Cartool ones but they were way off from matching the floor boards. Too much work I thought.
I found that by adding 3/4" tubing every 6-8" really added a lot of torsional strength with very little weight. When I had the tubing fitted I clamped it down in my Bridgeport vise and with a large adjustable wrench was able to move it by twisting . I was surprised by that so I welded in the round tubing as mentioned above. I was pleasantly surprised how stiff that made it. I also did the same as Cody for the e-brake cable.
That's the first time I've seem tubing used to add strength. Neat idea!
Quote from: Cuda Cody on January 21, 2017, 11:24:52 PM
You can bring up any CC thread you want. The more information the better, we're all one big E-Body family. Here's my take on sub-frame connectors. For a non high dollar E-Bodies that will not sustain a major hit on price if modified, I think they are great. There's three ways to do it. Bolt in, Weld in or Custom made. The bolt in is by far the easiest and cheapest way and they work great. Wait until after it's blasted and epoxy primed. If you want to weld the bolt in subframes that works good too. The one thing you must account for is the E-Brake cable. It wants to occupy the same space as the Subframe connector. So plan to test fit the E-Brake with the Subframe connectors before going in to final paint.
With that said, I've made them from scratch and it will take a few days to get them perfect and
looking like factory. Probably not with the time for most. But I'll share some photos on how I did it. Maybe Brad has some more thoughts on this?
Great series of photos Cody! Awesome. I can envision an E-Bodies Restoration Guide Book using these photos and other ones you have shared. I'd buy the first one published! :handshake:
Funny you would bring that up. I was in talks with CarTech awhile back about writing the E-Body book and the 196 page limit plus the set limit of photos per How-To section was not something I would have been able to stick to. Plus they wanted me to cover all years of E-Bodies to 70 to 74 and I don't know very much about the later year changes. They said to write it and they will figure out the changes. The contract was something like $3,000 up front with monthly or quarterly submission dates of chapters. Then I get a small percentage of each sale. Something like 12% of half the retail selling price. So about 6% or a $1.20 per book sold. They run about 4,000 (I think i'm remembering correctly) in the first run of copies. The thought was flattering, but I'm not the right guy to write a book. I'm better off (not financially :looney: ) making little How-To videos and helping people on forums. I get more reward from this site then I would have from a book and I get to learn stuff from others. It's hard to beat a good forum. :alan2cents:
Quote from: headejm on January 22, 2017, 09:51:04 AM
Quote from: Cuda Cody on January 21, 2017, 11:24:52 PM
You can bring up any CC thread you want. The more information the better, we're all one big E-Body family. Here's my take on sub-frame connectors. For a non high dollar E-Bodies that will not sustain a major hit on price if modified, I think they are great. There's three ways to do it. Bolt in, Weld in or Custom made. The bolt in is by far the easiest and cheapest way and they work great. Wait until after it's blasted and epoxy primed. If you want to weld the bolt in subframes that works good too. The one thing you must account for is the E-Brake cable. It wants to occupy the same space as the Subframe connector. So plan to test fit the E-Brake with the Subframe connectors before going in to final paint.
With that said, I've made them from scratch and it will take a few days to get them perfect and
looking like factory. Probably not with the time for most. But I'll share some photos on how I did it. Maybe Brad has some more thoughts on this?
Great series of photos Cody! Awesome. I can envision an E-Bodies Restoration Guide Book using these photos and other ones you have shared. I'd buy the first one published! :handshake:
I'm fairly sure that publishing a book for the relatively small number of Mopar hobbyists would not be a money maker but it would be pretty cool to publish a book that breaks even financially. David Wise uses basic publishing techniques to publish his Restoration and Judging Guidelines Reference Manuals. Looks like he sort of prints to order using just loose pages. Not sure you need a publishing house with restrictive rules...Food for thought. :popcorn:
cody you are a mad man! beautiful work! :bigthumb:
Yeah, I was just wondering about subframe connectors and T/A exhaust a couple hours ago.
Are the connectors really in the way?
The side exit exhaust hanger mounts to the rear of the torque box.
The torque box doesn't get in the way of the side exhaust pipe, and it doesn't look like the subframe connectors stick up any further than the torque box.
If it's a tight fit, maybe you could shape them with a relief for the exhaust, similar to what was done for the parking brake cable?
Quote from: Cuda Cody on January 30, 2017, 10:02:26 AM
Just took a peak and @cataclysm80 (http://forum.e-bodies.org/index.php?action=profile;u=127) is right. It should fit and maybe all you have to do is make a small adjustment to the shape. I would say go for it!
The issue is the side exhaust already hangs low, and mine is right in front of the frame rail. If you mount it below the frame rail, or on a torque box which is about the same height as the bottom of the frame rail, the exhaust would hang even lower.
I know that the Hotchkis Challenger E-Max has side exhaust and they originally mounted it below their subframe connectors and it was really low. I talked with John at Hotchkis and he explained they reconfigured the exhaust through a muffler that basically has a 90 degree side exit and now the exhaust is behind the frame rail and closer to the rear tire. I think the only way around this is mounting the subframe connectors first (as suggested) and then having a muffler shop configure a custom set up.
Those ones stick down really LOW. The custom ones I made are no lower then the rear torque boxes. That would be the way to do it. Keep it tapering and no lower the the rear torque boxes. :alan2cents:
Looks like those yellow cars have been lowered a lot.
I bet ground clearance is just as much of a problem as the subframe connectors.
If you're going that low, maybe rear exit exhaust would be better, or maybe cut some custom reliefs into the body.
What about cutting through the floor in front of the exhaust and fab the rest for the sfc under the rear seat? Maybe half above and half below the floor depending on room. :thinking:
Quote from: 61K T/A on January 31, 2017, 05:02:06 AM
What about cutting through the floor in front of the exhaust and fab the rest for the sfc under the rear seat? Maybe half above and half below the floor depending on room. :thinking:
That wouldn't be under the rear seat, it would be where the rear passengers feet go.
Here's the bottom of a car.
I wanted to be more sure of how side exit Trans Am exhaust would fit with subframe connectors, so I grabbed a new exhaust tip from the parts stash and went over to a car to take some pics.
The plate that the leaf spring hanger mounts to (in between the subframe and the rocker panel) sticks down below the rocker pinch weld.
The rear torque box is welded to that leaf spring plate, along with subframe, rocker panel, and the floor pan, so it also sticks down below the rocker pinch weld.
Similarly, the bracket that holds the exhaust tip, sticks down below the rocker pinch weld.
(I had to hold up the other end of the exhaust tip with one finger since this car doesn't have Trans Am mufflers installed right now.)
No leaf springs installed on this car right now, so it's up on jack stands.
The exhaust tip has to be low enough to clear the plate that the leaf spring hanger mounts to. The factory design accomplishes this.
The torque box is welded to that plate which holds the leaf spring hanger.
You can have torque boxes with the side exit exhaust. T/A & AAR were all supposed to come with factory torque boxes, so no problem there.
I was interrupted by some other tasks. Here's a few more pics...
Here's a pic of where the side exit exhaust tip passes the torque box and subframe.
(sorry I couldn't take the pic from further away, the car is only so high off the ground :) )
This is the exhaust tip held up into position where it should go.
There isn't much clearance between the exhaust tip and the torque box, but there is some, which seems to be as the factory intended.
I notice that the black tubing of the exhaust tip has a flat spot on the top side. You can see it in this pic.
The flat spot helps with clearance.
To me, it looks like side exhaust would fit fine with subframe connectors IF the subframe connectors don't stick down any lower than the subframe / torque box.
Custom built subframe connectors like Cody's should be fine, but other companies pre-made connectors might have issues if they didn't consider side exit exhaust in their design.
IF there were a clearance issue between the side exit exhaust tip and subframe connectors like Cody's, I would suggest flattening a spot on the top of the black tube of the exhaust tip, since that's what the factory did for clearance.
Knowing all of this, I'm seriously considering adding some custom made subframe connectors to this car when the time comes.
Should the need arise, Any advice on how to flatten the top side of the black tube on the exhaust tip?
Extending the factory flat spot by about 6 inches of tube length should be plenty.
I'm thinking some kind of press would do it. Just have to figure out how to flatten the top while leaving the bottom round.
Maybe make a round jig that holds the bottom while you clamp pressure to the top. The top would have a flat pressure point so it should flatten. You might need to leave some room for the round section to widen out as it flattens? :notsure: Might take a couple practice pieces to get it right, but I like the way you're thinking. :bigthumb:
Quote from: cataclysm80 on January 31, 2017, 07:02:04 PM
Knowing all of this, I'm seriously considering adding some custom made subframe connectors to this car when the time comes.
Should the need arise, Any advice on how to flatten the top side of the black tube on the exhaust tip?
Extending the factory flat spot by about 6 inches of tube length should be plenty.
I'm thinking some kind of press would do it. Just have to figure out how to flatten the top while leaving the bottom round.
Here's a couple more close up pics of side exit exhaust.
They were intended to show a height reference for the exhaust tip mounting bracket.
Option N44
The green car is a real T/A, and the pink car isn't.
Quote from: cataclysm80 on February 01, 2017, 01:15:04 PM
@303 Mopar (http://forum.e-bodies.org/index.php?action=profile;u=7) What is the year and scheduled production date of the car you're putting side exit exhaust on?
Do you already know where the exhaust tip bracket goes and have it mounted?
Mine is a '70 but not real AAR. My side exhaust was already mounted incorrectly when I bought it. Right now, the black pipe runs right in front of the frame rail. I will have to move it but worried more about the pipe hanging too low. Not the best pic but I'll try to get a close up.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170202/131051ce3b6f0679c1d8de0de5aa1bcc.jpg)
Do you know the Scheduled Production Date of your car?
Cars built during or after Trans Am production have marks for where to mount the side exit exhaust tip bracket.
Cars built before (unless it was maybe just right before) don't have marks for the exhaust bracket, and instead have a plastic body plug in the way.
I never knew that!!! :twothumbsup:
Quote from: cataclysm80 on February 01, 2017, 10:06:13 PM
Cars built during or after Trans Am production have marks for where to mount the side exit exhaust tip bracket.
Cars built before (unless it was maybe just right before) don't have marks for the exhaust bracket, and instead have a plastic body plug in the way.
All of the cars I did subframes on I used 1"x2" .125 wall tube , I notched the subframe where the floor bends so it sits tight against the floor , it ends up virtually invisable & tight to the floor without welding to the floor pan . oval exhaust tube would help clearance past the connector as well . yeah I don't have pictures handy sorry :headbang:
I took my Cuda to a local guy that did my Charger and after getting on a lift and looking at the exhaust we have a plan that will not effect the exhaust too much! I am going to install Wilwood's on all four first since I have to do a new e-brake and will get the subframes done in March/April depending on the weather. I'll be sure to post pics!
Here is a picture of the e-max
Quote from: ToxicWolf on February 12, 2017, 07:16:14 AM
Here is a picture of the e-max
Thanks TW, if you look at #17 on this thread I posted pics of e-max. I talked to John at Hotchkis and he said they had to change the exhaust because the tips hung too low with their subframe connectors.
Quote from: 303 Mopar on February 12, 2017, 07:38:40 AM
Quote from: ToxicWolf on February 12, 2017, 07:16:14 AM
Here is a picture of the e-max
Thanks TW, if you look at #17 on this thread I posted pics of e-max. I talked to John at Hotchkis and he said they had to change the exhaust because the tips hung too low with their subframe connectors.
Bummer :unbelievable: