Started off by making the pieces to patch up the clearance hole I made in the exhaust. A friend at Rocket Rally is going to TIG weld the pieces in for me, and if I'm lucky he won't need to use any filler rod. Here's hoping my parts are a tight enough fit!
No problems at all with the second heater box...though I did manage to bolt it all up to the car before I realized that I forgot to cut the flange off the rear-end. Oops! Fortunately a sawzall made quick work of the flange and I'm ready for the muffler when it comes back from welding.
While I was under the car, I took the time to swap in the springs that Eric loaned me. They're a 550lb spring, but about 1.5" shorter then the 300lb springs I removed. Lowered to the ground, after a rough pre-load adjustment, the 550's sit about the right height for a "stock setup". The length of Eric's springs do let me max out the suspension height, but I'd be at the absolute limit of of the coil over threads. They have, however, served the exact purpose I needed, which was to figure out a starting point. I'll need to buy a longer length in 550, and I intend to do some crunch math tomorrow to determine the wheel rate on the car and why I was so far off with the 300's.
With the rear sorted, I figured I should adjust the front a little.
Nothing really special here, just a 1" 'lowering spring' which should probably get me to the ride height I wanted to start with. Again, the whole purpose of running standard-type springs up front is to give myself some resemblance of a starting point that I could work from for matching up the rear.
So here is the car sitting on the ground "dry". There's no fuel, oil, belts, seats, apron or decklid. But it does have all the glass, engine, etc. Sitting dry it's a great "rally height", which means wet I should end up a little closer to a street height. That also tells me that wet, I have some latitude for getting it up higher. I mean, it's all speculation at this point but it feels way better seeing it sit in a way I was expecting instead of scratching my head figuring out what the heck I messed up.
I figured I would end on a good note, and called it a night. LOTS of little jobs to accomplish this weekend, as well as that big job of lower shock mounts to be done at some point. I'm using outside help on that one, so I'll just work on knocking down the to-do list over the next two days.
-Dave