As I kept working on gutting wiring and dash I started focusing on seat location, steering, and pedals. Most of the racing or racecar setup books I've read all start with focus on one critical item: Driver Safety and Comfort. Safety can't be compromised and is critical but comfort is also very important. Before you dare make one cut or weld it is imperative to think about about where the driver needs to be to be SAFE and COMFORTABLE. It's a bit of a balancing act to get the steering, pedals, and seat in a location that makes the roll cage routing safe where the driver is comfortable. Good thing for this car is that the pedals are already offset towards the center of the car (meaning I can move the seat closer to the center and further away from the door bars and still be comfortable) and the other good news is that for a car this old the steering shaft is a great design to be slightly moved around (dual u-joints, etc). It's also much safer in a crash as it doesn't turn into a rigid skewer like other older cars (Corvette's etc).
I first worked on putting various smaller boxes on the floorpan and sitting on them to determine head room and basic seating position. Since the pedals aren't very mobile I wanted to know "about" where I'd be sitting. It became immediately apparent that with my height (5' 11") and leg length (long legged) the steering wheel angle was all wrong. It points too far up (even in factory location) and with the seat position lowered it compounds the problem. Since the car is a racecar, I removed the steering lock, ignition switch, and blinker / wiper stalks and finally found the tamper proof bolts holding the steering shaft to the dash. Removed them by slightly tapping on some bolt extractors and they came right out. YMMV! After that I realized that I could easily just use longer bolts and washers or spacers to space the steering wheel down to where I would be comfortable with it. (It may help to save the "before" and "after" pictures to your computer and open them in a picture viewer and flip back and forth to show how far just that little bit of shimming made the whole steering wheel move).
Of course, on top of this I will be adding a quick release and extending the steering wheel to the driver.
In the midst of all of this I also pulled the pedal assembly out and removed the brake pedal and booster. I will be running a dual master cylinder pedal (quite possibly even a hydraulic clutch) and will be mounting it up above (hang down type). After having one in my MR2 Turbo racecar adjustable bias brakes are now a no-brainer for road racing and braking control. Just a few pictures of that setup as well (sorry i haven't blasted / painted yet, just fitting it up).
It doesn't look like the steering wheel lowered much. Are you planning to add more washers to angle it lower?
ReplyDeleteInterested to see how running the stock gas and clutch with a custom brake pedal will work out.
Are you planning on adding different controls for your blinkers and windshield wipers to keep it street legal?
I can drop the steering wheel more and will probably do so when the seat is here to really fit it correctly. But the drop as of now was at least 1/2" which does indeed make a difference. After I get all the steering adapters and the seat we will see what we have.
ReplyDeleteI REALLY might get a dual pedal assembly and convert the clutch to hydraulic (right now is cable) as I think it would 'feel' better in the car with the two right pedals being the same (as opposed to all three pedals being totally different), but when you think about it the only two that matter in position are gas and brake when road racing. Clutch can be out by itself away from the others and will operate just fine as long as it's out of the way of brake / gas operation. THANKS for the comments.
Yes, blinkers / wipers / dimmers will be built into the car at a later date but will be separate from the stock steering setup.