s5 fc..

Last week I got squirrley in the rear end (bald tires/rain) and went sideways popped a curb, blew two tires. The car clearly needs a front end alignment, but that's not the issue.

The rear end is out of alignment. The left rear has a slight amount of negative camber and a visible amount of tow-in. The right rear has visible tow out, and appears to be sitting in a little farther (not that it has any more negative camber then the other side).

I'm looking for a local shop/mechanic that can put the car on a lift and look over some of the possible not so obvious causes and help adjust and align the car.

 

It sounds an awful lot like you damaged the rear subframe. My buddy Steve owns a shop in Glen Burnie called Performance Solutions. He'd probably be willing to throw it on the lift, and he's as skilled a mechanic as I know, but I don't know what he'd charge for the kind of work you may need.

If you end up needing a subframe, I haven't sold the two RX7's in my driveway yet. If you helped me chopped the one with no title up I'd be willing to give you a REALLY good deal on whatever parts you needed from it

 

This is the best news I've heard all goddamn day. I will help you part them out my friend. There are many parts I need. I've got weekends open at all times starting tommorow.

I can do the work on my car myself. I just need a lift to identify what needs to be replaced. My drivers side halfshaft is also leaking at the diff, THAT I will probably have him fix if possible. But I'd like a general diagnoses first.

What are the hours of this shop?

EDIT: wait, are you talking about Performance Specialties?

 

No, Performance Solutions. I'll have to give him a call and find out if he'll be around tomorrow, he usually is on Saturdays. His shop is right off B&A Blvd where it crosses over Rt 10, right next to Arundel Elevator.

Just thinking here.. do you have the TII diff in there? I think the diff in this car is an LSD, I know it's a 5-lug but not sure about the diff. Jason might know, I got the car from him. Easiest thing in the world would be swap the entire subframe at once. Compared to doing each piece, that is.

You still got my number? Gimme a call and let me know what time you can be here. The shop is about 4 minutes from my house.

 

Hey mike,
I know a guy named john that lives in fallston. He drives a montego t-88 fd, maybe you have seen it running around. Anyway, he used to drag FC's and seems to know a good deal about them. He just worked some kinks out of brian's (my neighboors) car. He has a shop down near baltimore, its called monument automotive or something like that. If you want me to i can call him up and see if he will check it out.
Just let me know,
-Austin

 

I'll give you a call in the AM joey. I really don't have the $$ at this moment to pay the guy for any shop time. I mean if he just wants to take a look at it and quote me something for the work that's fine.

It is a t2 diff, and I wouldn't swap it for the world. It's a good vLSD. I'd want to bring it over if we need to swap subframes.

 

Joey, lets definately count on dropping that rear subframe. I'm just going to build an entirely new rear end for the car with lots of goodies. what the hell.

 

thats sounds like my drift car when i bent my lateral link in the rear end. its a very thick bar it may not be noticable looking under the car but mine was extremely bent. 35 bucks a scrap yard and i was back on the road

 

I don't feel like playing guess work with the rear end. I'm just going to grab a new rear subframe and stick a FC drag launch kit on it and be done for the most part

 

Ok we have to re-evaluate and figure out what to do. I was thinking I REALLY don't feel like screwing with the car once we drop the subframe, and my wife last night was pushing on the whole house for sale thing...

Start talking to everyone about where we can take this car.. I COULD get the whole rear out with a torch but I really don't know how much we can accomplish in the driveway in December.

What we really need to do is talk to Vince. If he wants the parts off the car, we've got to work out who's taking it away. I'm thinking less and less like chopping it up in small enough parts to chuck at the dump - that takes time.

I'd say we can likely get the subframe out of it on the trailer by putting the rest of the body on jackstands; but where it goes from there, it really needs to go whole. Or at least in a large piece - hence my idea of selling both cars together.

 

Can't you just sell it to a scrap yard for bulk metal? or does it need to be quartered for that?

 

I've only junked 2 cars, but both of them were required to have a title (and the gas tank removed, which is no biggie).

 

The car that Pele took to the scrap yard didn't have a title, as I didn't give him one. I'll check with him to see what the rules were for his deposit.

 

Ok no problem. If you find one willing to take it without a title, then that's what we'll do. Only thing we have to unbolt is the gas tank, and the rest will come out with the floor when we fire up the torch

 

heh...i had a wierd rear end issue once, but some exlax took care of it.

 

Take everything useful off the car, cut it into bite sized chunks, and they take it as scrap steel rather than car chassis.

Car chassis is worth more (About $5 per CWT)... Steel is worth about half that.

http://www.3geeks.org/pele/CarStuff/eyesore/

 

Well that's just it... it's December, generally below freezing, and I have my house on the market for sale. I need to not have a dismantled car in my driveway for any length of time, and I'm not convinced that we can chop it up and haul it to the dump before it closes in one day. I really don't care how much they pay, I just want them out of my driveway so my wife will stop asking me when they're leaving.

 

hrm. Well, that is indeed a perdicament. I can try to get the subframe elsewhere?

 

Update: Found the issue. These following bushings are totally shot and the cams have rotated inside the trailing arm.

 

You just going to replace those bushings and get an alignment?

 

Well, I'd rather not replace the entire subframe with the s4 unit, since the s5 unit is quite beefier in certain areas, like the toe links, i can't source an s5 unit right now, no one seems to have one. I can't find anything that's bent or out of alignment other then those two bushings. No cracks, nothing. Mazdatrix has them for 17.50 per set, but I should be getting them as a part of this drag launch kit I ordered, as well as some beefier mounts.

But check this out, It looks like the lateral link was replaced, but it was installed backwards on the passenger side. It hasn't really caused any issues, but I think I should turn it around. The second picture is the comparison to the s4 unit.

 

Weird. Did you already order everything you need?

 

Yep. Ordered the SR motorsports drag launch kit. Replaces all the bushings.

 

Stuck the impact on that cam, straightend it right out. I wonder if I can set it stock tho.

 

if you dont have them yet, get the rb toe eliminators, best thing i ever did, never wipe out again...