TheDrip
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Everything posted by TheDrip
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And we finally have some progress! I found a friend who was willing and had the time to machine the parts from steel. Here is a better rendering of the assembled product (minus bolts) from Fusion 360. And photos from my friend of the raw pieces fresh off the Mill! I will be tapping the 12-1.25 holes when they get here, as well as painting. There are a few notches in the outline, they were run using off-cuts, and the outline just barely intersected with holes in the material. He also posted a machining video of cutting the outer profile of one of the pieces. I'm geeking out over all th
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Running wires to trunk for sub
TheDrip replied to Eric Bruce's topic in Audio, Navigation, MyLink and Navigations
The spark has more empty space in the dash than any car I've previously owned. Running wires through the dash area is not an issue at all. -
'13 Spark Manual Throttling Issues?
TheDrip replied to fefifofannie's topic in Chevy Spark 2007-2015 (Gen III)
The throttling isn't a problem, it is working as designed for emissions compliance. -
One of the nice parts about using the stock calipers and an adapter bracket is that I can revert to stock brakes just as quick as I can do a normal brake service job.
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The Canadian dollar has fallen significantly against the US dollar in the last few months. When these were priced a year ago, they were comparable. That is how low the Canadian dollar is right now. Everything in Canada is dirt cheap if you have american money!
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If anyone is further interested in this project. I have DXF and STL files of the adapters, and measurements on everything. I'm a little wary of sharing them publicly, as someone will surely think they can actually drive with 3d printed plastic brake brackets and then blame me. I am looking for someone with a CNC mill to cut these out of steel. I'd rather support a hobbyist I can really explain the important parts of the maching work to than blast drawings off to the shop and hope what I get back is what I meant. The needed machining can be done completely one sided, though some creative fixtu
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Reserved for future updates
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I would keep the outline of the caliper adapter pieces, I would keept their drill hole locations. I could move the wheel in by removing the rotor adapter, and move the caliper in the same distance by adding a spacer in between the caliper adapter halves. For strength reasons I didnt want a 3rd piece, so I added the 'spacer' to the spindle side of the adapter. I mocked up the adapter with a spacer, that looked good. I drew up modified adapter halves in CAD, they looked good. I changed from a 5 hole center pattern to a 3 hole center pattern where all 3 would be bolts. Through holes in the n
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SATURDAY MORNING ...again, or HURRAH! depending how you think this will go. I slowed things down, and tried to be a little more methodical. First I compared the old rotor to new. This seems better, looks like a little more than an inch extra material on each side. Good so far! Next I tried the new rotor adapter on the hub, again looking good. You can see that the small hole for the rotor retaining screw is in the right location, the retaining screw fit like it should. Then I tried the rotor on the adapter, after removing the same dust shield as before. It occured to me that t
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LATER THAT WEEK... When they arrived I opened the package and thought I was being attacked by Smurfs. Here are the parts, followed by the bracket halves tapped and bolted together. These parts fit great, so I tried the rotor adapter with the new 316mm rotor I had ordered. Once again I was excited for the weekend when I could try these out on the car.
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SUNDAY of redemption. OK, that title is a bit dramatic, but I did get over myself long enough to at least find the close end of the tunnel, hoping there would be light at the other end. Fewer pictures now, and more badly written words. I started by going back over my inital math. Now it was a 256mm stock rotor, plus the same 56mm for enough offset. 312mm at a minimum. I thought I would start with the same vehicle, a Cooper Mini. The John Works packages cars always came with bigger brakes, so maybe a later year car would have even bigger brakes. I managed to dig up that an 08-12 Mini J
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SATURDAY MORNING of broken hearts... A warning before hand, you may cry from empathy for how I felt 20 minutes after walking into the garage Saturday morning. I woke up cheery, ate a good breakfast. Ready to get out there and see how terrific everything looked. I got the car in the garage, stripped off the same corner, and got to work. I started with the same approach as the paper templates, each side individually, then glued the brackets together to check for interference from the overlap. A great day so far, I tried out the rotor without adapter. Again, fitment looked perf
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MID WEEK My 3D printed mock-up parts arrived late in the week and I felt like it was Christmas day. I took really poor excuses for pictures of the parts I had in-hand. The black ring is the rotor adapter, the grey plastic is the two parts of the adapter bracket. They were printed at 4mm thick to save material. I can't thank these guys enough for the help on this project. Theres nothing like having parts in hand quickly for doing this kind of work. I fitted up the rotor adapter inside of the new rotor and managed to slow down to take (too many) pictures. As you can see, all m
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SATURDAY MORNING With the energy that accompanies good initial progress on a new progress, I headed back out into the garage first thing in the morning, armed with the latest paper templates. Everything went smoothly. I got the car into the garage and the drivers front corner stripped down in no time at all. I made sure to take the time to photograph the fitup this time. I knew I was getting close, but that any minor dimension changes would be easier to get right with pictures to refer to. First I tried the fitment against the caliper bracket. The half of the adapter which will att
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SUNDAY NIGHT ... and the week following. I sat down to do some deep thought, research, designing, and internet forum browsing. Over the next few days I poked and prodded at my brain trying to kickstart some activity. My first stroke of genius was realizing my wife's car had the same bolt pattern as a Spark. I started looking for a database of rotor dimensions to narrow down possibilities. First I found a drawing for a Chevy Spark rotor, measuring 236mm in diameter. Included in the drawing I found were overall height, hub thickness, center bore diameter, and other useful dimensi
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SUNDAY MORNING The first step was some exploratory surgery. I remove the wheel, and started poking around the brake setup to see how the caliper was mounted to the bracket, bracket to the spindle and so forth. I took dozens of pictures so I could think and refer to them while drawing the first design. I determined the caliper would have to stay bolted to the bracket as-is, and that I would be moving the bracket mount points outward. Based on the below pictures, I decided a simple design of two plates would work best. One that bolted to the spindle where the bracket should go, and a sec
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Big Brakes for the Little Spark --------------------------------- Here I lay down the tale of how I toiled night and day for weeks on end, simply to equip my spark with (unneeded) larger brakes, or, how I learned to love the bomb. **NOTE: Sorry for the giant pictures, this board won't let me specify image dimensions for thumbnails, it will take some time to go through and replace them all. Give me a day or two! These are me memories of the last 3 weeks or so, working for a couple hours each day on the weekends, and the few minutes I could sneak in on week days after work. I t
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How much can I edit a post? Let us find out! I can edit any content, but not the title. File attachments can be removed/added. Test sucessful!
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Over 1k miles on city streets and in-city highways now. Plenty of pot holes and construction. There are definitely jars at times, but no $$$ problems yet. The car's light weight helps a lot when it comes to pothole strikes. I don't think anyone lowers a car and steps up on wheel size while expecting a smoother ride as an end result. As far as looking silly, these cars look 'silly' to the vast majority of the population anyway. I'm sure everyone on this site has been the butt of jokes like "do you take that inside with you?" "wheres the rest?" "where does the carry handle go?" and such. Ma
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Both, but the front more pronounced and often. There is a "nub" in the top of the wheel well toward the outside of the car. I suspect there is a screw behind it, but it has barely even made a mark on the plastic. The rear hardly touches, and it rubs flat at the top. no hidden screws or such to cause concern. That said, after 1 week of commuting to work, I know every bump that causes an issue and what speed I can go over it. Just take a little more care when driving, something familiar to anyone that has owned a lowered vehicle before.
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No rub lock to lock, I do have a tiny ziiiiip rub (anyone with a lowered car knows what I mean) on big bumps on the freeway. just rubbing away an odd corner in the plastic of the inner liner.
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Its rubbing a little nub in the well liners up front on high speed bounces now. just wearing some plastic. Have to slow my roll from 85 to 75 going to work. As for the tires being used, I just wanted to be forthright in what the setup was, I don't know how close I would be cutting it with brand new tires. I did the drop with the used tires in case there were issues. Tear up old tires, not brand new ones.
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B&G springs, 17x7 +38 wheels, 205/40R17 Hercules Wraptis WR1 tires. 4 springs took me less than 90 minutes once I had collected all the tools I needed. What I didnt have on hand was a 24mm socket for the strut tower nut. I think I can list all the tools from memory though. 24mm socket 18mm socket 15mm socket 24mm wrench 18mm wrench T50 torx key Ratchets to match Spring compressor Jack 2 stands And of course whatever socket you need to get your wheels off. The whole job was made a LOT quicker with wanton use of an impact gun.
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b&g springs, 17x7 +38, 20/40R17 tires. Everything is working great with no rubbing, but the tires are down to 5/32. with brand new tires, maybe something really is that close.
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I've found the little 3.5x5 very handy. Sheets of plywood go on top just fine. I was hauling 12' rolls of carpet the other day, centered on the trailer, 3' in front (about a foot from the hatch) and 4' hanging off the back. worked great. I've picked up 12' 2x4 lumber, moved everything in my houses except the couch and appliances, and of course all those bad ideas posted in this thread.
