Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

[sytyguy]

Summary: My truck is gonna be the Official SyTySolo Autocross truck (competitively raced next year), and I'm in the process of getting all the mods and bugs worked out before the start of next season. The paint and sponsorship stuff will come first, followed by some suspension and tires, and finally, tuning to dial it all in. This thread will encompass lots of things to be done to the truck over a relatively long period of time, but I figured I'd start it out today with the paint test we did last week.

It's tough to tell from the pics, but it's actually a satin black. We started with a Gloss Black and used a flattening agent to get the right finish. We used AwlGrip (LINK), since it is completely maintenance free, chemical and corrosion resistant, scratch and dent resistant, and requires no special treatment to maintain finish. This has been primarily a marine paint (still is), but my buddy (that sprayed it for me) has been doing more and more metal applications. In the marine world, this stuff is known to be on the water for 15-20 years and still look like it was just sprayed. Pretty neat stuff.

This was just a test spray, so there's a good bit of trash in the finish and it's nowhere near 100%. Now that we have the finish we want, I'll be sanding down the rest of the truck (gate included) and spraying it in (I hope) a month of so. Once that's done, we get to apply all the sponsor vinyls and hopefully get the money rolling to move onto Phase 2.

Will update when I have more to show off. :tup:

 

[93 TY 2185]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

Cool:tup: Looking forward to your progress.
I have a SY I may make a dedicated Solo truck too.

 

[Sportmachines]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

Can't wait to see the progress and end result. That paint looks pretty cool. Let us know if theres any way we can help.

 

[Maple Syrup]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

This project sounds and looks awesome, cant wait for more progress :tup:

 

[T-Bone]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

Great news for you and Sy 1596!!

 

[MRKING]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

That looks good Mike . Looks similar to unpainted Syclone cladding from that one pic .

 

[Syclone22]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

WOOW a chemical that is scratch and dent resistant
will the whole vehicle be painted with this ???

 

[sytyguy]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

WOOW a chemical that is scratch and dent resistant
will the whole vehicle be painted with this ???

Correct, the all sheet metal will be painted with AwlGrip and the cladding will be painted with AwlCraft (as it is more flexible and more compatible with plastics).

 

[graham1524]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

any updates on how the suspension will be setup?

 

[sytyguy]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

Front suspension will be coilover with higher rated springs and no sway bar. Rear is yet to be determined....though for the near future, I'll stay live axle with a sway bar, but I'm hoping to (one day) work out some sort of Watts Link setup.

 

[0-60N4]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

Why are you electing not to use a front sway bar?

for the rear, the addition of a panhard bar with existing setup may be worth while for starters.

 

[sytyguy]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

Why are you electing not to use a front sway bar?

for the rear, the addition of a panhard bar with existing setup may be worth while for starters.

You have to look at our front end grip the same way you do a FWD. It's well known that a sway bar on a power transmitting axle (esp. the one that provides steering) provides roll stiffness at the expense of mechanical grip. Essentially, swaybars increase spring rates in a coupled fashion, so that the forces acting on one wheel affect the other. So, if you compress one wheel, the sway bar is enacting a force to compress the other wheel. Imagine if you had a bar so large and solid that it had zero twist, resulting is a 100% coupling between both sides. If you hit a bump with one wheel, this compression of the suspension on one side would result in equal compression on the other. The truck would be so rigid, it would act like a wobbly table at a restaurant. This may sound good at first, but there are noticeable cons:

1) - Increased front roll stiffness encourages understeer in our application. You can counteract this by increasing rear roll stiffness (adding motive traction), but only to a point. Beyond that, decreasing front roll stiffness will begin to make the truck more neutral (handling-wise).

2) - The nature of a large front sway bar is to cause a loss of traction to the inside wheel during a turn. We have an open front diff.....you can figure out for yourself why this is a bad thing for us. On RWD cars, this isn't a major issue as the transfer of lateral grip to the rear can result more grip to the inside rear tire, where a lot of those cars need it. A lot of people don't think a sway bar on one end really affects the handling and grip of the other, but it does....big time.

3) - It limits camber changes and causes unwanted camber activity with the unloaded inside wheel. Combine this with the tendency to enact bump steer over unlevel surfaces and you have a steering feel that I don't care for during cornering.

The solution to all of this is to run springs stiff enough (but not too stiff) to give the front roll stiffness that you want, but without the cons of the sway bar setup. Know that there are no perfect suspensions, but our's is a LONG way from even being considered adequate.....much less good.

 

[JSM]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

I will be curious to see how this theory works Hood. When I was running my ty last year (granted a lot more top heavy) I was not happy with body roll and was debating about increasing the rear sway bar size, actually designing my own that was adjustable. The other goal was to help with the understeer our trucks are known for.

 

[sytyguy]

Re: Project SyTySolo: Syclone #1596

Jeff, hopefully I'll test the front suspension sooner than later. Our region runs a lot of tight, technical courses and I find myself forcing throttle oversteer (left foot braking while maintaining boost through turn) to get the correct exit speed/angle that I want. I do not like this as it is hell on the (already inadequate) brakes and upsets the chassis......though not nearly as much as forcing oversteer the old way. A proper front suspension setup will go a long way towards curing those issues.