hornetball

That's awesome. I need a cannon. Jealous.

You might look into renting an inflatable booth. You can set that up in your driveway or backyard. The other option is just to go get it sprayed at a place like Maaco. Those places scrimp on prep, but since they paint a lot of cars, they often have guys that are skilled with a gun. Since you've done the prep, it could work out well for you.

They better watch out for the crocs.

Let me put this right here for @Max (taken in Bob and Teresa Halford's driveway):

I took it out first session Saturday with TDE. It hung with the Miatas in the turns! I was really surprised. One of the Miata guys reported that it tripods (lifts a front tire) in Little Bend. That must be a cool sight. The car is running a big front sway and no rear sway -- which is how I got it and apparently is a preferred setup for small block cars. Unfortunately, one of the valve cover breathers fell apart (glue failure), so I hung it up. Have some teething issues to work through, but so far so good.

I'm not sure whether it was part consistency (I have a lot more CCW laps than CW laps on those bj's), or if it was that darn bump they added with the repave. The location of both breaks was right at the bump.

Corner worker's name is Nick Norman (I guess this is one way to meet the corner workers -- not recommended though). Like Matt said, he was waiting to see if my trajectory might change before getting out of dodge. The car was 100% ballistic though. Just momentum carrying it forward, nothing I could do to change direction. Those tires flew when I hit and could have killed him. I'm thankful. I'm going to volunteer to corner work for CVAR. I think that's a much better way to meet the safety people! I checked my records. These balljoints were installed on 1/24/2016. I think every-other year would be a good schedule for these. I remember that I inspected them the night before! Sigh.

Change them in pairs gents. Balljoint #1: Balljoint #2: Not sure if the car is repairable. Hit the tires and concrete going 30.

Darn right! Car did well its first time out. You have to manhandle it, but it's neutral and rotates well. It was warm today (90F), so a good test for the cooling systems. Water temps were great (205F) as was oil pressure (always ~50psi, even in the turns). Oil temp ran a bit high (280F), so I'll need to address that with some oil cooler ducting. Braking is high effort, which makes modulating difficult. Man oh man, does this thing eat gas, tires and brake pads! I'm going to go put it on the lift and give everything a good once over. All in all, a successful first time out. Time for a cigar! <UPDATE> Car checked out good on the lift. Managed to flat spot one of my fronts. I've got a feeling that I'll be buying a lot more front than rear tires for this car. TDE tomorrow . . . .

Harnesses and roll bar padding IN! The harnesses are Racequip model 855015. They are enduro-style 6-points (pull-down adjuster at the buckle) with 2" laps and HANS shoulders. The adjusters seem high quality and they are easily tightened. Plus, they are red and pretty like the car!

Hey, at least if they swapped paint, no one would be able to tell. 🙂

And . . . all that extra fun costs less too!

I bought a set of PACO Motorsports hubstands to do the setup. Nice thing about these is I can do caster, camber and toe (including thrust line). They are drilled so I can use them on the Vette, Miata and Formula Ford. All I need now is a set of scales for the cars with coilovers. They come with these cool spring-tensioned wires for doing toe/thrust. These end up being parallel strings if the car has the same track front and rear. Otherwise, what you are after is a symmetrical trapezoid (equal left and right). This Corvette had equal tracks and based upon the measurements and shims used, I have a straight frame. 🙂 Using these with a two-post was a breeze. Measurements stayed consistent no matter how many times I lifted/lowered. Would buy again. My camber setup was -1.5F/-1.0R (bias-ply setup). Caster was 2.5. Zero toe front and rear. Ride height 1.5" lower than stock. If I want to go lower, I need to pull the front springs and cut them -- a project for another time. Went for a drive on these settings. On a smooth road the car tracks really well. It does tend to wander on bumps -- but the caster is a compromise between tracking and manual steering effort. Also installed a "Spreader Bar" which is a C2/C3 Corvette thing to help stabilize the upper control arms (like a strut bar). They are mentioned in the Chevrolet Performance book, but I wonder how effective they are? This is the harness bar that G-Speed welded in for me. I painted it today. Getting close . . . .

Pressed in new diff bushings and re-installed the diff. You can see how bad the old bushings were: Diff cross-member with new bushings. The recommendation is to allow the weight of the car to press the cross-member into place with a bit of driving before final torque. This is to avoid stripping the threads in the frame. I heli-coiled the threads on the driver side as someone hadn't followed that recommendation in the past. You can see that I still have a bit of space at the top of the bushing. Trailing arms were removed, bushings replaced, brake shields cut out and bump stop landing repaired. They look nice with a bit of paint. I drilled holes for the cotter pins that retain the trailing arm shims. The factory started doing this in 1965, but my 1964 didn't have the holes. When I took things apart, I noticed that I was missing shims on the drivers side. Trailing arms installed. Putting these in wasn't as bad as I expected. Nice when something goes easier. Rest of rear suspension assembled: One more Easter Egg. Once I got the spring installed, I noticed the driver's side lower shock mount was rotating. Inspecting further . . . stripped threads. Parts on order.

Don't worry about it. Wheels are consumables. They crack. They get bent. You use them and toss them. Have fun with what you have and if you don't like them get something different next time. It's quite easy to get a lighter wheel than stock. SM has a minimum weight requirement and SM compliant wheels run about 3 pounds heavier than an Enkei RPF-1 in the same size (SM limits you to 15x7" and ~13 pounds). And SM wheels still crack! Even though SM uses heavy wheels, they still have fun. So get out there and drive.