ProZac's 1982 Starion - Now with added 86!

[ProZac]

The R31 control arms arrived. True to what I was told on the interwebs, they have the same balljoints as the S13 arms, the same angle at the end to match the knuckles, and are around 20mm shorter, whoopee. I fitted one up, and things look immensely better now. I'll still have to adjust in a little negative camber up front to get my wheels fitting properly, but it'll only be half a degree or so more than factory.

Next job will either be:

Making sure the s13 subframe structure is completely square with the starion chassis/motor mounts, tacking, then plating and welding it all together. I might leave this for the moment however, as it really has to be dead on, and I'm not 100% sure how I'll accomplish it yet... Will let the subconscious work on it for a while...

or:

Removing the inner steering shaft from the outer tube, and shorten the outer tube an inch or so. Then have the factory eyelet coupler machined off the inner tube and a spline machined into it for a nissan steering UJ. Then I just need a simple shaft made up the right length, splined at both ends to fit into the nissan UJ's.

I dummied up the steering shaft with a 1/2" drive extension, as it fit pretty snug into the UJ on the rack, and it clears the chassis rail by about 10mm, while leaving plenty of room to snake a 3" dump pipe down from the turbo. I might even have enough room to low-mount a turbo now, which would be pretty cool.

[ProZac]

I bolted the radius rod mounts back onto the body this morning, and tried the R31 radius rods. They're about 6" short, but line up perfectly with the body mounts. I think by mixing and matching a bunch of aftermarket parts I can find a solution that bolts on.

I tried the Starion swaybar in place, and it's close, but would need some gusseted mounts welded onto the R31 lower atms, as the stock R31 attachment points are just a bit far away from the ends of the bar.

I need to track down an S13 swaybar to try, as from Silo's old pics it looks like they could be a good fit, and even use the original body mounting points. The attachment points on the arms are the same between S13 and R31, so an S13 swaybar should fit the R31 arms.