Tuner Suspension, Bloopers

We've got a low buck lowering job for our Honda here and new wheels to give it a new attitude. Stay with us

today on horsepower TV.

It's tuner time again as we improve the stance and attitude of our budget Honda project car,

we'll show you how to convert your old points type distributor to an he I

plus some hot horsepower bloopers to boost.

So hang on for horsepower TV.

Hey, welcome to the horsepower shop where today it's time to give our budget, Honda here a new stance and some flash by lowering it and well giving it some new rollers. Chances are you followed this TU or build up with us? And well, here's what we've done so far

after we bought it for $3500 we helped it breathe better with the cold air intake

header

and cat back exhaust.

Then we upgraded the ignition

and finally bolted on a nitrous set up.

So that means we got about 3175 bucks left out of our $8500 budget. Now, today we're gonna see if we can keep from blowing the budget after we install an inexpensive coil over kit plus some 17 inch wheels and tires

is if I can get my partner out from under the hood of the Chevelle. What are you doing, man?

Well, I was gonna do an electronic ignition upgrade on this thing.

I guess it'll have to wait, but we're gonna get to it later on right now though. I wanna show you a cool coil over kit that I got for our Honda.

What we've got here is the next level coil over suspension kit from a PC.

Now, these are for our Honda, but they've got kits for other popular import applications as well. And the kit comes with new springs and these threaded sleeves that allow you to turn these nuts to raise your car up and down. Now you use the span of wrenches that also come in the kit to rotate these nuts.

Now, their kits pretty easy to install, but the first thing is you gotta get your old shocks and struts off of the car. Speaking of that, why don't you get that Honda up in the air?

Good idea.

And I'll bring on our guest gearhead for this project who's more than qualified to help us. Thanks to the place where he got his training

after high school and a stint in the army. Well, this is where our guest gearhead wound up.

It's an automotive school where nearly 25,000 have come already to pursue their career dreams.

More and more these days, future technicians are heading to schools like Wyotech

where you can dive into a jam packed fast track career curriculum and focus on one of several areas from collision refinishing and automotive tech to well diesel and high performance engines.

You learn from the experts and you learn things like sheet metal fabrication,

Louver

Press

and of course how to make a perfect, well,

not to mention things like paint and pin striping.

When we went looking for this weekend's guest gearhead, we didn't have to look further than the southern plains of Wyoming

right now. We want you to meet Robert Warham from Phoenix who just graduated from Wyotech. Welcome to the shop, Robert. What kind of programs did you go through? Well, I took the management program, uh, automotive diesel technology as well as Street Rod. Wow, that's quite a spread. I guess you could be the first one to put a Cummings diesel in a Street Rod if you want. What

was your favorite program? Oh, Street Rod, of course. Ok. What are you gonna do with all that training? Uh I'd like to get a job shortly in a chassis fabrication or high performance engines. That sounds pretty exciting. Well, today your job is to help Chuck and me as you know, and

it looks like he's got the Honda up in there ready to get your hands dirty

hall. You bet. All right. Go to it.

Hey, Robert. Good to see you. Oh, it's great to be here, man. It's gonna be terrific to have another gear head around here to help with the work. Let me show you what I've done so far

now I've already removed the rim and tire and, well, I guess if we start up front here we can tag team this job and hey, we'll get it knocked out in no time. All right. Well, let's have a look at it. All right.

First, remove the brake hose, clamps from the bracket,

remove the damper pinch bolt,

the damper fork bolt,

and then the damper fork itself

finally remove the two upper flange nuts located on top of the strut tower

and take out the strut assembly.

Hey, great job there, Robert. In fact, that was a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be

easy for you to say. How about we go see how easy the back ones are

from inside the trunk, remove the upper shock retaining nuts.

Then the lower shock mounting bolt,

the inner control arm bolt

finally swing the control arm out of the way so you can remove the shock assembly.

Hey, there's that last strut. I guess those rear ones weren't as tough as we thought they were gonna be. Huh? Yeah. How would you know? Well, I guess I wouldn't,

now

these things take a special struck compressor, remove the old springs and install a new one. So, for most of us it's just simpler to take everything down to a front end shop and let the professionals do the job.

That way, you're not gonna be buying any expensive tools either for basically a one time job.

Yeah, I've seen a shop down the street. I'll just take these down there and get them done.

Now, here's something else I want you to check out.

Now. I need to find a couple of replacements for these rusted, lower shock boats and I thought we'd never get them out. But after hammering and hacks sawing and cutting and chiseling. Well, this is about all we've got left.

Well, I'll tell you what, after you guys get back, I'll even help you install the new coil overs. Don't look surprised. And don't you go anywhere? We'll be right back with more horsepower TV. Stay tuned

later. We'll get to the point on how to modernize your muscle cars distributor

and get down right crazy with some more horsepower outtake.

Hey, welcome back to the shop where today we're giving our budget Honda a new stance and some style. Thanks to new coil overs wheels and tires.

Well, it looks like Robert, our guest gearhead and Chuck did a pretty good job getting the stock springs and struts out of the way. Hey, Robert, how to go down the shop? Well, I'm sure glad we had these done down at the shop. Uh, these springs are under a lot of tension and without the proper tools like a struck compressor. Uh, they could jump out of place and really do some damage. I don't know about you, but I like my teeth were.

So do I? Ok. Well, here's what the co over assembly looks like. Now, we've got the adjusters lead sitting here in the original spring pocket. Now, this one's adjusted with all the tension of the spring and the jam that's loose. Once we get it in the car, we can adjust for the ride height we want. Well, how about we get back to work? Uh, let's start with the fronts first. Ok. Doke

slip the strut into place and loosely install the top mounting nuts,

then slip the bottom end of the strut into the damper fork

and install the pinch bolt

next the

deport vote.

Now you can torque the pinch boat to 32 ft pounds and the damp for

boat to 47.

Finally reinstall the break hose, clamps.

Robert left these upper mounting nuts loose intentionally because the struts have to be back in place and the car on the ground before you can tie them.

Man. I can't wait to see what this thing is gonna look like when we're done.

What do you say we get the rest of these coil overs bolted up? Great. Good idea. How about I trade you one for a cup of coffee?

Oh, ok. Yeah.

For the rear coil overs, slide them into place and again, hand, tighten the upper mounting nuts.

Then swing the control arm into place and install the inner control arm boat.

Next, install the lower struck mount boat

and torque it to 40 ft pounds.

Now we're ready to adjust the ride height. So we're gonna start by lowering the vehicle

and supporting the control arms with some jack stands at all four corners.

Now check this out the adjuster that's at the top of its travel, which is about stock ride height

and before we use the Spanner rich to lower it and the vehicle stance. Well, it's a good idea to try out the wheel and tire combination you're going to use to see how everything fits under here.

Hey, it looks like you guys are on a roll and so am I just check out these 17 inch rollers from

mi?

Now, they're nt 555 ZR

rads and they've got a tread based on racing applications plus a special rubber compound and a wide contact patch for improved traction and handling.

Now, we went ahead and mounted ours on a set of K MC spider wheels. They're part of their new Street Rebel series. Now, these are 17 by seven inches wide and

well, check this out. We splurge for the chrome finish for maximum impact with minimum maintenance.

Ok. What do you guys think?

Well, we're definitely heading in the right direction.

Lower. Definitely lower,

much lower.

Well, let's take her down.

Well, everybody agreed that we needed to take this thing down. So we're gonna get this thing about an inch and an eighth off the spring pocket here.

That looks pretty good.

Now, we'll just rotate this spring

until it hits the jam nut.

Oh, yeah,

that ought to do it.

So, Robert. But, yeah, think about our little low budget Honda now. Oh, it's definitely got the attitude, but that body sure needs some help. Maybe a wing or an air dam or, hey, hey, hey, hold on now. We're gonna get to that stuff later on. But

don't you have a plane to catch? Yeah, I almost forgot.

Uh Well, next time you need another wrench around here. Why don't you give me a call? We'll definitely do that. Now, Elmore, how are we doing with our budget over there?

We had 3175 bucks. We started out today

co over kit set us back 2 5600 for the rubber,

1100 for the wheels. So

we got 1225 left to play with, hey, not bad. Now we're gonna play some more with our budget

t another day. But when we come back from the break, we're gonna show you how to put more spark in your muscle cars ignition. Stay tuned.

Welcome to the shop. Now, some of you might remember my 71 Chevelle here from a few shows back when we restored the interior.

Well, today we're gonna go back under the hood and do an ignition upgrade that some of you might wanna consider for your muscle car.

You know, GM, used a point type distributor up until 1975 when they introduced the HE I ignition. Now, by doing so, they eliminated the need for replacing points.

Well, adding some reliability and spark energy.

Well, today we're gonna show you how to upgrade your point type distributor with modern day electronics, so you can get the same benefits.

That's right. Now, this conversion could be done with the distributor still in the car, but we can show it to you a lot better on the bench. Plus it'll give me a chance to check the distributor out for and play and bushing wear.

We're using a breaker less se kit from M and H electrical fabricators. Now it comes with a new module,

a hall effect rotary vein

and this hardware, of course, all you need to install. It is just a few simple hand tools.

The first step is to strip the distributor of the rotor,

then the points

and

the condenser

and finally the advanced springs

and waits.

But now we're ready to install the hall effect rotary vane.

I've gone ahead and inserted one of the mounting screws here on one end so we can open it up and slip it in place on the distributor.

Use a small screwdriver to rotate the screw counter clockwise to thread it into the rotor mounting ear, then repeat it on the other side.

Well, now we're ready to slip the module into place, but you wanna make sure that you match up this hole on the bottom of the module with this projection on the point plate.

Next, secure the module to the point plate with one screw.

There we go and use the other one

to attach the wire clamp.

Now you can attach your original point wire to the module and secure it with that wire clamp.

Yeah,

this clamp is gonna keep the wire away from the shutter vein to keep it from getting

chafed or cut perhaps. And uh now is the time to give the distributor a good spin and check for interference between the shutter vane and the module.

Now, this thing looks ok. So I guess I'm ready to reinstall the advanced weights and the springs and even the rotor. Then this babe will be ready to slip back in the motor.

A good deal man. While we're at it, we're gonna increase the spark energy in that Chevelle with this blast or two coil from MS D.

Now to make sure that extra energy makes it to the plugs, we've got one of their he I caps made from a high performance

alive material with brass terminals. Now, we're also gonna use a set of their 8.5 millimeter plug wires to have only 50 ohms of resistance per foot.

Hey, good timing. Uh You're a little bit slow on your advance though. Would you get to the point, please?

The point is I got the old coil out and I'm ready for the new one. All right, let's get this thing done.

All right. That sounds pretty good. Now, the cost of that conversion kits about 100 and $50. And if you pop for the cap wires and coil, well, you're gonna have to drop about another buck and a quarter.

Well, stay tuned because if you go away, you'll miss some low

brow high-performance humor. Stay tuned.

You know something. We've said it before and here we are to say it again. There's nothing like quality humor and what we've got is nothing like quality humor but you asked for it. So you're gonna get it. Absolutely. Here we are yet another round of horsepower. Our bloopers, of course. Now they've got them for sport compact as well. Of course, they use the same welded steel case construction for long life. Plus, if you're gonna get that unique performance sound, that'll state your case on the street and I really dropped it then didn't I?

Hey, welcome back to the shop and the rest of our air suspension upgrade on our do

so.

Hey, welcome back to the shop and the rest of the air suspension upgrade on our Dodge Dooley here.

No.

Hey, welcome back to the shop

and the rest of our

air suspension. Not great.

Hey, how we doing over here? Oh, great. We got lots of room to pop that new air spring in now

place. Play, pop in place too.

Yeah, you wanna do that?

All

right.

Hey, how we doing over here? Oh, fine, man. We got plenty of room to pop that new air spring in place. Now, in fact,

it's time to drop some nuts on the floor and, uh, get to work

in either case you need to head to an alignment shop after the installation. Now, that's some good advice. But this thing is gonna ride a little bit Strauss

at first

straus.

That's the German word for stiff.

They loosely clamp the other end

into this rear hanger.

Oh, I'm sorry,

this one is for a single tank application like ours, but they also sell dual tank applications as well. Now to get in our tank, we're gonna have to remove our bed and well, to do that, there are about eight bolts, a couple electrical connections and some grounds to get rid of before we get a couple of.

Hey, great job Robert. In

fact, that was a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be

easy for you to say.

Let's go inside.

I

need to find a couple of replacements for these rusted lower shock bolts, man.

I thought we'd never get them out. But after the chisel and the punch and the hacksaw,

that's about all we've got left.

Well, I'll tell you what, after you guys,

this one has a couple of cool options. For example, the side car is actually built from an old 7-Up cooler

and while it still keeps your drinks cold, it also doubles as a seat for your passenger.

Having trouble getting a passenger. Well,

well,

well,

it's run out of battery,

son of

a,

you

know.

What was that?

The hell, what is this?

What did you say?

I don't know.

Oh, there it is.

It's back.

I don't know what the hell it said.

Some kind of devil language or something. I don't know, but

no

gossip.

Just

yeah,

pa

get me out of this side

and we go here

uh

damn. Fill our back.

Are you all on there?

Crazy.

We got it going. Then didn't we?

Horsepower TV. S

hot parts is brought to you by Wyotech.

The nation's premier technical training school.

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right

the

cheek.

Whoa,

for information about the products used in today's show and more. Check us out online at Horsepower tv.com

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