She mentioned to me that we carried two longer spare bolts for the inner lower control arm mounts, otherwise all others were the same length with spare spacers to add as I mentioned above. I don't understand a few things they did when they designed these cars. Number one was the grade 8 bolts. Look at your bolts as they were licorice sticks. Grade 5 is simular to a fresh stick out of the bag, nice and flexable and will not bust off if you wack the dashboard of your car with it. On the other hand, grade 8 is like a piece of licorice laying on your dash for a month. Pick it up and it is hard and brittle, smack the dash with it and it will shatter. I never understood, when I started helping our dealer with these cars back in around '02, why they installed suspention components at USLC with grade 8 bolts.. and coarse threads on top of it all. None of the bolts are safety wired eather as the bolts on my sprint car chassis were (fine thread and safety wired) for true dirt racing. Grade 8 bolts are brittle but their application is best used for situations requiring consistant torque. Like a head bolt application that has no side forces applied to it, so sheering is not an issue with the assistance of hollow dowells. Grade 5 bolts are the way to go for suspention mount components because they flex and give. During a normal season, a bolt change is in order (simular to thunder's comment) depending how many races you run a season. We have 4 tracks that constantly race Legends on a weekly basis with 4 or 5 more that run specials for us every now and then. I like changing out bolts every 6 to 8 races.
Another issue to watch is cage mount welds. On dirt, some tracks being rather rough, you get more chassis flex over and over, than tracks which these cars were designed for (asphalt). Every couple weeks around here, I take the body off and check every weld.. most cracks are found at the A pillar base mount. That is a whole nuther topic though... I am on chassis number 4 over the years and it is normal policy that when we get a chassis, all grade 8 bolts get removed from the suspention and replaced with grade 5 bolts when we strip the chassis and go through it. Sux hitting a chuck hole on dirt at around 70 plus mph and sheer a bolt. Been there done that.... You guys, all this racin talk has me anticipating beating this colon cancer and goin racin again.. lol that's what I get for signing back into this site !! anticipation
~ Gimpster ~
