Probe GT Doner parts put to work !

[lxoom]

Friday I bought a 94 Ford Probe GT for a doner car. I pulled the control arms, hubs, suspension, and cut the strut towers out of it. The car is now scrapped !

heres some pics of the hybrid PGT/Festy control arms, took me 5 hours to make one. and took another 7 hours to get the control arm mounted. I threw in a pic with the hub on there just to see what it looked like. Tomorrow ill have pics with the PGT strut tower welded in and suspension and such bolted up.

As of now I plan on running a 215/40/16 on the stock PGT "swirlie" wheel. once i get one mounted up we'll see if its actually doable.....

[HondaSlayer]

That will look sweet if that suspention swap will work. the 5 lug will give the festiva a mean look. Hope everything works out for you. good luck

[gorgonheimer]

Pictures of rear mount!!!!

[Damkid]

this should be interesting

[muscle_Car1]

Yeah it would be nice, Where are you mounting the other part of the A-arm to?

[lxoom]

Pictures of rear mount!!!!

i tried, didnt turn out too well while laying under a car with the camera 3 inches away from what im taking a picture of

Yeah it would be nice, Where are you mounting the other part of the A-arm to?

hard to describe, but there is a steel plate above where the oem mount is. I ran a 12 " long piece of angle iron welded it to the plate and ran along side the frame rail with 2 12mm tranny bolts through the frame rail and angle iron. with another steel plate on the other end of the angle for the 2 bolts on the control arm.

the one side is finished i had the strut and knuckle bolted up today and tried the wheel on for size.... looks somewhat like a monster festiva

when the other side is done im going to integrate a crossmember to link the two sides together at the rear control arm mounts...

[FB71]

Am I going to be the only one to point out that its a VERY bad idea to weld to a forging? The Festy LCA should not be welded to. Welding on forgings and casting causes embrittlement of the material, which will lead to catastrophic failure. Please, for your safety and of those around you, replace the portion of Festy LCA with a stub arm fabricated from chrome moly tube. I like what you're doing, and want to see you and the car stick around, not read about you on failblog.org

[Damkid]

So what exactly are you planning to do? are you going to attempt a V6 swap or something?

[gorgonheimer]

Woot for v6!!!

[lxoom]

Am I going to be the only one to point out that its a VERY bad idea to weld to a forging? The Festy LCA should not be welded to. Welding on forgings and casting causes embrittlement of the material, which will lead to catastrophic failure.

welding to a forging can be done if the piece is pre and post heated

So what exactly are you planning to do? are you going to attempt a V6 swap or something?

no, i wanted something that will give me options for big brakes and good tires and coil over suspension for time attack, went with a pgt because im familiar with the car so why not ?

[Damkid]

no, i wanted something that will give me options for big brakes and good tires and coil over suspension for time attack, went with a pgt because im familiar with the car so why not ?

Ah makes sense, if you need a hand, your only an hour and a half away from

[FB71]

welding to a forging can be done if the piece is pre and post heated

true, but somehow I doubt that was done in this case, given the rubber bushings are still in place, and there are no signs of heat cycling on the painted PGT LCA. The heating and cooling process must be done over several hours, sometimes days, in the case of larger pieces. Additionally, the required heat cycling for the forging or casting will significantly change the temper of the stamped steel piece attached to it. Thermal conditioning is only successfull if welding a casting/forging to a casting/forging. Attaching stamped or rolled steel to a casting or forging requires furnace brazing.

[lxoom]

true, but somehow I doubt that was done in this case, given the rubber bushings are still in place, and there are no signs of heat cycling on the painted PGT LCA. The heating and cooling process must be done over several hours, sometimes days, in the case of larger pieces. Additionally, the required heat cycling for the forging or casting will significantly change the temper of the stamped steel piece attached to it. Thermal conditioning is only successfull if welding a casting/forging to a casting/forging. Attaching stamped or rolled steel to a casting or forging requires furnace brazing.

you sound like you know more then i do... obviously a welder or some background in metallurgy ? All i did was heat the end of the festiva lca with oxy/acet. then put it in my jig and welded it. after it was welded I let it cool for a bit and put the steel brace around it and welded that.. obviously I want to do this right and probably will make changes more then once if i find ive done something sub-par... but if the car brakes it willl be on the race track and I will be the only car on the track so no ones going to get hurt rest assured. thanks for the advice and input

[gorgonheimer]

ever thought of tubular a arm. you have the mount on the festy body and could use the mount you made on the rear of your a arm. tube would weld nice and one could use the servicable ball joint from the egt as a base for your a arm.

[muscle_Car1]

^ I'm with him use what you have as a template for tubular control arms. You might even make it so you could retain the stock sway bar