GTRA Chassie Upgrades

[teamlorenz]

I am also trying to figure out what the chassie upgrades are. I did some reading but never saw any pictures. I think the car I am working on has the front but not the rear. does anyone have some pictures they could send me?

Thanks
Chris Lorenz

[MarkMc26]

* chassis

www.panozgtra.com looks to be pretty defunct these days, and it had a bunch of info. But, if you plug website that into www.wayback.com then you can find old info from when Wayback saved a snapshot.

This is probably what you're looking for (from July 2017):
http://web.archive.org/web/201707170...is/chassis.htm

My GT-WC has all of those reinforcements. My rear shock mount braces are just 1"x1" steel angle, not round tube.

Mark

[teamlorenz]

Thanks a ton for the great information.
Chris

[Steve Hummel]

In rebuilding our Panoz GTS in 2018, chassis #50, we made a few other chassis improvements besides the factory ones that came with the car:

• replaced all aluminum suspension arms with chromoly steel
• replaced the front rectangular bar that connects the left/right of the chassis with a round chromoly tube that is triangulated to the vertical chassis bars
• changed the aluminum front steering arm single shear design to a double shear & bump steered the front end (0.018" of bump steer over 5" of suspension travel)
• moved upper balljoint back 7/8" to get a better caster/camber/bump steer alignment
• changed the upper control arm camber adjustment to a "captured" system
• replaced the front flexible "skirt" with a easily removable (via Dzus) aluminum undertray that extended back to the front of the engine with a 1.5" shear plate extending outwards
• went one size larger on the front inner lower control arm mount for the rod end

We are running 295/30/18 on the front & 315/30/18 Hoosiers on the rear. We found that the stock camber adjustment system did not hold up under high speed tracks such as Mosport. The stiffening of the chassis & improved geometry really made the car much more stable & predictable at speed.


We are still running the stock wing however we "tweaked" its location & we vented the front hood at the sides & top to evacuate air from under the car as we get about 160mph at Mosport with our pump gas 351W hydraulic cammed engine. Without the aero improvements the hood would lift & the car would be unsettled at speed (early videos were kinda scary).


If anyone wants any pictures of our changes please e-mail me, stevejhummel at g****.com


Best,


Steve


p.s. we made a bunch of other "improvements" including replacing the transmission cover with an aluminum "clamshell" held by Dzus fasteners, makes servicing the transmission real easy & replacing the air-engine oil cooler with a coolant-engine oil cooler. We also changed to the TKX transmission this year, no more problems cracking TKO cases (at least once per year) or having leaks (even though we were using the Liberty screw-in front cluster support).

[teamlorenz]

Thanks Steve, I sent you an email.

Chris Lorenz