Inverted alliance Club

[fastcorvairs]

We have a new member of the Inverted Alliance Club.  Larry Williams is our local Subaru and Mendiola guru here in the Wichita Kansas area.   Not once but twice he put his wife's little 2.2 Subaru on its lid yesterday.  First off we had a day trip planned for the day with Larry myself and Jerry Cass because Jerry had a cousin visiting down from Boston.  His cousin has never been in Oklahoma let alone in the sand. Arriving at LS in the early hours we all unloaded and hit the dunes.  I was leading and after assaulting all the dunes a view time I headed off into the trees for Thunder alley. About mid way into the trees I got the call on radio from Jerry that Larry was upside down.  We like to keep Larry in between us because of the old school buggy he was driving dose not have the travel we have.  I turned around and by the the time I got back to them Jerry and his cousin had Larry turned back onto his wheels.  Not much damage that time.  It was a slow roll off a berm that he had pounced the go pedal at the wrong time.  Only busted his whip and bent the roll cage to the right some and bent the top wing some.  Back to the day parking lot and with the help of a few ratchet straps and the 30.0000 pound winch on Jerry's trailer we got it all pulled back out and looking good.  Had to lash the car to the trailer to keep if from moving.  After lunch we headed back out for our last run before heading home.  Jerry was leading with Larry in the middle and me bringing up the tail.  Jerry likes to make some really tight turns now and then and we had just completed a really tight turn left on top of one of the taller dunes,  Come to think about it was about mid way across the big one that Faber went off of, anyway Jerry turned right and crossed over the peek and down, I seen Larry go over and I knew it was not a good roll as he went over the back of his car bucked up.  I pulled hard to the right knowing that Larry was going to be upside down on the other side.  At that same moment I went for my brakes, missed and hit the go peddle.  As I flew over the top all I could see was a sand storm from Larry's car lawn darting and cart wheeling.  My car hit about half way down on the front two wheels and then settled down on the back two.  I was just to the right of Larry as I tore through the water that was at the bottom of the hill.  When we all got out and over to Larry's car he was by the grace of the man up stairs OK.  A little raddled but OK.  Top of car was down, wing was trashed one tire off the rim and one trashed trailing arm on the rear.  the picture's show me pulling the car up so Jerry could get one of his front tires under the car so we could get the tire back on the rim.  I called Larry this AM and all but for some sore ribs he is fine.  The belts did there job and and the cage did a good job of keeping him safe. He did say that it mite be a while before his wife would trust him to take her car out for a day trip. 

[fastcorvairs]

BTW that trashed whip, That's a hi $$$$$$$$$$$$$ extra lighted one that I loaned him after he busted the his earlier.

And for anyone interested the motor Larry was running, 2.2 Subaru was as simple as simple you can get.  Larry had built the intakes and mounted a pair of 48 IDF Weber's. The engine was originally fuel injected.  He used a Volvo 4 cyl distributor and mounted it to the right rear head at the end of the single cam, the drive slot was already on the Subaru cam.  Added a coil and it run like gangbusters.  So simple and bullet prof as you can get.  That little car was hard to keep up with even with our turbo 2.5's.   I told him that he needed to build a couple of them and we could sell em.  A good 2.2 from a salvage yard would only cost about three or four hundred buck's.  You can put any carb you want on it and the distributor fix was nothing a home faber could not take care of. 

[dsrace]

first and foremost I am glad everyone it OK!!!!      that was a damn good driving day!!  so is he looking at a little more travel and maybe a 5 link rear end now? lol   I know it's very hard to tell from pic but that broken heim from the front of his trailing arm doesn't look like a chromoly heim, rather a low carbon steel 3 piece body style heim but hard to tell from the pic.  if it's a low carbon I actually blew the ball out of one of those on my v6 rail lol     that was one heck of a day trip for all you guys!! lol

[fastcorvairs]

first and foremost I am glad everyone it OK!!!!      that was a damn good driving day!!  so is he looking at a little more travel and maybe a 5 link rear end now? lol   I know it's very hard to tell from pic but that broken heim from the front of his trailing arm doesn't look like a chromoly heim, rather a low carbon steel 3 piece body style heim but hard to tell from the pic.  if it's a low carbon I actually blew the ball out of one of those on my v6 rail lol     that was one heck of a day trip for all you guys!! lol

That hime and trailing arm never had a chance.  When he lawn darted the car flipped and landed on the rear left corner.  When it hit it bounced over to its top.  Folded that trailing arm like a pretzel.

[dsrace]

damn glad he's ok!

[Carlriddle]

2 upsies in one day he should go straight to VP of Club.  Glad he's ok.  Also glad I'm to far for a day trip, that seems to be when crap hits fan.



 Actually I wished I was close enough for day trip.......

[fastcorvairs]

He has stated that he felt he was driving out of his expertise.  if you feel at anytime when flowing someone that you are out of your league then you should drop out.  We would see to it that we either slowed down or that you will get picked back up. Everyone has their limits.  better safe than sorry.  That is why I like running with a car leading with a radio and one car at the end with a radio.  That way when someone is lagging the last car in line can inform the leader to slow up some.  You all know the drill, different strokes for different folks.  some people like to go out and just cruise and some people like to hammer it to the limits.  I do feel that I could have informed Jerry that Larry's car was not handling the transitions over the peck's well.  I could tell that his car did not have enough travel for the way we were driving.  I'm just glad that he is ok.  Talked to him yesterday, said that he was a little sore in the ribs and that his better half was not talking to him much.Said things were a little cool around the house.    LOL.   

We have a plan on what we are going to do to fix the car.  Top two roll bar's are trash. Going to cut both off and build new one's. Frame is not tweaked any.  Going to put in some cross bar's behind the driver and passenger seats.  the frame is a Mazzon frame just mild steel but it stood up the the pounding pretty good.  I'm going to try and talk him into a five link rear end along with longer beam arms up front.   

[Carlriddle]

Good point.  Diff vehicle+diff driver=diff speeds.  Keep it safe.

[dsrace]

from the looks of the cage design, it shouldn't be too hard or lengthy to replace the two bent upper tubes. the fun part will be how far the front and rear spring open once you make the first cut! lol  never a good thing but good thing the cage held and he didn't end up in the middle of the pond upside down!!  as far as a multi link rear end goes.....well you know my thoughts on that !    but even with longer arms on the beam do you think it will balance out or would it just be best to convert to a arm on the front and set the ride super plush as a "sorry dear" to the miss's? the wide open front end would be easy to do. I don't know them or her so can't say for sure that she doesn't ride as hard as he does, but giving the fact the cage wasn't already bent.... I'm betting she doesn't    so......whatever makes her happy to smoooooth things out on the home front!!