New Company building IFS for c-1..comments?

[newbe60]

Thought I would share this if anyone is interested and wanted some people's thoughts as to what they think of this set-up and if they ever heard of this Company

http://www.martzchassis.net/page10.htm




MARTZ CHASSIS is out of Bedford PA. The company has been makeing front and rear parts and clips for about 35 years.. they sold over 100 Camaro front kits for the Pro touring crowd in the last 12 months.. they usually handle old nova,mustang and camaro IFS and rears. I'm a newbe so excuse the post and me sounding like an idiot but I thought I would try and find out more info and then maybe someone with more experience could follow up..

the design and geometry on the vette is the same as his Camaro's nova's and stangs so to get an idea what it would do on the street go to his web site as it had been in plenty of magazines.. mostly his stuff as I said is for pro touring and they seem to do skidpad 's on them (accoring to Mr Martz the vette front end should do about the same as the camaro and others since it's the same parts and geometry& design). The tube arms are made by him, the design and geometry is his own. His ball joints are either NAPA or Moog. He makes his own spindles for the last 30 years using 4140 CNC. The rack and pinion power is a NAPA Mustang power rack and the mannual is flaming river. His $2,500 Basic IFS include coilovers that are monroe which have a 3" height adjustment or for $200 more the QA1 will work. His standard package ($2,500) uses brake parts from Camaro 77 rotors and Camaro 86 calibers. But again another $650 or so will get you Willwood. He has a bracket for the front plate and uses poly busings. I'm still learning so please excuse the post if somthing sounds like I don't know what I'm taking about. I probably don't . I'm going to do more research on his Camaro stuff from the Camaro forum to get an idea before I'm the first to jump into the water on this set-up and be the Guinea pig.. but let me know what you think so far. or if anyone in PA has heard of his reputation. He's sold a few so i'm trying to get the e-mail addresses from people who have it in already to see if they are happy.



here's some links to magazine articles about his IFS


http://www.popularhotrodding.com/features/0411phr_ford

http://www.carcraft.com/eventcoverage/0302_real/index4.html

this one you may have to copy and paste

http://www.superchevy-web.com/features/0502sc_69cam/


Thoughts??????????

 

[newbe60]

guess no thoughts

I still think it's interesting

 

[Mac]

I overlooked your original post... sorry about that!
Good looking setups... would be great for retrofits...

-Mac

 

[firstgear]

let me know what you find....the price is good....

 

[Loren Smith]

I wonder if Jim Meyer Racing ends up suing them for copying their design.

http://jimmeyerracing.com/cv2.html

 

[firstgear]

It isn't totally copied dimension for dimension nor detail for detail and there is plenty of prior art out there....if you look at the way the upper control arms mount it is totally different.....it would be hard to patent a coil over design....given that they have been around for a long long time....there is nothing illegal about copying someone's product if they don't have a patent....heck even if they do have a patent, all you have to do is side step the claims in one detail to get around them....this is no big deal to do....if they spent money on a patent....it was ill advised.....patents are only good if you decide to defend them....and that means minimum of $250k-$500k in costs in the USA to do it....I doubt that he has even sold that many front ends yet....never mind get that much money in profit for this and then to spend the money on lawyers....now that is a waste of money....

 

[studiog]

My next project may be a C-1 retro rod so this is very interesting firstgear. Always good to see some fair competition. I would hope the "legal beagles" at Martz had already discussed potential patent violations before releasing this product to market. I will keep this in my files for future reference. Thanks.

 

[Loren Smith]

Seriously, it's nice to see the competition. We as consumers are winners when we have choices. If someone else was selling a bolt-in C1 front suspension when I bought mine from Jim Meyer, maybe I would have saved a little dough.

 

[studiog]

Seriously, it's nice to see the competition. We as consumers are winners when we have choices. If someone else was selling a bolt-in C1 front suspension when I bought mine from Jim Meyer, maybe I would have saved a little dough.

How would you rate your Jim Meyers, are you happy and how big of an improvement did it make? Did you do the rear suspension also? Sorry for so many questions.

 

[Loren Smith]

I'm still in the middle of a body-off resto, so I haven't had a chance to drive it yet. But the installation was pretty straight forward, and it looks pretty trick when done. Here are some pics of my chassis:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=54606

 

[Vette66AirCoupe]

I'm still in the middle of a body-off resto, so I haven't had a chance to drive it yet. But the installation was pretty straight forward, and it looks pretty trick when done. Here are some pics of my chassis:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=54606

How much more hassle would you expect the project to be if someone was installing this clip with the body on?

 

[firstgear]

I called Martz and from what I can tell....you are on your own once you buy it....it doesn't have any documentation to come with it...I asked about other piceces such as master cylinders and he told me that well....I suppose you will need one of those, perhap a Mustang or some other type might work and oh yeah we had to make a longer shaft to go in the master cylinder...I left the phone thinking, this wasn't really a complete system, I don't need to be chasing parts that I don't know exactly what I need...I would prefer a system that is complete and will install without me chasing other parts....where with Myers the guy could tell me everything that I needed as well and when talking to the guy from Martz(owner?) on the phone, I felt that if a person was a big car builder guy then this should be no problem....but I felt that I would be calling far too many times on the phone asking questions...and wasn't sure I would always understand what he was telling me.....I think I will shy away from the new company....Myers is sending me a catalog as well as an installation sheet....we'll see how that goes....I am leaning more and more in that direction.

In my case I would do the change out with the body on but the motor out......

 

[Loren Smith]

How much more hassle would you expect the project to be if someone was installing this clip with the body on?

Of course it's easier without the body in the way, but it shouldn't be too much harder with the body on, as you assemble the entire unit together on a bench, before bolting it up. Here are the installation instructions:

http://jimmeyerracing.com/instructions/Corvette.pdf

In the instructions, they assume you are installing the suspension without benefit of doing a body-off, so clearly it can be done.

You would want to bolt on the bare crossmember to the frame (test fit), first, to see what you need to trim. I had to trim a sliver off the stock crossmember support bracket portion of my frame (a/k/a frame flange), as predicted in the Jim Meyer instructions (see instruction 42). I also had to use a little leverage with a long screwdriver through the bolt holes to pull apart the frame rails about 1/2" on each side to line up the holes.

The only other cutting you need to do is a small fiberglass portion of each inner skirt to clear the a-arms (instruction 44), which you can glass back if you ever go back to stock. You don't need to cut as much as what is shown on instruction 44, so measure first. Finally, after you bolt it on, you need to weld a small tab on each side from the upper tower to the frame (Instruction 45).

The hardest part of the assembly for me was Instruction 12 - hammering the pivot shaft through the a-arm and crossmember. I tore up two really nice deadblow hammers before giving up and skipping to Instruction 13, screwing in the supplied capshaft screw, and wacking away with a real hammer. I buggered up the screw pretty good, but was still able to get it out with an allen wrench after some finagling. If you used some sort of hex-head bolt for this step, one that you did not worry about damaging with the hammer, but still could back out with a wrench when done, that would probably work best.

 

[kabong]

I just got through putting the Jim Meyers system on my 60. It's a pita with the car all together but it's worth it. I got about 600 miles on it and I love it, Performs as advertised. If anyone else would be interested, I would be glad to point out a few shortcuts. If you doing a frame off, now's the time! About 4,000 total with the IDIDIT column.

 

[Vette66AirCoupe]

I wrote to the folks at Martz back in late July. This is what I wrote.

Hello,
I have a '60 Corvette that I've been considering upgrading to a more modern suspension. I'm interested in your Complete Bolt-in Subframe Unit. Do you folks do installations? Can you give me a ballpark estimate?
Terry

This was the reply I recieved just today.

sorry it took so long to get back to you.
The cost of the front is $2500, and installation of the front is $1680.

Not much detail regarding some of the obvious questions. I have no idea whether this includes master cylinder and brake line revisions. Likewise, I don't know whether the steering column is included. The price seems reasonable if it's what it's supposed to be.