Era 2054

[JPit]

I’ve had my ERA for almost a year now and have put roughly 700 miles on the car. As summer comes to an end I want to start preparing some winter projects for the car.
First on the list is the way the 17in wheels look. I don’t like the way they fill out the wheel wells and I would prefer knock offs instead of the bolt on rims. The car is definitely sitting too high in the front as per the ERA manual. The chassis is set at about 5 1/4in all around which is about ½ an inch too high in the front. The mammoth tires (front 275/40, rear 335/35) also makes the steering feel a bit heavy for around town driving.
I would like to take the suspension down at least ½ in the front to 4.75in, possibly even a little more before I change the wheels. I would like to see how the17in wheels fill out the wells before I make the decision to replace them with 15in wheels. What height do most of you guys have your FIA’s set too, and how much ground clearance do you have with your under car exhaust. Right now my exhaust only sits 3in off the ground at the lowest point and I’m afraid if I take the suspension down I might run into (literally) speed bump and curb issues. I might need to do some exhaust work and tuck the pipes in a little closer, but I am sure that will require some additional heat shielding.
If I do go the whole distance and switch to 15in knock offs how big a job and how much do you think the whole process will cost? Right now the car drives perfectly (with the exception of the heavy steering) so I am a little concerned to mess with a good thing. I would hate to spend a decent penny and end up with a car that doesn’t drive as well. Aesthetics and street driving are my primary objectives because I doubt I will ever track the car.
I also have one other nit picking issue and that is with the flex in the dashboard. When I am parking and have to apply brute force to turn the steering wheel the dash (where the steering column is attached) flexes about ¼ inch. Translated out to the end of the steering column where the steering wheel is and it causes about a ½ move in the steering wheel whether up or down. I was wondering if anyone else had any issues with the strength of their dash boards (race dash) and how they resolved it. Overall this really isn’t a big issue, but I still want to make the car as perfect as I can.
I uploaded the pictures to an album on my site, but can't get them to post here (why is it so difficult) if anyone wants to take a look. I'll try again tomorrow to attach the pictures to the post.

[xb-60]

Hi JPit,
I'm not an owner (yet), but from the information I've soaked up from this great resource while planning a build of my own, it would seem that a good option would be to go for the pin-drive 15" wheels with 275/60x15 rear tyres and 245/60x15 fronts. These would fill out the wheels arches nicely, and consensus seems to be that these are close to a period correct appearance. At the same time the car will sit slightly higher, so helping your exhaust clearance concerns, but probably not look as if it's sitting higher. Steering would be a little lighter with the narrower, higher profile tyres.
Not sure if the 17" wheels can be machined to suit knock-off hubs, but if they can, then you'll have a set of wheels/tyres ready to fit for track work or autocross, if that's your thing. Otherwise, sell 'em.
Cheers,
Glen

[JPit]

Thanks Glen, good luck with your build

[JPit]

Here are the pictures. I wish I knew how to make them bigger

[kgs365]

i like the color...looks aggressive with the big meats

[smallblockhead]

JPit,

There are two ways you can go to get 15" knockoff wheels, either purchase and install 6-pin hubs from ERA and get 6-pin knockoff wheels or go with adapters for your existing hubs and 5-pin knock off wheels. Trigo makes both kinds. The more authentic (and thus the more expensive) way would be the 6-pin hubs, the less expensive route is the adapters. You will have to figure out the proper backspacing for the wheels depending on which route you select. I went for authenticity.

The ERA manual specifies 4.75" front/5.25" rear ground clearance (on frame). I run a little less than that with the 17" wheels/tires, since they are only 25.7 inches tall. I'm running 275s up front, 315s in the rear.

Have fun with your winter tweaking!

Gary

[JPit]

Thanks Gary,

As far as not being authentic what other differences will there be? Do adapters look different? Will anyone other than me know they are adapters if I go that route?

I will bring the height down a little (to at least the factory setting) to see how it looks. What do you think it will do to the suspension; will I have to go get the car corner balanced after I lower it?

How much ground clearance do you have with you exhaust?

[smallblockhead]

JPit,

The adapters should not look any different that the 6-pin hub version from the outside, only you will know. The new wheel backspacing will be the issue you will have to deal with. The adapters will add 3/8 to 1/2 inch to the hub, so you will have to have a backspacing on the wheel to account for that. Bob P at ERA is good about helping you sort out backspacing.

As far as height adjustment, I believe that the lower control arms in front should be parallel to the ground, and the rear should be "raked" 1/2 inch higher. I don't think you want to try to set the heights as in the manual unless you have tires which are the recommended sizes. I'm running 4.5"/5.0" front/rear.

Unless you are going to do some serious track work, I don't think you will need to corner balance. With the ride height set close to specs and equal on both sides, the corner weights are going to be pretty close.

My car has the undercar "street" exhaust which I modified to exit in front of the rear wheels, so I have close to 4" of ground clearance, but I still ding the mufflers sometime.

Gary

[xb-60]

Originally Posted by smallblockhead

The ERA manual specifies 4.75" front/5.25" rear ground clearance (on frame). I run a little less than that with the 17" wheels/tires, since they are only 25.7 inches tall. I'm running 275s up front, 315s in the rear.

As a comparison, a ‘typical’ 295/50x15 tyre has a diameter of 26.8”, and a 275/60x15 has a diameter of 28.1”
The 275/60x15 rear tyre will fill out the wheelarches nicely and give you better ground clearance as well
Cheers,
Glen

[JPit]

Thanks Gary, the exhaust height is what concerns me. I currently only have 3 inches of ground clearance and if I take the car down anymore I will hit too many things.

[ZOERA-SC7XX]

As for the heavy steering, you might want to go with the larger dia Moto-Lita wheel. It's the same size and looks as the original, and makes steering a little easier. You also may have too much negative camber. If these changes don't work for you, look into ERA's new power steering setup. (The big Moto-Lita looks great).

[DanEC]

Will a 275/60-15 at 28 inches diameter fit an ERA FIA in the rear? They won't fit the 427 model. Max dia. recommended to clear is about 27 inches. Maybe the frame kickup is moved on the FIA for more clearance.

[FIA-ERA]

JPit,

Well on my car I did the exhaust different than ERA has it. I saw too many FIA's that looked like they were riding too high in the front and the exhaust was just barely off the ground. On my car I "notched" the outer frame extensions and boxed them in where I removed the material. I basically took a 4" hole saw cut out the material and then re welded a curved piece back. The results are my exhaust sits actually higher than my frame in the front then flairs a little more downward in the rear. The only downside is there is more heat build up but I just installed more Dyna mat there to help and it's perfect. In my opinion mine looks more "original" and definitely works great. I haven't ever scrubbed one time over any speed bumps.

As for the Trigo's, I believe they only offer one offset for the ERA FIA. I got mine from Lynn Park at the time he still owned them and he knew exactly what I needed. The wheels are different front to back also in bolt hole spacing. The adapters work great and the wheels "ARE" the right ones for the car ( they look better than others). I run 235 60 15 up front and 295 60 15 in the rear. My car absolutely drives fantastic and handles pretty impressively with low speed rated tires! The 17" wheels don't look bad but there is a lot of compromise with both. The 15" tires are getting harder to come by and most here say the Avon's are the way to go. As far as lowering your car, be careful as when you lower the car not only do you change the corner balances BUT you will have to re align the both ends of the car. Do you have any rear end shims for the jag rear end, they are special. I set my car up exactly as ERA suggested and then had to add shims to both sides of my rear end. I actually put drivers weight in the seat also. With 235lbs in that seat it does have an effect on how it's set up. The front I eye balled (2 foot level and a tape measure) and when I took it in to be aligned the drivers side was perfect and the passenger side needed only a couple 1/8 shims.

There is a lot more involved when lowering these cars, not that it's hard just involved. There is a lot of things to consider and I would call Doug at ERA for advice too, he's tha man! Glad to hear you got everything worked out and are now enjoying the car! If you email me, I'll try and dig up some pics of my exhaust mods. Best Regards, Matt

[Jim Holden]

JPit:

Given your FIA's gold paint scheme (Pete's "Rushin"), you will need to check brake caliper clearance if you go to a smaller diameter wheel. Your car (as I recall) has "big brakes".

Jim

[JPit]

Jim
You are correct this is "Rushin" and it does have the big brakes. I didn't even think of the brake clearance thanks for the heads up. I might just be keeping the 17in wheels now.


Matt,

The car also has the ERA custom rear with the outboard brakes. Does this make it easier or harder to align if I take the ride height down a bit, as you discribed above?

John

[strictlypersonl]

Originally Posted by FIA-ERA

JPit,
...The wheels are different front to back also in bolt hole spacing.... Matt

Not correct. Both the front and rear are 5 x 4.75" patterns. The only difference is the thread size.
Front: 7/16-20
Rear: 1/2"-20

And, check that any new 15" front wheels have adequate caliper clearance. See this page.

[tkb289]

JPit,

I look forward to see how your mods go with 2054, you have a great car there, I remember looking at it on Cobra Country, a very unique ERA … love the gold paint!


To answer one of your questions for larger photos, it's actually quite easy ...

1 - Sign up for a free photobucket account
2 - Upload your photos
3 - Below each photo will be (4) boxes

- Email & IM
- Direct link
- HTML code
- IMG code

4 - Copy the IMG code for each picture and paste that line of text into your post, where you want the photo to be placed.

Do a preview before you post, to be sure it looks the way you what it to. I would recommend making a draft of your post in Word or some other text editor. Then once you have everything in place, copy and paste into your Club Cobra post. It does take a little time, but makes for a good post. There are probably other free photo hosting sites, I am only familiar with photobucket.


Lots of great advice here from other ERA FIA owners … if you get stuck, Bob, Peter and crew at ERA will no doubt be the ultimate resource.

I too have noticed some ERA FIA's tend to have low pipes near the front. I am at the exhaust install phase of the build for 2136. I too will have a setup similar to Gary's on 2062 … may even look to see if the collector length on the headers needs to be shorted just a bit … has anyone else done that to get the pipes a bit higher?

- Tim

[FIA-ERA]

Thanks Bob,

I stand corrected. I just remember Lynn saying there was a difference. It's only been 6 years since I bought them. I'm still as fast as I always thought I was too Regards, Matt

[Jim Holden]

We shortened the pipes on 2045 slightly to tuck them up a little closer to the chassis, etc. If anything the primaries as they come from ERA are a little long to account for production tolerances, different motors/head combinationsand and motor-mounts. After all, it is much easier to cut a slightly too long pipe than have to add to a short one.

Jim

[JPit]

Jim, your car looks amazing. So you shortened the primary pipes where they attach to the headers? Your car also looks like it sits quite a bit lower than mine, or just the appearance because of the 15in wheels or is the ride height lower than the ERA suggested height?