Wilwood Pedal Assembly Mounting

[Don Foreman]

I am slowly rebuilding an old Gt3 Civic run in Canada by Jamie Houseman in the early 80s. I recently replaced the cage with one that will pass current tech inspection. I am on to the steering mounts and pedal assembly mounts. I am slow but I'm trying to do the repairs right. So here is the question. I have the pedal mount plates by AA Manufacturing that lets you move the pedal assembly forward and back a few inches as needed. To get the pedals in the right place vertically I have to either fabricate J shaped square tube rails to make up the 4" difference between the dash bar and the level where the pedals need to sit. As an alternative I can just incline the rails slightly to meet the dash bar. The straight rails with no J bend would be easier to fabricate and may give slightly more shin room in the small drivers area. Any drawbacks to mounting the Wilwood pedal assembly at a slight incline? The bleeders are in the right place to do this. I'm leaning toward the straight rails and inclined pedal assembly, but before they get welded in, I just wanted to get any feedback as cutting them out would be a few hours work that I don't need in the future. The cage still needs a few braces installed, so no worries there. I was just doing the bigger stuff first.

 

[atimmons]

The mounting of these pedal assemblies is intended to be level. Any incline from level will cause angular issues with pedal travel or master cylinder shaft engagement in the balance bar clevises.
You will want to verify that the master cylinder shafts have enough thread engagement (either too short or too long) and that the pedal arm has enough travel to give full required travel for braking if you intend to mount them on an angle other than level.
The pedal travel "feel" may also be "odd" depending on how your leg and foot interact with the angle that the pedal hangs from the pivot point.
A couple of degrees may not matter, but I would think that beyond 5 degrees of inclination, you would not like the results.
I would suggest playing with the assembled master cylinders and pedal, shortening and lengthening the master cylinder shafts in the clevises to see the resulting affects, before getting too set and involved on a mounting solution.

 

[Don Foreman]

Thank you for the information, it helps a lot! I even looked at Wilwoods install instructions and they don't say one way or the other. I did start fabricating the rails this afternoon with the assembly level. My reasoning was if it looks normal then its less likely to draw attention in a safety inspection. Now I can keep going.

 

[Joel McGinley]

My experience was a long time ago in a Bugeye, but I decided that the most important factor was that the pedals would be in a familiar and comfortable position, to avoid any 'missed pedal' calamities. With GT rules I think you can position the driver for CG benefits, right? - and to get some distance away from the door bars. It could be wasted effort, and a safety risk- if you find the pedals offset left/right from your legs. (Wasn't that a factor in the Audi and ? car "unintended acceleration" accidents???)
I suggest that you get the seat mounted with respect to the new cage, etc, then position pedals and steering wheel. I made a simple pattern (heavy cardboard and some wood?) of the old pedal locations, with a matching pattern for my feet. The new assembly was temporarily installed (level - no tilt) with wood blocks, etc so I could verify the foot/pedal "feel", then suitable supports made - very stiff.

 

[Don Foreman]

Thank you both for the advise, it helps a lot. The plan is to just tack it all and then adjust the seat, column and pedals to the fit of the car. Tack welds are easy to remove when done right. The interior is very small and I want to be able have a driving coach fit in there too as I am not the best driver, never was. There is only one position for the pedal assembly horizontally, +/- about 1/2" . Most of the area is inner fender well, then the column has to feed through the middle and the factory gas pedal is over there. The big question was inclining the pedals, but that's been answered. I will do some more work on it over the weekend.