No plans for any ChampCar races this year, unfortunately, but they're on the table for 2021. Getting the car done is requiring a significant chunk of my motorsports budget for this year, and requesting additional disbursements until at least Q3 would be in poor taste.
Read: I've blown almost all of the racecar allowance my wife gives me, and I can't piss her off by asking for more in February.
Got some garage time yesterday while it was warm-ish, but didn't make any huge progress.
The wiring is thinned out 95% of the way - I'll probably stop here rather than chasing every last un-needed wire. The car still starts and runs.
I started removing the sound deadening stuff. The kind BMW uses seems to come up best with a heat gun and putty knife. Getting the tar residue off of the panels is the worst part. Acetone isn't enough, but brake cleaner seems to work fairly well as long as I take multiple passes. I got the passenger floorboard scraped and cleaned, the rear area scraped but still needs to be cleaned, and the driver floorboard is still yet to do.
I started mocking up floor plates and plinth boxes out of chipboard. I've never built a cage using those - just floor plates - but I'm excited to try them and not have to cut holes in the floor or roof to weld the joints all around.
The kit from roll cage components looks like it will fit very well. I held the main hoop and a pillar bars in place and they appear to be spot on. I'm really excited to not have to figure out all the angles and bend the tubes myself this time.
Floors are clean. Acetone isn't enough to get the tar residue off. Goo Gone and brake cleaner work well, but I'll need to hit them with something else after I grind to bare metal. The seam sealer is much more resilient... I'm planning to just paint over it. These pictures show the progress after cleaning the passenger floor - the driver side matches now.
I mocked up the main roll hoop yesterday, and it fits great. It's not all the way up against the roof like I'd hoped, but I have less than a 1/4 inch gap to the top, and the corners are in contact with the B-pillar. I hammered the pillar sheet metal some to get the hoop farther up and am happy with the fitment so far.
The wood blocks will be replaced with plinth blocks made from 1/8 inch steel. I have them cut and formed, but need more welder extension cord before I can start burning them in.
Love to see it!
if you hold off on the boxes, you can drop the main hoop to weld the top of the forward bars and then put the boxes in.
nice progress on it. The main, halo and a-pillar bars are the most challenging.
jfryjfry said:if you hold off on the boxes, you can drop the main hoop to weld the top of the forward bars and then put the boxes in.
nice progress on it. The main, halo and a-pillar bars are the most challenging.
That's why I'm using plinth boxes this go around - I'm planning to weld the base plates, and vertical sides in, but leave the tops loose so I can remove them, drop the cage down for tube welds, then raise back up and burn the plinth box "lids" in.
Yesterday I spent less than an hour in the garage, but got the passenger side front halo/down bar mocked up. I really need to get my garage fully sorted so I can mount my vise... notching tubes on the floor was inefficient to say the least. It's been at least 8 years since I've done any real cage work to speak of, so it took two tries to get the notch perfect, but I figured there would be some dust to knock off and made the first cut long and left myself some margin.
I continue to be impressed with the Roll Cage Components kit. This bar is touching the body at the floor/rocker panel, the firewall where the dash was, and a couple points up the A-pillar and roofline. I may or may not make up some dimple die hot boi gussets that tie in the A-pillars better - haven't decided yet.
Hopefully tonight I can mount the vise, get the driver side notched, and keep making progress. I need to bust out of quarantine to Home Depot for some different welder extension cord plug attachments so I can get the welder up and running, then I can start laying tacks and moving on to the connecting tubes like the dash, windshield, doors, etc.
Yesterday, in light of the quarantines taking place, I tried something new. Home Depot and Tractor Supply both have online order with store pickup. Since I was not excited about spending time in these stores hunting things down, I decided to try it. As an added bonus, I didn't have to do any heavy lifting becuase the store picked the items off the rack, put them on the cart, and loaded them into my truck. The irony here is that I was purchasing materials to build a deadlift platform so I can pick up heavy things and then put them back down repeatedly... Since gyms in Ohio are closed indefinitely, I have ordered some equipment so my wife and I can continue our fitness journey from home.
After screwing the platform together and trying to organize things a little bit, I was able to mount my vise and hammer store tube notcher. I got the driver side halo/pillar bar done. After that I moved on to the dash and windshield bar. Even though these were both pre-notched, they were about two inches too long. I appreciate the tubes being long (rather than short) and expected to need to tune them, but it did take some time to confirm that I hadn't screwed something up or selected the wrong tube for these positions. If I was shipping the kits, I would just notch one side and leave the other undone.
I was able to get the pieces I need to get my welder extension cord working - I plan to start tacking stuff together this weekend.
Plan of action:
- Tack foot plates/plinth boxes (except the tops) in place
- Tack halo/A-pillar bars to main hoop
- Tack dash and windshield bars in place
- Mock up rear down tubes and main hoop diagonal but don't weld yet
- Lower front portion of cage for full welding
- Raise front portion and tack in place
- Weld in rear down tubes
- Weld in main hoop diagonal
- Reinstall seat
- Harness bar
- Door bars
- Foot protection/firewall intrusion
- Gussets
I made some solid progress this weekend, and got the main structure in place. The worst part of every roll cage is the floor plates. No matter how clean I get the inside of the tub, the seam sealer and paint on the backside of the panels always burns. I got them in though, with minimal cursing.
The main hoop plinth boxes worked great to drop the cage down for complete welding of the tube joints. I did have a difficult time with the dash bar, as I couldn't get the cage structure very far from the firewall. Those welds aren't pretty, but should be plenty strong - good thing they won't be visible.
After welding the joints at the roofline, I raised the cage back up and slid the plinth box "lids" back in place. The rear brace down tubes were quick to knock out and tack in place.
I started on diagonals for the rear bracing and main hoop, but they both need a little more tuning. Once they're done, I can get to work on the harness bar, foot protection, and door bars. I'm already dreading painting the interior.
Continuing progress a couple tubes at a time. Yesterday I got the diagonal tubes burned into the rear bracing and main roll hoop. I also got the door sill bars in, and they fit such that I could stitch weld them to the unibody. I'm pretty excited about the added stiffness and safety that it affords.
Unfortunately, I ran out of shielding gas. Hopefully I can get to Airgas today for a fill so I can keep up progress over the weekend. In the meantime, I cleaned the roof and applied the first piece of the graphics package.
Meet "Rubber City Racing", car number 330. I'm located in Akron, OH which is known as Rubber City due to so many tire and rubber companies being located here. When I moved here in 2016 I was working for one of them, and hope to con some of my former colleagues into racing with me. 330 is Akron's area code.
Looking good!
Made some more progress this afternoon. I dropped the driver seat back in place to start mocking up the harness bar location with a level and some clamps. It seems that my seats, Oreca Start FG (a re-covered Sparco Evo) have quite low shoulder harness holes. I'm only 5'8", and my shoulders are pretty much at the top of them with a Hans device on. I was really concerned that I wouldn't be able to find a workable solution to locating the harness bar, keeping the belts between 0° and 20°, and not touching the seat on the way through. Luckily, after applying some pressure to the belts (as if they were snug) they just barely sneak through. I'll likely keep an eye out for smoking deals on another seat with higher hole locations though.
I was also able to get started on the door bars. The kit I'm using had an option for x-bars that are bent into the door cavity. I prefer these to "NASCAR" bars, so I went with these. Since the bend angle is fixed at whatever the supplier used, the amount of protursion into the door cavity is a function of the distance between the main roll hoop and A-pillar bar. I have those pretty much as far apart as I can get them. The bars seem to fit exactly where I would have put them - there is no interference with the B-pillar, but it is very close, and the outside edge of the bars is about 2.5 inches from the door skin. Getting the notches just right was tricky, but with some careful measurement they came out great... now just three more to go.
Besides the door bars, all that remains is some foot protection tubes, and a few gussets here and there.
Progress has been slow this week, but it's still plugging along. Door bars are done and foot protection is fabricated but not welded in yet. I got the grounds re-mounted that you can see just hanging into the floor in these pictures, and cleaned up and re-loomed or otherwise taped and tied up the wires that are all over the place.
I tried to select door bar height based on meeting the sanctioning body regulations, ease of entry/egress, and safety. Admittedly, they're a little lower than ideal at the end nodes, but this is where they are. The separation meets the rules for all groups I plan to race with, and clearance into the doors is good.
As this is an endurance car, and many of the races I've run in the past are in cold and/or wet weather, defrost is important to me. I kept the heater core and HVAC unit in place, though the A/C has been removed. I was able to hack up the dash to salvage the defrost vents, and plan to fasten that portion in place along the base of the windshield, and connect the vents to the fan box which will have the appropriate blend doors locked into place. Unfortunately, the roll cage dash bar blocks the outlets that were native to the defrost, but I should be able to fabricate some ducting from plastic or sheet metal to make the connections I need. Then I'll just have a toggle switch to turn the fan on and off.
I opted to do this rather than use the whole dash because the complete dash weighs 17 lbs, and I also have eliminated the steel cross car beam structure that it mounted to. It isn't the prettiest, I know.
This weekend I spent some time working on what will become the switch panel and dashboard. I definitely have a newfound respect for all the tinbangers I've worked with in the past. This stuff isn't as simple as it looks. I have a 36" harbor freight brake, which makes this job much easier than without, but for many of the corners I really need a finger brake. I've been making due with the brake I have, a vise, pliers, and hammer. A stomp shear would have been glorious, but my electric shears and hand snips work. Some of the design was influenced by not having a brake long enough to do the whole dash in one shot, and the other main constraint was wanting to hide the heater core/hvac unit as much as possible.
I started with a little CAD to come up with a proof of concept and work out how the panels would fold and interface with eachother.
I moved to .050 inch thick 3003 aluminum sheet for the real thing. It will be 4 pieces in total, three are shown here - I ran out of material before I could make the driver side piece that will shroud the factory instrument panel.
Mocked up in place. I still need to work out how I'm going to fasten them together and to the roll cage dash bar. I want the center portion to be removable for servicability of the electronics behind it, so I'll probably shy away from rivets. Sheet metal screws would be easy, but they don't have any place in a race car. Maybe rivnuts if I can find some small enough for the flanges I folded. I plan to wrap the whole thing in matte black vinyl when it is done so it doesn't reflect the sun into my face while driving.
Looks like great progress for the dash/switches, very clean.
Every time I see yours come up it makes me wish mine was running/driving for track days, so it's good motivation :)
Love following this and seeing it escalate!
I like the aluminum dash. I working on stripping my ti right now. Any chance you remember what all wiring you were able to take out without causing problems?
I started by removing components that I wasn't using, and then traced the wires back as far as I could - either to the module they went into, the junction block, or the firewall - where I terminated them.
All the stereo, amplifier, and speaker stuff is gone. The power windows and locks are gone. I don't have any airbags or associated modules left. I simplified the headlight, wiper, and hvac wiring to two wires each for toggle switches.
It's about 11 lbs of wire that I removed, nothing incredible, but I was in there anyway and wanted it to be as simple for trouble shooting as possible. I'm sure there is more that could come out, but I had to stop somewhere.
Got it. I'm looking more for simplifying than weight reduction. Trying to reduce the amount of BMW electronics that could need troubleshooting in the future and don't want to freak out the DME.
Same. There are a few modules under the glovebox. One is abs, and I want to keep it. The others, I'm not sure. Some of the wires I removed were on those connectors, but I didn't do any digging to see if I could get rid of it all.
I definitely should have removed the headliner sound deadening residue before I welded the cage in - the stuff is a lot more resilient than I had anticipated, and contorting my body between all the tubes to scrape and scrub it off is very difficult.
I welded in the foot protection tubes and got the defrost ducting all patched up this weekend. Once I get the rest of the roof cleaned up, I should be ready to prep for painting the cage and interior.
Your plan is to track this at champcar events...cool...
Are you going to feed it more hp, or just stay stock and sip gas/haul ass?
Sechsundzwanzig said:Your plan is to track this at champcar events...cool...
Are you going to feed it more hp, or just stay stock and sip gas/haul ass?
No plans for any power changes - that's just not the priority for this car. I know I'll be outgunned for Champcar, but I'm not a pointy end driver anyway.
The last few weeks have been slow progress on the car. I got the hood gutted and installed the hood pins on all 4 corners.
I got half of the livery complete, and have reinforced how I suck at applying vinyl wrap. I used "good" Vvivid material, but still managed to wrinkle it pretty badly in a few spots. Oh well, it's race car good enough. Maybe the driver side will be better.
I started on the interior paint. I shot a coat of self etching rustoleum with rattle cans, and will be using their appliance paint in gloss white next - if it ever stops raining. I forgot how much it sucks painting race car interiors - I ran out of motivation on the prep work and am totally mailing this job in.
I have a track day at Nelson Ledges on the 30th, so that gives me two weeks to knock out the following list. I'm supposed to be out of town this coming weekend for a bachelor party, but I'm not sure if it's going to happen or not. I could use the time in the garage. Most of the items are pretty simple, but I need to get the cage painted and dry first.
You are building the ideal "momentum " race car. Some of the fastest laps I have been on have been in a street 2002 driven by Brian Moon. Working with an instructor like Brian has opened up my line and confirmed that I have lots to learn.
As much as more power is great, your car will help you focus on the fastest line. Enjoy the seat time.
David
The car is certainly a momentum car. It's a lot of fun to drive, and I do enjoy honing the craft. It is not fun waiting for straightaways to end, or getting balked by high power cars in turns, but that's part of the gig.
In the spirit of "30 minutes a day," I got the battery off the charger and installed, and the airbox back in the car. It's supposed to be dry this evening, so hopefully I can get the first coat or two of paint on the interior.
Great progress, and I like the livery. Can’t go wrong with a classic marlboro racecar tribute.
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