What. A. Day. Final fitup before it goes in for good. Everything still lining up perfectly.
Wires run through things and she's riveted on never to come off again. I hope.
Tomorrow is looking like rain and I need to load the car up to go to Wicked Performance Group on Monday. The lawnmower had the honor of towing the car out of the basement and up the hill to the driveway. Easy peasy.
Looks good in the sun. Keep in mind that this car is nearly 2 feet shorter in length and 10" narrower than an NA Miata.
When it comes back the fuel cell will be mounted. Same with the oil cooler and most importantly the exhaust. It's a short list after that to make her a runner again!
The confidence in my choice of handing the car off for a few things is growing today.
Can't wait to hear this thing.
They also found another rigged thing from the previous owner. This is a fitting on the oil cooler that was on the car.
Nice. Luckily the Setrabs aren't too pricey, but it's YET ANOTHER THING to buy. The nickle and diming of the build maintains the status quo of all race car builds.
DaveEstey said:
<snip...> but it's YET ANOTHER THING to buy. The nickle and diming of the build maintains the status quo of all race car builds.
So it has been foretold for generations on end: Ye racecar shall rob you blind, but thou shalt not mention it to SWMBO.
In reply to accordionfolder :
forever and ever, amen
While the car is away I've gotten some cleaning done, and then I remembered I need to finish the airbox! Last time I had it fitted it was a little too talk, so I took some off the top and also the bottom to leave more room for wires etc. I found a piece of carbon fiber plate I made a while back and am going to use that as the mount for the air horns so the airbox can be removed without taking half the inlet tract apart with it.
Needs some smoothing before it gets the carbon treatment, but I think it's close. Simple is best I think in this case.
Finding things to do while the car isn't here. I got all the pieces for my manual shifter in today so it was time for some holes.
I think this will work. I drilled a couple possible positions for the pivot should I need to adjust throws, but I think this is about where it should be.
Need a mount for the ECU, which is a funky shape. Being a motorcycle unit the entire thing is potted to resist vibration issues and moisture. Pretty neat. Decided to do a little carbon work since it has been YEARS since I've done any. Sadly I only had slow set hardener in the collection so it's going to be a wait.
Und now ve vait
Tossed the old intake mold and transferred the measurements to some fresh polyurethane foam blocks. A little shaping and she's close to ready once I get to test fitment another couple dozen times.
The height of the car (not much) and the positioning of the throttle bodies (upward at a sharp angle) makes crafting this simple air box a lot more work than one would think.
This muffler may be a mistake. But I want to hear it before I decide.
A mistake? I'm sure you'll hear it all right. You and everyone else. 
How loud are Hayabusa engines compared to a two rotor Wankel? My RX7 currently has a single stage Burn's muffler and it's kind of stupid loud. Granted, this was in a garage so there was some attenuation, but I measured ~100 dB at idle. That's with the 17" long, 6.25" diameter muffler body as well. It's possible I've blown out some of the packing but it's always been ridiculously loud. I actually just picked up another 12" long, 4.5" diameter muffler to run upstream of the current one. If that doesn't work there are other packing options. The stuff that comes with the Burn's is kind of laughable, really.
Well I haven't had this one running yet, but having previously owned some high zoot 13bs I can speak to their loudness. Don't put a burns on a wankel - it won't survive. The only mufflers I've had survive are the racing beat rotary mufflers. Everything else gets burnt out. Even the Racing Beat primary muffler would only survive a couple seasons of hillclimb before it would need replacing.
In reply to DaveEstey :
I had an exhaust with Racing Beat's universal pre-silencer and muffler. It was actually really mellow. The RB pieces were nice but the rest of the exhaust was crap. Decided to go completely to the other end of the spectrum with the current setup. What's the setup on that car? Sounds deeper than mine. This was from a couple years ago:
I think the 6.25" mufflers use a combination of fiberglass mat wrapped around SS "scrubble". I don't see why the scrubble wouldn't hold up but the FG definitely won't last forever. I have the material to repack the existing muffler. I'm going to pull it apart and see what's remaining after I get the second one put on. I've only slightly delved into the world of exhaust packing and it looks like there's some higher temperature/heavier duty options. Stainless steel wool mat and ceramic fiber mat options look promising. Only downside it weight.
It had a custom header then a RB presilencer, then it collected to 3" at 96" into an RB universal rotary muffler. For some track events I had to add a second muffler to that running across the back of the car.
Struggling on motivation to work on the Busa Grande today because it just feels like a never ending process. Logically I know there's an end, but it has been a year of working and it still isn't done because I've refused to let myself do anything quick and dirty.
BUT. Today I was going through photos and came across this one and it has me feeling better about my progress. Yes, that's a door hinge for a shifter.
Two and a half hours. That's how long it took to get the push pull shifter cable mounted on the engine side. Multiple brackets were attempted, one worked in conjunction with the air shifter bracket.
It's starting to really really come together. good job on the 'nits'. Nothing overlooked is sure a pain right now, but also will make it much less needy in the long run!
Can totally sympathize on taking the time to get the shifter right. I've way more than 2.5 hours into mine...
Bench or floor testing is actually deceivingly hard though. Once the car is moving the shifting improves. If you get it right sitting still it will be like butter on the road.
Th car can now be manually shifted from the interior. Another 3 hours of fine tuning. There isn't a lot of "Feel" sitting still so I'll be relying on the neutral light in the cluster. Weird how my left foot is better at finding neutral than my right hand.
With that out of the way I need to get to work closing in the rest of the interior. I definitely don't have enough aluminum in stock to do this so I'm going to have to do some more running around to source some.
Shifter looks good. It might have a better feel when it's running. I have a hard time finding neutral on my bike when it's off.
Those Radium FPRs are a really great form factor. I used one on my Fiat. Agreed on finding neutral: I bet it's easier when running, but even if it is that neutral light will be handy.
Oil cooler is now done done. Starting on the fuel soft lines now. Man I hate braided steel line, but I refuse to buy $250 in socketless -6 to do this.
I'm tired. Things are getting close though.
