I have a 24' enclosed trailer, which is great for camping at hillclimbs and weekend track events. Less convenient to pop out to an autocross. Today I grabbed this guy for a whopping $100. It used to cart around a pro-4 modified, but the owner got out of racing and then a drunk driver crumpled a fender. I pulled the fender out, handed him a Hundo and drove home happy. The truck doesn't even know it's there.
Time for a pressure wash and I'll start thinking about redecking it.
Dropped the chassis off to get blasted today at Rapid Finishing in Nashua. Should have it back in a couple days and then I can get into the nitty gritty.
And in another week I should have my gearset coming back. I better get my butt in gear.
Back from the blaster and boy is she clean.
No weld issues on major components after initial inspection. I'll look more closely as I tidy up brackets. I started added in tabs to mount the flat floor, which was previous just self-tapped into the chassis. No bueno. I'll finish the welds from the other side. It was just way easier to get them located with the car upside down.
Gearset came back today. So clean and nice!
This photo I think illustrates the undercuts best
And the extensive list of what was done
I'm really looking forward to seeing this thing run. Make sure you shoot us some video.
You and me both. I've got some work ahead of me after I finish up this week's honey-do list.
The machine work on the gear set has me all heart eyes. What did that work cost and who did it?
In reply to Mezzanine :
R&D Motorsports in Clearwater Florida: http://www.rd-motorsports.com/
It was $2,300 including shipping it back to me.
I paid $2k for the car...
Ouchie. But seems reasonable for the work performed. And isn't this how these things go? I've been spending all my money on a cheap motorcycle lately. I've spent at least double what I paid for the bike so far.
I restored a 1977 Honda CJ360T for my girlfriend that I bought for $800.
I don't even want to know what I put into it...
The right side aero tray frame was garbage so I replaced it today. Now it won't bend if you look at it wrong. The only thing that lives in this space is the exhaust, but with hillclimb trees tend to attack from the sides.
This is a piece of the old frame on top of the new one
While I had the car flipped right side up I decided to attempt fitting my Cobra Sebring into the frame. I took some finagling, but I think this will work.
And upon seeing some of the other photos my hillclimb tech inspector has requested a change be made, which I've illustrated here:
Warm up the welders boys, we've got work to do!
Blasting was the right choice!
Very excited to see this one running, looks great so far!
I've been taking advantage of the bare chassis and sending pics to our head tech guy. He has suggested some small modifications to the cage that I'll be performing this week, and knowing where the rear end would like was needed for the maths. Which has led to whole bunch of other maths about control arm lengths and angles.
First off, a fully dressed Winters Mini Quickchange is 163lbs. That includes full brakes.
The arm angles are all wrong, and the top-link is too short to be truly effective. I'll be making a new diff mount for the top link and switching in a pushbar.
Other notes:
I couldn't get in the car with the Cobra. Back to the Kirkey!
And for those wondering "How would I fit in a Baby Grand"
I am 6'2" and 200lbs. The hat is extra tall, my head is not shaped like that.
In reply to DaveEstey :
Ah the ubiquitous invisible steering wheel. I know thee well.
Looking good!
Been a busy week +. Got a flat tire on my Ducati so SWMBO came to rescue me in my Highlander, which popped a plastic radiator end cap at the parking lot, so I had not one but 2 vehicles down in the same parking lot.
Got both home no problem. The bike is going to chill while I fix the Highlander, and I'll be damned if getting the radiator out isn't kicking my ass. It's stacked in there like an onion and the bolts are just corroded enough that some of them just won't allow a socket and there's no clearance for anything else to get on them. It's making me big mad.
In between my trips to the shop to get tools, I took a moment and did this:
I think it's the answer. This is an empty space outside of the side-exit exhaust and it has clear air flow from the wheel well. The "engine bay" is pretty congested so moving this elsewhere will help clean things up AND it centralizes weight, which I always like. The radiator is way bigger than it needs to be, but with the motorcycle engine's ability to make electricity I'd rather rely on coolant capacity to get the job done than lots of fan.
I'm on the hunt for a coolant swirl pot with -16an inlet and outlet and a rad cap on top if anybody knows of a good one. Can customize if I have to.
DaveEstey said:While I had the car flipped right side up I decided to attempt fitting my Cobra Sebring into the frame. I took some finagling, but I think this will work.
That side impact intusion looks STOUT. Like ain't nothing getting to you from you left.
This doesn't refer to you work as your add on's look like good ideas, but I wish I could build chassis the way circle track people do. I always end up with way more tubes and all the suspension feeds into nodes and stuff. I mean I know in 99% of the load cases what things like this do is adequate and it obviously is since they run all the time and crash and people live they are fine. I know this but I aways think: !cantilever nodes, !single shear, !tubes in bending, !loads in middle of tubes and then I "optimize" mine and end up making it weigh more and take 2x as long to build.
In reply to nocones :
Not a lot of complex thinking in this chassis, but she is STOUT. I could probably cut some out of it, but after by roll in 2016 I'm willing to accept weight for safety.
I do wish the rear suspension points were better thought out. The arms are quite short and the top-link is so short that I'll have to change a bunch of it to run a biscuit bar for traction.
New pieces for the Busa Grande, this is a biscuit bar, which should help the car put power down a lot more nicely than the rigid top link.
OK more progress.
Tossed the engine back together sans gearset so I got could some clearance ideas for the fire wall. It's a tight fit.
Another project that took some head scratching is how to extend the top link mount to accomodate the biscuit bar. This was what I finally tossed together before leaving to have a beer and think about how it won't work for some reason.
Everything would be coped together of course. The alignment is off since I was stacking things on top of eachother.
Ok I'll bite, how does a biscuit bar work??
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