Hmmmm... DeadSkunk's Challenge Corolla... may need flares

When I bought this place 21 years ago I thought I had sooo much garage space that I would never fill it........

OK....back to the car. When I mated the body to

the chassis for a test fit I came to the conclusion that there wasn't enough clearance for the intake manifold and it would be impossible to extract the engine if necessary. So, out come the cutting tools and voila!....space appears.I cut the cowl back by 5-6 inches from the original spot and cut the firewall out right up to the original exterior sheet metal. You can see where I've sliced the cowl vents and flattened that metal down to create a new flattish area for the longer hood to rest. In an earlier post I showed a picture of a fiberglass hood for a 1967 Camaro. It's plenty long enough to cover the gap I've created.

Not a lot of firewall left to get in the way.......

It's fitting that when I was getting dressed this morning I happened to don one of the "16 ounces= 1 lb" T-shirts that Seth handed out at the Challenge a few years ago ! This thing is getting lighter one chop at a time.

Here's the tube I'll weld into the cowl to support the area under the windshield , which is pretty flimsy right now. You can see it sitting in place in the previous photo. Welding to commence this afternoon.

I Bought this pile of parts with the intent of possibly using the exhaust manifolds in place of the shorty headers I currently have on the engine. BUT, I've got the engine so low in the chassis that the ends of the stock Corvette LS1 manifolds are too close to the floor to use. They are cast steel and could be cut and welded if I really want to. I had thought they would provide multiple benefits, an outlet that allows the  exhaust pipe to be further from the gas pedal, some heat shielding, and they're cheaper. Pondering and measuring continues......

Let me know if the manifolds end up for sale.

Asking for a fiend.

In reply to QuasiMofo (John Brown) :

Asking for a "fiend" or a "friend", or are we talking about one in the same person?

OK.....I have been working on the car, just pretty slowly. I was trying to move the pedals to driver's left a bit more, to get some gap between the gas pedal and a nice hot exhaust header. The problem was the brake booster was already touching the tube supporting the upper strut mount. The ride height was also lower than I wanted, so I had to relocate all of it. So, for the third time, I cut off all the suspension supports in front of the main cage and started over.

Here's the former version

....and here's the latest version, finished this afternoon....

Far from perfect , but acceptable given the material constraints I'm working with. A lot of the tubing used in the front suspension support and the floor of the passenger compartment is from a Polaris RZR cage I picked up for $25. It's all 1.75 dia. x 0.90' wall , so strong but light. And I'm running out of it, so you can see where I spliced both sides with some 2".

Since I have no bender I have to cut carefully to utilize the bent sections of the cage, which results in some compromising on where things land, like the uprights that join the upper tubes to the main frame rails. The upper A-arm bolts are a foot long , so I had to weld in cross tubes to be able to remove those long bolts.

This new structure is moved up and outward to clear the wide tires and to provide an extra 1.5" for the brake booster to move to driver's left. I have a bar that was bridging the strut towers in the original Corolla and I'll be adding tabs to bolt it across the gap between the front ends of both tubes.

The time consuming part of this was actually "carving" some sections of 2x3 tube to make the brackets the struts bolt to. They're inclined about 8 degrees in two directions, so it took a fair amount of time to grind and fit the proper angles so that there's a close fit between bracket and tube. The second one went much quicker, I just had to remember to create a mirror image. Lots of cutting with a 4" cutting disc and flap disc to finish.

At the end of it all I have this now.....

The ride height is now higher than where it will eventually be, but that's by design. The springs on the struts are currently 650# and 10" long. The bottom spring perch is very close to the upper A-arm and the suspension has very little droop, just over an inch, so I'll be looking for some shorter springs which allow me to drop the ride height while providing some extra droop travel.

Next on the agenda is building structure to hold the pedals and brake booster and starting on the firewall. I'll have to put the body back on to be able to figure out how the top edge of the firewall will meet the revised cowl structure. I also need to modify the transmission mount to lift the back end of the trans up a bit to correct the drive shaft angle. After those tasks are done I'll have to dismantle the whole thing so I can flip the chassis to finish a whole bunch of welding.

Got a bit more done on the car. Used one of those typical bolted drive shaft safety loops to construct a smaller safety loop and mounting points for a transmission cross member. It's all tacked in place for now, finish welding later after I'm sure about the location of the safety loop. With the driveshaft on a slight diagonal I have to be careful where I weld the loop and at what angle. You can also see my carbon-based driveshaft mockup piece. I still need to buy a flange yoke for the 8.8 axle and figure out what stock driveshaft might work. I think I'll need something in the 31-32" range, so if you have something laying around measure it and let me know what vehicle it's out of so I can start hitting junkyards, or Marketplace/Craigslist for one.

I have flashbacks when I read your build.  You take one step forward that suddenly lights up how you should have done things four steps back. Agonize about if you can get out of the corner you painted yourself into or do the right thing and go back to do it better....

Rinse and repeat.

Starting to look like a race car.

Pete

In reply to NOHOME :

It usually takes me about 5 minutes after I've completed something to figure out a more elegant solution, or I've trapped some part that can't be removed. I've done things as many as four times on this build. But I'm learning........don't seam weld anything until the end.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

I'm not sure what the length is, but I have 2 or 3 Miata driveshafts. They all have slightly sloppy u-joints, but I think they'd survive Challenge use.

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

A Miata drive shaft is listed as 32.1" from u-joint to u-joint for a 1.8 engined car. Geez, I had one in the pile of Miata parts and sold it. I'll check the tube diameter and U-joint size tomorrow on my Miata to see if it could work. I wonder if it would be strong enough? If it would I could have kept the one from the parts pile for zero budget hit. Nuts !!

Edit: In pictures they look like a fairly small diameter.

I also have a 1.8L Miata driveshaft but it has a sticky u-joint. You can have it if you want. I'm in Clarkston.  

In reply to PMRacing :

Phil, everything I read says the u-joints aren't replaceable and I'll need to use hybrid joints to connect to a TH350 yoke and Ford 8.8 pinion yoke. I'll measure the shaft in my street Miata tomorrow and see if it can be made to work though.

We went on a parts run last night. Two different vendors.....Two radiators, one was used in the fellow's S10 "dune truck" and couldn't keep a 350 SBC cool, but it is very light. The other is a spare that came with a Mustang race car he had a few years ago. They were $20 each. I'm pretty sure I'll use the Mustang one, even if the outlets aren't properly located for an LS.

A really janky Sparco seat, exactly the same model as the blue one in the previous photos. It was ugly enough for him to give it to me free of charge. I'll clean it up and use it only if I need the budget space, free vs $35 for the blue one. I'll see if I can come up with a $1.98 solution to making it prettier.

The white drive shaft was advertised at $40 and is the perfect length for my car, so I gave him the run down on the Challenge and asked how low he would go......$37 (lots of guffaws ensued)........I offered $30 and had two twenties in my hand.....no one had change so he took a twenty and called it good. I explained that finding Challenge friendly prices involves going to the lowest priced guy around and then berkleying them. Everybody had a good laugh at that and a beer was offered, then we had an hour long chat with him and his racing buddies. You meet the nicest people in backyard race shops.

The black drive shaft was a free Explorer unit and I was hoping the flanges were the smaller Ford pieces to fit my rear axle, but no such luck, they're the larger ones. The u-joints may be of use....don't know yet.

 The Moog u-joints are for an unknown application, but were free. I'll see if I can use them or not. Always accept free parts.

The fans are small 12" units for $5 each. I'll be able to use them with the Mustang rad, I think. Just need one of those ziptie sort of fan mounting kits, or fab up a sheet metal shroud and mount them to that.

As usual, I've ended up with multiple choice on parts by buying cheaper stuff when I find it, even though I already had a seat, a drive shaft and a rad. If I use these most recent parts it saves something like $67 over the other parts, some of which are clearly nicer. Once I know which parts are surplus I'll have a bit of a Challenge garage sale.

That's all for now. I need to get some decisions made and some fabrication completed.

In  a previous post I said I had make a measurement error when constructing the chassis that resulted in the roof contacting the roll hoop before the inner rockers , which I had already cut, set down on the side tubes of the frame. So I had to drill out all the spot welds , remove the remainder of the inner rockers and replace them with something. I had a roadside find of a steel plinth for elevating one of those architectural drawing files that was nice heavy gauge and free. 

The black one, 6" wide by 53" long (on the long side) was just about perfect to chop up and fit inside the rocker area. This resulted in a nice flat edge that would sit on the 2x2 frame tubes. Today I had to fit the body to the chassis and notch the front and rear of the inner rockers to sit over some 1" taller frame sections. I've had the body on and off this thing three times today, all by myself. I'm actually getting pretty quick at it. 

First, I roll the chassis as far forward as my workbench, then I use the chain fall to lift the front of the body high enough for the dashboard to clear the roll cage.

.

Then I go to the back and manually lift the rear while using one foot to slide a sawhorse under the rear valance.

Then you roll the chassis back underneath...

Then drop it all back down....

Then you scribe the areas to be notched and rinse and repeat multiple times until the body is dropped down to it's final location....

Here you can see the black inner rocker sitting flat on the 2x2 frame rail...

And here it sits at it's proper ride height. Any further drop will be by adjusting the coilovers....maybe another half an inch, an inch max. Also, you can see the rear tire isn't centered in the opening. I made a booboo and the wheelbase is 93" instead of 92". Shortening the four link bars is simple enough, but my drive shaft is perfect length and I don't want to cut it, so I'll stare at it for awhile and see if I want to slide the body back an inch or so and radius the front wheel opening.

I bolted on a fender to be sure I was satisfied with the location and it looks OK. The car will be 1" taller than I originally planned, but it has had some benefits. Between the raised body and cutting back the cowl area I now have enough room to use the original truck intake manifold instead of the LS1 "low rise" manifold that I had purchased, so a budget savings.

Yeah !! for clearance. This will also make using the stock water pump outlets possible and I think I can leave the alternator up high, too.

Much more accessible now . Now I can start figuring out how to construct the footwell/firewall area which I think I'll weld to the chassis, but leave free of the cowl for now. I have to remove the body and all the engine/suspension/drive train so I can manually flip the chassis and do all the finish welding. Then I'll do the floor and trans tunnel, followed by the interior tin to separate me from the fuel cell/trunk area.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

My wheelbase is not exactly as planned either. Things happen.  You'll be able to make that right with flares.  

Remember, the box flares cover all sins.

Is enlarging the rear opening an option?

i'd guess that opening up the front might be better as having more clearance around the tires that move up and down and also turn might be more beneficial 

In reply to jfryjfry :

Enlarging the opening at either end is an option. I just want to keep sheet metal welding and subsequent body work to a minimum. If the drive shaft permitted it I'd just shorten the wheelbase  as that's the easiest . But this whole build is about making compromises, so this will just need one more. If I want to use the bumpers, I'll enlarge the rear opening. If I forego the bumpers then the front will get changed.

I didn't feel like removing the body and doing more cutting and welding today, so I went at the Camaro fiberglass hood to start trimming it down to size. I need to recurve it and reinforce the back side yet, but couldn't resist setting it in place. A power bulge hood on a Corolla makes me giggle.

I cut about 10" off the windshield side and it's still about 4" too wide, but I'll leave the width there for now. I have to recurve it, so I thought I could cut some wood to match the fender curvature, screw the outer edge of the hood to it and then glass in something light on the underside to make it rigid and hold the new curvature, then remove the extra width. I may need to make a couple of relief cuts across the dome to get it to curve and then glass them up afterwards. I'll need to do something similar across in front of the windshield, it's pretty flexible there. The front edge is an unknown at this point. I don't have the original trim piece for the stock hood, so I'll have to fake it. That center ridge will have to be flattened just before the front edge, too. My mini muscle car....

Today I started working with the doors. I want to be able to put them on the shell and line up the front fenders so I can build the radiator support structure. I started by weighing myself on my rather suspect garage bathroom scale and then picking up the door to see how much gain there is.

So the complete stock door weighs 54 pounds by this method. I started by removing all the interior trim, window lifting mechanism, etc to get to this point.....

Back to the scale to see where we are....47 pounds....not particularly impressive, but the glass is still in there.

Next, I get out the Harbor Freight can opener...

The HF shear had a pretty easy time removing the inner skin, which made the glass removal really easy.......

Back to the scale and we're down to around 34 pounds, but notice the side impact beam still in the door. That thing is 12" wide, 42 inches long and 1/16" thick ! My memory must be going because I don't remember beams being a thing in the early 70s, I'd have said they appeared later, but there it is and it's in there good. Both ends are welded in the folded exterior skin with spot welds.(marked with a Sharpie)

So, now I have to drill out those spot welds and cut the beam so I can get it out in two pieces. So I'm in there with a 4" cutting disc on an HF grinder, trying to cut the beam but not cut through the exterior door skin...

Success !! Then you drill the welds and start wiggling the beam around until you can get both parts out cleanly, like so......

Annnddddd, back to the scale for a finished weight of 22 pounds. Not bad, it'll be a little heavier when I'm done adding Lexan windows.  I haven't made up my mind on how I want to do the Lexan. I could screw it to the outside of the window frame. I could slip it up in place of the stock glass if the window tracks still had their fuzzy gasket things, which rotted away a long time ago. Maybe I'll hit the junkyard and see if I can find some suitable track material and make the windows removable...have them out for autocross and in for the drag strip. Also, I use an open trailer, so reasonably weather resistant windows wuld be nice for the drive down to Gainesville.

As for the door beam. This thing is stout. You could take a chunk of this and make a skid plate out of it...