My Garage Imaginarium

i don't remember if it was one of Tim's columns or just a forum thread, but many years ago there was discussion of "what is grassroots?"   i believe the consensus was it has less to do with how much you spend, and more to do with how much you DIY and push to grow your personal knowledge and skills.

so i look at all the shiny new parts and i think [smirk] "must be nice." [/smirk]

then i look at all the kick-ass DIY fab and i think [admiration] "must be nice." [/admiration]

this build is definitely still my cup of tea.

I, too, love it when this thread pops up.

I discretely peek inside to see just how badly my skills are being schooled by this. I find it very inspiring and informing.

Thanks guys! AngryCorvair, yeah that's by far my main source of motivation and reward, and understanding as much as I can is part of the fun, making everything I cook up to try to do as intentional as possible. The cool parts are just the best cast I can think of/get for the equation. It's funny too I was thinking the other day how you often see guys getting criticized for buying extremely fast cars and discounting their track performance as having purchased it, not achieved it. And regardless of when I was pointing by Miatas in my first test laps on the car or now when GT3 RSs are road blocks, it all feels good to me because even if the lap time is 100% car and 0% me... it's still 100% me.

I don't get what the [canoes] are doing with the fuel system.? Is it some kind of revolutionary system that runs on [paddles] or some thing...

It's the best gasket material, only us real badasses know that. 99% effective against leaks.

BigD said:

It's the best gasket material, only us real badasses know that. 99% effective against leaks.

But that 1% chance is still a possibility then it's 18 years of dealing with the leak until it moves out of the house.

Yep, the only true seal is still on the tits.

Moving on to the front, going well so far. Kicking around ideas for tying the fenders into the new splitter and air dam. To avoid the incident again, as cheap and easy as plywood is, I'm going to make the new splitter out of aluminum so it will bend rather than grenading if anything happens again. And at that point I might as well make the air dam integral to it, so then I need to figure out a good way to mount and blend the air dam and splitter with the fenders and bumper. I'm also going to change the splitter support struts to be steel cords, to again avoid damaging them just because I scrape the splitter - they only need to work in tension, no need for any resistance under compression. I also had a look at the headlight that ate a cone and while the plexiglass is toast, the alu frame with the LEDs is just bent so I think I can just straighten it, and then this gives me an excuse to make new plexiglass panels to seal tightly all around.

Copy/paste, on to the sides. Waiting on the local metal supermarket to get my 22ga in for the sides.

Got some more Vibrant crack, including coils for the drysump hoses. I want to ensure that the oil pump supply hose and scavenge stages don't collapse under vacuum. And gonna get to weld some Titanium again to extend the side exit exhaust past the new fenders

BigD said:

Thanks guys! AngryCorvair, yeah that's by far my main source of motivation and reward, and understanding as much as I can is part of the fun, making everything I cook up to try to do as intentional as possible. The cool parts are just the best cast I can think of/get for the equation. It's funny too I was thinking the other day how you often see guys getting criticized for buying extremely fast cars and discounting their track performance as having purchased it, not achieved it. And regardless of when I was pointing by Miatas in my first test laps on the car or now when GT3 RSs are road blocks, it all feels good to me because even if the lap time is 100% car and 0% me... it's still 100% me.

That’s exactly why I love building my own cars.  Yes the car is fast, but I built the car!!! Any driving skill I add is a topping on the ice cream 

Going well so far. Probably not going to happen but trying to get the bondo/paint started in the next week or two because mini-me is due any day now, don't really want to have paint fumes flying with him in the house. Looks like I may be able to fit 18x12s and 345s all around now...

Love it when a plan comes together. Ordered new outer shells for the front Fikses. Going to be 18x12 all around. The 345s don't fit at the front, 335 probably would but I'll keep using 315s for now, let them stretch out some more, the 12 is on the upper end of the spec which I'm told is desirable for racing tires. So it should still be an improvement in grip and response up front, and look even better.

I don't always get to use all of the abilities of the Dynasty but when you need them, they are worth every penny. Like fixing the screwup from plasmacutting the arches. Light up at 1 amp, use high frequency, low BG and low DC pulse, and autogenously weld 22 gauge and then build up the edge without worrying about blowing it out.

I'm always following, because this is one of the most impressive build threads I've ever seen.  An amateur who has developed expert/pro level fab skills, using very well chosen parts, turning a several hundred dollar street car into a veritable, fully developed IMSA series race car.  And the fact that it's a one-man show working out of a small, dreary garage in ice-cold Canada is totally metal, badass, and grassroots.

Love the box flares, too.  It's been something I've been hoping to see you build for a couple years now.

If you want a bigger audience, there's always the e30 forums.  But I can understand the frustration with a lot of that crowd when you're operating on this level.

Keep up the amazing work!

Thank you sir, you are too kind!

If the car's story has a home, it's definitely here. It has long since moved past the scope of interest of a typical car forum, even E30 specific ones. I use instagram too because it's quick and easy to document things but I'm getting tired of the limited nature of it (room for a long post, small photos etc). It's also got amnesia - no one will ever scroll back to see what I did last summer but me. But I still get feedback from people here that they just read the whole thing...

But what I meant by that I wasn't sure if anyone cared here is that in addition to having something to look back on as I do things, learn and reflect, but I also want to help other guys. I didn't learn all this on my own and I didn't pay anyone to teach me. And that makes you want to be part of that worthless but hopefully invaluable equation for someone else. I'm not after likes for a dopamine hit but if I know someone is getting something out of this then it tells me to put more effort into it. Especially if someone wants to know something more and asks, then it's not something I don't mind doing but something I look foreward to.

Question on the Ti exhaust tubing:  Why not buy a meter length of tube and make your own pie cuts?  Wouldn't that be cheaper?

In reply to Nader :

A few reasons. One cutting pie cuts consistently is a bit of a crapshoot, especially with larger diameter because blade wander affects it more and getting things lined up perfectly square on the next cut is time consuming. Next is that Titanium is a lot like stainless steel, in that it's not especially strong but it's very bouncy, so overheating it before the cutter does its job is easy and this murders blades by stuffing them full of the metal being cut. And while overheating stainless isn't good, Titanium is especially bad because this stuff will react with everything and their mom when sufficiently heated and you have to be careful to get rid of that reacted layer. Again, a pile of time and effort 2x per pie cut. And finally, the Vibrant pies vs pipe price difference, especially in the context of the above, isn't worth it.

Now, mandrel bends are whole different question, the flow measurements I've seen comparing pie cuts to mandrel bends make the decisions to make pie cut intakes instead of mandrel bends for appearance, asinine. But Vibrant doesn't make 4" mandrel bends and I'm not worried about the flow performance of my 4" short exhaust coming off a 3" turbine outlet.

Quick pause in the action, my first mini-me has arrived. Starting the indoctrination right in the hospital. Need to see what the Snap-On catalog has, and if I should start him on a 10-22 or T1X, or a 416 Barrett.

Congrats man! 

I come here for the awesome fab work, and this post doesn't disappoint!

Thanks dude!

Snuck into the garage while he's passed out to do the initial install of 4.0. Next I need to figure out sleeves around the bumper and a tie-in for the airdam (and a new airdam...)

Getting tempted to put some shot out barrels with muzzle brakes on the front. Not going to since it won't look like this after painting but right now the car has a very serious heavy metal look to it (even though ironically these flares are likely lighter than the old 20 gauge ones with 1/8" rod skeleton)

Go full battleship with a dazzle camo paint scheme?

Congrats on the new kiddo! I have 2 under 3, time has become much more precious these days. 

In reply to cmcgregor :

Thanks! I'll probably be joining you. My wife's set on 2. This mother trucker was 9.5lbs, all head and junk. Delivery was brutal and I tried to get things on video while eating E36 M3 from nurses. I wanted her to be clear what she's signing up for next time. But even with the evidence, the plan is a go. I have no idea how we've made it as a species. That whole process is berkeleyed.

Congrats on the baby! 

Reminds me of how I was in a mad dash to paint my race car in my driveway before my first one was born.  Four years later, that same kid was drawing smiley faces on the new pistons of that same race car's engine when I rebuilt it!  I wish you the same joy.  

In reply to Nader :

Hah, very cool! Yeah I was naively hoping to be done the painting by now but even with the fenders done that would have been ambitious. But, moving along still. Right now my plan is to get the Eastwood disposable paint booth for the fenders and find a popup garage used for cheap to do the back of the car in the driveway.

"But I waste more time than anyone" That Staind lyric keeps popping up in my head as I recall how inefficient I was with my time before the kid.

In the first few weeks I only snuck out to the garage once and made this fillet

But really I have lots of opportunities to work, I just chose to be on emergency stand by. Now that we're getting in the groove I'm getting back to work. A friend is cutting me a new splitter out of aluminum, so it'll be one piece and should be much more resilient. I will also make the air dam one piece and span the fenders, so I need the splitter to make it. For now I decided to do the new exhaust tip. The new fenders are obviously much wider so I'm extending the exhaust pipe and making a tip out of a 90 and cutting it at an angle to make like a tear-drop shape.

I haven't touched the TIG in a while and titanium pie cut welding isn't the simplest task. So I thought about doing some warmup coupons but I also wanted to see where I am with my skill. If I am still dependent on the mechanical feel or if I can adjust on the fly based on what I'm seeing. 

Quite pleased with how that turned out!

Also need to finally finish up my trailer project. Have some big things I need to haul that I don't want to get the car hauler for. Especially the blown up diapers. Good thing I got the 3500lb axles. Got the wiring and lights done and tested, almost done one side, just need to do the other wall and fender, then go get a plate. It's a little scary learning the licensing procedure for homemade trailers... you just go and pay. No inspections, not even photos. You don't even need to actually own a trailer to register one.