Bulletproof!

Busy day today, although visually it doesnt look like it. I'll post pics once the other team members mail them to me, never had time to take any myself.

JimW, Jeff, Chris and Krikor (non driving crew member) started stripping the Subaru. Got the engine out and all the wiring harnesses free of the body with no damage. No small feat since fenders and dashboard have to come out to do that.

Krikor showed up with the steel for our front "strut box" which will support our strut towers. He works for a steel manufacturer so he was able to get us free steel that did not meet spec. Now let me 'splain that a bit. They make ARMOR PLATING. The piece he got for us had an unacceptable degree of surface pitting. Its 1/4 inch thick and hardened steel, it will stop an AK47 round at point blank range. Fun stuff....until you have to cut or drill it. Thankfully the majority of the cuts were made at his workplace on a CNC Plasma cutter but we still had to drill holes for the strut bolts. This was unfun and is still in progress. The main strut box is now welded together and mounted to the car so I just have to finish drilling the top plates and we can mount the struts and have a rolling chassis.

Due to our complete lack of engineering skills this thing is just overbuilt. Like I said 1/4 inch thick steel plate. Adds at least 50 lbs to the front of the car but we kinda need some weight up front so its ok.

Made some changes to the steering design, we'll see how that goes.

Wasn't paying attention and kinda leaned back and rested my open palm on the welder tip and burnt the crap outta myself. This car is gonna kill me sooner or later.

Got the e-brake all working, kinda a small but happy accomplishment kind of thing.

Thats all for now. I need to go drink heavily.

What car?? And what are you doing to it?

digdug18 wrote: What car?? And what are you doing to it?

What planet have you been on?

The background to get you up to speed :)

http://jalopnik.com/5330284/win-a-58-wartburg-race-it-for-free-at-the-24-hours-of-lemons

http://jalopnik.com/5352938/triumphant-win+a+wartburg-essayist-promises-to-install-studebaker-six-enter-car-in-trifecta-of-crap

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/and-so-it-begins-working-on-the-wartburg/15418/page1/

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/more-wartburg-progress/17524/page1/

digdug18 wrote: What car??

Most likely the wartburg they're building.

And what are you doing to it?

They're making a mid-engine, studebaker powered wartburg to enter in the "Trifecta-of-crap"; i.e. the GRM challenge, BABE rally and Lemons. Read this:

http://jalopnik.com/5352938/triumphant-win+a+wartburg-essayist-promises-to-install-studebaker-six-enter-car-in-trifecta-of-crap

[edit: Doh! You beat me to it.]

JoeyM wrote:

digdug18 wrote: What car??

Most likely the wartburg they're building.

And what are you doing to it?

They're making a mid-engine, studebaker powered wartburg to enter in the "Trifecta-of-crap"; i.e. the GRM challenge, BABE rally and Lemons. Read this: http://jalopnik.com/5352938/triumphant-win+a+wartburg-essayist-promises-to-install-studebaker-six-enter-car-in-trifecta-of-crap

Plans have changed a bit, its now rear engined, subaru powered and utilizing a Porsche 944 suspension and brakes.

JThw8 wrote: Plans have changed a bit, its now rear engined, subaru powered and utilizing a Porsche 944 suspension and brakes.

Epic!

Here are some of the photos:

Full Album

Well, the good news is that a solid shot to the strut towers will NOT disable the vehicle.

Others already brought it up earlier...it would be a lot easier to track the progress of the build (or refer back to previous updates) if you keep it all in one place. It's tough to refer back to a bunch of smaller threads in the future. Of course, I'm completely biased, as that's how I track my builds.

Have fun stripping down the wiring harness...one of my least favorite parts of modern powertrain swaps is decontenting the factory harnesses. It's not difficult, per se, just very tedious and boring. Fortunately, the engine harness on that car has a couple of big disconnects (IIRC) so you shouldn't have to bother much with the engine side of things, just the chassis side.

Bryce

Nashco wrote: Well, the good news is that a solid shot to the strut towers will NOT disable the vehicle. Others already brought it up earlier...it would be a lot easier to track the progress of the build (or refer back to previous updates) if you keep it all in one place. It's tough to refer back to a bunch of smaller threads in the future. Of course, I'm completely biased, as that's how I track my builds. Have fun stripping down the wiring harness...one of my least favorite parts of modern powertrain swaps is decontenting the factory harnesses. It's not difficult, per se, just very tedious and boring. Fortunately, the engine harness on that car has a couple of big disconnects (IIRC) so you shouldn't have to bother much with the engine side of things, just the chassis side. Bryce

Yeah, Ive been too lazy to track down my old posts...my bad. Its one of the drawbacks to posting updates at the end of a workday, too exhausted to put in extra effort. Everything posted is tracked in one place on the build site though http://wartburg.misfittoysracing.com

The harness isnt terrible only because Kennedy sent us a wiring diagaram. Its a full size layout that you can put the harness on and it shows exactly where to cut/splice/etc. Kinda nice.

It also isnt terrible because IM NOT DOING IT! Its Sonic(Chris') problem. I'm forbidden from touching wiring since the great Mustang incident of 08.

As you noted, engine side looks pretty straightforward. We are trying to reutilize bits of the body harness for lights and such since the old cloth covered wire in the 6v system in the wartburg wasnt adviseable for reuse.

yeah, since the topic and content was rather shall we say vague, ofcourse I didn't know what it was, lol...

Andrew

It looks to like the readers ride section would be a dandy place to put a build thread...

Capt Slow wrote: It looks to like the readers ride section would be a dandy place to put a build thread...

If I didnt have 3 other places to update already maybe :)