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Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Dec 12, 2010 15:42:11 GMT -5
FINALLY I am ROLLING on building the "new" car. Its been a very slow process but started with smoothing out all the underhood roughness. This means welding every single hole from the factory shut, hanging patches to fill the big ones like the ac/heater core, factory eec harness and anything else I've found. The pics are bad (cell phone) but I'll get better ones up throughout the week. About every other day I have pulled an all nighter/24 hour shift messing with various work. For anybody who hasn't been around me for this it seems horribly scatterbrained until the very last second when it always comes together. I have so much stuff to do that I work on one thing until I'm either annoyed, bored or done with it and tend to bounce around to different things to keep from getting in a rut. Current things are way are: -Underhood mods as I mentioned -swapped to manual brakes including addition of line lock, adjustable proportion valve and new lines to the front -modifying motor mounts to nearly beyond recognition to solid and maybe adjustable height -cutting and notching the extra bars to convert the cage to 10 pnt -welding the plates on the floor I did get everything mocked for the brakes. All thats left is to make the lines and get it all ready for final install after the firewall is painted. I counted 138 holes in the firewall that I have closed and still have a few left. This pic was from the early stages
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Post by tiresmoke69 on Dec 15, 2010 17:48:03 GMT -5
So this will be a bolt on only car setup for drag racing im assuming. Looks like a long way to go, are you going to put manual rack and pinion in?
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Post by bobbarker on Dec 15, 2010 20:16:16 GMT -5
Dayum that's a lot of work!
I'm jealous!
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Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Dec 15, 2010 20:57:37 GMT -5
So this will be a bolt on only car setup for drag racing im assuming. Looks like a long way to go, are you going to put manual rack and pinion in? www.stinger-performance.com/bolton.htmlIts a rebuild of this in a much more refined way, adding some new parts including a swap to a really stout drag race only manual 5 speed. Haven't decided about the manual rack. Theres a been a pile of money through at it lately.Thats an easy swap later so it will happen at some point but I might get back up and racing on this one. Its worked fine for 500 passes and 5k miles of driving. Dayum that's a lot of work! I'm jealous! Yeah really crazy. I've had to switch off and do a few other metal projects in between doing the underhood stuff. Today I worked on the cage some more, underhood smoothing and made a a piece of a motormount to see how I like it. It drops the engine to pick up a tad bit of trans tunnel clearance and yet leaves a little gap from oil pan to steering rack. The manual rack would have a little more clearance. I'm really thinking hard about cutting the center section out of the tube kmember, adding plates and bolting it back together. Then the bottom end engine stuff becomes easily accessible at all times without pulling the engine.
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Post by tiresmoke69 on Dec 16, 2010 7:49:01 GMT -5
That's going to be an impressive car, I can't wait to see it run man. Do you have any e.t. goals in mind for the future?
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Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Dec 16, 2010 23:58:15 GMT -5
Well when it went 10.89 there was a list of huge problems that you can't really comprehend. Big stuff like the tune was crazy lean with any boost or rpm and the axle splines weren't quite deep enough and two people could not push the car on flat pavement because the rear turned so hard. Just fixing those issues we originally hoped to go quite a bit faster. It never made it though before it came apart for its final chassis build and trans swap. The only real goal I'll say out loud or post here is to run a 9.99 in 2011. If I get gutsy towards the end of the year I might go for deeper. Right now thats the plan. Once it does that I can justify paying the crazy amounts to get the chassis certification sticker and obtain a comp drivers license.
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Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Dec 18, 2010 11:12:59 GMT -5
more pics After spending some time working on the cage I don't really recommend a jegster 8pnt or the conversion kit to 10 pnt. When you buy an 8pnt the bars have to be 1 3/4". With a 10 pnt theres more coverage so bars are 1 3/4". The jegs halo is made to mount on the 45* section of the main hoop which makes it pretty low in the car. The A-pillar bars are notched at the wrong angle so after to renotch and cut the extra length, the options are limited on where you can wrong them. I went through the speaker holes in the dash but its not a perfect fit with the A-pillar. The new companies doing cages run a bar from the A-pillar area all the way to the main hoop and the a straight bar to connect it side to side. I wish mine were like that but I'm already into this one and it will be fine. I took a "brake" from the cage stuff to do some brake lines and other random work. I'm officially out of school now so I can start putting some real time towards it. I'm hoping to complete all of the chassis stuff done, window net, patch the huge holes cut for the shifter, paint the cage, floor, underhood and get the interior back in over the next week or two. Then it can be loaded in the trailer for the winter and I can get some space back to work on other things.
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Post by tiresmoke69 on Dec 18, 2010 19:16:38 GMT -5
Glad to see some more progress man. I hope to get my tbird to run a 10.99 in 2011. What transmission will you be going with?
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Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Dec 18, 2010 19:23:55 GMT -5
Its a Doug Nash 5speed. Its an old version (from the 70s) but was such a good design it was picked up and used by richmond and Gforce.
...not gonna lie, sometimes I bolt the shifter to it just to take a pic. lol I need to build a box to cover it up which is a shame.
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Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Dec 20, 2010 10:36:50 GMT -5
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Post by bobbarker on Dec 21, 2010 18:20:28 GMT -5
I need to find a chassis shop to make me a cage and some sub frame connectors. I fell vulnerable after taking the guts out of the doors and seeing just how hollow they are!
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Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Dec 21, 2010 23:53:37 GMT -5
Yeah the problem is that without the beam in the doors its weakened to the point were the regular door wont help much. You would want a X in the doors which is terrible to get in an out of....even then a cage cage with halo really isnt that safe because its intended to be used with a helmet and padding. If you go banging your head off the bars the car might be perfectly intact but a still be dead. Today wasn't a huge advance other than the 10 point cage is finally officially installed. Its a big deal for me because I just got a welder and have been learning as I go. Ive used a whole tank of gas trying to get all this stuff done and practicing. I did get the modded pedals in, the brake stuff is all made 100% and ready for final install and I started throwing bondo at all the underhood stuff. So The next work day will be sanding down the bonda and trying to prep for paint, I have more holes to weld shut under the hood and in the floor, install the window net and make a trans cross member. Since the engine is pulled back a bit plus the trans wasn't for this car it misses the crossmember by almost 5". Here was the final result of me fumbling around with trying to learn to weld.
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Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Dec 24, 2010 8:05:33 GMT -5
I'm in the home stretch on one side at least.
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Post by bobbarker on Dec 24, 2010 23:12:51 GMT -5
Looks great!
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Post by Matt Culpepper 2300gearjammer on Dec 24, 2010 23:22:55 GMT -5
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