Archive for February 2009

Another status update.

So, I’ve got a 1.6 liter donor, but of course I’d like an LSD, so I’m borrowing a torsen right now (which I may come to own eventually). I had no idea the diff in the 1.8 liter cars was so friggin huge. I’ve been working on making the transmission tunnel, and I’m going to have to have the passenger side body work bow out or something to make room for the diff/driveshaft.

I cut the front bulkhead tube (the one at the back of the engine) and am going to move it back/reinforce it somehow later, but I did this so that I could move the engine back significantly. Of course, that’s moved the whole transmission back and required some careful thought on the rest of the tunnel. 

I also decided to take a break from the tunnel and start making my motor mounts. I love this welder (Lincoln Pro-Mig 140), it practically does all the work for me.

Pictures:

So much for frequent updates.. Anyways, I’ve recently started working on the car a lot, and hope to keep up the progress. I have the basic frame done, now I need to mount the engine and diff, and build the transmission tunnel.

I spent a little bit of time arguing with myself about the supercharger.. with its current mounting setup it sticks outside where the hoodline is. I was considering cold-side mounting options, or perhaps just lowering it to under the exhaust (where the a/c used to be) on the hotside, but nothing really worked out in my head very well. I ended up settling on just leaving it as it is, and worrying about it later. I could probably make a custom outlet manifold if I REALLY wanted to, and then it would fit under the hood. I’ll probably either put a bulge in the hood or cut a hole for fitment. That’s a long ways down.

Oh and by the way, having a completed car 5 feet away is very very useful. There were probably half a dozen times I wondered “Hmm, what will that look like when its all done?” and I just went and looked at evox’s and it answered my question.

Here is the past week’s worth of work: