Alright, so its been quite a while since I’ve updated. Life got a little crazy for a bit (as it does for anyone), then I went and spent 3 months in europe, but I’m back and for the last couple of weeks I’ve been making good progress. Hopefully I can keep this up!
In summary, I finished the transmission tunnel, mounted the engine/trans, and final welded the frame back in the spring.. the car sat untouched all summer, and since 2-3 weeks ago I’ve done the following:
- Finalize front and rear suspension geometry. Ordered a bunch of AN 8 bolts from aircraft spruce for the inboard mounts, which got here the next day thanks to them being about 20 miles away. Also ordered a bunch of brackets from Jack at kinetic since making 20+ brackets for control arms and shocks didn’t sound like my idea of time well spent. - Finished building the rear end - Spec’d out the fuel system (tank, lines, pump, fittings, etc), and ordered the tank. Ended up changing my mind on the tank (summit racing 15 gallon) due to clearance issues and lack of sump/baffling. I ordered a 10″ diameter cylindrical tank instead that will hold 11 gallons, and has a sump + internal baffles. Hasn’t arrived yet, but I’ll post pics and more info of it when it does. - Ordered brake/clutch pedals and master cylinders. Decided to go with wilwood bottom mount, same bore sizes as used on Keith’s car. I need to cut out the tube at the end of the driver footwell and replace it with 16 gauge sheet on the vertical and horizontal right there.. I’ll also re-inforce it with another 3/4″ square tube close to the driver’s heel. - Ordered/decided on hardware.. got a huge assortment of grade 8 SAE bolts/nuts/washers from mcmaster carr. Shiny! They’re all cadmium plated. - Made the mounts for the diff carrier and snout. I spent a lot of time considering the best way to mount the snout on the diff, and looking at other folks’ solutions.. I think mine is somewhat of a hybrid between Keith’s and Nathan’s (SteyrTMP) solutions. Weldnuts will be placed on the top of the snout mount and the bolts that go through the diff will enter from below. The mount attaches to the car in the rear corner of the passenger’s compartment, and will be reinforced with gussets and some x bracing. Weldnuts will be attached on the inner part of the mount and the bolts will be removable from the passenger compartment. I’m planning on replacing the diff carrier mount bushings with solid mounts when the car is nearer to completion.
By the way, drilling through mig weld material is really tough! I spent wayyy too long wednesday evening trying to drill through one of the carrier mounts.. the hole happened to fall near the weld seam where I had attached 1/8″ plate to angle iron. That night I ordered a set of high speed steel drill bits from mcmaster carr (its awesome having them be so close) and the next day I drilled through the other carrier mount in about 30 seconds!
- Ordered wheels and tires for final measurements on the suspension geometry. The wheels came in and the tires were taking forever.. I decided the wheels were sufficient for the measurements and cancelled the order on the tires. I’ll keep my $600 for another day, thank you very much! Wheels are TRMotorsports C1 15×7.5.. 13.2 pounds and only $99 each! tires I’m gonna use are Toyo R888 225/45R15, normally $169 a piece but I found them for $139 a piece with cheap shipping from http://www.tiresdirect.net I’ve heard good things about them, I guess they don’t stock the size I wanted though so if you order from them don’t expect it to be there by the end of the week! I’ll be using them once I finally do order tires.
- Did some more thinking on the rollbar stuff and the interior in general. I think I’m going to end up doing a cage for several reasons.. safety, chassis rigidity, and the possibility of adding a hard top and delorean style doors in the future (don’t worry, I won’t delay the completion of the build for things like that.. this would be projects to do after the car is done ) After test fitting the seat and pedals I think I’m also going to remove about 5 inches from the length of the frame in the passenger area. It’ll only require cutting and rewelding a handful of tubes and will go a long way towards the look I’m going for.
- Friday I realized that I’m going to end up spending many many hours fabricating brackets for this car, and decided to think of a way to make myself more efficient in this vain. Ended up researching plasma cutters a ton and decided to buy a Longevity 40 amp cutter, which cuts up to 3/4″ thick steel, and slice right through 1/8″. See my potential group buy thread here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7534
- Lastly (I’m sure I’m missing something!) I’ve decided on the color scheme and I think I’m going to mimic my last 4-wheeled true love, which I sold 2 years ago because I decided that I wanted to build a locost and needed the funds. It was an awesome car.. but about 1500 pounds too heavy! 1986 944 Turbo. Pics at the bottom.
Since I’ve been away from working on this thing for so long its been difficult to not obsess over it in this “getting back into it” period.. I think about it constantly and have trouble falling asleep at night because I’m fantasizing/deciding on certain things with it. I’m getting control of it though thankfully.. Here are the pics related to all of the above bullet points.
Rear end complete, diff mounting, wheels
Alright, so its been quite a while since I’ve updated. Life got a little crazy for a bit (as it does for anyone), then I went and spent 3 months in europe, but I’m back and for the last couple of weeks I’ve been making good progress. Hopefully I can keep this up!
In summary, I finished the transmission tunnel, mounted the engine/trans, and final welded the frame back in the spring.. the car sat untouched all summer, and since 2-3 weeks ago I’ve done the following:
- Finalize front and rear suspension geometry. Ordered a bunch of AN 8 bolts from aircraft spruce for the inboard mounts, which got here the next day thanks to them being about 20 miles away. Also ordered a bunch of brackets from Jack at kinetic since making 20+ brackets for control arms and shocks didn’t sound like my idea of time well spent.
- Finished building the rear end
- Spec’d out the fuel system (tank, lines, pump, fittings, etc), and ordered the tank. Ended up changing my mind on the tank (summit racing 15 gallon) due to clearance issues and lack of sump/baffling. I ordered a 10″ diameter cylindrical tank instead that will hold 11 gallons, and has a sump + internal baffles. Hasn’t arrived yet, but I’ll post pics and more info of it when it does.
- Ordered brake/clutch pedals and master cylinders. Decided to go with wilwood bottom mount, same bore sizes as used on Keith’s car. I need to cut out the tube at the end of the driver footwell and replace it with 16 gauge sheet on the vertical and horizontal right there.. I’ll also re-inforce it with another 3/4″ square tube close to the driver’s heel.
- Ordered/decided on hardware.. got a huge assortment of grade 8 SAE bolts/nuts/washers from mcmaster carr. Shiny! They’re all cadmium plated.
- Made the mounts for the diff carrier and snout. I spent a lot of time considering the best way to mount the snout on the diff, and looking at other folks’ solutions.. I think mine is somewhat of a hybrid between Keith’s and Nathan’s (SteyrTMP) solutions. Weldnuts will be placed on the top of the snout mount and the bolts that go through the diff will enter from below. The mount attaches to the car in the rear corner of the passenger’s compartment, and will be reinforced with gussets and some x bracing. Weldnuts will be attached on the inner part of the mount and the bolts will be removable from the passenger compartment. I’m planning on replacing the diff carrier mount bushings with solid mounts when the car is nearer to completion.
By the way, drilling through mig weld material is really tough! I spent wayyy too long wednesday evening trying to drill through one of the carrier mounts.. the hole happened to fall near the weld seam where I had attached 1/8″ plate to angle iron. That night I ordered a set of high speed steel drill bits from mcmaster carr (its awesome having them be so close) and the next day I drilled through the other carrier mount in about 30 seconds!
- Ordered wheels and tires for final measurements on the suspension geometry. The wheels came in and the tires were taking forever.. I decided the wheels were sufficient for the measurements and cancelled the order on the tires. I’ll keep my $600 for another day, thank you very much! Wheels are TRMotorsports C1 15×7.5.. 13.2 pounds and only $99 each! tires I’m gonna use are Toyo R888 225/45R15, normally $169 a piece but I found them for $139 a piece with cheap shipping from http://www.tiresdirect.net I’ve heard good things about them, I guess they don’t stock the size I wanted though so if you order from them don’t expect it to be there by the end of the week! I’ll be using them once I finally do order tires.
- Did some more thinking on the rollbar stuff and the interior in general. I think I’m going to end up doing a cage for several reasons.. safety, chassis rigidity, and the possibility of adding a hard top and delorean style doors in the future (don’t worry, I won’t delay the completion of the build for things like that.. this would be projects to do after the car is done
- Friday I realized that I’m going to end up spending many many hours fabricating brackets for this car, and decided to think of a way to make myself more efficient in this vain. Ended up researching plasma cutters a ton and decided to buy a Longevity 40 amp cutter, which cuts up to 3/4″ thick steel, and slice right through 1/8″. See my potential group buy thread here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7534
- Lastly (I’m sure I’m missing something!) I’ve decided on the color scheme and I think I’m going to mimic my last 4-wheeled true love, which I sold 2 years ago because I decided that I wanted to build a locost and needed the funds. It was an awesome car.. but about 1500 pounds too heavy! 1986 944 Turbo. Pics at the bottom.
Since I’ve been away from working on this thing for so long its been difficult to not obsess over it in this “getting back into it” period.. I think about it constantly and have trouble falling asleep at night because I’m fantasizing/deciding on certain things with it. I’m getting control of it though thankfully.. Here are the pics related to all of the above bullet points.