Tarp 818r

[nkw8181]

Man things are looking great!

[Mulry]

Well it's been more than 2 months since my last post, so I should update.

There's been no progress since the last post. We got the Lemons car built just in time for the first race this year, at Barber Motorsports Park the first weekend of February. The car had a few teething pains -- oil leak at the VANOS that was solved with bolt tightening and some well-placed RTV, and the motor is TIRED but stopped burning oil after we switched to 20w50 conventional -- but it ran all weekend. The motor is so tired that we weren't really competitive (22nd out of 80+ cars) but the car handled predictably and was a blast to drive (other than the ABS going out, gotta fix that). And Barber is a track that is always a joy to drive.

I had promised my bride that I would complete a couple furniture projects last fall until the other Lemons car got wrecked, so that got delayed until after the last race. So now I'm on furniture duty until those are done; it surely will be at least another month until I can start work on the 818 again. It just sits there in the garage, taunting me.

[nkw8181]

At that rate I'll come to meet you driving the 818 :-)

[Mulry]

Ouch. But true.

[Mulry]

Work has resumed on our 818R. I'm working on building the dining room table for my bride, but Ben removed the heads from the engine, installed new MLS head gaskets, and re-installed the heads with ARP hardware (no thanks to rallysportdirect.com, which sent us the wrong ARP stud kit and then wouldn't take it back in exchange for the right one -- won't shop there again). We are awaiting some parts to finish the job -- new cam seals, new timing belt -- and then the long block will at least be together.

Next step really is to get our oil pump modeled in software so we can fabricate a good mount for it. And we need to figure out how to get the go pedal mounted right, I really can't believe that such a simple operation should be such a fustercluck in the factory instructions.

[dallas_]

Work has resumed on our 818R.

Good news!

[FFRSpec72]

I'm sure you are aware as looking at your dash pictures, your windscreen mount is going to have to come way forward towards the cockpit to get the windscreen in proper position

[nkw8181]

The go pedal bracket is pretty weak. I tried it then made a stiffer replacement. Just FYI it likes to flex

[shoeish]

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...l=1#post218209

If you add one more rivet like I did it stiffens the whole mess up a ton.

[Mitch Wright]

I tack welded the pedal assembly to the FFR mount at the top which made it rock solid.

[Mulry]

Tack welding or additional rivet makes sense -- but the thing that I can't get over is the position of the entire thing. The pedal arm has such limited movement before it hits the clutch throwout arm. Is that really enough room for it to fully open the throttle plate?

[Mitch Wright]

I am using the Wilwood Pedals so didn't have that issue.

[STiPWRD]

Tack welding or additional rivet makes sense -- but the thing that I can't get over is the position of the entire thing. The pedal arm has such limited movement before it hits the clutch throwout arm. Is that really enough room for it to fully open the throttle plate?

My gas pedal also hits the top of the pedal assembly - I measured TPS response and I'm only getting up to 80%. I'll be modifying the mounting to get that extra bit of clearance.

[Mulry]

My gas pedal also hits the top of the pedal assembly - I measured TPS response and I'm only getting up to 80%. I'll be modifying the mounting to get that extra bit of clearance.

I would love to see what you come up with. It seems like the only practical modification, given the length of the gas pedal lever, would be to cut the flange and re-weld it lower on the lever arm so that it clears the throwout arm.

[STiPWRD]

I was going to try copying JJ's approach:
http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showt...l=1#post186146

[Mulry]

That's a good catch. We will try that too. Thanks!

[nkw8181]

Mine didn't have an issue but it is dbw

[Mulry]

Managed to get back into the garage yesterday and worked on the 818 some more. I decided that either the 818 was going to get a gas pedal or it was going to burn to the ground, but since it's mostly just a steel cage at this point and I don't have a really large forge, it was going to have to get the gas pedal.

Thanks for the ideas linked above, they kind of broke me out of a mindset of "it should work this way" and more into a "modify this BS until it works" mindset. I just can't get over the fact that the FFR manual is so badly wrong so many times in so many places; moreover, that the custom parts that they send are so badly wrong so many times. I really need to adopt the mindset that their methods and parts are sort of just tangible suggestions than gospel truth. That's easier to remember when you're working on it more than once every six months, but hopefully that long delay won't occur again. Or if it does, somebody else is rebuilding the Lemons car next time.

So, I tackled the accelerator pedal and throttle cable install. The 818 being a clean-sheet design, there is no good reason that this job took the better part of 5 hours for someone who is a pretty experienced (if not skilled) fabricator and installer. I guess I probably did turn and watch the Indy car race at Long Beach on and off during that time, but still, it took way longer than it should have. Here's what I learned:

1. Prepare to install and remove the frunk firewall aluminum several times to achieve proper fitment of the pedal mount plate and the cable.
2. The plasma cutter and/or cutting wheel and the flap wheel sander are friends to treasure to complete this operation.

Ok, this ranting isn't going to help anybody (although I feel better, thanks Internet for letting me vent), so let me see if I can summarize the work for the benefit of future generations of frustrated 818 builders.

In order to fit the area allowed and provide really sufficient throw to fully open the throttle plate, the throttle pedal support plate needs to sit flush against the inside of the firewall. There is an ear on the upper left side of the plate that needs to be excised so that it will clear a square tube that is part of the chassis. This photo shows the ear that needs to be cut off and then after cutting that ear off, the throttle support plate will look like this:

IMG_3302.JPG

So now the throttle support plate will fit the intended area flush with the firewall (and sandwiched at the top between firewall and the chassis square tube), but the throttle pedal assembly (from the donor car) still will not. Please bear in mind that I am using a throttle cable-actuated throttle from an 02 STi; I've heard rumors that this isn't a problem for all gas pedals, but it was a problem for me. YMMV, etc.

My throttle pedal was both too tall and too wide in a couple places to fit the intended area. This is what the throttle pedal assembly looked like before surgery.

IMG_3303.JPG

Note that there is a fair amount of support material behind and above the throttle pedal lever arm where the throttle cable will connect to the throttle pedal arm. I suspect that this was there to attach to the STi chassis, but it's not necessary in the 818, as it doesn't attach to anything and is just in the way. So out came the cutting wheel and flap sander, and then the top of the throttle pedal was cut flush and sanded/deburred:

IMG_3309.JPG

The throttle pedal assembly worked vertically with that modification, but it was interfering with square tube to the left and the clutch pedal support bracket to the right. I kind of eyeballed where the material needed to come out and marked it with the sharpie:

IMG_3311.JPG

And then cut and sanded some more. After cutting, it looked like this and fit like a glove:

IMG_3313.JPG

I then test-bolted everything to make sure that it would fit for final assembly. At this point, I thought I could just run the throttle cable, but it is basically impossible to bolt the throttle cable to the firewall with the throttle pedal assembly bolted in place because the nut for the inside of the throttle cable attachment goes between the throttle pedal support plate and the firewall. Out came the pedal, and then it became clear that the throttle cable attachment would be a lot easier to handle with it out of the car. So I removed that entire panel (again) and attached the throttle cable to the firewall. Firewall panel back into the car (with clecos to hold it in place, bolted in the support plate (with just the M6 bolt at bottom to locate it), sandwiching the plate between the firewall panel and the square tube at top. Then I reinstalled the pedal itself.

Of course, when I went to snap in the throttle cable end to the pedal, the plastic clip broke. Apparently this is a common problem and there is a .stl file out there for printing a replacement on the 3D printer, so I've asked for that file from its creator and will implement that fix. I don't see it really being a big problem, as the cable can pull loose only when it's not connected to the throttle body on the other end.

Next for the car: reassembly of the timing gear/belt and then the clutch and transmission. Guess I'm going to have to figure out the fuel line routing here one of these days, although I might wait until we've mounted the engine in the car to make sure I've got it all right.

[Mulry]

We've spent the last couple weekends scrapping our old Lemons MR2 shell because we wanted to pull some parts from that for this build, including the accusump (for pre-start oiling), an oil cooler, the fuel cell, and some other random stuff. We finished that up last Sunday and got to the 818 yesterday.

We got the engine all back together and timed but are waiting to pull it from the engine stand until we complete work on the top-of-engine items, like the oil pump mount and fuel line routing. I foresee setting and removing the engine from the chassis several times before this project is complete, but I'd like to be wrong about that. Fortunately, compared with the MR2, getting an engine in/out of the 818 chassis looks like it will be a breeze. Then again, getting an engine in/out of nearly any car has to be easier than it was on the MR2.

We've decided for now to utilize the stock fuel rails since we're not going for big HP for the initial run with this engine and chassis. But we're not going to deal with that rats next of hardlines, so we're modifying the stock fuel rails slightly. Since we will run an external FPR, the first thing to do was to cut up the stock one and weld on a fitting so that we could use the stock FPR exit without the FPR. We had a -8AN weld on bung in the AN box of parts. We cut the stock FPR off its flange and re-used that so that we could utilize the stock o-ring fitting:

IMG_3373.JPG

We cut down some of the hardlines. I bought a WWII-era Parker tube beading tool last winter in anticipation of needing to do this with some hardlines and it paid off, as it worked great to re-bead the cut hardlines. We will use PTFE-lined hose and the stock Subaru clamps on the fuel system at the fuel rails and then AN fittings at the FPR and fuel pump, etc.

Ben got a lot of work done on prototyping the oil pump mount. We are going to use a 3-stage Weaver Bros. oil pump that I bought off eBay last fall and had rebuilt (it was a 5-stage). It has 2 scavenge stages and one pressure stage, which should be sufficient. 3 stages is all that will fit in the area above and to the driver's left of the alternator, and we're going to build a bracket off the stock alt bracket for mounting the oil pump. Ben modeled the oil pump in Inventor (I think) and is going to prototype a mount for it, then we'll 3D print that for fitment purposes, and then we'll figure out how to fabricate it in 3/8" aluminum when we get fitment figured out. The nice thing about it is that it will put the pressure adjustment screw on the pump in an easy-to-access location; that's the sort of thing you really only have to adjust once, but you don't want it hidden if possible. Should also provide us with some good line routing around the hot things we want to not get too hot. Then once we have the mount figured out we will know our center-to-center spacing from the oil pump to the crank pulley and can figure out ordering those mandrels, pulleys, and the toothed belt to drive the oil pump.

Also pulled apart the fuel cell and gave that an inspection. The fuel cell foam appears to be in good condition but I didn't go digging around in it. The gas that was in the cell was, of course, completely degraded, so we have about 7 gallons of watery gas (or gassy water?) to figure out how to dispose of. The fuel cell can was a little rusty from sitting around out in the elements for the last 20 months or so, so we got to work on stripping the paint and surface rust and getting it primed and re-painted just to keep it clean. Once re-painted we will start working on fuel cell fitment in the passenger seat area. It's a 22 gallon cell, which isn't all that large, but given the ST3/E0 regulations on fueling, we probably really have a ton of excess capacity. Given the success we've had with it on our Lemons car, we'll probably put a Hydramat in this before hooking the whole thing up.

Most importantly, I got a bunch of work done on Rachel's dining room table while Ben was getting 818 stuff done. If mama aint happy...

[dallas_]

Good to see some progress being made.

[Mulry]

BTW, this is what a sawzall'd MR2 chassis looks like before the scrap guys haul it off the curb. We had it out on the curb for bulky trash last weekend about 5:30pm on Saturday and it was gone by 8:00 that evening. Pretty amazing that it disappeared so quickly with scrap metal prices so low:

IMG_3367-2.jpg

[Mulry]

Work progresses but slowly as the continuing and unending rainstorms in the DFW area hobble my ability to finish the dining room table for my wife, which hobbles my ability to work on the car.

That said, we completed modeling and mockup of v1.0 of the dry sump pump mounts. Ben modeled our 3-stage dry sump oil pump (2 scavenge, one pressure) in Autocad Inventor (I think?) and then printed out the stages on his 3D printer. I did a little cleanup on the parts and a test assembly, and then we mocked it up on the engine. As far as I can tell, we are the first ones to do this with an oil pump doing both scavenge and pressure. It seems more common for builders to do a scavenge-only pump and let the stock oil pump do the pressure side, but we wanted to be able to control the pressure externally via the pump, so we're building a bespoke mounting system. Here's what the 3D printed stages look like prior to assembly (that's the dining room table in progress underneath the pump stages):

Stages.jpg

And then here's what they look like when assembled. The 2 scavenge stages are at the front of the pump and the pressure stage is at the rear. The long stub on the front represents the pump shaft:

Assy1.jpgAssy2.jpg

We are planning to mount the pump to the engine using the A/C side of the bracket that also holds the alternator. We made up a multi-hole test bracket in plastic to work on positioning. We want to tighten up the fit closer to the bracket, so we'll have v1.1 ready to work on for next weekend.

Test-Fit-1.jpg

Once we get the fit where we really like it then we'll have it made up in aluminum that we can either bolt together or weld, and then the pump will mount to that. Then we can calculate the belt length that we need. Having the pump mockup in place will also assist us in determining what, if any, modifications will need to be made to the firewall to clearance the oil drive setup. It's made easier for us since we aren't running the stock fuel tank but will have a fuel cell in the passenger seat area.

We also did some work on that front. Having pulled the cell from the MR2, we decided to strip the old mounting cage, remove some bracketry that won't be needed for this application, and then we need to modify it slightly to fit.

[Mulry]

Saturday was really hot in the garage, but I guess we'd better get used to it. Seemed hotter than last summer for some reason.

Anyway, we finally got the engine off the stand and test-fit into the chassis. Installed the clutch assembly and transmission, then did the remaining work on the transmission conversion since that's easier to do with the transmission connected to the wheels preventing the transmission from spinning to do that last nut on the back end of the trans. Got everything bolted and sealed up and the CV's mostly done. We may need to slide the engine slightly back to ensure enough clearance between the oil pump mandrel on the crank and the frame, but we'll know that better next week. Need to figure out where we really want to put the fuel pump and start doing fuel line routing next week when we test fit the fuel cell. Then it will be time to crack open the wallet and get a ton of fittings and line. Too bad I don't have a good volume discount for any of that stuff

Am thinking that we will go AWIC on the intercooler. So there's something else to investigate...

[Mulry]

Holy cow, didn't realize it's been almost a year since the last update - but then I guess that's not a big surprise. That said, I'll keep this pretty brief.

Most of the last year has been taken up with working on and rebuilding our Lemons car after the prior iteration got totaled in November, 2015. We swapped engines, fixed a bunch of stuff, etc. After the most recent race, we sent the car up to OKC for the summer because I've found that if the Lemons car is within sight and there's stuff to do to get it ready for the next race (and there's always stuff to do to get it ready for the next race), then the 818 doesn't get worked on. And I really want to finish this car.

The last couple weekends were spent unburying the car, re-organizing the parts (and ordering more), and figuring out design and layout for all the fuel, engine cooling, AWIC cooling, and brake lines. For sprint-type races, we decided to install just a 5-gallon ATL RaCell ahead of the front firewall (also to keep the passenger area clear so we can install a seat there for ride-alongs at DE's, etc), so we're routing fuel there and back. So, I've been in bracket-fabrication mode last weekend and this past weekend.

After fabricating and tack-welding in some of the frunk-area brackets, I was finally able to start fabricating the fuel and AWIC hardlines. That was surprisingly fun. Only forgot one time to put the tube nut on before flaring the line.

Next up will be to fabricate some brackets to hold the hardlines, then test-fit the engine (again) and figure out the exact location that I want for the bulkhead fittings for fuel and AWIC. Also need to finish the wire diet and re-loom for the electrical harness so that we can fit all that in at the same time. Also need to clock the turbo per Mechie's kit.

[Mulry]

Ben and I got a fair bit done this weekend, although we remain at that stage where you get a lot done and it still doesn't always look like you got a lot done. We finalized fabrication and initial assembly on about 90% of the components for the frunk, including welding of all the steel brackets and fabrication of the u-brackets to hold in the 5 gallon fuel cell for sprint races. We await delivery of our 3D printed brackets for the pre-pump fuel filter and fuel pump and then we can start working on building out the hoses for all the connections. NASA regulations requires that any fuel cell be contained within its own metal can, so we're working on a sheet metal design for the Racell, as I haven't found that anybody makes one. After we get the hoses fitted then we'll work on bending and location for the hydraulic hardlines for brakes and clutch

We've been bothered for a long time by the main hoop terminating in an uncapped square tube, as that would be the obvious failure point in a rollover situation, so we fabricated and welded in a cap for that location. It's still a weld in shear, so it's not ideal, but we could always plate the triangle formed by the rear backstay if it continues to bug us. This patch was substantially aided by one of our most common design tools: Cardboard Aided Design:
IMG_4716.JPG

Also in metal fabrication world, we fabricated a clutch dead pedal. It seems very odd that these cars don't come with one. We once again recycled some powder coated steel dividers that came with an old software media cabinet that we've repurposed into hardware drawers. Another one of those dividers also serves as a clutch dead pedal on the Lemons car.

BTW, adding the air compressor to a dedicated A/C circuit has been a boon to fabrication. Just being able to use the angled die grinder in places to remove powdercoating prior to welding has been worth it, although it makes the garage sound like the office of a deranged dentist when we're really running it. Getting the plasma cutter working at 100% has sped things up a lot too. Just watch out for the slag...

The stock turbo is getting re-used for the initial build and racing, so we clocked the TD04 so that it has better location for use with our AWIC. Nobody tells you what a pain it really is to get that circlip out of the compressor housing, but we found that teamwork makes a big difference. Also, if you're thinking about that job, we'd recommend getting the ratcheting spring clip tool, it would have made out life a lot easier. That clip is very large and takes a lot of pressure to move. Once we have the replacement turbo oil drain gasket, that will be ready to re-install final to the engine, which also got new Radium fuel rails this weekend. We will deadend the fuel system so that we're not circulating hot fuel back into the fuel cell. That provides 2 benefits, but the biggest one is that it makes the fuel pump far less likely to cavitate. We found out at Sebring a couple summers ago that very high ambient temps can contribute to fuel pressure failure that way. It was not a fun way to drive a race because we had to cycle the fuel pump before every turn to keep the pressure up.

The dry sump plate was final-installed, although I'm thinking I might go back and stud the block instead. I'm not thrilled with how several of the bolts are catching and it will be a lot easier to service if all of the fasteners are identical.

We decided to install the battery in the passenger footwell. We just ran out of space low in the frunk area and this was easier to mount.

We also did a lot of work arranging the wiring harness. That thing is a mess, but we at least have everything located where we think it's going to need to be. Next step on that front is to decide how to handle power management for all the other circuits we need to add for racing and how many we can repurpose out of the stock fuse panels. We test-mounted the engine for wire running purposes and also installed the rear brake soft line tabs, but wanted to wait on the front ones until we have a better idea where we'll terminate the hardlines. It seems somewhat weird that the 818 manual doesn't have a hard specification for the location of those items -- but I guess that's a situation we came to grips with long ago. Once we had the electrics run and the engine in, we were able to start locating some stuff on the rear firewall, including initial installation of the fuel pressure regulator.

My hope is that we will get the rest of the fluid routing stuff done next weekend, depending on how many days I get in the garage over the July 4 weekend. I'd love to at least get the rear brake hardlines run and the modifications to the stainless cooling hardlines. It's really nice to be mounting stuff to the car rather than just building brackets. And there are so many to build.

[AZPete]

I'm learning from your build thread. For example, CAD=cardboard aided design!

[Mulry]

LOL. I can't take credit for that. We are actually doing a fair amount of CAD via OnShape for our 3D printed components. But there is a lot of cardboard template building for 2D stuff too.

[dallas_]

Glad to see you're back on it.

[Mulry]

The list of stuff that got done on July 4 and this weekend was pretty substantial, fortunately. Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of pictures.

Other than building the can for the 5 gal Racell in the frunk, pretty much everything up there is located and we primed and painted all the structure gloss white to make it easier to identify any leaks. On our next work weekend, we will need to re-install everything and then start building and connecting the lines (AWIC, fuel, coolant, brake, clutch).

We finished the buildout of the rear firewall and most of the pass-through locations. We rivnutted the chassis for when we're ready to permanently affix the rear firewall and tested all those. The only holes left to cut are for the electrical passthrough(s) and probably some rivnuts to add to locate ECU, etc. Will add some heat control to the reverse of the firewall before we do final install. Actually took a photo of the bulkhead:

IMG_4755.JPG

We did a lot of work on the gas pedal. We weren't happy with the way that it was mounting to the front firewall and flexing around, nor with the way that the top was banging into the clutch pedal extension arm across the top of the pedal cluster. Ben did a ton of fabrication and welding work on this -- basically all morning on Saturday -- and took a bunch of pictures, so I'll document that separately. We will probably need to revise the pedal itself before it goes final, but it's planar with the brake pedal and clears the extension arm now, so we shouldn't have any problems with pulling the throttle butterfly to 100% WOT now.

Ben also did a lot of fabrication work yesterday to build a single mount for the radiator and the AWIC heat exchanger in the nose part. We are using a universal Ford/Chrysler aluminum racing radiator because they're practically universal and cheap (and I have 2 in the shed from prior builds), so that got mostly completed and just needs to be bolted in. Then we'll work on the venting/ducting so that they are getting plenty of airflow and then duct that out of the hood cleanly to try to reduce hood lifting like we've seen in so many 818 dashcam videos.

We finished up buildout of the stock turbo (clocked it with Mechie's kit) and got that installed back onto the motor. We did a mostly-final install of the dry sump plate (just need 2 more longer bolts for next to the oil galley input) and test fit the Canton oil takeoff at the stock filter location, the lines for which will likely just get looped since we are sending oil to the filter via the external oil pump. While we were test fitting the engine in the chassis, we revised the 3D printed prototype oil pump mounts. We'll re-print for final fitment before we send the final design out for machine shop fabrication:

IMG_4754.JPG

Also finally finished up building out the engine side of the valve cover and crankcase vent lines so we can route those to the oil tank (and then to the catch can) when we do final engine and oil system installation. Also did some conceptualizing about location for the oil and transmission oil coolers, we will likely mount those above the transmission and duct them from the sides and out the rear of the rear valence. Not ideal in terms of getting high pressure airflow, but the alternative is to mount them in the front fenders and we don't really want to run the oil lines that long unless it becomes absolutely necessary. But that is an option if we can't get oil and trans oil temps in a happy range on track.

We designed and 3D printed some little bolt-on mounts for the fuel and AWIC hardlines that are running down the middle of the car and then welded in some tab brackets with rivnuts for them to attach to. Since FFR sent us a chassis with the center console caging, we figured we'd put it to work.

Finally, the toughest part (psychologically) was that we cut out the x-braces on the floor of the driver and passenger area. It always sucks to take a built part of the chassis and excise it with the sawzall, but the seats simply were not going to sit low enough to pass the broomstick test without getting the mounts lower. Thanks to prior projects, we have a stack of .125 plate steel sitting around, so I got to spend some quality time with the plasma cutter and cut a bunch of plates that we will weld to the bottom of the chassis into which we can place the new seat mounts. I mean, if we're going to add weight to the car, at least it's steel plating right under our butts, so we're actually aiding in lowering the car's CG and polar moment, right?

[RetroRacing]

Don't feel bad about cutting out the braces, been there, done that! now you can drop the seat right to the floor using some custom brackets and a side mount seat.

[Mulry]

Yeah, if this doesn't get it low enough, I guess we have to get a different seat. Maybe this Momo just sits up too high on the base? I know we wouldn't have that problem with a Kirkey.

[Hindsight]

Which momo seats do you have? I have the Start seats. I felt they sat really low with the momo seat brackets... I mean, the rear bottom of the seats were sitting on the the same plane as the top of the X-brace. Removing the X-brace would only get me 1" lower. But with the "S" roll-bar, I still didn't pass the broomstick test with a helmet so I went another route and cut out the roll bar and put a new one in that is higher.

[Mulry]

It's a Momo Daytona (I think). It was pretty low to the floor above the x-brace, but we wouldn't pass, so I wanted to try to get it mounted as low as possible before throwing in the towel on this chair and buying a Kirkey. Due to the cage structure of the R, it would be a LOT of work to cut out this hoop and install another one. Lots of cutting, grinding, and re-designing, all with the added bonus of possibly compromising the existing setup. I'd rather cut the x-braces and plate the bottom (also, more security if there's a rough off-roading incident) and then change the seats than cut the cage.

[RetroRacing]

We took a set of side mount brackets and re-drilled them to countersink the seat so that the rear of the seat touches the aluminum floor. You can install sliders if you mount them even higher up the side, but the anti sub belts become an issue.

[Mulry]

Just getting around to documenting what we did last weekend -- which was a lot -- due to an extremely busy week this past week. Plus updating the build thread on Saturday morning lets me enjoy another cup of coffee before plunging into the furnace-like garage

Ben and I had largely stripped the chassis down to just suspension and steering so that we could do some frunk-structure welding and painting the weekend before, so Roland and I began on Friday afternoon with re-installing all the stuff we'd taken off the car, including the hardlines for transport of fuel and AWIC coolant down the middle of the car. We 3D printed some brackets that bolt to welded structure up the middle of the car, and Roland also brought with him some 3D printed fuel pump brackets that we used to mount the fuel pump and pre-pump filter to a plate that mounts to the chassis:

IMG_4773.JPG

Although you can't see it in the above photo, we have a 5 gallon RaCell that mounts on the "battery mount plate" on the frunk floor that will be the fuel can for sprint races and when we have a passenger seat in the car. So fuel comes out that cell, through the prefilter-pump assembly, than into the bulkhead fitting and down the center of the car to the filter and ultimately to the fuel pressure regulator that we mounted on the backside of the rear firewall (photo later). We are going to try to run a deadhead returnless system (to reduce heating the fuel in the fuel cell), so the excess fuel runs back through a return hardline and into the top of the RaCell. When we mount the big fuel cell in the passenger seat area for endurance racing, we will reconfigure the soft lines so that the bulkhead fitting marked "feed" will feed the pre-pump filter and the one marked "return" will actually be the feed to the fuel pressure regulator. All this so we don't have to mount the fuel pump in the passenger area or in the hot engine bay. We had problems with hot fuel cavitation at the fuel pump at a race at Sebring a couple summers ago and don't want to repeat that experience.

Having cut out the x-braces on the bottom of the passenger area of the cabin last weekend (to attempt to get the seat lower), the big job for last weekend was to weld in new steel plates to form the floor for the seating area. Fortunately, we had some 1/8" steel plate on hand from a prior project (taco gussets for the roll cage on the Lemons car), so the weekend previous I'd used the plasma cutter to cut those down to size. We took the engine back out of the car and that made it really easy to lift with the engine hoist in order to not have to be laying under the car while welding, which is a sure way to get some nasty hot slag on you while welding. Here's what the welding setup looked like:

IMG_4776.JPG

Once we sanded off the powdercoating at the weld locations, Ben got to work on welding in the plates, while Roland worked on building the AN fluid lines for the Accusump, the AWIC coolant delivery, and for the fuel system:

IMG_4778.JPG

That's Roland on the left, Ben on the right. Here's what the bottom looked like after Ben had tacked in all the plates on the bottom and finish welded the top 2 (and maybe the middle one?) with a quick coat of self-etching primer:

IMG_4781.JPG

After getting the top set of plates final welded, we dropped the driver's side back onto jackstands and repeated on the other side for the passenger side plates:

IMG_4782.JPG

We finally put a couple coats of black gloss over the primer and the other primed spots on the bottom of the chassis, but I didn't get a photo of it, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Roland really did a great job building all the AN soft lines, but I didn't get many photos of his work. This one shows a lot of different things though, so I'll go through it:

IMG_4784.JPG

In the middle-bottom, you can see the stainless AWIC and aluminum fuel hardlines, which are fastened to the chassis via the red 3D printed brackets, which are bolted to welded points on the chassis. Those use tube nuts on the frunk end to connect to the bulkhead fittings and on the rear end to connect to the stainless braided soft lines and then to the rear firewall. As you can see, we fabricated a custom firewall instead of using the 2-part firewall from the factory, as we knew from the start that we would never be using the factory fuel can. To the left side of the photo are the fuel feed and return lines (Earl's Ultra Pro AN-6 for the PTFE liners to deal with ethanol in pump gas). The more central lines are AN-12 stainless braided lines and fittings from Summit (house brand, standard rubber liner) for AWIC coolant handling. We mounted the Accusump low and close to the rear and that's another Summit hose and -10 fittings that go into a T-fitting at the bulkhead, which has a check valve on one end and then the other end will feed right into the oil feed location on the dry sump plate. We intend to use the Accusump primarily for oil galley priming at startup, and as an insurance policy, but hopefully with the dry sump setup it will go unused during on-track operations. The fuel bulkheads then feed into the Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator mounted on the back side of the firewall:

IMG_4783.JPG

The short lines are more of the Earl's UltraPro -6 lines, and we put some firewrap on them just to try to minimize the heat soak. From there, the fuel lines will go to a Y-fitting distribution block and onto the Radium fuel rails. We're running the stock EJ205 injectors for now, given our relatively modest HP needs for the class we intend to run.

While we had the chassis in the air, we decided to work on figuring out the under-nose condition. Jeff at RetroRacing had documented that there's a nasty vertical displacement between the nose structure and the front of the chassis, and we determined that to be about a 3" vertical gap with no intended filler from the factory. We decided to build some structure on the bottom of the nose frame and use the factory nose panel below, bridging the gap with a custom piece cut from some other aluminum panels we won't need (probably from the driver's side aluminum that goes behind the door -- we're using a steel anti-intrusion panel there instead). So, Ben did a little fabrication and welding and this is what the bottom of the nose looks like now:

IMG_4786.JPG

Savvy readers will note that we are not using the stock radiator but are instead using a larger and more affordable dirt track radiator. We have a couple of these in reserve but since the dirt track guys use them on their sprint cars, they are numerous and cheap in the market -- but require some custom fabrication for mounting in this chassis. We've also mounted the AWIC front heat exchanger there, as we don't trust it in a rear-mount location for endurance races, the opportunity to heat soak back there is just too great, especially as it would be right above our intended location for the center-rear exhaust.

We test fitted the Momo Daytona seat on the new floor, and Roland passes the broomstick test, but just barely, and only at a very steep rake of the seat. I think we are going to try a Kirkey 45700 17" 18-degree layback full containment seat and see if that works better. It seems that the distance between butt-bottom and seat-bottom on the Momo is just too high for our comfort. Also, that Momo is kind of narrow for more well-built drivers. I'd love to hear what seats you guys are using that are known to fit with some decent clearance under the broomstick-test line.

IMG_4789.JPG

That photo also shows the wiring harness starting to take shape. Ben spent most of Sunday working on further dieting the harness and getting it into position. We will wind up adding a bunch of wires to the loom for sensors for our AiM dash and RaceCapture, but that will come later.

There was a bunch of other stuff that got taken care of too but that I didn't document with photos, including almost completely finishing up the exterior build of the engine (equal length exhaust header install, etc), doing a final install of the gas pedal and bracket, modifying and fitting the driver-side anti-intrusion panel, re-fitting the engine after dropping the car back onto all 4 jackstands, building the hoses and locating the side coolant lines (BTW, life is a lot easier for custom coolant line work if you pick up a vintage Parker beading tool off eBay), and some other stuff that I didn't even take note of.

Overall, it was an enormously productive weekend. Now, I'll head out and start working on modeling, bending, flaring, and installing the brake and clutch hardlines to the chassis. Hopefully I can get that done this weekend, but realistically, I'll probably get it started and have to finish it next weekend. Cheers!

[fastzrex]

Thanks for the big write up. But almost all your attachments are not viewable!

[Mulry]

Thanks for the big write up. But almost all your attachments are not viewable!

Sorry about that. The forum timed out when I was writing the post and I thought it had kept the uploaded images; turns out it hadn't. I think I've got them all in there now.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Sorry about that. The forum timed out when I was writing the post and I thought it had kept the uploaded images; turns out it hadn't. I think I've got them all in there now.

Mulry,
Personally, I can't handle long post like this. I forget half my question before I get to the bottom. (old age maybe) I would much rather see one subject per post. Just my personal opinion.

I like the additional structure for the front splitter.

I also went with a different radiator. http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attac...2&d=1474354730

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/GRI-1-25201-X

Keep up the good work.
Bob

[DanielsDM]

We test fitted the Momo Daytona seat on the new floor, and Roland passes the broomstick test, but just barely, and only at a very steep rake of the seat. I think we are going to try a Kirkey 45700 17" 18-degree layback full containment seat and see if that works better. It seems that the distance between butt-bottom and seat-bottom on the Momo is just too high for our comfort. Also, that Momo is kind of narrow for more well-built drivers. I'd love to hear what seats you guys are using that are known to fit with some decent clearance under the broomstick-test line.

IMG_0655.JPG
We are using an Ultrashield seat, 10 degree layback, 17" wide. We tilted it back to 20 degrees or so (this gives more support for bottom of the leg than a 20 degree seat, since your knees will be raised anyway due to the lack of leg room. Floor X's removed, plates welded in flush to the bottom of the frame. Also each driver will get their own poured foam insert so the wide body drivers can still fit and others won't be bouncing around.

[RetroRacing]

Odd, we have a similar seat to the momo, and with the seat touching the floor pan, we have a few inches at 5'9".