David's Mk4 Build Thread

[Dave Smith]

I spoke to Dave recently and its been a rough road this year for him with family, friends, his buddy Tim and other stuff. Life is ebb and flow and I would simply say to Dave Borden, that while there has been difficulty, all of us are your friends and appreciate everything youve done for the community. I, for one, cant wait to see his completed Mk4!!!!

[David]

Hey Guys... Dave pretty much nailed it. Mary and I are doing well, but work has been really busy and other things out of our control this year have been pretty tough. Other than that, we are great and feel very blessed. I really appreciate the concern, and apologize for my absence and lack of response.

With that said, I have been making some progress on the roadster and will provide my typical update and pictures in the near future.

A quick summary:

Quiet Ride came and templated the entire roadster for their complete insulation kit. After speaking with Tim, meeting him and his son and seeing how they put the kit together, Im really looking forward to having their kit in my car... I believe the visit will be covered in a future magazine article.

Russ Thompson came up a few weeks ago and we completed the planned chassis mods in the front outlined earlier. This includes a couple new tubes as well. Im really happy with the finished product. We also, finished the plan for the re-routed steering and made the changes to the footbox to make that happen and did a partial test fit. I just need a few couplers and a bit of fab to complete it, but the heavy lifting is over.

We also planned out and templated all the changes to the aluminum for the new mods, along with fitting existing panels where possible. Russ took the templates, and in typical Russ Thompson fashion fabbed up some beautiful panels that fit great. Im really really happy with the outcome on this and huge thanks to Russ for his help. It was the kick start I needed. It had taken significant head scratching and thought to plan it out.

One of the more exciting things for me recently was designing the AC and Alternator assembly on the passenger side of the motor. Initially I was going to put PS on the pass side with the AC, but Im not sure I can make that work due the belt routing and a few other issues. Still a chance but I wont know till I get the ac compressor mounted and can map it out. Current plan is PS where the alt normally goes. This should really help with PS line routing as well.

I was able to obtain a model of the Coyote block and design my assembly directly on that in Solidworks. I measured and modeled the AC compressor, Alternator and front pulley and then built my bracketry to mount it all. While it may be second nature to some folks in the business, it was really fun and challenging on my first go at it. The first base plate I machined was dead nuts accurate and bolted up perfectly. As I progressed, I made a number of design changes and I am hopeful this last one should do it or be very close.

Im in the process of creating the CAM files for machining the pieces(time consuming as well) as I need to make a few fixture plates for a couple of the pieces. I hope to machine some of it this weekend for a test fit. If this ends up really working out, I may talk to somebody about having these parts made if there is a need for it.

I'll try and post some pictures of all this in the near future... again, thanks for checking in with me, its greatly appreciated!

Chris, regarding the oil temp issue, I wouldn’t worry about it for autocross. I would think even the occasional track day shouldn’t be an issue... I guess time will tell, but I don’t plan to add a cooler at this time.

David

[The Stig]

Hi Dave. Welcome back. Glad to hear that you've been able to make some progress on the Roadster.

It's even better to hear that you guys are doing well, and coming out of the back side of all the craziness of the year.

Take care,

Mike