Autox time

So John came over Saturday to tune/ burn chips for the new Volvo MAF conversion for the turbo m20. He has already come by once, on Friday to tune, but we wasted a lot of time chasing some connectivity issues between the Chip burner and the Laptop. I was planning to test it out at the April 4 autox. He must have burned the chip and installed it in the car a total of over 50 times in the past 2 days!... talk about being persistent, this guy never quits.

While John was burning/testing the chip, I ran to a friend's shop to mount and balance some old tires on the 15 x 10 race wheels. We are currently running 275/35-15 Hoosier A-6's, and we finally reached the belts on the front two at our last event at Homestead. I have a set of R-6's(leftover from the 2008 challenge) but they are only 225/45-15. Paul, tried to mount them on the 10" wide wheels, but they were too old, and wouldn't stretch the full width of the wheel, so he ended up mounting them on my old Sportmax 15x8.

I ended up competing on the15x8 with 225/45-15 in the front and the 275/35-15 mounted on the 15x10s in the rear. I really thought I was going to have a lot of problems with under-steer, but the car felt very neutral. throughout the event. I did have some issues with the MAF conversion and ended up switching back to my  535 AFM/ Ebay chip combo. I forgot my camera, but managed a couple pics with my iphone

I borrowed a friend's digi camera and mounted it ont the windsheild, so I should have some vids of my runs by mid week, but for the time being, you'll just have to settle for some fun videos Jimmy and I took after the last event. Enjoy ;)

Widebody Take 2 part 3

 In this update I finish up most of the metal work on the front fenders. I wanted to make sure both fenders were exactly the same, so before welding the driver's side fender seen below, I traced the top panel on some scrap poster board.

 I took the tracing, cut it out, and used it as a template for the passenger's side fender.

Once it was mocked up, I welded the panels in place.

...and temporarily shot the welds with some left over olive drab spray paint. They turned out pretty good. i still need to cut the rusty sections out of the bottoms, but that's for a different day.

Widebody Take 2 part 3

Today we got some work done on the front fenders. I cut another piece of poster board to test the fitment of the top panel. I'm still not happy with the shape of it in this picture.

We finally got the paper fitment perfect, and the next step was to trace it on the metal and cut it to fit.

Jimmy working on the fender.

This is the final fitment.

It's perfect.

I'm really happy with the transition between the panels.

There is about 3" of extra clearance.

Spot welds.

The other side will be finished on our next work day, which will be before this Sunday's autox.

Widebody Take 2 part 2

Once the passenger's side was completely finished, I took measurements and mocked up the driver's side to within 1 mm of the same measurements.

there will be about 3" of clearance on each side over the stock fenders.It will be the same clearance as what we had on the original widebody kit.

This was my Saturday morning work space for my welding and grinding. I used a cutting wheel for all major cuts, and a dremel for any precision cuts, or hard to reach areas.

Unfortunately as I layed up the donor fender, it wasn't flexing like the other side, and I noticed it had some shoddy bondo work that will need to be repaired.

Once I got the fenders completely installed, I was ready for the top panel. I made a simple cutout from some poster board i had laying in the shop.

It looks too flat.

After some more cutting, I came up with a version that is a bit more rounded.

I still don't think i'm there yet. This has a bit too much arch in it.

Tomorrow we have planned another work day, and I'll cut a new template that will follow the body upper lines a bit better...

To be continued...

Widebody Take 2

We were never happy with the way our fiberglass widebody turned out. It was a rushed job we completed a couple weeks before the 2009 challenge. We diddn't have the time to smooth it out, so we used undercoating to hide some of the inperfections, and painted the car a dark color to hide the rest...

Now that we have some time, and we've gathered some fenders and quarter panels from the old parts car we had a few months back, we are ready to give it another shot. I've been thinking about ways that we can make it work, and have it still look clean at the same time.

The first step was to remove the old fiberglass from the stock fenders.

Once the fiberglass had been separated from the fender, Jimmy mounted the right side back on the car and cut it in some very specific places so we can fabricate our new steel widebody fenders.

While he was cutting, I cut the new fenders to size.

We positioned the new fender with some clamps...

...and adjusted the fitment until the tires had enough clearance so they won't rub.

Once we got it positioned exactly where we needed it, Jimmy took the wheel so he could start the other side, and I began to spot weld it all together.

You can see the extra clearance we will have so we can run our 15 x 10s.

So far we're super happy with how this is turning out!

March 21 Homestead Autox

It was 6 am when Jimmy and I met at the shop to pull the car out and load everything in the back of the truck.
We grabbed the Jack, Jackstands, a bag of tools and race tires before hooking the car up to the truck for the hour long flat tow to Homestead Speedway.

We watched the sun come up on our drive down the turnpike.

Once we arrived, we both registered as drivers, and prepped the car for inspection.Both our front tires were already corded, but luckily the inspector didn't notice.

What a blast! I love driving this beast around the track!

Another one of our e30 buddies was there competing with his track rat.

We each got 5 runs.

Once the dust settled, I missed first place by a tenth of a second

In the end, it was a super fun Sunday, spent doing what I wish I could do every day.

Videos:

Getting ready for sunday's autox at Homestead Speedway