The Project Pad

Excellent work.....but does it run yet? hahah

I really admire the great attention to details of your project.Also can u please tell me where did u purchase your holset super hx40 thank u.

Goldfarb and Associates. Tim and myself got ours there, from Brant.

I'm back at it, major update to come!!!

teaser

UPDATE!!
OK so I’ve gotten back into this car after spending a ton of time on the 4cyl 4kq. Progress has continued and has taken off at an epic rate! I have to thank Ryan @ Higbee Fabrication, Haydn@ HT Motorsports, and Marc @ EFI Express. These guys have been unexplainably important in getting things done. I’m building this beast here in my shop, but without the consultation, tig work, machining, etc etc, hell, just being able to bounce all my ideas off these guys, is a HUGE resource, thanks again.




I had to take a few days to clean out and organize the shop. It was a disaster zone, parts everywhere ahaha. I got it cleaned up and the car rotated so it’s a lot easier to work on.
With that done…



ITS ON!!!
Ok let’s get caught up. I had decided early on to build a silicone coupler-less intake tract. Ive seen enough melted, popped off, torn etc couplers to not want to have to deal with that. Ahaha I had been undecided on whether I wanted to use Hartgett clamps or get the Vanjen clamps from Vibrant. After seeing Ed’s video, I made up my mind. Get me some VANJENS!!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4VpokEaFQU[/youtube]

I now have a 2.5” for my compressor outlet, a pair of 3” for my IC inlet/outlet and a 3” for the TB inlet. The clamp kit is very nice, and seems very failsafe if built with piping that is fabricated correctly to allow for some play in the interfaces.
The throttle body is a 90mm godspeed unit. I cut it at a sliiight angle and shortened the mandrel transition so it matched the TB inlet. I had Ryan TIG on the taper from 90mm TB to 3” and the Vanjen o-ring receiver.
PICS!!

more pics

Nice, good to see some updates here

I LOVE the Vanjens.

More UPDATE!!!

Ryan @ Higbee, made me a few spacers out of Delrin to replace the hacksawed versions I had earlier, much nicer and well, precise too.
I should've snapped some pics after the through hole drilling but ha


He also machined a piece of alu. down for mounting the ABZ 150A alternator on the rear diff mount. More on that to come.


I also will be making a custom coolant flange setup to replace the bulky oem plastic piece. I’ve sent Hank @ Iroz Motorsports the oem flange and my flange to have the oem o-ring cut in. the custom coolant plumbing will gain me a lot of room that we lost when we scooted the motor back.

MORE!!!
Ryan got a chance to seam weld the outer part of the exhaust manifold together. It needed to be about ¼” shorter on the tapered side and I really thought it would be a lot easier to hold in a vice and get shortened if was more than just tacked together. After seam welding I cut the collector down.



I used a set of fresh carbides to really clean up the inside of the collector for interior seam welding. It will be one sexy piece, that’s for sure.

Then I matched/smoothed the t4 divided flange to the collector as smooth as possible. You can see there is quite a bit of flow to be gained by going the extra steps.




The t4 flange to hotside inlet transition has also been cleaned up. I’ve added a small anti-reversion lip which also helps the small bit of stud/hole misalignment, so there is never a sharp edge.

MORE!!!
I’ve had all these strut tubes collected for a while and it was time to put them to use. I am using 2 pairs of b3 20v 90q/cq rear strut tubes, they are the larger diameter tubes that don’t taper at the top so you can run the larger inserts.
I cut all the spring seats off and got the cleaned up and prepped for welding.



I went down to see Haydn @ HTMS to get a set of the shorter/lower/ turned in steering arms. I got my struts set up on the jig and they got welded up, no process pics as I lost my phone right after.

Here they are welded up with coilover sleeves and spring perches in mockup mode.

With the motor scooted back, clearances are pretty tight. The bellhousing needed to have a casting ridge taken down for just enough room for steering rods.


I also made a bracket for the steering inner rod ends.
I have smaller width jam nuts for the inner now as well.





In order to run the tightest steering setting I’ll have to move the steering rod holes rearward a bit. Heres some mockup pics

UPDATE!!
More body mods. I’m certainly not going to run a rear seat, so that sheet metal had to go. I got the spot weld driller bit out and went at it. Not a lot of pics, but here it is sans rear seat metal.

Update
As you may remember from a previous episode, the rear strut top mount receviers in the body were F’d, bigtime. Here they are if you don’t remember what they look like. GROSS. Im still not really sure what happened to the car in a prior life but dang. There are cutting disc marks on the top, suggesting a seized topnut/cup. And some MIG bead and drill marks underneath, for who knows what reason. Beats me. Not worried about it. So I started cutting them out for the adjustable Ground control mounts.

I'm going back to read this whole thread again.

Bloody nice work!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so impressed with this build.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,

Craig.

highlander69 wrote:Bloody nice work!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so impressed with this build.

thanks, always an appreciated compliment from a guy building a sport from scratch

keep an eye out, its ON!!!!

Update!!

I got the oem rear strut tops cut out after lots of staring and getting myself ready to cut big holes in my nice clean chassis.

Here the new tops are sitting on the oem tops while I get things measured out.

Got the oem tops cut out, now comes hammering into shape time!





I cut the square tube down with a large cutting disc. They weren’t perfectly flat, so I had Ryan @ Higbee Fab. Flatten them on the Bridgeport. HTMS strut mount plates now sit flush on the square tube.
Lost the pics sorry

Jim welded the tops onto the tube sections once I got them all prepped and cleaned up with a weld bead recess. That way I can clean them up/flapper wheel them and there is still major penetration in the ¼” thick steel.

MORE!!!
After a ton of hammering, bending and general metalworking, the oem tube shape of the chassis is becoming square. Hours more trimming and hammering, and I got the HTMS tops in place.


I got them tacked up and they are all within 0.2-0.3 degrees in/outward, and fore/aft. As the welding progressed they did move a little bit, but they are still all within 0.3-0.4 degrees.

Note: the tops have been raised ~2.5 inches so the car can be much lower but retain reasonable suspension travel.

Also note: the tops are oriented for more camber adjustment in the rear and more castor adjustment on the front.




I just need to finish flapper disc the inner wheel well areas and its time for etch primer and seamsealing, more pics to come!!

UPDATE!!!

Ok, really starting to dive into it now. I had done about 16-18 hours of subframe modification and still, was not very happy with them… so , one step back and a few leaps forward.

So I deleted the 100 pics of SF mods that I was about to post.
here is the stock setup, and it wont be in place for long



After many discussions with Haydn we settled on a plan. There are pros and cons to deleting the subframe and mounting it all the chassis, as well as a long list of pros and cons for keeping a subframe. Deleting it is nice as it stiffens the car up considerably as well as making/relocating the subframe mounts and c-arm pickup points. But then again the subframe itself is a nice fuse to have in the event of an off track excursion, where it can shear off and not overly twist the chassis up.

We settled on the best of both worlds, lighter and stronger, custom subframes and tubular control arms. Custom subframes will have relocated c-arm pickup points, but I’ll get into that math in a bit. The rear tie rod pickups are also moving inboard and upward to match the new c-arm angle at ride height.

Making my own custom box/tube subframes and tubular control arms!!!

I got some 1x3” 0.120 wall to start making the subframe mounting points. I am using 1.75”, 0.095” wall DOM tubing for anti-crush sleeves in the rectangle stock. A small chassis aluminum subframe bushing fits well inside with just enough room to align/move around.







and bolted some of it back on to continue making!!

UPDATE!!!
More subframe work. I got all the SF mount parts done with anti-crush sleeves and rounded ends with 16 ga. Caps on them.


Very nice welds Ryan!!




Now to put them back on and get back to it!!

I smoothed all of the inner weld out in the bushing sleeve, so the SF bushing fits perfect!

UPDATE!!
Still working on the subframes, I got the rear diff. mount started and its coming right along. The rear transverse member of the rear subframe is all 1”x3”, 0.095” wall, and diff. mount is cut from 2”x 3”, 0.120” wall.

Note: the offset angle on the rear diff mount to provide extra exhaust clearance.

more

Update!
I got the rear beam/transverse portion of the rear subframe done. The rear diff. mount is also finished (tacked awaiting seam tig’ing).

Note: the jigsaw design at the rectangle stock junctions is much stronger than a standard miter joint