Shakedown work

Late last year I was feeling pretty bummed that the car wasn't gonna be going for summer, so I decided I'd put it together as the bare minimum and give it a shakedown run. On a closed road and controlled conditions of course, any evidence to the contrary is more amazing special effects from those crazy guys at Weta™.
To begin putting together the drivetrain I first bolted the clutch on.

Next came the bell housing and clutch fork, release bearing, etc. Then the fresh new A833 four speed from Brewers.

I drilled and tapped the intake for a vacuum fitting for the PCV valve. The Holley ultra HP carb I'm running doesn't have any vacuum ports, and the other one on the intake was needed for the brake booster (just for the shakedown. I'm currently fitting the new Hydroboost kit now). I'll be fitting an air-oil separator on the PCV vaccum line.

The great thing (well one of them anyway, this thing is awesome) about the drivetrain dolly is that the whole front cross member, suspension, and steering gear can be fitted, and easily slid underneath the chassis to fit it all to the car. Plus it looks rad to see the whole drivetrain and suspension together like this.

Ready to go in the car.

Just like this. Piece of cake. There's about 5mm clearance either side at the tightest fit though, so a lot of care has to be taken when dropping the body down.

Then the K member can be bolted in, along with the gearbox cross member, and the lot is fixed in. The upper control arms get bolted in and the brakes etc fitted next.

I wrapped the temporary fuel line as it passed fairly close to the header. This shakedown run was a lot of fun as it gave me a chance to test out various routing, fitting, and fixing options for various parts like this. Lots of little mini projects, each thing a little challenge to see how best to do it. I did go pretty overkill on a lot of things, but I think this is just the result of wanting to do a good job and test things out.

Lots of things worked out so well. For example the temporary bracket I made to mount the battery happened to perfectly fit the nuts I had welded to the body in the rear seat area for fixing a pelican case to.

Here's the mighty fuel tank. No it doesn't last very long. This bracket also happened to perfectly fit the two holes I had drilled for mounting the battery box to! I fitted a vent tube to the cap and fuel filter to the fuel line. Everything was well fixed and tied down, and the tank was very secure.

The exhaust consisted of the old 2.25" mufflers the car had when I bought it. These were bolted to a pair of adapters I made from a few step down tubes, and bolted to the headers. It's quieter than open headers, but still pretty damn loud!

The electrics and gauges consisted of the control panel I built for the run stand attachment for the drivetrain dolly. It's all you need! And it's always fun to have a push button start. The only other bit of wiring that the car needed was for a brake light.

Safety first!

It was a lot of fun to put it together like this for the shakedown, and I'm stoked with how the car felt to drive. Initially it was a bit anti climatic, as the motor was fresh and I took it pretty easy, keeping rpms below 3 and very occasionally 4 thousand rpm, and no full throttle. Plus its got the old 2.76:1 open diff in it, and first gear in the cuda is nearly the same as third in my Ford Laser daily! So that with the heavy temporarily unassisted factory steering and pretty average brakes, made the car feel a bit dull and heavy.

The no full throttle and low rev limit didn't last long though...   The motor pulls hard and sounds awesome. And I can now say with confidence that this car will be a lot of fun when the handling, steering, brakes, and diff are up to their final specs. Which is what I'm working on right now!

Startup

Playing around with my new iphone. This is all shot and edited on a mobile telephone! What will science come up with next?!

shakedown details

shakedown

it runs

Radiator and fans

I've fabricated the mounts for the radiator and fans, and it all worked out really well. The radiator is the biggest Griffin one I could fit between the modified chassis rails (I cut off and welded up the flange from the tops of them, to fit a bigger cross flow radiator). The dual fans are Spal high output 12", and the whole unit with the shroud fitted the radiator perfectly.

I riveted little plates with captive nuts onto the inside edge of the  fan shroud...

...so you can bolt the mounts on to the shroud, which sandwiches the radiator with rubber lined clamps, keeping the radiator from touching any metal on the body in order to avoid electrolysis. 

The whole unit is nice and rigid and bolts on via four 8mm bolts (there's captive nuts welded onto the inside of the clamps), making installation and removal real easy.

The hood of my car is a lightweight fiberglass race (rough) part that is held on with four latches. When you want access to the engine bay you just lift it off. Now I live in a notoriously windy city, and this thing would be gone if you just removed it and put it down anywhere! So I decided I'd add two pins to the roof, and a hook at the front, so you can latch the hood down securely. Works great! I haven't done the front hook part yet, but when that's done you could drive around with the hood on the roof. Perfect for Beach Hop!

Here's the inside of the roof, showing the plate and captive nut system I'm using to mount the pins. I'll clean and paint this bit up, but it's all covered with the headliner.

This is the in progress mold of my modified bumper. I added the alloy brace to keep the mold rigid.

And here's the fiberglass bumper I made from the finished mold behind it. Not much good for bumping, but it only weighs 1.3kg!

The brackets for the hood pins to bolt to are welded in, so the hood can be latched on. That completes the panel mockup stage of the build! Everything bolts on properly now, no zip ties or vice grips needed! I'll have to add some bumpers under the hood or modify it if I want it to line up with the fenders and header panel. It goes quite flat in the middle. Bending it to make it line up might make it crack quicker over time though...

Made some alloy brackets for the fiberglass bumper. These save a bunch of weight off the nose!

I try and support things I like, so I got a Speedhunters Takata tow strap. I reckon Speedhunters is the best car site on the net, if you don't know it then check it out! I drilled through the top of the front chassis rail support I made and welded on a 12mm nut for the strap to bolt to.

Here's a rough concept image I did to test out some ideas. I've been thinking I might leave the front of the car like this and save a lot of work till later, once it's on the road. It looks badass! I love it. The lights would be the smallest LED ones I can find, and they'd only be clipped on when it gets dark, otherwise being stored in the car leaving the alloy plates bare during the day. The indicators are LEDs in the bumper, and LED park lights are just below the bumper (not illustrated).

Hood latches

This evening I installed the Aerocatch hood latches, something I've been looking forward to for ages! They are such nice pieces of hardware, I've had one sitting on my desk at work and desk at home for over a year.

The hood had some rough old circular latches which I removed before measuring up and cutting the holes for the new ones. This beat up old drag race weight hood is pretty rough too!

 

Done, now to fabricate the mounts for the pins to thread into.

Rough cardboard mockups of the hood-tach and the power steering NACA duct, playing with alignment. I've also cut down/narrowed the front bumper and smoothed it in preparation for molding it for a lightweight fiberglass reproduction.

I love the way the car currently looks from the front. Might have to leave it like this...

Fender work

I've been working on the fiberglass fenders, trying to get them to fit nice and even. Turns out it's quite a bit of work! They were just bare skins without any bracing and were really flexy, so I've fabricated some alloy mounts for the front which will also serve as the base for whatever head light setup I end up using.

I cut the rear braces out of my old junk fenders, sand blasted them, drilled and cut them down for a bit of weight savings, and painted them.

With the help of rad weta workmate Joaquin we glassed the braces into the fenders. This was my first time working with fiberglass, and it turned out great. The fenders are nice and rigid now, and I can at last begin to bolt them on to the car properly. It's still gonna be lots of work to get them finished though, getting them to match the door edge, hood edge, valence, header panel, the body lines down the side, and level from side to side has proved to be pretty damn tricky!

I cut the flange off the fiberglass fenders where they bolt to the inner fender as they didn't line up very well and would have needed a lot of work to get right. I replaced them with these alloy 90° pieces, which I drilled and trimmed to fit, and bonded and riveted them on. As far as weight savings go, one of the old stock fenders weighed 14.2kg, and one of these glassed fenders weighs 8.4kg.

The old fenders make nice garage decorations though, and a place to put some of the piles of stickers you get with new parts.

Lid Lightening

The deck lid on my car was far from perfect, so I thought I'd experiment with some lightening. I drilled the hinges...

And the underside of the deck lid.

Lots and lots of holes later...  plus I cut out the flat center sections.

Doesn't save a hell of a lot of weight, and this isn't a cut-weight-at-all-costs kind of build, but it looks cool right!

Trunk lock relocation

I relocated the trunk lock to clean up the tail panel. First the stamped key section got cut out...

and the hole filled in.

Then the key section got welded by the gas filler in the license alcove, where it will be hidden by the flip up license plate. I made a new tab to fit the lock shaft, and modified the latch rod to fit. Works great and looks clean.