[tburie.]

Just read through this thread and realized I saw this car at the GAS open house this summer. Super cool car and even cooler to see what kind of work has been put into it.

 

[vr6 3.0]

Yesssssss!!!!

 

[joezeeuw]

Just read through this thread and realized I saw this car at the GAS open house this summer. Super cool car and even cooler to see what kind of work has been put into it.

That's awesome. Did you have a car at the show?

 

[joezeeuw]

Picking up where we left off. Once we had the motor in the front mount did not want to line up properly. Took a bunch of measurements trying to determine what was out of alignment but found no smoking gun. It may be that having all solid poly mounts just does not allow enough adjustment to compensate for differences in the car's chassis. Has anyone else had this experience? We have BFI side mounts, Prothane rear trans mount, and Fabless front mount and crossmember.

The easiest way to compensate was to modify the Fabless front crossmember so I made up some slightly longer mounting "ears".

With the engine position finalized it was time to build a header. I wanted to build something that was truly tuned for the engine but quickly found out that in order to calculate things like primary size and length you need a ton of engine specs that we never measured or even considered when putting it together. In the end I pretty much just reverse engineered a Techtonics header. Since we are running cable shift and I heard that the TT header tends to bottom out I tried to tuck it up in the tunnel as much as possible.

As you can see I made a little jig to keep everything in place

All welded up, Vbanded etc.

If was going to do it again I think I would go with a welded collector rather than formed mainly for aesthetic reasons. Also, we were not planning on running a front sway bar so I didn't worry about clearance but in hindsight it would be nice to at least have the option.

 

[tburie.]

That's awesome. Did you have a car at the show?

yeah, it was the brownish red rabbit with the roof rack.

 

[ToddA1]

Very nice work! Not sure why, but TT’s header collector isn’t fully welded on. Been years, but both I owned had tabs and a spring. I’m guessing for thermal expansion, or something like that….?

Fwiw, those rear poly mounts always break. I ran two, then gave up on them.

-Todd

 

[joezeeuw]

yeah, it was the brownish red rabbit with the roof rack.

Awesome!

Very nice work! Not sure why, but TT’s header collector isn’t fully welded on. Been years, but both I owned had tabs and a spring. I’m guessing for thermal expansion, or something like that….?

Fwiw, those rear poly mounts always break. I ran two, then gave up on them.

-Todd

I believe welded collectors like the TT headers are slip fit because once the collector is welded together it is almost impossible to weld the primaries onto it. With the formed style like I did you can weld the inside with a "bullet" then slide the collector on and weld the outside. A bit more about collector differences

What did you end up running for a rear mount? There don't seem to be too many options out there.

 

[ToddA1]

Ah, makes sense.

Ended up with a TT HD rear. On my latest one, I slipped in a pice of snow thrower paddle. It’s the same stuff big rig mudflats are made of. I’m sure you could shoot window weld in there as well.

TT also sells a solid AL rear, but I like having teeth….

-Todd

 

[joezeeuw]

Mocking up the exhaust

All tacked together. It's 2.25" 304 stainless, V banded, Vibrant muffler.

For the tailpipe I welded a section of polished 2.5" directly to the back of the muffler

Apparently I never took a photo of the completed system. I'll try to go back and add it in when we tear the car back down.

Somewhere around this time Ben was doing some cool stuff in the engine bay. Hopefully he can chime in here so the timeline fits.

 

[vr6 3.0]

Nice work Joe and Ben, this thing keeps getting better and better. Hope to see it sometime in the flesh

 

[ZeeuwVW]

Guess I'm up.

In the bay I built a bracket to hold the crankcase breather tank and coolant expansion tank.

Added an oil cooler on the other side. There is a bracket welded to the radiator that you can't see in these pictures.

With this setup everything is mounted to the radiator and can be removed as a complete assembly. Keeps things tidy and easy to service (hopefully).

Joe fabed up some brackets and I made some lines. Cooling system done.

 

[ZeeuwVW]

Sourced some other goodies about this time. A nice old grill and a carbon roof. Starting to look like a car again.

 

[LT1M21Stingray]

Mocking up the exhaust

I'm going to share with you someone else's joke.

More CAD (Cardboard Aided Design):

View attachment 137043

 

[ZeeuwVW]

Oh yeah, I also plumbed the rest of the fuel system.

 

[goofydug]

As always, unbelievable work you guys. I love this project and can't wait to see it in paint!

 

[vr6 3.0]

Are you guys going to cut out the roof before installing the CF one then I assume? Was that from CPH Carbon?

 

[joezeeuw]

Nice work Joe and Ben, this thing keeps getting better and better. Hope to see it sometime in the flesh

Thanks, it will probably be back at the shop in the spring. Stop by sometime when you are stateside.

As always, unbelievable work you guys. I love this project and can't wait to see it in paint!

Thanks Doug. Excited to see whatever it is you are cooking up.

Are you guys going to cut out the roof before installing the CF one then I assume? Was that from CPH Carbon?

Yes, but we will probably wait until it's time for body work. We test fit it and tucked it away for safe keeping. It will be a long time before we are ready to glue it on and I don't want to accidentally damage it in any way. Ben bought the roof from someone in Holland if I'm not mistaken.

 

[joezeeuw]

With the major mechanical components in place the next step was to figure out mounting for all the electrical components so we could start wiring. You probably saw photos of our Cartek control panel and Stack cluster in the dash but they were just sitting in carboard templates. We needed a secure way to mount them in the dash that would withstand the abuse of vibrations and hopefully prevent the old, brittle dash from falling apart.

So I made this little structure with good solid mounting points for both items the fiber glassed it into the dash.

In addition to replicating the factory mounting points on the sides I also added some small brackets to support the bottom of the dash.

While the dash was off I also made some mounting points for the ignition components. That is the MSD box on the bottom, timing computer and factory ignition module on top. These are accessible through the glove box.

Converted the carboard panel to aluminum, made some blanking plates to fit in the vent holes, and the dash is pretty much done. At some point we will get it recovered or flocked or something.

Took the dash all back apart and mounted the components on makeshift brackets so I could have good access for wire routing but no guesswork about placement.

Battery box and kill switch mounted and we are ready to start planning our wiring!

 

[vr6 3.0]

Thanks, it will probably be back at the shop in the spring. Stop by sometime when you are stateside.

Yes, but we will probably wait until it's time for body work. We test fit it and tucked it away for safe keeping. It will be a long time before we are ready to glue it on and I don't want to accidentally damage it in any way. Ben bought the roof from someone in Holland if I'm not mistaken.

I will definitely make that a priority next time Im in the area 👍

Makes sense on the roof. I've always been tempted by it but haven't pulled the trigger. My main deterrent was I heard they're really loud (wind noise/ whistling) compared to the metal roof.. but I havent experienced one in person.

Do you guys have a hood already? I have a used CF hood I just replaced with a new one that would need some body work but still a nice lightweight piece with life left in it.

 

[joezeeuw]

Do you guys have a hood already? I have a used CF hood I just replaced with a new one that would need some body work but still a nice lightweight piece with life left in it.

We just ordered one. The same one you are getting if I'm not mistaken. Thanks for the offer though. We also have a fiberglass hood and tailgate. Not sure what we are going to do with those.