The molds are off!  They came up really great, very happy.

Above is the whole left rear of the car, below the boot and rear section – from the back of the mold.

Rear end, from the inside – you can see the mold lines from the lights 🙂

You can see the shine on the molds – we have not even cleaned them or polished them yet!

The back of the car has had sections of paint pulled off, a rear 1/4 window broke and the wheel flares came off……  JC was going to run the stock rear end for a bit this year – now we need to work on that too….  😦

Still waiting for the rear to dry, so work continues on the doors and skirts.

These pics better show the ducts that I was talking about in the last post.

Got lots of other little bits cleaned up tonight as well.

All of the layers are on the rear end molds!

Next, we wait a few days for everything to harden fully, before we can remove them to see what we got.

So, in the mean time we started on the doors and side skirts.

The bottom section of the ‘door’ will be  a big duct, exiting the front wheel wells, and then re-entering the rear wheel area, for brake ducts, diff coolers etc.

One side 100% complete

The other side has 4 out of 5 layers completed.

The work continues…

Second door mold cleaned up.

Door skins layed up.

More soon…

The body is 99% done, we are just perfecting the finish.  One more night of spray putty and sanding and she should be done.

The other side.  We’ve added our own custom touches to the body, to keep it standard, but different…

JC hard at work…

The mold of the door skin after just being laid  up.  Hopefully it comes off cleanly.

We started on the door to get our techniques perfected before we start on the main car body.

More soon.

Work continues getting the body perfect before the mold is taken.

Most of the body is complete, just a few tiny little bits to do

View of the other side.

One door smoothed, and ready for having its mold taken.

Other door very close to being done.

Another few hours of work and it will be ready to have the molds done, just need to get this whole Christmas thing out of the way 🙂

…for the blue Silvia.

Work started today prepping the rear bodywork of a 180sx getting ready to make a mold of it, to make fiberglass rear bodywork.

When finished it will have a 180 rear, and it wont be blue any more…

It was a hot day, and a slippery track, but we managed to do quite well.

• 1st in class for the day
• New class record for the long circuit at Waneroo (Fastest ever lap by a car with a roof in the Speed Event Series competition!)
• 2nd Outright for the day

This meant that we not only won our class for the whole year, but also managed to get 3rd outright for the year behind two of the open wheelers.

A huge thanks to Simon at GTI Performance Centre for the motor and gearbox that are in the car now, could not have completed these final two events of the year without your help.

I also need to thank the family for putting up with me for another year 🙂

All packed, now its time to deliver…

The first order of business was some cleaning up of the shed – something that was VERY much needed.

Spent 6hrs cleaning up the floor, packing tools away, putting things back on shelves and it was time to do some real work.

In the last few events, I’ve had issues with the buttons on the steering wheel that operate the functions in the dash.  So, two new buttons installed – hopefully the issues are now fixed.

Continuing with the electrical theme, I re-did the master feed wires from the battery.  The starter motor is now not part of the circuit that has the 100 amp breaker on it, as I was tripping the breaker when cranking the car over for longer periods of time.  So there is now a new battery kill switch, and the other items have been modified to make it all a little better, and a little lighter.

Then it was onto the starter switch.  This was sticking on some times, so its been replaced with a new button, as previewed a few weeks ago.

Next up is a new ignition switch which I picked up today, then the electrics are done (for now anyway – some ideas for next year are in my head for further reducing weight.)

Also make some mods to the passenger window, finishing it up to a nicer standard than it was at Pemberton, where I was very limited on prep time.

The front wheels are off, ready to change the front end wheel alignment – taking some camber our.  Starting this is tonight’s job, but its not a fast job…..

Then its just a bunch of clean-up items to be ready for Thursday scrutineering …  checking oil, bleeding brakes, coolant levels etc.

Time to get back into it again!

My start switch is playing up and sticking on, so needed a new one.  Found this sexy thing at Jaycar 🙂

Had a good weekend away in Pemberton, unfortunately the weather was not on my side.  I only ended up with one dry run, and one damp run, then it rained very, very hard and the organisers cancelled the rest of the event.

I ended up with the class win, and third outright.  I should be happy with this, but I’m not as I went down there to win the event outright.

Having a new motor, different gearbox and different diff ratio that I’d never driven on, meant that the first run was getting used to all of this, and so was not fast enough and made a number of gear selection mistakes.  As this was the only mostly dry run that I got all day, then that was the run that counted and I couldn’t beat that time on the second run, which was after a passing shower of rain.

Maybe next time…

The tune is done.  Ended up with another 50hp than we had before at the same boost pressure and a lot more torque (450 nm now, from the old 350 odd).  The little turbo is the limitation now for more horsepower.

It will be run like it is for most likely all of next year, then at that stage I hope to be able to get a larger turbo and wind some more power out of it.

Bed time…

Its still very much on life support, but its heart is beating strong…

Sorry, too sleepy to be enthusiastic today…

All the piping and wiring for the motor is done, radiator is back in and the engine is filled with oil and coolant.  All of the wiring and pipes to the gearbox etc are done, the steering rack is back in, made a new hydraulic line for the gearbox, the brakes and clutch have been bleed, starter motor and alternator wiring are done, etc etc…

Also had to cut and modify the exhaust to make it fit with all the new gearbox and car frame.

New gear shifter has been finished,  here is part of it that goes into the gearbox itself.  On the right side the two silver rings are bearings, with a black plastic spacer between them. There is an outer housing that is pressed onto this to connect to the new gear lever arm.

Here is the shifter when its all put back together

Still lots to do….  

It has a motor again!

With the help of JC and Terry (thanks boys!) the chassis around the trans tunnel has been cut out, re-configured and welded back together.  The engine and gearbox is now in and all bolted down.

Also started working on the new gear shifter

Lots more still to do, but as 4 am rolls around, sometimes you just need to give up for the night.

Rear suspension is back in, the new diff is in and some of the bars in  the trans tunnel have been cut out.  The main floor has all been removed ready for the reconstruction of the trans tunnel.

This arvo is going to be cutting out parts of the tunnel and chassis and then reconstructing it all a bit wider than it was before.

Lots to put back together…