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…

The new injectors have been ordered, the tail shaft has been dropped off to be modified to fit the new gearbox output spline size and the new motor has had all of my pieces bolted back onto it.

Progress is slow, but its still progress…

The gearbox shifter is going to be in a different position to the previous gearbox, so I also need to modify my remote shifter too….  yah….

Simon from GTI Performance has kindly let me borrow an engine to finish the year off.

This motor is a proper race motor (compared to mine that had standard insides).  With the extra power that it can make, it also means a stronger gearbox, which he has also lent me – problem is that it won’t fit inside the transmission tunnel as it is now – time to cut that one out of the car and make a wider tunnel…  It has different gear ratios too, so I need to swap over to a different diff ratio too – just another job for the weekend…

Its going to be a hard week – I apologize in advance for being so tired and grumpy!

Sadly, it was another injector seal failure that cause the engine explosion.  Even worse was that it did this in practice, so I never got a timed run to see what she would do.

It filled the cylinder with enough fuel to hydraulic lock it, causing the connecting rod to exit out of the side of the engine block, in no less than 4 separate pieces.

My engine is not supposed to have a ventilation hole here…  😦

The fuel tank as now been re-configured and now has a roll-over vent (the blue tube) and a fuel gauge (the silver circle cap) installed.  The roll-over vent is a special little valve that shuts the vent off if the car is upside down.  Without this, if the car is upside down the fuel will all drain out of the vent line – leaking fuel is not something that you want to add to a crash big enough to put you on your roof.

Its now also got a fuel level sender in it, so that I can see on the dash how much fuel is in the car.  The last fuel tank had one in it, that I used a lot.  For this year, I’ve not had one and I don’t like it as I’m never 100% sure what fuel is in the car.  So for must runs, I’ve had too much fuel in the car as I didn’t want to risk running out mid run.  I’ve now got it all configured so that I know how much is in there down to 0.1 of a litre :).  I don’t need it that precise, but I could, so……

Then started work on getting the windows ready to fit to the car.

The window trim has been glued to the window and the whole thing glued onto the car.

There is still some work left to do…

Got a bunch of other little bits cleaned up and fitted back onto the car.  The bigger items left that have to be done are the rear window, floor and wheels.

I’d still also like to do a lot of other performance enhancing things as well though.  It’s going to be a long week.

So, after Jacks hill rear window explosion, the first priority was to make a new screen.

I started with a spare glass window, and waxed it and covered it with mold release agent.  Then put two layers of fibreglass on it, plus some extra ridges for strength (The T part in the picture).

It turned out quite well, and at 2.6kg its a lot lighter than the glass (9kg).

Also did some more work on the rear 1/4 windows.  Here is on still with the primer/filler on it.

And the second one with its first coat of black.

After a couple of days letting it dry, started working on finishing the rear window.  Here its 1/2 sanded down, to get rid of some tiny imperfections in it.  I’m new at this fiber glassing thing and learnt a lot doing this window – I learnt how NOT to do a lot of things.

I also made a start on making a mold to make some NACA ducts (low drag cooling duct inlets).  This will possibly only make sense to people once I’ve finished the part.  About another month….

I made a throttle return stop too.  Previously it was moving back to far, making it hard to quickly transition from the brake back to the gas.

Then drilled some holes in the door and mounted the mirrors.

Then got back onto the angle grinder to cut more bits off the back of the car.  The shrapnel on the floor shows the small bits that are coming off now – all the big bits are gone….

Just over a week until the car needs to be finished, hmmmm………

Started with the passenger side glass and some 12mm square alloy tube.  After some bending, twisting, some head scratching, more twisting and more bending, we have the first part of a new window frame.

Made up a second piece to complete the frame, then had to work out how to mount them to the existing door.

I drilled and tapped a piece of plate, welded that to the door, then the alloy bolts onto that.  Makes it nice and strong, put still light.

Then needed to work out the same thing for the front mount.

The pieces of the frame welded up, and mounted to the car.

Next job is to make the Lexan window, then bolt that to the frame.

The next event is at Collie on the 19th – 21st Oct.  It is being run as a round of the Speed Event Series and a round of the Australia Sprint Series, a national event.

Its going to be interesting going up against some of the top cars from the eastern states.

So, I’ve got a list of things that I want to improve on the car before then.

The first of these is working out what to do with the rear window (as its now in a million pieces…).  I could get a Lexan one molded, but long term I want to put the 180sx rear end on it, and as its a different window I don’t want to pay $300 for a window that will be useless at the end of the year.

So, as one of the rear 1/4 windows is still glass, I thought I’d try something to replace that with fiber glass, then if that works ok I’ll do the same with the rear window.

Here is one of the two that I made.  Its been roughly sprayed with undercoat, which I’ll be sanding smooth and then painting it gloss black.

Panel sitting on the car.

Once I’ve painted it I’ll put the factory window trims back on too.

They are looking good so far, so assuming that these turn out ok then I’ll do the same for the back window.  As I won’t be able to see out the back any more, I’ll remove the interior mirror and put the external mirrors back on the car.  The inside mirror was of limited use anyway as the rear wing blocks off most of your rear vision anyway.

Other jobs were taking more weight out – again…..

I trimmed up the insides of the passenger door and also took out the power windows and the glass. Then painted the insides of the frame black over where I ground and sanded off the metal.  Will make a lexan window for this side.

Then I started on the insides of the rear, around the windows and roof areas.  I had roughly cut the metal out from the inside, but never nicely cleaned it all up.  So that was the first job.  I then cut out the rear wheel wells and cleaned up all around those areas.  A bit more to go to clean these up, hopefully this afternoon….

Other items on the list:

• Make a throttle stop for the accelerator pedal.
• Put the front brake ducts back on the car.
• Make new front brake duct inlets.
• Make brake ducts for the rear brakes.
• Make a rear window.
• Modify the fuel tank to add the roll-over vent.
• Make some side skirts – to increase the aero.
• Make some more strakes for the rear diffusser.
• Re-fit the power steering (not sure if I have enough time for this).
• Fit side mirrors.
• Modify air intake and air filter location.

And that’s just the big jobs…..

Last weekend was the hillclimb at Jack’s Hill.  This is a place that’s not been kind to me in the recent past, and I was really hoping for a change in luck.

Practice was OK. I took it easy, just getting the tyres cleaned up, and everything warmed up.

Run 1, started OK, but turning into the top part of the circuit there was a bang from the rear of the car, then turning into the next left got a big slide going…. Great I though either flat tyre or broken suspension, and I’ve not even finished a timed run. The curse strikes again.

Pulled off the track, drove back to the finish and parked it. Got out expecting to see the right rear flat or hanging out… Nope, that looks OK.

Hmmm, the rear window is gone…..
The rear tyres are covered in glass, explains why it was slippery…

So, after cleaning up all the glass, from the track, and from the back of the car, was ready to try again.

Next run, slow but at least I made it. Crossing the finish line at speed felt like winning the world championship! Maybe the curse is dead?

Next run was better, a lot more commitment, 2 seconds faster. Two runs in a row without a failure!!!

Run 4, pushed harder again, another 3 tenths faster.

Run 5, time for a real all or nothing run. Was going faster until about half way through.

There is part of the course between a fast right corner and the left hairpin. Each run I’ve been wanting to punch the throttle between the two corners, just didn’t think it was possible.

Run 5, being the all or nothing run, was the perfect time to try it. Well, as it turns out, you can’t. Ran wayyyyy wide at the hairpin, loosing all the time that I’d made up, ohh well….

So after a poor start, ended up 1st in class, first tin top, 4th outright and a new class record for the track, so not a bad day in the end.