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Old September 30th 2011, 02:14
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owdlvr owdlvr is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Canada - West Coast
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Thank you! Yes, I'm definitely going a bit overboard on the detail, fit and finish considering its going to be a race car. But I really do believe it needs to be done "perfect", and then you go race it and worry about the gaps as they open up. The nice part is I'm not really putting this together blind. Most of the changes, ideas or modifications come from issues I found with my White car, or things I had on my Audi Rally car that I miss. Every once and a while I stand back in the garage and remember that I could very well wrap this thing around a tree come Feb. But then, if I just built it quickly to get it running I'd never be happy with it. We might bend it down the road, but it sure as heck is going to start off perfect!





...so my days this week have been wake up, work for the day, walk downstairs to the garage and Cut/Grind/Weld/Grind...yawn. Not much to write about! I can say, however, that the firewall is finally "in" the car. I've got a gap to work out filling on the driver's side, but otherwise it's fully welded. Pretty sure my garage has been in a permanent haze of smoke for the past week. In the first photo above, it does look weird like I made it from two pieces, but the bottom piece is on an angle, joining the rear engine seal piece to the new firewall which is set in by 3". Just a strange photo angle.



With that pretty much complete I started in on the luggage area again. It was a super productive session that solved a whole pile of problems. I started out in the back luggage area welding the last support piece for my luggage floor. I have a bad habit when welding of only wearing my left glove. I'm right handed, always work in those blue nitrile gloves, and just seem to prefer welding without the big heavy glove on my trigger hand. Well, that habit will be stopping as of tonight. After the support was welded in, I turned to get out of the bug and where did put my ungloved hand? Yeah, right on the piece I just welded. I have a nice 1"x2" blister on my palm to remind me about wearing welding gloves now :P After losing an hour and a half to first-aid and pain, I gauzed it up and headed into the garage. Kind of ironic that I spent the entire night having to work with a welding glove on that hand, as the padding helped!

Welding up sheet metal, is starting to seem kinda boring...so I figured "Hey, lets cut more out!"



That hole was filled with a nice little 90deg shelf.



Which gives me just enough clearance that I can get the dry sump tank mounted. It's tucked away for daily use, but still accessible for cleaning...and I can use the filler system I've been planning. It just sort of hit me tonight on how to do it, and the result was this. With that sorted I was able to work out which side the oil-cooler will go on (passenger, behind the dry sump tank). I'm going to run a dual NACA duct in the passenger side window, which will be ducted down over the oil cooler. This will give me the fresh-air flow I need, most likely without the need for a fan. I've ordered an oil cooler and fan combo, however, but I can always leave the fan off. Should I decide in winter I want to use it for some cabin heating, it's as simple as having the fan push air into the cabin, through the oil cooler (obviously NACA duct will be removed in this case). But as I just sourced a working pump for my gas heater, I'm likely to install it in this car and not worry about the oil cooler for interior heat.



The final piece of the puzzle is the Accusump. I've got to buy a little bit of steel tomorrow, but I think I'm going to set the Accusump in where it's sitting now. I can run the valve to behind the e-brake, and remote the gauge in a spot where I can see it before engine shut down.

Locating the whole oiling system has been giving me stress and headaches for days, so it's nice to suddenly have it all fall into place. The Dry Sump shelf *might* end up interfering with a modification I have planned for the new floorpan, but I took a gamble on this one. With it located where it is I should be able to squeeze in the factory heat ducts, and clear the pan modification...if I can't squeeze it in, I'll have to move the shelf 1" to the left and lose the factory heat.

I do realize that it might seem odd that I'm worried so much about heat. I've talked about using the oil cooler, retaining the factory heat and installing a gas heater. Here in BC where I live, I have lots of options for ice racing in the winter and plenty of fantastic winter rallies. My fully caged Audi quattro, which had factory heat but no carpet/headliner/insulation was just borderline acceptable rallying through the early hours of a winter morning. A happy co-driver makes for a good finish...for whatever reason they seem to hate freezing cold drafts ;-)

I have a few more welds needed to fully seal off the firewall, plus I have to make the floor for the luggage area. But the starter, hard-to-reach engine bolt and clutch adjustments are all easily accessible now.

-Dave
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