Posted by leo | Posted in Car Development | Posted on 07-03-2010
We just finished the second weekend long push before our first test day at our local track (Portland International Raceway). Our goal was to get the engine started, we didn’t quiet get there.
I started the morning off with some detail prep work. The front area is looking a lot more orderly.
Getting the radiator ready by fixing all the bend fins and cleaning the front off. Maybe 50% of the fins were covered by YEARS of build up. Put some degreaser on it, hosed it off, then used the air nosel to clean most of it off. Good enough for $500 crap can racing.
I couldn’t find the nicer power steering pump (which i later did 
) so I cleaned up the nasty one. At least 1/4 inch of dirt and oil on it. Looks so much better now.
The bulk for the work today was on engine bits. Here is the state midway through the morning.
Work progresses. All the water lines are connected. I think we will have to leaks to deal with. We routed new lines around the throttle body and bypassed the heater core. Solved some mysteries for plugs and wires too. Were not all done there
Nick finished the steering wheel mount and started on our new “center console”. Basically some brackets to hold gauges and switches. That pile of garbage next to he house, uhh, i mean “recycling” came it useful for something. We sources all our scrap from that.
What a mess.
Bam cleaned up! I’m glad I took a ton of pictures while we were taking apart the cars. I needed their help to figure out this puzzle.
Test fitting the new center mount gauge cluster.
Gauges mounted in their completed mount. Very solid. It’s better than I had hoped for. The aluminum pieces at the bottom are the starting of a structure for a switch panel. A tripple gauge pod will weld onto the cage just above the steering wheel. The UHF radio fits in here somewhere to. I think on the top of the tranny tunnel.
This panel is going to mount off the structure… somehow. We don’t have a welder to do aluminum so maybe some allthread? I dunno. Shouldn’t be too hard. Needs some trimming and maybe some padding to protect our legs. The warning light cluster thing is going to get glued in under the stock gauges there.
Lots of great progress today but not all the way to where we wanted to be. Just a couple things to button up before we try to start it.
