Disassembled the beast over the past couple of weeks in Orange and then AJ (the guy building the tube chassis) did some minor cutting I am getting pretty excited about the project though, should be cool if every crazy idea I have works out... never really know until you start piecing the puzzle together.

All things work on paper, only some things work in reality

If anyone really cares I will continue to post pics as the progress moves along... here is some starting pics.

BTW, more pics are on my website in the chassis link I have started.

Here is a shot of week1

week2

week 3... the "minor cutting". BTW, those crap-ass Corbeau seats are gonna be gone - have UltraShields on their way, s/b on my front door roughly Wed.

rear shot

Weird picture

This is something you don't see every day

Hell yes. Post pictures untill your eyes fall out. We will look. At least I will look

QUOTE

BTW, more pics are on my website in the chassis link I have started.

I cant seem to find the pictures. Where are they???

yeah, keep us posted...
looks like a lot of fun!

Where's the shop where you're doing the work?

Wow! That is wicked! I love it, keep posting pictures!

Tim,
That looks really similar to where I was a year ago. Aren't plasma cutters great. Glad to hear you are going to get rid of those seats. I remember you talkin about how shitty they were.

What are you going to do for suspension design? Go ahead and center seat it while you are in there.

QUOTE (Brett W @ Feb 13 2006, 06:43 PM)

Tim, That looks really similar to where I was a year ago.  Aren't plasma cutters great.  Glad to hear you are going to get rid of those seats.   I remember you talkin about how shitty they were.   What are you going to do for suspension design?  Go ahead and center seat it while you are in there.

getting rid of them?

color me interested!
acox914@comcast.net (thx alphster)

Aaron better fix his email.

acox914@comcast.net

Wow. Some minor cutting, huh. How much weight are you shaving off? And I agree with the center seat idea. You're already stuck with super production in SCCA. A middle seat won't boost you out of your class.

Unless you plan on driving it on the street.

Can't wait to see welds.

Thanks for the interest... it should be quite a project over the next couple of months...

As for more pix, forgot to include my website address - www.geocities.com/byndbad914
If anyone has problems accessing it, please send me a PM. I think those free sites only allow so many "views"?? but I am not sure.

the place doing the work is The Baja Shop in Orange. I know, it isn't going to be a baja, but AJ has done some pretty insane work, his welding is unreal (his MIG literally looks like TIG for instance and I have never seen MIG that good), and he has done a couple of 914 cage cars in the past.

Aaron, I will PM you. Those seats were bought new and just sat in the car and the covering deteriorated, but they could be recovered and would be really nice. They fit the car well and I was going to recover them, but then wanted to add a seat I could add a helmet halo to for the track. I was really pissed that the covering rotted off though...

I moved the seats inboard about 2" - basically to maintain symmetry and line up straight with the pedals, which also meant messing with the steering column mount to straighten it too... I will be keeping 2 seats in the car with the same configuration. The idea is stock doors, stock dash, put door panels back on it with GT style door handles and so forth for a somewhat stock interior look (and to have windows that roll up/down). And on club days I can take the fiance out and give her motion sickness again The last day at the track I took her for about 5 laps, the last one I looped it in turn 4 at Big Willow (first time I have ever spun on the track - just her luck) and we came in. She was about to hurl

Suspension is the RSR fronts I already have and reinforced rear trailing arms. I know, I know, the whole trailing arm thing will open up a series of "why would you do that" posts.

If everything else is reinforced or stronger, then it makes sense to reinforce the trailing arms...



Cool car! I wish I had the time and money to do what your doing!!!

Good luck! wcc 07?

Andrew

byndbad914,

if you go to "my controls" at the top of the page, you can enter the address of your website, and it'll appear as an extra button (like e-mail and PM) below all your posts

if you have trouble with your regular website, you can also use your "blog" here on the clubsite (click the "blog" button underneath your own posts)

thanks for the help Jeroen, I added the URL and checked the www button and it seems to work.

As for WCC '07, I am more hopeful to have it done closer to '06! Not that I will probably be able to make the trek up to Oregon. We will see.

Andyrew, I wish I had the money to do what I am doing as well. Just kinda gotta pick your poison I guess - when I was 16 my dad looked at me and said, "If it meant you would have to wear a Tshirt with holes in it and the same pair of jeans everyday, you would if that's what it took to have a Countach" (mid-80s when the Countach was the - just saw a TopGear episode about the exact thing a while back). That was one of those funny conversations to which I replied "Yes" and have since managed to live up to it

Talked to AJ at lunch, the rear section is now officially gone, he worked the firewall area a bit more and the 2x3 chromoly will hopefully be in the shop by Friday

06? really? Im hoping to have mine done by 06... or... at least in paint, and some tubes in it, and a little lighter... and some other stuff..

yet... I keep changing things... lol

I've had my car since I was 15, Im 19 now, and my 4 year anniversery of owning the car is coming up...

I give you major props for having an 06 goal!

are you planning on attending the wcc 06?

Many nice cars will be finishing about then!

(I only wish we could drive on the track... )

Some more work to the car this last week. Just a little cleanup of the rear. You can go to this link on my website to see more photos, but I will include one teaser.

http://www.geocities.com/byndbad914/update_1.htm

Looks like 2"x3" chromoly may not even be available, so if I have to go to round bar for the tube car, I am going to have to give up on making the body removable and just tie everything together really well... it would be much nicer to have a framed car since the additional tubing becomes merely for safety and not rigidity, but oh well.

Oh yeah, and when we get the basic frame laid out and see where the engine will ultimately sit, if there is room to do it, I am going to go with 935-style rear trailing arms... better adjustability and stability in adjustment, and less toe gains/losses through travel if I understand correctly. But this assumes I will have room to build some inner camber boxes and not hit the dry sump pump or alternator. Just have to use lotsa butter I guess, maybe a shoehorn, some KY and talk really dirty to it...

is this an ex-Otto's car?

No, Otto still has his yellow 914 with the 6cyl AFAIK. I swing by there every once in a while for parts and look it over periodically...

This was a stocker 72 I bought about 10yrs ago, drove for a few, then tore it down for the V8 project. Then it sat for about 7 yrs while I finished school, went back to school, had a business, etc etc.

Hey Tim, if you are looking for Chromoly, check out The Chassis Shop. They have 2x1 Chromoly tubing for 7.44 per foot. And round is 3.36. Other than ease of fit up why square tubing for anything other than the rockers and perimeter floor and why Chromoly. Steel can be had cheaper and is easier to weld. Plus it is just as stong if you are using the same size tubing.

Brett, . . . Which " Chassis Shop " ? Google showed up more than one Chassis Shop.

QUOTE (Brett W @ Feb 17 2006, 09:46 PM)

Hey Tim, if you are looking for Chromoly, check out The Chassis Shop. They have 2x1 Chromoly tubing for 7.44 per foot. And round is 3.36. Other than ease of fit up why square tubing for anything other than the rockers and perimeter floor and why Chromoly. Steel can be had cheaper and is easier to weld. Plus it is just as stong if you are using the same size tubing.

They don't have every thing in their catalog in stock....I was trying to get some 1.5" tubing.
But they can order it if they don't have it. They mentioned anywhere from 2 weeks or longer to get in orders.

Their address is chassisshop.com

I called yesterday to see if the prices on steel change daily and the guy I talked to said, "no". If I had a 2005 catalog then those were the prices on their materials.

1x2 would be too small... can't find 2x3 so I may just have to go round.

Chromoly is stronger than mild steel... so I can use a thinner wall on chromoly for the same strength, decreasing the weight about 30%.

I wanted to build a "frame" car so that technically, you could run the car without any cage. Then the additional cage would just be for safety not rigidity. For rigidity on a round tube car, you have to run a lot of overhead structure to tie everything together (or use large diam tube which would just look wierd) which means for the same rigidity in a 1-3/4" perimeter chassis v. 2x3 box frame I would have a bunch of bars in the interior to crawl around and get in the way, which I am trying to get away from.

Was a good idea on paper Now that nobody seems to stock it, and I don't need a factory order qty, I will probably be caging the hell out of it.

Why 2X3 tubing. I build your perimeter out of 2x4 .065 mild steel then build the rest with 2x2 x.045 chromoly. Your "cage will have to be built of at least 1 3/8 .095 or 1.5 .095 wall alloy tubing. That means main roll hoops, halo bars, rear down bars, etc. Since your car is built to Super Production rules it must meet all GT spec safety rules to be legal to play in SCCA or at SCCA events.

What is the predicted weight? There is nothing wrong with combining mild steel and chromoly. Take a look at how the Trans AM cars are built the chassis is all square tubing and the main hoops are all round.

Check out http://www.racefabinc.com/gt-1_page_2.htm

the chassis builder wants to steer completely clear of DOM. That stuff cracks over time. Also, .065" wall would be way too thin for my taste. If I used DOM, it would be .120" wall minimum. Chromoly would crack too if over stressed, but in terms of fatigue, alloy equivalent cross sections (thinner wall to match strength) seem to hold up much better.

I don't have a weight prediction. I am not that concerned with it surprisingly - I just like to beat the out of the car and have fun, but I am not looking to be the lightest, fastest guy out there. I want the car to be rigid and last a long time (not fatigue crack), be safe in the event of a mishap, but not be so "barred-up" I look like Bo Duke just trying to run down to the burger joint for a cruise night or need to take the top off to make getting in easier.

I can be dead last in class track time and have fun. In fact, at club events I usually let everyone go ahead of me entering the track and stick back a bit and then just beat the crap out of it and catch up so I can run as fast as I can and not deal with anybody being slower, or blocking anybody that is faster. If anyone comes up behind me, I wave them by as soon as is safe and slow down as they go around.

If the car turns out to be 2300lbs again, I won't sweat it. Heck 2500lbs I wouldn't sweat. 1800lbs would be sweet, but not my priority.

Oh yeah, why 2x3 -- basically that was thought to be the largest size available in chromoly and I wanted 2x4. Apparently anything over 1x2 doesn't seem to exist in chromoly though. We are still looking, but are going to give up by the end of the week and go with plan B if we don't find it.

couple updated pics as of last week - threw them on the bird board while the club was down, so a couple of you have already seen them. AJ will hopefully have the interior cage framed out this week - we will see Wed night. He leaves for the San Felipe 250 Thursday (running his insane tube chassis Ranger this weekend) so I will be on hold until next week No biggie.

Current idea is to cut the trailing arms down to just hubs then build uprights from them. Then there will be 5 links going to each hub for a nice independent rear end (2 forward links, 2 perp links, one more for toe) so I have a complete array of options (rear caster adjustment (though I don't know if that would really matter since the wheels don't turn??), rear camber and toe will be independent of each other, wheelbase could be changed, track width could be changed (within reason w/o screwing up camber gain), so forth... Getting rather excited about the project!

Put the dry sump pan on the engine over the weekend, so it is ready to set into the car. He might have the engine in place as early as next Friday - hope so.

The rear taillight panel will be easily removed, so the engine/trans will come out from the top... that under-the-car crap is for the birds! And it was a real beotch to get the car high enough to clear the hi-rise intake and carb.

Oh yeah, all the crap on top of the car is my numerous drawings of cage proposals, the Excellence opened up to Roger Sheridan's car, my engineering analysis pictures showing chassis design v. deflection and stress (read that as NERD), and anything that I ran across on the internet over the past 5 months of planning this project! I literally have nearly a full binder of internet pictures I have taken to him. AJ is probably at that "goddamn engineers" point

Here is an update shot - not a lot to see at the moment, but the interior cage is basically framed out. The top door bars will be lowered to fit between the window crank and door handle (everything is just tacked right now until I "agree" to weld). The downtubes will go through the stock vents (dash will need a little work to fit). The top hoop fits the targa incredibly well, but I couldn't seem to take a pic that didn't turn out blurry (too much caffiene apparently).

I put the trans and clutch all back together, have the dry sump pan on and so forth, so AJ should be fitting the engine today and said he is going to get cranking this week on finishing out the interior cage and mounting the engine/trans assy.

here is an updated shot of engine/trans - exceptionally clean trans care of CRC Brakleen - that stuff is straight from heaven! The trans was filthy because the overflow puked onto it the first trial day and it collected grime ever since. Brakleen made it shinier than when it went it I think

Awesome dude!

I can’t believe my eyes. I am truly sick as I check often through the day for updates. Simply put WICKED.

very cool project... but those tubes look heavy

Why are you running the tranny inverted instead of just flipping the diff?

-Britain

... maybe to get a lower CG ...

Are you using a dry sump with that inverted tranny?
If not, are you not concerned about the angle of the axles? This is not meant as a criticism. I'm looking at the same problem ...

ok, I see now you're using a dry sump. Never mind my question ...
Nice project I must say!!!!

Jeroen - bottom "square" outline in the interior is 2" OD .120" wall chromoly. Only 'heavy' part - everything else is 1-3/4" or 1-1/2" .095 wall chromoly. The whole base when done and welded should only be 148lbs, so even with some extra thick structure surrounding my butt (personal choice for added safety) that is still quite light. The overhead cage is 1-1/2", front and rear structure will be a mixture of 1-3/4" and 1-1/2".


Britain - I bought the trans with low miles for $2200 and it is essentially "free" to invert it. I would wrap up another $3-$4K in a ring flip by the time it is all said and done - it takes some machining and such to make that happen in a 930 - not as easy as a 915. Also, I can run the engine lower in the car as BigBohr mentioned.

BigBohr hit in on the head about axle angles though v. dry sump necessity. Originally (as in 1 month ago) the car was wet sump with a "short" 7-1/2" full sump pan and the pan was LOW to the ground and the axles were angled a fair amount. Now, the dry sump gains the room needed to make the engine/trans closer to even with the bottom of the car, then I am raising the combo about 1-1/2" in the tube car. That 1-1/2" in engine height will ultimately translate to an almost 4" shorter ride height

let me explain that better... the wet sump pan was the low point in the car. To have a 3" ground clearance at the pan, I had to have a near 7" ground clearance at the car underbody screwed up all the suspension geometry a lot. My last track day back in January, I just "went for it" and dropped the car to about 1-3/4" clearance at the pan and it handled a ton better. Hence the "screw this noise, I am going tube chassis and dry sump" decision.

... free to invert ... is what i thought too. Until I looked at prices for a dry sump pump, pan and reservoir Seems nearly the same total cost as having the ring gear flipped (I thought that was about $1200). What are you using for oil pump? Did you find anything for a reasonable price?
John

QUOTE (Bigbohr @ Mar 21 2006, 05:09 PM)

... free to invert ... is what i thought too. Until I looked at prices for a dry sump pump, pan and reservoir  :wacko: Seems nearly the same total cost as having the ring gear flipped (I thought that was about $1200). What are you using for oil pump? Did you find anything for a reasonable price? John

I got a used 3-stage pan for $100 and nice used tank for $150. The pumps you can buy refurbed 3 or 4 stage (which is completely fine btw) for around $600-$700 IIRC, but don't quote me on that or where to get it. I would just check around with some of the pump suppliers as sometimes they have these for sale. I have a good hookup on race parts, so I can get my 4-stage pump new pretty cheap (can't say price of course). I haven't gotten mine yet, but will be going with a Stock Car Products pump. I just need to basically call one day in advance when I will be in the Brea area and pick it up. Even without discounts, I would recommend the SCP pumps for reliability and price - used a few on NASCAR stuff for years and work great.

Anyway, with the billet remote oil filter adapter (I will be using the System 1 HP-6 mondo filter), billet adapter plate in the block (both from Barnes in Torrance, CA - good price is paying cash and will call it) and all the plumbing, I would say $1200 is right in there. HOWEVER, the cost of a used pan and tank could be a wash with whatever pan you might be buying for your car if the pan is new (?)

So, if it is equal cost to do either, I would still dry sump and lower the engine (and always know I have an awesome oiling system in the car). The lower cg will help a ton. I think the machining quotes I got were in the $1500 range for the 930, but then it is apart, so good time to replace synchros and carrier bearings and so forth... $3K pretty quick. Shoulda been clearer in my earlier post.

Of course, that all applies to tracking the car IMO. For a streeter/hot rod kinda setup with a mild 350 and so forth, I would have so much less in the engine and so forth I would invert and rebuild the trans for $3K and be able to use off the shelf adapter bars, cable shifters, etc. Also, may be hard to have room for the lower crank drive "mandrel" with a stock firewall in the car... keep that in mind because that is why I originally went wet sump.

BTW to Andy, Paul and so forth.. thanks for the votes of confidence!

here is a shot of the upper hoop - kinda hard to see with the lighting, but the flash looked like crap. Still can't seem to get an image that isn't a little blurry with my digital camera. Twitchy sucker...

better shot with engine and so forth - will be a rather menacing air cleaner in the rearview mirror! Notice how far forward the engine has come and the mandrel intrusion - custom firewall was needed for sure!

and an overall shot from the rear - AJ will start laying out the rear over the next few days and hopes to have that all in place by this Saturday. The rearward main bars will drop a little and the engine will go down a bit too (just sitting on some wood blocks right now that are a bit taller than the final install will be).

So, apparently Andy gets a lot of crap about his pics being blurry - I think I am going to be taking some of that heat for him!

Check the condition of the batteries in your camera. Some cameras will have a problem taking clear pictures if the batteries are on the way out.

What bolt pattern are your wheels? You may have some luck using the ZR2 hubs for your rear uprights.

hmmm Brett, thanks for the tip on the batteries - the little battery light was blinking last night and I was trying to "beat the clock" and I didn't correlate that low batteries could cause that problem.

The current wheels have 2 patterns - 5 on 5 and 5 on 4-1/2. The Bassetts I want to get are available in both, so I am trying to decide on what pattern I want to make adapters (5 on 130mm doesn't quite match 5 on 5 so I am worried about breaking a stud if I keep it that way).

5 on 4-1/2 would open up a much larger range of aftermarket wheel selections since it's a standard Ford pattern...

Also, take pictures with flash, or get a tripod.

Flash will take it, but if you cant get the light without reflecting, the camera needs to be still.. Whenever we go to shows, we put the camera on the tripod, and only have one leg of it out.. then we can take quick pics.

The ZR2 Blazer is a 5x5 pattern which will allow you to use NASCAR wheels as well as any of the GT1 16 in alloys, plus any of the Vette, Camaro and other GM wheels.

Dude, you are building a car around an engine. I love it!!

QUOTE (yarin @ Mar 24 2006, 08:13 AM)

Dude, you are building a car around an engine. I love it!!  :trophy:

you hit it right on the head! That is exactly how I described it to AJ

When I was about 13-14yrs old, my uncle who was into Hot Rods (kinda where I got it from) thought I was nuts and told me "you're the kinda kid that would bolt a Big Block to a skateboard" and it sorta stuck with me.

Andy - I have tried flash and tend to get "wash" in my pix (it that makes any sense) - it is too bright. Then I would have to learn how to use my camera to actually mess with the shutter timing and such. The shots you are seeing are actually at night in an "OK" lit shop - so you can see the camera will flood a lot of light into the photos already.

I think it is the batteries since the last two times are the only times I have had this blurry issue, and the batteries were starting to flash that first time and was flashing the whole time Wed night. I will get new batteries today to have for tomorrow's update at the shop and the CFOS.

Brett - I will google those uprights and sheck 'em out. Thanks for the tip. (EDIT) actually do you have a good link to check them out a bit online? I googled and didn't know what a ZR2 was - apparently I get ads for a bizillion (not just a million billion, a bizillion!) Blazers.