When "Excessive" isn't enough... the IMSA 348

I see the block and the hoses. The atomization characteristics of a garden hose without a spray nozzel in the old Hilborn systems. I am sure they have made great leaps in those systems over the last 30 years and a blower can only help mix things up I suspect. Pretty good in a straight line but they would gas foul plugs under decel in a road race engine if the Lucas metering unit wasnt used.... Goodness knows I tried because I couldnt afford the metering unit at the time.

Gary, you keep your eyes pealed for an old Gen 1 or 2 Renolds block for me. I had my name up for the repop ZL1 blocks a number of years back but was not able to afford the bribes required to stay on the list, the bribes were costing more than the hunk of aluminum! One day you will stumble upon a ventilated block laying in a corner of someones garage. A few weeks of TiGing and a few pounds of aluminum welding rod and I can give you back something to machine. I saw CanAm Renolds engines near split in half, get welded back together and racing the next weekend back in the day. One day I would like to finish that car with a proper engine.

 

Nope, I have not saved a single old harness for anything but parts. We will have to do the tests on a 2.7 and make a tray to set the ECU's in above the coupler for doing back to back tests. The harness I am making will be able to mount all the ECU's and data outputs well off the engine for std. run ups.

I am just short of having more room than I know what to do with plus another 5 acres to build more on. I keep dreamin.... and things keep getting closer to reality. The Mayor wants it, the City Council is begging for it, zoning has commited to doing what ever is needed and the owner just came up with some workable ideas. He is even willing to throw in the 30 yr old plywood ultra light hanging from the ceiling as part of the deal if I am well insured.

That is exactly how Niki started and about the same age. I bought a Quarter Midget for my girls to race and refused to work on it unless they were helping. Take lots of pictures, those are precious times to be cherished!

 

You can just hear Bruce now.... "Side tracked AGAIN ?!" I just swore if I ever stumbled upon another and it had enough hair on it that it was affordable.... You know the story.

 

Well now..... That drove me to pulling a leak down on the Sprint engine that is in the car. Lets just say if the race course includes a run past the drive up window I may have some problems. Short of that, its sitting at 3%-4% and needs only a new belt. The engine being built is a detuned Enduro version. This and the wing are being done to even up the playing field a little.

Both wing mounts are roughed in.
End plates removed to figure out the construction and engineer a method to mount the wing. It sure is nice to see a pair of spars in the main element as that tells me I dont need a center mount like the "plastic wings" require.
Tracing wiring to test all data acq. systems
Tracing wiring to test all dash functions. If I cant get Stack to come to the table with the software for this dash configuration and acq. system I will have to update the both of the systems...
Designing the cockpit adjustable sway bar controls.... like I need another knob to fiddle with!
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I will look and see what I have in the trailer. We should set the dyno up with a std Y pipe for both the 2.7 and 5.2 as well as the stock 348 configuration's. For the Gen 2 Gold Kit products we will need a very real baseline to judge from. The only way to raise the bar safely is to accurately duplicate the running conditions exactly with the std. exhaust. It will be quite educational to see what just the kit does, even more so to see what the follow up components do for the numbers.

After I get done dishing out a track whooping, we might also have to dyno the Sprint engine if I can find the time to make a dyno harness for that management system and finish this Enduro engine.

Your progress is as slow as mine. What... Are you working for a living during the daylight hours?

 

Plugzit, Ever make any progress on the LM style light buckets? I have a switch that needs wiring and a single arm wiper system that needs building.
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The "building" of the rig adapters is quick and fairly easy. Thinking through and designing for every eventuality, that is where the talented brainwork comes into play. No reason to rush it, you are doing it exactly how it needs to be done and that is never quick, easy or cheap.

""Sometimes it helps to step away and the solution appears magically."" Every day... no truer words written! I made 3 mild steel prototypes for a removable steering wheel hub containing radio buttons, shift buttons, headlight flash buttons...... this Thursday, all no better than marginal. Walking out the door to go home it hit me. I had to sit in the car and draw up what just hit me and was able to cut one up first thing Friday AM out of 4140. KISS... keep it stupid simple. The first try on Friday went perfectly, right until I caught my thumb up in the lathe. That slowed progress a bit for the rest of the day, sure hope I get to keep it... its always something.


The easy answer... have dyno's for each specific group. Have the city crews come in with a 12" water main so all of the absorption unit(s) are always seeing the same coolant temp, expand the dyno room to have 5 cells all with seamless 4 x 10 bullet proof picture windows, have your multiple work crews bring in a few extra truck loads of sand to back fill the cinder block additions.... easy solutions for all your problems. When in doubt, ask yourself what Flyboy would do if faced with the same problems. He is my HERO! Now I just have the problem of writing checks for the out of my pay grade ideas he planted in this pea brain.... THAT presents a few problems.

Hey, did a wooden coffin show up on Friday?

 

That's great news, I will hold off on cutting up the front grillwork for driving lights until you get an update. Tell Goth I have a couple of F40 front light assy's (143707, 143711) I was looking at for a starting point for this. If they would help I could ship them his way. I came to the conclution that it was easier to start with a solid block of foam and break out Kris' electric carving knife and save these for ebay.

Parts sharing... its the only way either of us will survive these projects. Thanks, I will let you know.

Somewhere up in the loft I have a single arm, articulated wiper setup I made for a GT4 Dino race car I built a lifetime ago, I can remember putting it up there but.... where? The only question is if I can work up the nerve to drill big holes in this thing and finish what someone else started but never finished. Frankly it is lunicy to build this to be able to accept a lisc. plate for street use but that is my goal. It will require an open tab at the local steak house for the LE personal doing the inspections to qualify this car for the DOT. I have to get it done quickly as my county is now planning on emissions testing in the next year or two. Unless there is a Vintage tag on this quickly it will have to be registered in Montana. Looks like another button must go on the steering wheel for the horn as there is no open places on the 'dash' panel. The sway bar control will go on the left of the control panel to balance out the brake bias... that is about all of the add on's that panel can take.

 

Swelling went down a bit and the knuckle works without crunching now.... I think it will stay attached for a while longer, I hate when that happens. Just being stupid and trying to work fast around something I should respect more than I did.

That will allow me to sleep better knowing the box has landed. Too many eggs in one basket, the insurance cost double what the shipping charge did. At 50K insured value, they weren't about to loose that one, that has some special beer can material inside!

I am on a kick where everything I order for any of my own projects will only be ordered from in town suppliers and when that isn't possible, only from folks that I want to support. I do that knowing it will slow down projects and I will over pay but in these times it makes a difference. I mocked up my wing mounts and found I need to go with a wide stance mounting position due to the wing rib locations. This works out fine as it puts the load right next to the rear hood pins and will simplify the extra bracing that will be required to accept the transmitted loads from the wing at speed. With the main wing element design using two spar tubes and the second element using a single spar, they are both plenty rigid and will not require any center point bracing. With the wide stance mounts it will put the stanchions out in the airflow which directs I use airfoil tubing for this fabrication. All that's available in town is mild steel airfoil tubing which is too heavy and not strong enough for the application so... On the phone with BWright last evening, he has an aircraft manufacturer just down the road from him who also is said to have an adaptable snorkel affair and gobs of 4130 airfoil tubing, a new race car supplier in the making? This direction will complicate the process of making tube end inserts shaped for the airfoil tubing but I think given the mounting positions it is justified. If that argument doesn't hold water, at least it will be more visually interesting than round tubing or aluminum plate used for mounts. Something to pass the time until I finish one of the day job engines and can open up a work bench for the Enduro engine.

We need to get you out of the Tundra and back to civilized weather where you can shovel in shirt sleeves again.