Funky-Fresh Fab: Under the gun, lots of final things in the final push before Daytona

Pushing towards Daytona! Lots of little things had to get done to get the car running and rolling.

Here's how the interior was shaping up:

 The dash was painted, the Traqmate system was installed, the accusump and most of the wiring was completed.

For some reason, the Hytech header O2 sensor bung was placed so it pointed directly at bodywork, so, I added a new bung on the opposite side:

The interior was a bit crusty:

But I cleaned it up as best I can:

Ed wrapped the header since it seems to have been built for a stock pan, and with the Moroso it was actually touching header.

Next up in the front tow hook mount:

 Let's scribe some lines:

 And make some cuts, but not all the way through:

 And then lets bend it:

 Why am I doing this? Ed decided that the best place to mount the tow hook was high on the roll cage sticking out the front window!

 The cuts allow the plate to bend around the cage tube.

Cleaning up for the welding, and protecting all the wiring (the ECU was right below where I was welding!):

I love it when welds look this good:

 To prevent deflection at other then parallel pulling forces, I added in a simple plate:

 This works super well! The hoop barely moves.

Ed made a heat shield for the header since it comes really close to the radiator:

Another fast fab mini project:

Mounting the passenger side pull handle for the fire suppression system:

And then I knocked out some mods to the sway bar end links:

Now something that was just dumb and frustrating and eventually caused a lot of headache at the runoffs:

If you install the upper radiator hose, how is the hose to the overflow bottle supposed to fit?

The first thought was to just weld on this nipple:

 But that didn't work out well . . . So plan B:

That worked well . . . until the track, but that is another story. 

Funk-y Fresh Fab: Exhuast-ing Work

Another catch up post!

Here's the oil cooler plumbed in:

 This was pretty easy since it was pulled of a spare car and not too much needed to be done, and, thankfully, I didn't have to do any of the plumbing or much of the wiring!

The next thing I turned my attention to is the exhaust. The coupler for the exhaust to header joint wasn't in all that great a shape. There was some substantial crap inside the original welded section, so I cleaned it up, welded a bead around the whole circumference and then ground it smooth:

The outside got a good cleaning, too:

 I made sure to match everything up as well as possible:

Yes, I just MIGed the pieces together with regular steel wire:

 It's not that critical. Honestly.

Here's the interior after the welding:

Hey, would you look at that, I cleaned up the inside, too:

 Bolted everything together:

I love having a 4 post lift with the "alignment jack", as it made positioning the exhaust super easy:

A simple bent piece of round stock becomes the center mount:

Here it is ready to be welded:

The end of the exhaust needed a turn down, but the only bend we had didn't match the exhaust, so I flared it a bit:

This is the ONLY flaring tool I will ever use:

 It is heavy duty enough to be impact rated, and is really the only way to go for any exhaust stretching needs.

To finish the turndown, I simply taped the bend to be parallel with the leg:

Then zipped it off with the bandsaw:

A few minutes later, it was welded together and the exhaust for Daytona was complete:

Almost. heh

I didn't like how close the end of the exhaust was to the brake line for the rear brakes:

But that was easily solved with some header wrap leftover from wrapping the header:

Daytona doesn't have any sound regulations, which is unusual for most tracks. That is why there is no muffler in this system. This is in process of being corrected for this year's racing, as some of the tracks the car will be running at do have some fairly stringent sound control regulations. Not terrible, but, we definitely need a muffler or three. HAH!

The next big thing was to get the intake tube worked out!

As you can see, it isn't a terribly complicated piece:

Some decent enough welds holding it togetherL

That is where I will leave off for today.

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