THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT ..I forwarded you an e mail of the shuttle landing at LAX

Been busy with relocating and work.

Books closed on my car for the rest of this year. If all goes well I'm hoping to get back to T-Hill next season and work on shaving a few more seconds off my lap times. Also, I have around 170 lbs of weight savings thats sitting around that needs to be painted and installed.

Stopped by Vinces shop a couple of weeks ago and he installed a custom toe hook that he made for the rear of my car. It's very cool looking and if I had my camera i would have taken some pic's.

Thanks Vince, appreciate it. :thumbsup:

Any updates Gateano?
Shane

:hello:

Lol I guess that pretty much explains it!
Shane

Thanks for asking guys. All parts and pieces are in for the motor. The motor is at Vinces shop about 2 hours away and I have been super busy with work. Too beat on Saturdays to do anything at all and have been spending time with the family on Sundays. Even squeezed a couple days of sno-boarding in. :thumbsup: I got started on the motor a few weeks ago but didn't have time to finish.
Vince has been buried also so he hasn't been able to do his end of the work either. My sway bar is connected to the body of the car and the sheetmetal on the body has torn. Vince is going to weld the sheetmetal back together and then make a support brace for the sway bar. Once he completes that he is going to make my existing sway bar adjustable. Once thats done he's going to install an upper eyelet mount for the rear shocks I will be getting. Cant order the shocks until the motor is in, car is corner weighted, and we've calculated motion ratios.
Goal is to have it ready for the NASA Thunderhill event on May 18th so we still have time.

Scroll up and read your title on this thread....




:action-smiley-027: :hello:

Thats funny. I was thinking the same thing as I was finishing typing.

Plan your work and work your plan. :rules:

:D

Speaking of plan.......have you considered using a Year-at-a-Glance planner instead of a Decade-at-a-Glance? :D

With the May Thunderhill event coming up and realizing that driving two hours to Vince's shop to work on my motor wasn't going to happen I drove down to the shop last week and picked up my motor and all the parts and pieces to put her back together.
I mentioned that I would never go back to a timing chain after breaking one at T-Hill last May so I picked up an Xceldyne belt drive. It was the first time for me ever installing a belt drive but the directions were well written and the quality of the parts and pieces were top knotch.
Got the belt drive installed and heads torqued down this weekend.


http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...ls20132006.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...ls20132001.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13410.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13409.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13408.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13407.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13406.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13404.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13403.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13402.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13401.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-16-13400.jpg

Nice bottom end! :unibrow:

That doesn't sound very proper....

You're looking real racy now

Nice, not very proper, and racy........I can live with that. Kind of like how I liked my women..........well, back in the day anyways. :D

Anyhow, In my efforts to try and get the rear of my car to rotate I asked Vince to make a slider clamp for my rear Hotchkis sway bar so that I can make it adjustable. Vince has sent a computer drafted design of the sliders to the water jet guy. He sent me an e-mail of the design and if I can figure out how to post from e-mail I will. Basically just a block of billet aluminum with a hole in it the same diameter of the bar that will wrap around the sway bar with two bolts on the bottom to sinch it to the bar and a heim joint connection on top. Hard to believe I couldn't just find one on line. BMW has a custom sway bar set up with the sliders but they wouldn't seperate the sliders and heim joint set up from the bar. Should be pretty neat and I'm looking forward to putting it to work.

Cool on the belt! Who needs a stinkin gear?

Forward me the email and I will post it up.

I checked out the local shop that was running Camaros and BMWS in the Contential tire series not to long ago. They had the coolest set up for in car adjustable sway bars. Basically the swaybar arms are square, but more like flatbar stock. They have a system to rotate the arm from the drivers seat so that if they stand the arm up complety vertical its the stiffest, and if it's rotated flat (180 degs) its at its softest. So, the arm not the bar is adjusted for the stiffness, all from the drivers seat!

are you talking about a blade, something like this?
http://ankenyracingenterprises.com/i...ybar%20002.JPG

Basically will look like this.

http://www.awrracing.com/images/parts/04-3303-aw.jpg


The slider clamp will allow me to slide up and down the sway bar arm. The shorter the arm, the stiffer the setting. The clamp Vince is making wont be a two piece though, will be thicker, and have the two sinch bolts lined up horizontally at the bottom.

http://www.awrracing.com/images/sway_end_linkclose.jpg

I always thought the blade set up was for splined bars. looks like that set up is welded and not splined? Pretty cool, would save time and keep you from having to get on and off the track to make adjustments but not something I want in my cockpit.

Looking forward to seeing you out on the track. Maybe come watch you in May.

Sweetness. Keep the updates coming. I like learning about the motor stuff.

you should get some synthetic assembly lube. Put that 3 in 1 stuff back in your sewing kit. LOL

Amsoil Assembly lube, I put that **** on everything. :disgusted:

Yes, that setup pictured is actually for an s2000, but setups like that can be made for any vehicle. HRPWORLD.COM has all the parts to make the blade bars yourself. Or ypu could contact Guy Ankeny or Mike Maier and see what either is willing to do for you. I'll be honest, it wont be cheap. Somewhere north of $1000, but the tuning thats available through a bar like that is priceless...

What do you expect from a glorified door hanger..:poke:

Ha Ha. The 3 and One bottle was emptied and filled with motor oil per Xceldynes recommendations. :rules:

Thanks Bret. First thing I thought about when I was posting is what a great job you do when posting up your pics and the details you note with each pic. I wanted to put a note under each pic but time prevailed.

Thanks Mike.

Yeah it's good to see you back at it Gaetano! Did you change anything else on the motor besides the drive since you have it apart? How'd things look inside?
Shane

Thanks Shane. Other than a couple of nicks that I had to file down on the timing cover mounting face where the chain broke through the bottom of the timing cover everything looked fine. No other changes to the motor aside from the belt drive. Thats my story and I'm stickin' to it :unibrow:

:idea:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y3/...ps81567f86.jpg

No engine mods Jer. thinking more along the lines of this direction. Not till next year though. Unless I find a guy that can do quality paint for cheap.

http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/a...ssdoors005.jpg

Who did you get the glass doors from?
 

How much do they weigh compared to stock? Have you test fit them yet? As you can tell by my by all my questions I have been looking at doing this on my new project any insight would be appreciated.

The fiberglass doors are from VFN and weigh 12 lbs each. I had them on the car and operable years back but took them off when I joined the PT site.(I didn't want anyone claiming unfair)Since there are other cars running them now I decided to throw them back on. The fit is factory perfect. I trimmed the lexan glass mount off the top, made some backing plates from 1/4" aluminum plate and tapped the plates for the oem hinge bolts, and there is a flange up front that slides just behind the front fender if you were to use fiberglass fenders that needs to be trimed off. You also need to cut in your latch.
I haven't weighed my steel oem doors with glass yet but I'd guess they are around 65-75 lbs each?
Once the doors are installed I should weigh in at the low 2800 lb range.

That is the blade set up I'm talking about! I thought it was pretty cool. The driver basically had two "shifter looking" nobs with a detent for the different position for each side of the bar.

Wish were on the same side of the Country so we could run against each other!

Funny, I was thinking the same thing. When I hit the lotto I'll ship my car over and we'll hit a few tracks on my dime. :lol:

I'm going to the DSE Summer Slam, maybe I'll get lucky and they'll feel sorry for the little guy and ship my car over to your side on thier dime for OUSCC! I'm certainaly gonna try my best with driving, and a lot of not so subtle hints that they should Pick ME!

Oh yeah.......the OUSCC. Isn't that the race event after SEMA at Pahrump where they race "street" cars that have roll cages, fuel cells, and cup holders?:lol:

Woops, there I go again :peepwall:

Anyhow....Good luck out there. Hope you do well and get chosen.

Easy with that talk, don't want to get voted off the island bub.