NEHA

nice work. do these cars usually have a full frame? If yes, is that what the cage is welding too eventually?

Nope, originally unibody, and this is just going to be a tube-frame.

One last alignment of all the 'core components' this weekend, then turned tack welds into 'for keeps' welds.

Sorry for the lack of updates. We're finally happy with the 'core' of the cage. Everything's squared up, level, and conforms to the rules (for CTTC, FIA, and NEHA). A mock-up of the major components revealed that we can put the engine a little farther back than anticipated, and a little lower than anticipated. Hopefully we can keep up the pace that established this past weekend, and can get the front suspension pickups in without taking up too much time. The front suspension jig is finished and ready to locate the pickup points, so it's just a matter of bending and coping tubing to secure them.

The doors have a good tooling gelcoat on them, and are ready to pull molds. Once that's done, these doors go from 75lbs to around 5lbs. I'd like to make inner door skins as well, but that's a 'nice-to-have' not a 'keep-sticks-out-of-my-legs' feature.


I have a couple sets of front suspension to test out. I don't know the springrates, but have re-valving kits galore.


I'm still on the waitlist for Climb to the Clouds, so I don't know if I'll need to have the body finished this season or not. If I'm only racing the standard hillclimb events, I just need cabin protection. If I'm racing Mt Washington, I'll need to finish up the bodywork and make it look presentable. To prepare for that, I've started building out the fender plugs for the body molds.

One thing to keep in mind about mt wash is that in 2014, they went 14 deep into the waiting list.

Rabbit Farmer wrote:One thing to keep in mind about mt wash is that in 2014, they went 14 deep into the waiting list.

That event seemed to run pretty smoothly too, despite the number of people running it. I'm just going to have to stay the course and keep preparing for it. I suppose I won't know I'm not racing it until the driver's meeting starts. I don't think they'll be sending denial letters.

I finished up the molds for the doors today (2.5 layers of 10oz chop mat).


While that was curing, I finally trained myself on the vinyl cutter that Roland donated to the Makerspace a couple of months ago. Sometimes I'm surprised by the little changes that really get me excited to make big progress. Making a silly sticker is one of those little inspiring things.

Now comes some more hard math. Finishing the jig for the front suspension was quite an ordeal, if I'm honest. The g35/350z front clip that I had purchased wasn't exactly straight, so I decided to pick a side and build a jig that could be used on both sides of the car. This is the result of around 20 hours of 'braining' and a half hour of cutting, drilling, and welding.



It allows me to place the subframe on the chassis table and establish my suspension pickup points in thin air. Then it's just 'connect the dots' between the pickup points and the roll cage structure I've already built.

In other news, I'm getting closer to finished on the profile for the rear quarters. They're coming along pretty nicely, I'd say.

The first door mold didn't come out perfectly, it was a bit too cold during curing, and we didn't use enough MEKP in a few spots.



However, this weekend was a massive success. We added leveling feet to the base of the chassis, chopped out a bunch of parts, and now suspension is ready to weld in! We could even see this car rolling around next weekend.

Today, I lit myself on fire.



I was removing the mounting pins (studs? bolts?) from the g35 front suspension so I could align the pickup points in the Datsun, and that meant a lot of cutting and grinding. I should really have fired up the lathe and just made some from scratch ... but I chose to do it the hard way.



In the end though, I have all 6 pins necessary to locate the front suspension. Hopefully this week I can weld the pickup points in place.