tonight's post is all about front end stiffness... because going hard or going home is pretty much the summation of this build at this point. on that topic I missed out on a tomei 3.2 stroker motor on yahoo (ran out of money, so hate me) which will probably haunt me for the next six to eight weeks grabbed one of these UAS front tie rod braces @ zedfest last week (my car was going to be done for the last one. ha). it's the series one type that doesn't fit a standard car, but whatever I have a twin pass now. now more stiffness in the form of recent bay work... there were a few parts on the metalwork that fell under the "that'll take longer to make look nice than it will to cut out an fabricate a replacement." the piddly factory strut tower supports fell under this heading dicing up some replacements from 50x50mm box section fitted up and tacked... the strut tower itself is far from flat, so there's a fair amount of flap wheel finishing involved to get it even close excuse my part seam welded, part lead wiped, part smoothed and part factory towers and all migged in... welds came out horrible if i'm honest (rushed it) and will require a fair amount of smoothing out. but oh well, lesson learned and it'll come good. should be a good amount beefier and help make up for a lack of front strut brace. -A
Hey I almost bought that motor too! But considering how long that vert had been kicking around with it it must've been an older build. Plus they'd stripped almost everything off it. Some tasty parts were on that vert
Remember to give everything a light tap with a slag hammer to check for wall thickness. Id give this sought of thing a go but id be too worried about looks vs structural integrity after all that grinding. How did you apply the lead wipe? Good effort! And your welds are shit cause you didnt clean the steel properly!!! wire wheel FTW. Shouldnt be brown.....
This man speaks the truth. If that's galvanized steel, then the zinc boils off at around 700 degrees leading to that weld shape (and probably a heap of porosity). Ie your gal boils of before the weld. What voltage and wire speed are you using? 0.8mm wire?
While I was at his place, I had a look at the welds. I'm no expert, but it looked to me like he didn't have enough gas in the welds. I remember telling him before he started welding that the gal needed to be grinded off before welding too...
No gas makes it look like Swiss cheese- holes everywhere. Up the top section it looks to cold- no penetration and bugger alledge wetting. Increase your volts and try again. On the upright, characterized by inconsistent travel speed and could probably have slowed down quite a bit. Was that a 'vertical up' pass, or did you go top down? you can see how there's all kinds of variations in the weld bead on this pass. Since there is different thickness materials being used, if you do a weave type weld, spend a bit more time on the thicker side to get better penetration.
Thanks for the advice guys. I'll clean it up with a grinder and give it a good going over. I am still learning. O.6mm wire, 18.5v or so. Can't go too much higher or the strut tower won't take it. I am crossing from the box section to the tower though, to take some of the heat. Doner steel is not galvanised.
More updates coming everybody... good ones too; new parts, new fab, new progress on the motor. Welding skill is coming along, pics up soon. would help if my mig wasn't in for warranty repair but eh recent pic -A
yeah, old welders had a whopping big dial you had to crank to move the contacts up and down thru the transformer windings to change the amperage. Modern welders have more 'software' than hardware, so things like this are common. Boilies are not renowned for being gentle folk.
some new content... went shopping a bit, but first the latest on the engine: Getting dipped @ the builders... pic is a few weeks old; block is now fully bored, crank nitrided and the bottom end coming together. I have decided to go full retard on the heads and have ordered the full ferrea catalogue this week, to be put together with a five angle port job to boot. come at me boost! funny story - my WPC treated crank I got from the US had a rod journal that was more than 3 thou warn through - so it's a total throwaway. fancy that... and now the shopping... i have a stupid amount of stuff on its way to me right now so I thought I'd post the current "early christmas" up before the new parts land new in box tomei exhaust cam gears to go with my BDE intake gears. spot the S2 climate control in the background as well to suit my lack of AC, because blowing the heater on your feet while driving at night with the roof off is literally indescribably good. Project Mu pads for my new Tommy K calipers... enormous two piece rotors on the left too, but more on these in a sizeable brakes post later. and on the tommy kaira note... the OEM recaros are no more... when these came up on yahoo! japan for a cost landed less than the best offer I'd had on my seats (without them even being up for sale), it had to happen. the sort of "i'd like them but not if i pad to pay for them" purchase. so these were flown in from japan in exchange for my OEM units... i'm hardly all about the OEM anyway and because it was $49 delivered on eBay... a matching dead pedal <3 if anyone's wondering about the lack of updates on the actual car itself, it's for a few reasons: 1) my welder has been on warranty repair for nearly a month now which is beyond a joke 2) i am much more busy in my day to day life now than I'd like 3) i've recently learned that on the topic of smoothing a bay regardless of the shape or form of progress, when photographed the result is always horrible. seriously, when I started my bay look like a bomb hit it. while making progress, my bay still looks like a bomb hit it. even areas that are done and just need primer/paint... look like a bomb hit them. it's shameful, haha. more content (two parts orders in transit, my welder due back [i have prepared a heap of stuff and can't wait]) coming. -A
some more word. by absolute chance, local user Robbo managed to spot another set of Tommy k calipers on eBay, from a member of the US military based in the pacific of all sources. I had already picked up the AP kit for the rear of my car to balance out the 6 piston fronts, but decided to bite the bullet and nab the tommy k rears and rock a matching set all 'round. the APs were perfect for the job and while functional honestly never "did it" for me, and since the whole build is based off of the ethos of "if it feels good do it" why not. gives me kicks having them matching front to rear, and more horridly scarce parts for the rear. 7/8 pictured here, the original scraped face unit unpictured. by chance, one of the new pair has this precise same damage, though nowhere near as bad. i have no clue as to why on earth that is. these new rear units will be matched to a pair of Z1 350x22mm two piece rotors, with some kind of epic brake bias adjuster as this set up will apparently leave a front bias of only 50.7%. in other news, my ferrea head parts are here which means the only thing I'm waiting on for the whole motor to come together is the tomei head gasket (on its way to me from j-land as we speak). I managed to score the valves from a bloke in the UK who'd purchased them for a rebuild only to cancel his plans, so they were going cheap. the valve guides are bronze, retainers titanium and set up for single valve spring to be matched to the Jun units. next up after the engine is together it'll be the turn for new manifolds and turbos to be saved for. -A
Wilwood have a brake bias adjuster iirc, not sure whether it would be suitable but worth checking out
Yeah I'll check the Wilwood one out when the time comes. I just want to get them on the car for now and worry about sorting out the fine tuning once the car drives. Doesn't matter how well it stops if it doesn't go, haha.
Brakes look awesome mate but I think you need to do more homework before chucking them on, or spending the cash to have the brackets made up. You need to have a proper look at the piston sizing, bias & whether the stock master cylinder will be up to the job. There's a fair bit of info on sau in the braking section, maybe pm 'Roy' over there too (resident brake guru) or just chuck a thread up for a bit of info.
Shoosh Tim! Don't listen to him Anti. A brand name like TK alone will bring your car to a stop, ignore the mechanics of it all. Going by the way you have gone with the rest of your car, I assume these would be getting engineered. After doing what Tim suggested, if you have an engineer already lined up, maybe run your set up plan and solution by them and see what they say in terms of advice.
