Some progress pics

And a few more.

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Grant Hughes

Thanks for the pics Grant. :-)

Cheers! John

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http://www.lastditchracing.com
http://www.triplecaution.us

Front feet are being changed to bring the foot up the sill to the ledge and outward to accomodate the 100 mm to a-pillar support bar rule.

Strut tower tops are reinforced. Rear bracket on STA fully welded and reinforced. Lower by about 1 cm and further outward. Also now are the correct spacing for the spherical bearing inserts that came with the suspension.

Started working on the seat mounts. Ordered more steel last week and mostly finished the Legacy turbo cage. Have to do A-pillar reinforcement, seat mount on passenger side and gussets. Still have upper door bar and gussets on the Impreza, and upper door bar and a-pillar reinforcement on the Merkur. I'm getting much, much faster and more efficient at building the cage. When I was working on the Merkur I could profile about 2 bars and tack them into place before I was overwhelmed with profiling. I did 16 bars on the Legacy on Sunday and would have done the last two if I hadn't had plans. Making Steve do all the welding still, except I do some of the less crucial stuff, like strut tower reinforcements and STA mounts. And tacking. It's nice though to be able to focus on profiling and not have to take the time or wait for stuff to get welded when we're working as a team.

Rear brakes are almost done. A couple grand owed on taxes though may slow progress for a while.

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Grant Hughes

A question about the A pillar support bar. It has to be continuous, but still can bisect the door X bars correct? I have the FIA rules-just haven't gone through every single one yet.

My Custom Cages kit for the subaru has the A pillar support as a multi-piece unit. Apparently that's already out of vogue.

Cheers! John

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http://www.lastditchracing.com
http://www.triplecaution.us

Make the a-pillar bar two piece, with a bend to get it into the same plane as the door bars and have it bisect the upper door bar.

The one continuous bar portion has been removed, so it can be two piece.

You will want a bend in it to bring it out to the same plane as the door bars. It's really close to the steering wheel in the Merkur.

Have you checked out all of Paddy's pics? His a-pillar bar is a good example of a legal setup. Though his isn't bent, which I plan to do on mine.
He's got lots of pics at Merkursport here:
http://merkursport.com/index.php?showtopic=4867
You have to be a member to view, but worth it for classifieds is my thinking.

One thing to notice on his cage though is the different design roof and upper windshield support bar. The FIA rules state that the a-pillar support has to be within 100 mm of the windshield connection bar, which in my case puts the a pillar bar much closer to the steering wheel.

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Grant Hughes

The intrepid can also view this photobucket album to find all my XR-related images from that project:

http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i124/rwsrally/rally%20car/?start=all

Patrick's bar is like the one in our Subaru. Makes more sense to me to have it like that as it doesn't take up space inside the door bars like some other designs.

Thanks for all the comments and pics guys. I'm hoping we get started this weekend if it's not freezing in the shop!

Cheers! John

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http://www.lastditchracing.com
http://www.triplecaution.us

So, should get a lot done in the next few days. If it stays pretty warm. Looks like with the new crackdown on data security at the VA, we are pretty much shut down for the next two days while they move some servers, so I just found out no work for the next couple of days. Looks like it'll be rally car busta move time.
Hope to, cut and fit rear window sheet metal.
Weld in upper door bars and a-pillar support bar.
Weld in floor patch panels.
Clean interior for paint.
Finish seat brackets.

Trying to figure out a way to get some gussets made. We need 24 right now for the three cars we are building. Well, I suppose 18 to be legal. Ordered a punch and flare to make my own if all else falls through, or at least to be able to put cool flares in other pieces of sheet metal.

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Grant Hughes

What tube size do you need gussets for? I have a radius punch/urethane die set I made for doing 1.5" ones in my press brake. I can make another for different size tubes very easily. I already make gussets from time to time for my friends who build SCORE race trucks.

Tim

Holy bodywork today.

Finished the passenger side Sierra window conversion, minus bondo. Did much better this time than the last time. There's a bit of a gap on the top one, but that's quite okay. It actually looks pretty good right now as it sits.

Gutted the rear hatch shit. Ground some crappy welds on the sunroof patch and rewelded a few spots to get a better fit. Used a wire wheel to remove alot of paint all over the car to prepare for bondo. Ground out some stuck body cladding rivets and prepped them all for coverup. Took off and cleaned up where rear emblems were and the 716 holes that were used to mount the picnic table rear spoiler, reat hatch pop, antanae, rear wiper, etc. Cleaned up the only spot with rust that I have yet to find. Remounted the rear beam. Found out that I am short one bolt to put my rear suspension in so decided to wait on it. Got really stoked when my roommate said, "we should paint it next week during Spring Break." So going to try to finish the driver's windows, finish the bondo, and seam weld the interior so we can paint next Thursday. Probably not, but I'll give it a shot. Pics later.

John's comment to me somewhere once was, "Stop trying to do 150% of what you can do." Or something along that line. I keep getting stoked on how my 100% of what I can do keeps increasing every year and every car we build. I'm still scared of stand alone engine management, and I've even helped install and tune two cars running Haltech setups. But looks like I'll be using an E8 Haltech for the Merkur so I'll get to really use it again. Hmm. Maybe I'll cover the dash tonight with felt.

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Grant Hughes



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2007 08:02PM by NoCoast.

NoCoast Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hmm. Maybe I'll cover the dash
> tonight with felt.
>
> Grant Hughes
> www.nocoastmotorsports.net
> Denver, CO
>

I'm curious why this is done? to reduce reflections?

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-Jason

To look cool.

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Grant Hughes

Alcantara/Ultrasuede is the bomb for dashes. There is also some anti-reflective material in a spray can available someplace. Haven't found it yet.

Cheers! John

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http://www.lastditchracing.com
http://www.triplecaution.us

John Cassidy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Alcantara/Ultrasuede is the bomb for dashes.
> There is also some anti-reflective material in a
> spray can available someplace. Haven't found it
> yet.
>
> Cheers! John
>
>
>


I dont know what Ultrasuede is. Ive heard of flocking and Its relativeley cheap

http://www.frost.co.uk/productList.asp?catID=21&frostCat=Interior%20Trim

This place sells flokcking material for cheap. For around $30(plus ship) you can get enough material to cover 1 sq meter in a shitload of colors. We're not doing it on our first car but when I build that EVO in a few Years i will definantly be looking these guys up again.

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Ted DeInnocentis
MK2 Jetta Coupe Rally Car
BMW E46 323i daily driver
Toyota Tacoma Sweep vehicle

We covered our last dash in Alcantara. Google it. It's a fabric that you can apply with 3M trim adhesive when the dash is out of the car.

Cheers! John

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http://www.lastditchracing.com
http://www.triplecaution.us