Looks awesome guys!!!

 

Thanks man! Whats new with your car?

Sean

 

Time for the weekend update, and it’s not much of one. If Chris and I have learned one thing since we started building the TA it’s that some weekends we get a ton of work done, and sometimes not so much. There are weekends where the car just fights us all the way and ends up kicking our ***. There are weekends where neither of us (or maybe just one of us) really just isn't motivated. There weekends where we are just distracted and get nothing done.

This weekend was a combination of things, that led to not a whole lot getting done. We were both not really motivated this weekend, we had lots of distractions, and when we did work on the car it was fighting us.

We will start with Friday as usual. I had taken the day off of work, but went in any way to do some machining and some other work for the TA. Since we have aluminum down pipe, we needed an aluminum dump tube from the waste gate. The problem is that nobody makes an aluminum outlet flange for a Tial 44mm waste gate. So I did the only sensible thing and made one I did have some help from our tool and die guy, but he only came in on critical areas since the late we were using has... character (read sloppy). Earlier in the week I drew up the flange in CAD measuring the stainless steel one that came with the waste gate. Then after Chris had bought a nice big chunk of 6061 aluminum, we found a good piece at my work.

I only got a handful of pictures as I was trying to get a lot done. I started by squaring the piece in the lathe, and then facing it so it was all true. Then I rough cut the outside and inside dimensions.





Once that was done I did the final cut on the inside, and then added a step for the piece of tubing to sit in.



After that was done we did the outside steps to the final dimensions, and got set up to machine the angle cut. Since I had never done something like that before, and it was a critical part I let the expert handle it. If anyone has never worked with a tool and die guy, a sloppy dimension for them is 0.001" So when I say that the angle is dead on, it is dead on! I machined the ID 0.0003" over and he freaked out and thought we would have to remake the part! It took a couple minutes to explain that it could be 0.1" over and have absolutely zero effect on anything.

Anyway, he set the angle on the machine dead on what it needed to be and then started expertly machining it. In this picture you can see that he marked the piece with DyeChem to make sure he stayed where he needed to. He had already machined about half of the material off at this point, after this he was taking off material a half of thousandths at a time!



After that angle was cut to perfection we cut the back side off. Here is a quick picture of the final part next to the original.



And a couple from my actual camera







While we are talking about waste gate flanges, we can go back to the inlet waste gate flange from a few weeks back. The replacement one that Chris had bought had a heavy taper to the ID for some reason. Of course that meant that I had to open it up

Here is a pic of me rough cutting it on our OLD crappy lathe.



After I rough cut the bulk of the material I brought it over by the tool and die lathe for the finish work. Here it is all chucked up ready to go.



In process



And all finished, I opened it up to 2" ID all the way through.




After I was done with the aluminum flange, I moved on to machining down some bungs that Chris had bought. We needed some 1/8" NPT bungs for a catch can that I am making (pics of that are coming in a sec), and the ones he ordered were HUGE! I couldn't leave them as is, so I turned them down, and shortened them up some.

I started by turning down the OD of the bungs. Here you can see one turned down next to the original.



Then I machined off the extra length, and this is the end result



After that was done, I machined some bungs for mounting various things to the car.




While the tool and die guy was on lunch, I jumped back on making the catch can that I had started on a couple weeks ago. A while ago Chris and I came up with a design for the catch can, and I got it drawn up in CAD. After that a guy at work made up a program for the turret punch press, and we knocked some pieces out.



Then I bent them up.



Earlier in the week I cut down the tubing for the filters, and I also made up some baffles for both the -10 inlets and the filter tubes. Here you can see the baffles welded in place.



I welded the whole box up, but no pictures of that... They are quick crappy looking welds because I planned on grinding them off from the start. When it’s done, rest assured there will be pictures of it though!

 

Now we can move on to pictures from a real camera!! Friday night started the downward spiral of getting anything done. As soon as we got out to the car, we had to leave right away to pick up a plasma cutter from my bosses sons house. That took much longer than we expected since he had so much cool stuff around to look at, and talk about. They have a collection of race cars, and he has a real nice shop in the backyard. Between the drive both ways, and the shooting the ****, that ate up a lot of time. When we got back out to the car, and started work Chris dove into the steering. If you remember a while back, I had bought him a lightweight steering column, and that isn't just a bolt in piece. Chris worked out the parts and the cuts during the week and he got it all cut up and ready to weld Friday night. I got it tacked up on Friday so Chris could put it back in the car to double check the angles.

While he was working on that I was mounting the waste gate. We decided a while back to put the waste gate in the transition piece between the 3" v band and the T4 flange. So I cut a piece of 2" stainless tube at as much of an angle as I could, and welded the flange to one side. Then marked up the transition and cut out the oddball shape. I got it all welded before we called it a night early. Here is a quick picture I took the next morning which gives you an idea where it’s mounted.




Saturday is when we really fell apart on the car. A friend of ours came out to check out the car in person which meant that we did almost nothing while he was there. To be fair I did finish welding the steering column and the small piece of pipe to the muffler. That was because he wanted to watch me weld though. Once he took off, for some reason we started messing around with the boat again. We wasted a good chunk of time puttsing around with the boat. We fixed some bad grounds, discovered that the battery actually was good, ran it for a while, nothing really major.

After we decided that we wasted enough time on the boat, we went back in the garage and got to work. I can’t really remember what I did, but I think I was working on the dump tube for the waste gate. That really just meant I cut a sliver off of a tube, and tacked it onto the flange I made.

Chris was doing something much more interesting, cutting out the T-Top well with the plasma cutter we borrowed. Here is a couple pics of him in action





This was the first rough cut




The first chunk of the tub that was cut out



That made the garage a little smokey



We let it air out some, and then dragged ourselves back out there. Chris cut more of the rear out of the car while I got frustrated with making an exhaust hanger. The first attempt completely failed, and the second attempt was working so well! That is until I welded it to the muffler backwards! That was the thing that pushed us over the edge. We just cleaned up and called it a weekend.

Hopefully we are in better/more motivated mood for next weekend, and get some real work done. Until then thanks for following along!


Sean

 

lol...sometimes things just dont go as planned! how much do you think all the metal he cut out weighs?

 

Yeah, sometimes it just doesn't work out. We have been around long enough to know that, and not get too upset about it. We always try to work with no deadline because sometimes you have weekends like this one. If we had a firm deadline we would have been pissed, and started taking shortcuts etc. That's just no good, and we wont do it.

Well that depends where you are talking about. Just the t-top well was probably 20 pounds or so. But that isn't the only metal cut from the car, just the most recent. This winter he cut out what was left of the upper radiator support, the lower radiator support, and the t-top well. We also ditched the stock metal gas tank, and some wiring. When it's all said and done, and we put some weight back in from mounting the fuel cell and stuff, we think it will be anywhere from break even to 20 lbs lighter than last season. In the front we removed a lot of weight by using the aluminum IC piping and exhaust, but the new IC weighs a LOT. We also lost weight by using the molly tubular structure, but again that IC weighs a LOT! In the back we probably will end up lighter than it was. With all that we removed, the pumps will probably balance out or the new one may be a bit heavier. The fuel cell is obviously lighter, but larger AN line, and we need to make a molly structure for mounting everything and skin it with sheet metal.

In general we do what we want to do to the car for whatever reason, and it weighs what it weighs. There isn't a whole lot more weight to get out of it though without getting pretty drastic. The weight really is not too bad though considering the turbo, iron block, Fab9, and all the factory glass (plus power windows, locks, ect.). If anything I just need to drop 100lbs but that is harder than cutting metal!

Sean

 

Finally got started on it again. Ill update my thread in a min.
You guys got some pretty fancy tools over there!

 

Mike your car is looking great! Always so clean!
We have enough to get by You gotta either have tools, or money to pay people. We chose to invest in the tools instead. I also have a boss who was upper management at Snap-On for almost 30 years, he lets us borrow whatever we need whenever we need it. That is very helpful for some of the specialty tools that we may only need once or twice.


Sean

 

Thanks everyone!

Chris

 

It's update time!!! We got a good amount of work done this weekend, almost all of the fab work is knocked out now. Next weekend will be kind of slow, but we are in the home stretch now! That is getting ahead of ourselves, lets start with this weekend.

Friday I got started by fixing the hanger that I messed up last weekend. After that I made up the second hanger and got it all welded up..

Both hangers welded up


Fist hanger on the car


Second hanger on car


Now we can take the down pipe off, and leave the muffler on the car. We tried to make sure that all of the pipes in the engine bay were easily removed for working on the car.

Next up we had to mod the fuel cell. We needed a -12 outlet, and the cell came with two -8's. No big deal, just drill it out, and weld in a -12!




While Chris was drilling I finally made the cut on the pipe for the dump tube. I went back and forth on how to do this for weeks, I finally just dove in and made the cut.





At that point we called it a night. Chris had to work Saturday morning, and I was pretty tired and needed to catch up on sleep.


Saturday we got a late start on the car, but still got a good amount done. I started back on the dump tube, and trimmed it to length. That took a lot of cutting and checking, and cutting and checking. Here is how it looked when I was happy with it and marking the down pipe.







Then we pulled it all apart so we could cut the hole in the down pipe. Chris made the cut with the plasma cutter since it was a but of an odd shape.

All marked






And here is the hole all cleaned up and ready for welding


It fit up pretty well


Unfortunately the welding didn't go so well. I had BY FAR the hardest time welding this piece. It started out well enough, then I suddenly had some contamination problems and it went down hill from there. It then got worse when I got to the real narrow area on the back side, and I finally gave up. I will clean it all up and finish it at my work where we have better welders, and more torch options. But here it is as finished as I got it, and also with the O2 bung welded in.



You can also see that the BOV flange is welded on in that picture. Here is a better shot of that.



We also marked up, and drilled the pipe for the IAT sensor bung. That was a disaster too, and it fucked up the bung. It just wasn't my weekend for welding aluminum, but I will fix that next weekend.

While I was getting frustrated with all of the welding, Chris was busy cutting out the entire rear of the car There were a couple pictures of the start of that last week, but now its all done. Here you can see the finished hole.







After that was all cut, he made up some plates to attach to the sides of the frame rails so we could attach the cross bars which are the main part of our new structure. Here are two of the plates welded in, and you can also see the two main 3/4 molly cross bars.



Once the two main supports were in, Chris cut some 1/2 molly and some 1/8" plate to run the length of the various items. We plan on mounting the fuel cell on the Driver side (pics in a second), the battery box on the passenger side, and the fuel pump underneath in the middle.

Here you can see the 1/2" molly support braces that are welded off of the 3/4" molly cross bars.





Once they were tacked in place, Chris ground the tops of the weld smooth so that the plates would sit nice and flat.



I cut some 1-1/4", 1/8" thick aluminum angle to weld on the sides of the fuel cell. Once it was cut and trimmed I welded the pieces to the sides of the fuel cell.

You can see in this picture the stitch welds on the bottom side of the cell.


And I welded the opposite areas on the top side of the angle.


By the time I was done with that Chris had all of the plates made up for me to weld onto the supports. Here you can see all of them welded in place, and the fuel cell sitting in its location.



That about covers it! I will probably spend all of next weekend cleaning up the welds on the rear support structure, and some on the crossover. We will get the turbo kit pulled off and ready to be sent out for coating. I will probably also finish the coil pack mounts during the week. Like I said we are in the home stretch, but there is still a lot of work to do.

As always, thanks for following along!

Sean

 

Well its been a couple of weeks since I updated. Nothing really exciting to look at but here we go anyway. A couple of weeks ago we started out by pulling the trans out of the truck. It has been slowly dying for a while now despite our best efforts. So out it came so it can be rebuilt, a new converter, and a couple more things for the truck. It was quite a pain in the *** to get out, but we prevailed, and here it is!



The following Saturday Chris was busy, so I was left to work alone. I didn't get a whole lot done. I pulled off the turbo kit, and started getting it ready to send out for coating. Here is the engine bay before...



And here is a shitty cell phone pic of the after...



All I got done was welding the IAT bung, touching up some of the welds, and got one of the manifolds ground down.




This weekend we started by doing some maintenance work on my wife's car. Always boring, but it needs to be done. Saturday I got back to work on the second manifold, and the rest of the tubes. Here is a quick shot of everything (minus the turbo exhaust housing) ready to be sent out.



While I was doing that Chris was finishing up all of the rear mounts. The only small hang up was that the location we planed for the pump didn't work. Not a big deal, Chris cut a new piece and I welded it in real quick. We decided to leave the other one in just in case we need it for something later on. Anyway after that he drilled all the mounting holes, and threw a coat of paint on it all.



Then he trimmed the sheet metal and got it ready to be tacked in place.



Here is a shot after everything was tacked in place, drilled and trimmed.



And here is the cell and battery box all mounted.



Then we threw in the Wolfe rear firewall to see how it clears everything.







That about covers it, like I said nothing too exciting. We are starting to get close now, we have to wire and plumb everything, and re-assemble it all. As always thanks for following along guys!


Sean

 

Man I love the build can I drop mine off next, love the detail and clean look of ever thing. Drew

 

Wish I was doing this to my TA right now lol, everything's looking amazing as usual on your build(s)!

BTW, have you thought about hinging the rear bulkhead? Then you could just flip it up and forward to work on anything back there

 

Drew i wish we had more time to just do the stuff sean and myself need done. Im actually paying a mechanic right now to fix my dd just cause i dont have time.

Never though about hinging the rear firewall.. i was planning on using screws instead of rivets though. Hinging is a good idea, just not sure how it will look

 

Well its update time (finally)!!! Things have been pretty slow on the car, but we were able to get back on it this past weekend. The last couple times we have been out there, we had been working on the truck that we use to haul the car around with. The trans was acting up for a while, and it needed some TLC. After we sold that boat, that freed up the funds to finally fix that. So we had the trans rebuilt, new converter, plugs, wires, cap and rotor, (all of which look they were never done in the trucks 130,000+ mile life). While we were at it, we threw a cheap intake on it, and a flow master exhaust to help free up some power. We finished that whole project up on Friday night with the exhaust.

After the truck was all done, Chris painted some of the parts that were going to get bolted on for the last time. While he did that I finished welding the radiator, and the radiator support.

Before I get to the work on the TA, I have to mention the turbo kit. We had sent it out to Dunn Rite Q.C. Coatings in MI to get fully ceramic coated inside and out. Let me just say they did an absolutely killer job on it all, and you couldn't beat the pricing. After talking with them for a while we decided to have the insides coated with a silver coating that performs better than the black. On the out side we stuck with the black for the looks, so we have the best of both worlds. They were able to get inside all of the parts, all the way through with no issue. The turn around was very quick, and it all came packed as if it was ready for WW3! Enough talk, on to the pics!!!

All of the hot parts with the exhaust.


Hot parts alone


Back side of the crossover


Downpipe, and "exhaust"


All of the intercooler pipes


The two pipes from the intercooler to the throttle body


The two pipes from the turbo to the intercooler


And lastly a detail shot showing the inside of the tubes


You may notice that there is not exhaust housing in those pictures. When they went to sand blast it for prep, it developed a hole in the side where it is machined. The whole area was actually VERY thin, as I found out when I welded it. Chris ordered a new housing, that came in on Thursday. You will see it being used for mock up in the pictures, but it will be sent out to Q.C. this week for the treatment!


Now that we have THAT out of the way, on to the fun part! I will try an shut up, and just let the pics do the talking.

This was the start of Saturday morning


I started with the manifolds and crossover, then the exhaust housing and down pipe.


Quick shot of the new exhaust housing


Once the bulk of the pipes were in I installed the freshly painted intercooler mount


Followed of course by the freshly painted intercooler. We used the same Eastwood radiator paint we used on the last intercooler. We saw no decrease in performance with it, so we did it again!


And finally a few pics of the entire kit back on the car!






After that was all done I pulled the turbo so we could send the housing out for coating. I also mounted the radiator, but I didn't bother with pictures of that.

After all that excitement I moved on to the fuel system. Technically I tried finishing the rear sheet metal first, but I cut it out so it doesn't count On with the pics, though there are only a couple.

Here is a nice size comparison shot of the line I made from the cell to the inlet of the pre-filter.


Here you can see the plumbing up to the pump (crappy pic)


We are running -12 from the cell to the pre-filter, and from the pre-filter to the pump. From the pump to the filter, and filter through the rails will all be -10, and the return will be -8. We wanted to do the fuel system once, so its a bit overkill. I finished all the way to the post filter, but didn't take a pic before I left.

Last thing I did before I took off was finish welding the new aluminum catch can I had made up a while back. Just a quick pic.



That's all for now, its really starting to come together! The next update should have the car almost ready to fire! As always thanks for following along!


Sean

 

Small update time! We haven't had as much time as we would like to work on the car lately, but its been moving forward still. A couple of weeks ago I was out there working, mostly on the fuel system. I started out by changing all of the fittings on the rails and regulator

Here is the old regulator fitting on the left (-6) next to the new one on the right (-8)


Next up was the fuel rails, old -6 on left and new -10 on right.


After that I added some restrictors to the cooling system behind the block adapters. I took a picture of the stock gasket, and completely forgot to take one of the restrictors. Ill get some next weekend for you guys.

Since I still didnt feel like getting under the car to do any work, I made up a little mount for the new "Y" adapter and mounted it.


Then I finally got un-lazy, and got under the car to pull out the old fuel lines.


Last year we had a -8 feed which split to two -6 for each rail, then -6 to the regulator, and -6 return. This year we are -10 to each rail, -8 to the regulator, -8 return.

While I was under the car I got a couple good pics of the new pump and filters





That brings us up to this weekend. This was again a very short weekend, but we made progress. I did not get very many pics because I decided to shred my hand with an angle grinder, but I will catch up next weekend.

Here you can see all of the rear sheet metal is finally closed in, including the sump.


After we finished that, Chris's girlfriend Rachel seam sealed it all while we ate pizza




Chris got the new ECU mounted, and started on the main electrical panel as well. I modified the radiator (AGAIN), and made the new drain for the turbo.

Next weekend we hope to get started on the wiring, and get most of the plumbing done on the car. As always thanks for following along!


Sean

 

Well work continues on the TA. We have been busy and/or sick the last few weeks, so things are going a little slow for my taste. Its getting there though, and we are in the home stretch. I don't have the power cable for my laptop, so I will just go ahead with the pictures from this past weekend.





This is not the final oil feed for the turbo, its just there because it reached.


The line tied off to the fire wall is the breather from the driverside valve cover


Catch can I made up. Just need the clear tubing for the sight on the side.


Vent and return line from the cell to the bulkhead fittings in the rear sheet metal


This is the -12 feed that comes from the cell into the pre-filter


Same -12 out of the pre-filter into the pump


-10 from out of the pump into the post-filter on its way to the front




Main fuel feed


That's all for now, as you can see its getting pretty close! Thanks again for following along!


Sean

 

Well its been over a month now, I guess its time for an update. I'll just jump right into pictures, I don't feel like writing a bunch up.

Boost solenoids mounted and plumbed


Electrical panel before any wiring


Panel partially wired, and the new Holley ECU


Fuel system all plumbed


Hood and bumper mount all made up


And now to the good stuff, the complete engine bay!


Detail shot of the driver side


Detail shot of the passenger side


Just a shot of the front I liked


Here is a quick video of the very first start of this year!
http://youtu.be/5b7wbF4L_VQ

Here is a video Chris took after he changed some things in the computer to get it to run a little better
http://youtu.be/kDDv54VuOe0?hd=1


The car is getting very close now, mostly just putting things back together. Should be on the dyno next weekend, then on the track the following weekend. I should be back to updating the thread each weekend now since there will be things worth updating Thanks again for following along!


Sean

 

Looking good!

 

Thanks!

Here is a short clip of the car shooting some flames when we had the wires crossed up. After this one it popped again and left my ear ringing for a few minutes!

http://youtu.be/-WLqhd9e4Fk


Sean