My build - Lots of pics
02-27-2012, 10:27 AM
#461
Thanks! And to think that when this all started neither of us had a car faster than bottom 12's, and had NO fabrication or welding experience. We have come a LONG way that's for sure!
Sean
Sean
03-04-2012, 01:50 PM
#462
Well time for a BIG update!!! This was a very busy weekend, and the welder was going almost non-stop! It was kind of a blur of activity, but I will try to lay it out in order.
Friday night we started right away on the upper intercooler pipe, which we knew was going to be difficult. Luckily it wasn't as bad as we expected it to be. We had to keep the radius out of the intercooler very tight to clear the turn signal. After that we had to curve it around the back side of the headlight, then point it toward the throttle body. Here is what we ended up with.
After the upper intercooler pipe was made up, we pulled the intercooler so that we could finish welding the intercooler support, and add the lower tabs. Of course we also added standoffs to the intercooler for the tabs to bolt to, but I didn't get any pictures of them. Here is the finished intercooler support back on the car.
Shot of one of the lower tabs on the support
And just a quick shot of the turbo support since everything was out of the way
Once that was all done, I got to work on making the exhaust. The exhaust is all aluminum, and the first two pieces are 11ga to help handle the heat. Here you can see pretty much the whole exhaust. In this picture it still needs the extension to get past the bumper, and also the hangers. And yes, that is an aluminum 4" muffler!
After I spent hours and hours welding around all of that 4" tubing, we put it all back on the car. Then we just stood back and stared at it all for a while
Ill get to the overall pics in a minute, but first Ill get to the radiator. Originally we were going to make the radiator support come off of the lower portion of the intercooler support. Once we had everything on the car though, it made a lot more sense to use the upper bumper/hood support for it, so that is what we did. Just added two molly tubes going down, 4 tabs, and matching standoffs on the radiator, and wah-lah! The radiator was mounted.
Here you can see the poor griffen radiator that has been heavily modded many times over the years getting worked on again. We were almost out of gas in the TIG, so I was only able to tack on the stand offs.
Close up of the stand offs. I machined these at work, as well as the ones we used on the intercooler.
And here is the whole shebang in the car.
And now we are at my favorite part, the overall shots of everything installed! It isnt 100% yet, the wastegate and blow off valve are obviously missing, along with a few bungs and miscellaneous thing, but you get the idea. On with the pics!!!
And just a few more gratuitous detail shots
So many tubes!!!
Lots of room between the upper intercooler pipe and the muffler
Exhaust trimmed
Bumper back on
Tucked up nicely
The flame thrower!
Well that is all for now. The turbo kit is 99.99% complete now. Next weekend we should have it finished up since the only hold up was that the welder was out of gas this week. We should be starting on the wiring, and fuel system next weekend as well. As always thanks for following along!
Sean
Friday night we started right away on the upper intercooler pipe, which we knew was going to be difficult. Luckily it wasn't as bad as we expected it to be. We had to keep the radius out of the intercooler very tight to clear the turn signal. After that we had to curve it around the back side of the headlight, then point it toward the throttle body. Here is what we ended up with.
After the upper intercooler pipe was made up, we pulled the intercooler so that we could finish welding the intercooler support, and add the lower tabs. Of course we also added standoffs to the intercooler for the tabs to bolt to, but I didn't get any pictures of them. Here is the finished intercooler support back on the car.
Shot of one of the lower tabs on the support
And just a quick shot of the turbo support since everything was out of the way
Once that was all done, I got to work on making the exhaust. The exhaust is all aluminum, and the first two pieces are 11ga to help handle the heat. Here you can see pretty much the whole exhaust. In this picture it still needs the extension to get past the bumper, and also the hangers. And yes, that is an aluminum 4" muffler!
After I spent hours and hours welding around all of that 4" tubing, we put it all back on the car. Then we just stood back and stared at it all for a while
Ill get to the overall pics in a minute, but first Ill get to the radiator. Originally we were going to make the radiator support come off of the lower portion of the intercooler support. Once we had everything on the car though, it made a lot more sense to use the upper bumper/hood support for it, so that is what we did. Just added two molly tubes going down, 4 tabs, and matching standoffs on the radiator, and wah-lah! The radiator was mounted.Here you can see the poor griffen radiator that has been heavily modded many times over the years getting worked on again. We were almost out of gas in the TIG, so I was only able to tack on the stand offs.
Close up of the stand offs. I machined these at work, as well as the ones we used on the intercooler.
And here is the whole shebang in the car.
And now we are at my favorite part, the overall shots of everything installed! It isnt 100% yet, the wastegate and blow off valve are obviously missing, along with a few bungs and miscellaneous thing, but you get the idea. On with the pics!!!
And just a few more gratuitous detail shots
So many tubes!!!
Lots of room between the upper intercooler pipe and the muffler
Exhaust trimmed
Bumper back on
Tucked up nicely
The flame thrower!
Well that is all for now. The turbo kit is 99.99% complete now. Next weekend we should have it finished up since the only hold up was that the welder was out of gas this week. We should be starting on the wiring, and fuel system next weekend as well. As always thanks for following along!
Sean
03-05-2012, 02:41 PM
#467
Thank you! I have to admit, I am pretty proud of this set up! I'm excited to finish what you see so far, and get started on some of the other fab work we are tackling. I would say that we have come a LONG way from when the car was stock!!! To top it off we have had a blast building it too!
Sean
Sean
03-05-2012, 05:57 PM
#469
Its actually pretty rewarding to be able to give someone else ideas, or help with there car/problems. Since we started this build i have gotten hundreds of pms with questions, and i may not always be the fastest but i try to respond to them all. Sean and myself always say we may not know how to do something but im sure we can figure it out!
03-06-2012, 05:44 AM
#470
Thanks for the kind words guys, it means a lot to us. As Chris said it is very rewarding to be able to give some one ideas on their ride, or to motivate them to take on something they wouldn't normally have, or to have them see something on our build that helps them solve a problem they have been having on their car. I have also gotten a lot of PM's with words of encouragement, and also asking for help. It is always a great feeling when you can help someone out, and we try to as much as possible.
Chris is right, we do always say that we may not know how to do something, but we can always figure it out. We used to decide that we needed a certain part, and then had to find if someone made one specific for the car so that we could install it ("Bolt-On"). Now we decide we need something, get it, and make it work on the car. There is rarely a part that that is bought for the car that isn't modified in someway shape or form before going on the car these days. Over time we just are less and less intimidated by taking on some aspects of the build as our skill level increased.
It also helps that Chris and I can work so well together. We don't always see eye to eye on things, but when we don't it doesn't cause animosity between us. It will really just make both of us research the ever living hell out of the subject so that we can make the best decisions possible, and come to an agreement. We also think very much alike which becomes very helpful when there a problem to be solved since we are looking at it with two sets of eyes, but similar goals for the solution.
Now we just need to get started on my car, which is a nice clean slate
Sean
Chris is right, we do always say that we may not know how to do something, but we can always figure it out. We used to decide that we needed a certain part, and then had to find if someone made one specific for the car so that we could install it ("Bolt-On"). Now we decide we need something, get it, and make it work on the car. There is rarely a part that that is bought for the car that isn't modified in someway shape or form before going on the car these days. Over time we just are less and less intimidated by taking on some aspects of the build as our skill level increased.
It also helps that Chris and I can work so well together. We don't always see eye to eye on things, but when we don't it doesn't cause animosity between us. It will really just make both of us research the ever living hell out of the subject so that we can make the best decisions possible, and come to an agreement. We also think very much alike which becomes very helpful when there a problem to be solved since we are looking at it with two sets of eyes, but similar goals for the solution.
Now we just need to get started on my car, which is a nice clean slate
Sean
03-11-2012, 04:12 PM
#471
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!
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!
03-11-2012, 04:14 PM
#472
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
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
03-12-2012, 05:22 AM
#475
Thanks for the kind words guys!
jdhedman, make sure you stop and introduce yourself if you see us at the track!
Matt, we were planning a trim ring almost exactly like the one you have! I have already drawn one up in CAD so I can punch it at my work, but thank you for the offer!
Thanks,
Sean
jdhedman, make sure you stop and introduce yourself if you see us at the track!
Matt, we were planning a trim ring almost exactly like the one you have! I have already drawn one up in CAD so I can punch it at my work, but thank you for the offer!
Thanks,
Sean
03-18-2012, 08:36 PM
#478
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, let’s 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
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
04-01-2012, 06:41 PM
#479
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
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
