Supercharged111

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I don't really have a place to put this anywhere else. I like making these threads as I can go back and review my progress and remind myself that I am still making improvements even when it seems I'm not. When I bought this car I was on my 2nd season of HPDE sitting in group 3 forever waiting for point bys in my C5Z. I was told I was good enough to go to comp school so I ran out and bought the red dragon. I've had the car for 5 years now and it's been a long, slow road to unghettorigging the thing and truly making it mine so I don't have to hang my head in shame every time someone looks at it and ASSumes I built the thing. Here it is when I brought it home, you'll also see a progression in the tow rig as this was taken in 2013.



I ran the last NASA race of the 2013 season in this which was also my comp school weekend and took 2nd in my first race. I stayed mid pack the rest of the weekend.

One of the first things I did was replace the headlight covers which were beat up, taped together, and otherwise poorly secured to the car.




I guess it was halfway shiny when I bought it. Panel alignment was **** though as this is a 93 car and very little effort was made to put the new face on properly. I also had to get the seat bolted into my desired position as whatever was in the car was liberated by the previous owner and I get a Racetech bucket with. This was fall of 2013 and I ran it as I bought it. When it came time to dyno for 2014, something was amiss.



Dyno sheet shows a healthy LT1 in blue and mine in red. Target is 260whp/310wtq and a smooth dyno. First thing I did was go after the alternator charge wiring, it was dismal. The car has a 2 post junction block and the 2 posts were joined together with the below short piece of wiring. ALL charging had to flow through this wire to get to the battery. I also found the ground wire from the block to be dirty, so I cleaned it up and added a 2nd and just like that the car cranked much harder and the motor had more pull. This was not the end of my dyno challenges though nor my wiring nightmare. I don't have any pics of the mess I dealt with, but the breadboard or whatever you call it had melted and one of the terminals sank in and developed intermittent contact. While trying to hipshoot that at the race track I swapped in a spare PCM. After that I revised the wiring distribution on that board more smartly. The entire wiring job looked like it was done with a gun to the head at the race track by a teenager, I really cannot exxagerate how horrible it was and on a damn race car no less. Next race was Hallett and the car felt off during practice. Midrange was anemic but top end was phenominal. So much so I looked down at the tach an realized I was shifting at 6100 RPM on a stock motor! It wanted it too. I got to thinking and realized that that was the American Iron computer, so I put the other computer back in and restricted down to a 44mm, 1mm less than 2013 because the wiring had helped to some degree, and dyno'd after the race. Numbers came out 260whp/~300wtq so I got to keep my results. Lucky guess!





To wrap up 2014 I ended up blowing up my clutch in warmup on the last race weekend I ran that season. I found one, got it, and installed it just prior to race 1. Not really prior, I was coming down off the jackstands in the car as the rest of the field was on the outlap. I drove my outlap WFO and caught the back of the pack just as the green dropped. Ended up taking 3rd that race, so started 3rd the following race and eeked out 2nd to end my Saturday. Next day I started 2nd and the racing gods smiled upon me and the guy on pole suddenly had an injector come and go (wiring issue for him too, whoever did the harness used a corrosive solder that failed) and I slithered by him, ran the fastest lap, and took my first win ever. In my rookie season. Since I was leading the entire race for the first time in my life, when the big dummy light came on and said I had no oil pressure mid corner I told it to f off. The water pump oil seal had walked off the front and it was pissing out there. I overfilled by a quart plus for the last race by it wasn't enough, I was leaving T9 and the motor suddenly felt like I hit the brakes, so I threw 5th and cruised as nobody was breathing down my *** and finished the last 2 laps. Up to that point, I was scraping the paint off the bumper of the guy in 2nd place.

Supercharged111

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Over the course of the winter, I forgot about that little hiccup with the motor and decided to further deghettofy the car. I started by rerouting the harness at the motor, depinning unused auto trans/emissions wires, and reassigning those fuses on the Painless fuse block.




Look closely and you can see some wiring running up into the wiper cowl. The PO was thoughtful enough to protect those wires from chafing by wrapping a ******* sock around them. Previously the main part of the harness laid on top of the intake manifold and everything split off of there all ***** nilly. Garbage. Next up I attacked the y pipe that was smashed and again patched by a teenager at the race track with a gun to his head. I used leftover chunks I had in my garage to fix it for free fiddy. I managed to get the y pipe up a lot higher than it had been prior which helps my ground clearance when dropping wheels, hitting curbs, and off roading in general.





Next up were the exhaust manifolds. The ones on the car had stripped holes with nuts and bolts holding the y pipe on and a mish mash of hardware holding them to the motor. Again, garbage. I got a clean set, replaced a couple of studs, drilled/tapped/welded the EGR hole shut, and bolted them on with my revised y pipe. I grabbed bolts and spacers from an LT1 on an Impala in the junkyard. I also grabbed the motor as a spare. I ran all spacered bolts so everything could float around with the heat.





From here I proceeded confidently to the dyno. . .

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

A couple things came out of this massive fail. First, when we did my tech, they caught me for not having a nozzle in the engine bay for my fire system. If you have a fire bottle only, then that's fine, but if you have an actual system you're required to have a nozzle for you and for the engine. No biggie, guess I'll add that to the list. The next was that little hiccup showed its colors. The car made like 180whp. I pulled the plate, same deal. Made 2 full pulls and decided to call it. As I was backing off the dyno the motor started to squeak a little bit, like something was galled. So I loaded up, went home, and yanked the still warm engine out of the car. Here you can kinda see the shitty right fender, though at this point I at least had 4 matching Toyo stickers. The engine will come out the front, but it is TIGHT. I didn't want to have to horse with my alignment or deal with the damn cross member in my garage.



Yep, I'm definitely on the right track here.



So turns out you can spin a bearing and not have a knock. Both halves were stacked on one side, #6 decided to call it quits. Rest of the motor looked immaculate. What a waste.




And as it turns out, there is more deghettofication to be done here. Yes, that's JB Weld holding the oil pickup tube to the pump and I was able to spin it right off by hand. Were it pointed in the right direction I would have never lost the damn motor in the first place. I bought a 95-97 crank locally and found some virgin pistons and PM rods on Fleabay. Had the crank polished, honed the motor, new rings/bearings, and came up with a better solution to the oil pickup. Pump was fine by some miracle.




And onto the fire system. I took the inside nozzle which was a 3 way and stuck it under the hood, replaced with a 2 way pointed more precisely at me and not in my general direction.



This must be when the BBK went in, the chopped stock shfiter was so sloppy I would miss shifts. I topped this off with a Blainefab delrin tall ****.



And here's the fresh new engine bay nozzle. This was a convenient pre-existing hole and with the grommet it fits like it belongs.

Decided to go ricer and cover the harness in red.




Now it was back to the dyno. Must have made 20 or 30 pulls and the thing would only make like 248whp unrestricted. The upper is the previous year's jagged sheet and lower was current smooth sheet. I also replaced coil, ICM, and knock sensor over the winter with Delphi/AC Delco 1993 correct parts. Car had a 97 ICM in it and God knows what knock sensor with a yellow Accel coil rattle canned black. Worst part is the Accel wasn't even illegal so why try to hide it?




I left disappointed and hit the first race anyway. Halfway through warmup the car started blowing through gears a lot harder. I'm told by others the car suddenly stopped smoking too. Sweet! I don't suck at building motors! I went and dyno'd for a 3rd time in 2015 and it made like 275whp unrestricted so I plated down to a 44mm. I think it was 263 or 265 so I plated down 1 more and the ****** made 270 again. Screw me, I don't have a 40mm plate so I put in a 39mm. Still too much! I ended up running a 38mm plate which was the smallest of any LT1 car in my region. When I went back to the dyno in 2016 the motor had broken in a 2nd time. After this little victory I decided to make another mod mid season just before my pilgrimage to Hallett.



Also did a better job securing the top of the headlight covers. Previously they were held in only by self tapping screws on the bottom into the bumper skin. One stayed up better than the other. I wanted something that allowed movement in the event of contact and came up with this.





While making final Hallett prep, I noticed that when I torqued the lugnuts the front wheels would move front to back just a smidge. No time to deal with that, so I saved it for my return. That weekend was a little bumpy so I added UCA bushings to my list as well once I got back.





Not sure if the UCA bushings got roached with the contact or what, but this one was a stubborn little bitch.



That rubber was from R1, it comes off easy enough. Next I put some new heims in the lowers and got after the alignment.




The uppers didn't go in all that tight so I tacked them in as well.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

You'd think after all this I'd be out of the woods, but no this is racing. For starters the car didn't drive straight anymore after that contact in R3 at Hallett and I began to fear I'd bent something. The only visible damage was the wheel that I cracked. I did have to realign the car between R3 and R4 too, ended up being a bit of an asspain moreso than usual but regardless of all that the car turned its fastest lap in R4. I was driven of course by the fact that I started DFL and had serious ground to make up. I made it to the front of the back pack but the gap to mid pack was too much ground to make up in a 30 minute race so I finished 10th or 11th out of 19 I think. For my July race some guys from TX came up so I hit the Friday practice session to make sure I could defend the home turf. Car decided to spring a leak there, hose split at the end so I cut it short and force it back on and that got me through the weekend.



That lasted the weekend, but the exhaust didn't. It fell off in R4 held on by O2 wiring. I said **** it and kept going, but the throttle cable had other ideas and jumped off the damn arm leaving me with about 1/4 throttle. Well I can't do **** with that so I came in. Ended up nuke proofing the exhaust so that never happens again, got a double shear mount here in the back with a clamp clocked to not drag in the dirt.




Since this is my first Camaro, I wasn't aware that I was missing a mount that bolts to the transmission so I made my own here and added a slip joint. I do not recall how this was held together up front before.



Next something caught my eye. My throttle body doesn't look like the one on the stand. Can you spot it?




That's right, cheater throttle body bored to 50mm. Not like it matters when you put a restrictor behind it, but still illegal nonetheless. Not the first illegal thing I've had to undo since I got this car. Really pisses me off the way people don't read the rules or ignore them. Ended up discovering this post season. Speaking of post season, it just wouldn't be me if I didn't have a laundry list of **** to do in the off season, so I decided to take my healthyish car and make it less healthy.



Last lap of the last race of the year, not even a points race! I got greedy and stuck my nose in where it didn't belong, dude came down to defend which put my right tires in the dirt and the car stopped stopping and started pummeling the Mustang I was chasing. In the above pic you can get an idea of how weathered the bumper skin was in 2015. Also check out that god awful fender/hood alignment.



A little Mothers R3 and it was mostly back to normal. Car really didn't drive straight at this point so I grabbed some LT1 style V6 knuckles at the junkyard and cleaned them up and put them on.




Car drove so much better after this, I'd heard at Hallett that these spindles are easy to bend and sure enough the reason my car wouldn't track straight wasn't cross camber or cross caster, but rather cross kingpin inclination angle. Don't worry about that nasty *** brake duct, we'll get to that later.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

Now that the car has dyno'd properly and finally lays down smooth numbers I'm gaining confidence in myself and the car. I'm also getting a lot of "experience" along the way as you can see.





Cleaned out one guy's stash. Was gonna have new quarters put on but decided to do PDR instead. Still haven't gotten around to that. New black fenders to be painted, went junkyard red instead. A Pontiac dash that I decided was too broken up, but a box full of goodies that has proven useful and 3 wheels that I added 1 more to to finish the set so I could have rain tires finally.



Got the gaskets and harness adapter to run a 94+ LT1 TB to replace my cheater TB which I keep in the trailer at all times in case I want to do an unrestricted track day.




Inside that box of goodies was a caliper to replace this one. Well it didn't stay because that one rubbed the rotor too, so I slapped this garbage back on and kept going.



Off to the dyno I went, holy unrestricted LT1 Batman!



Decided to configure that stock y pipe I just picked up to chop the torque down some. It ended up being unnecessary, problem when you restrict these is they give a false peak at tip in, even down at 2000 RPM. A slower roll onto the throttle got rid of that and I was legal again, but like I said this thing broke in twice. To this day still only burns 12oz of oil per weekend. Here's the stock vs my y pipe comparison.





Got some fresh rubber for the season too.



All mounted and ready! The rains served as snows for the first event. Toyo RA1 and RR 275/40/17.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

Next I learned that there were 2 different steering rack ratios. I learned this because my junkyard rack (slow rack) I threw in the year before started leaking in the trailer on the way home, so I checked the old one and sure enough it was a 2.25 quick rack so I sent that off to T1 to get rebuilt and then spent a few sessions relearning how to drive the car. Also added a PS cooler. You can see where I tried squeezing in a NACA duct down there but that didn't work well. I've never been happy with the placement and will likely stick it behind the radiator once I'm done revising that (this weekend?).



Race cars need stickers, and since I'm in a Ford vs Chevy class I decided to go with that.






Late in the 2016 season, my diff started acting funny. It was an early hand build Torsen T2R.



As you can see, the worm gears ate the case and then it began to bind.



So I traded tires for a used Auburn road race diff. I took it apart and scuffed the cones, everything was in excellent condition, but the diff still unloads when cold.



Passenger mirror was stripped out, broke, and otherwise flopping around so rattle canned this guy to replace him.



Yet another thing I had the pleasure of redoing, the motor mounts. You can see the one that came with the car had spread apart. This was after I beat it back flat the year prior. I got some used poly mounts that had already been welded and they've been holding up great. The passenger mount really is the only one that does this.



And Spring of 2017 I finally added a passenger seat. Good to take people on ride alongs, show n00bs the line, or to receive instruction from someone faster than you.



I think this is where I finally replaced the rubber rear lines with the braided stainless ones on the floor there. I think the below pic is to show how that wallered out motor mount cause me to yank the alternator charge wire out of its terminal. Should have made that wire longer, I ended up running the charger on the dyno so it would make the right numbers. This is 2017, so I think I had to plate up from 36mm to 37mm and then I was good. First season EVER that I got away with just 1 dyno.



And more stickers.






Added some to the headlight covers too. Nose is really starting to show wear.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

I only raced April and October for 2017. We had a 2nd kid and I got back surgery in July. The April race was painful enough for me. I still made some minor improvements to the car though. Had to do some plowing to get it onto the trailer for that race. When I got to tech people kept giving me **** thinking my car was leaking, it was snow melting! Got that trailer back in 2014.



FINALLY remembered to grab some stock caliper bracket bolts at the junkyard, my car came with some **** the PO got at Ace and hacked off and decided that a stack of soft flat washers was a good idea.



Right after the back surgery, I flew to MI (with a busted pinky finger, what a year. . .) and helped my sister move to CO. That's her and my first born.



And the new one. She's almost 2 now!



I noticed my rubber flappy thing on my Blainefab wing was different than everyone else's.





My car may have been the mule for the wing, I know it was the mule for the Unbalanced Engineering Bilstein racing shocks and could have been for some of the other aftermarket 4th gen road race parts. It came from CA and has been a race car for a loooong time. It has a Blainefab cage and Jason from UE has seat time in it. Next I added a fuel pump access door. I got the panel from a departed race car from our region, a moment of silence please. . .

My car had a nasty habit of randomly cutting out mid corner, been chasing it for years and had cost me a position before too. One little fart is all it takes when someone is next to you. All was well inside the tank though, so this was not the source of my problem.



I was healed enough to go racing in late September, so I get all loaded up and my tire rack decides to bust a hinge and launch a tire on the windshield. Alright, no practice for me. Got lucky and had a windshield installed the next day. I went from there straight to the track.



And on the way home, the toolbox dumped over and the lid scratched the **** out of my already ratty hood.



Decided to address a few trailer items before the 2018 season started.



Damn box should stay put now, plus it's more out of the way than when it was tied down between the e track on the floor in front of the car.



Repaired the tire rack and made a spare tire carrier. I welded 3/8" bolts to a piece of 1" square stock and screwed that to the wall. I welded actual lug nuts to the 3/8" nuts so not only does it hold the wheel on but you can use a 4 way to get it on and off quickly and easily.



Added a pass through so I wouldn't have to slam the cord in the door anymore when running the generator to heat the trailer.



Added a small strip of e track to hang straps on. You can also see the tire rack all loaded up, no issues for all of 2018. I originally built the rack in 2016.



A bench and lit shelf I built back in 2016 as well, pre tire rack as you can see. What you can't see is the hinged 1x4 that flips up to hold all the crap on the top shelf. Works great when you remember to secure it.



The lights are 120V LED pieces I got at Lowes. They run off of the inverter which IIRC is ~1000W, not a pure sine wave so I'm careful about what I run off of it.



The first mod I did when I got the trailer back in 2014 to hold the fuel cans in place.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

2018 started with the fast guy who crashed in 2015 and went with a tube frame car returning to CMC with a fresh build. He was and is the man to beat. His car was down Saturday in the April event for a PS pump, but it was ready Sunday. I broke the 1:44.0 lap record Saturday without him at I think a 1:43.7, and on Sunday we both broke it again but he broke it by more in the 1:43.6XX range. ******. He went off track early in the 2nd Sunday race and I led all the way to the last lap where I dropped 2 off coming onto the front straight and he cruised on by. We finished on top of each other, but unfortunately I didn't get the W. Car acted strange in the pits when trying to get to grid for that 2nd race, it wouldn't go backwards. Bound up something fierce. I figure I was about to buy a trans or diff. I was half right.



I lost a caliper bolt! Lucky for me the thing stayed in there! And I wasted 3rd gear in that race. Now I get to find parts for an M29. I swapped to a regular T56 I had laying around and went to Hallett with it.




Picked up a new bumper and fenders for it too, junkyard fresh all matching bolt on and go. . . or so I thought. More on that later. Hallett didn't go all that smooth at all which really blew because I had the pace for the front. R1 went fine, but the car just wouldn't shift. It started that in practice on Friday and I initially thought it was clutch fluid so I bled and suddenly the thing would travel halfway and stop. I blew up a clutch line then a master trying to force it, luckily I had spares in the trailer. Turned out that the pilot bearing was decimated and I totally forgot to check with I did the trans swap. Likely what killed the last one, the replacement is a high miles original one though and it just didn't tolerate it the way that M29 did. My fork was backing out too, so I cranked that down, altered my shifting, and tried another clutch because at that point I wasn't sure about the pilot being the cause. Stayed up until after 4:00 in the morning ******* with it. Still ****, so I over cranked the slave to get more release and then the clutch slipped, so I pointed everybody by on the R2 outlap. I said what the hell, let's do a lap and see what happens. What happened? The clutch stopped slipping so hammer time! I passed 5 or 6 people and R3 was an invert so I wanted the W there. It was not to be as I could not find my pace, then my local fast guy passed me and I had the TX fast guy breathing down my *** the rest of the race. Well that sure was motivation to find my pace and by the end the car began to break up, finished 3rd. I figured it was that issue I hadn't yet found and thought nothing of it. Battery was dead at the end of the race, strange. Alternator should have charged it. The night before I'd left ignition on, fan running and forgotten about it. Hooked up the generator to charge and the breaker popped without me noticing overnight, so had to jumpstart the thing for R3. Same thing between R3 and R4, but I had no idea the alternator took a **** until I showed up on grid with 10V. FML. I'd qualified 5th for the final and had the pace for 3rd easily. Car made it a lap and a half and just died so I coasted in through a hole in the fence then winched it back onto the trailer. Speaking of trailer, more specifically tow rig, I upgraded for 2018.



Bought the truck November 2016, build thread here.

https://www.gmt400.com/threads/bough...whipple.36102/

Bought the camper January 2018 and boy does it make a weekend more comfortable. I got the king kong size so a wife, 2 kids, and a dog could coexist without hating life.

Post Hallett I took the trans back out again and cleaned it all up. Got the spare flywheel resurfaced and reused my original clutch as it was still in excellent shape, new rear main, put it all back together with a little more clutch bleeding.


This FW has seen 2 different clutch discs, needs to be swapped.

All cleaned up.

It was an oily mess back here before I dumped a can of carb cleaner at it.

Original clutch, going back in with fresh flywheel.

Notice where the fork had been loose for a while. This was my first outing with this transmission, should have checked it more thoroughly before I installed it the first time.

See that shitty door alignment? More on that in a later post.

The lift makes this go soooo much smoother than the race track.

All buttoned up, ready for a trans.

I think it was done. This came from the crank I put in back in 2015 when I built the motor, forgot pilot bearings existed so never even looked it over. Stupid.

From here I just raced the car. Went through a few rotors and couple hubs, but no real drama. I did lose a rear caliper bolt (different bolt, same wheel as April) which launched a pad and I rear ended the F out of the guy I was chasing, knocked us both off track. No damage to either car, but frustrating for both of us as we were battling for the lead. Kind of a mental blow as I've never lost brake hardware in all my years of doing this. Fast guy skipped this race to go to nats where he placed 2nd. That was early September, there was also a race late September that I thought I'd miss for work but the day of practice it all got cancelled so I left work early, hooked up the trailer, and headed to the track completely unprepared. When I got there I put the car on stands (had been in the trailer since the previous race), took the wheels off, inspected all 4 corners, rotated brake pads, and did a nut and bolt check. Once that was done I mounted up stickers, torqued the wheels, and set the car down ready for another weekend, or so I thought. Car was breaking up during warmup and practice on right handers. It was so bad in R1 I didn't even finish, had to come in early. I'd been battling this for 2 or 3 seasons but it had never been this bad. I'd already jiggled every damn wire there was. The idle would fluctuate when I flicked one of the ignition relays, so I swapped that out and the car laid down at the green flag. Wouldn't even accelerate in a straight line and now here come the Hondas, ************! Car takes off and I hog the inside, then bail at T2 where there's a runoff and shortcut to get this turd off the race track. When I got back to the pits, I whacked the ECU and the car died, so I opened it up and sure as **** the chip was dangling off the adapter. Smoking gun! I snapped it back on and after the race I missed was over, took a bunch of HPDE students for a mock race ride with a few other W2W guys. It was the 3 fast cars from our group and 1 Spec Z going back and forth, car ran perfect so the concept was proven for Sunday and the passengers definitely had their minds blown. I gave the Spec Z a push start, really didn't think a restricted LT1 would motor that car but it did. When Sunday came according to the format I'd declared Saturday morning, I had the pole by placing DFL R2 Saturday. I went on to break the lap record by a half second, crushed April's 1:43.6 with a 1:43.1 and won the race. Next race was straight up based on R3 but standing start. I really need to work on those, fast guy got me and I chased him most of the race. Late in the race, he axle hopped going into T9 and I passed and never looked back. This was the guy who took 2nd at nats, my target all year long. I'd beat him a couple times before, but this one was particularly satisfying and a great way to wrap up the season with a healthy car to boot. That's not to say improvements were not planned as a nice chunk of deghettofication has since transpired.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

Post season's intent was not only to make the car a bit more refined, but also to try and squeak in some practice for our rookies. First order of business was a track day about a month after the season ended. The top 3 from our class each took a n00b and did lead/follow, drove their cars, and provided feedback on driving and setup. What we learned is that we suck as instructors, so that's something we need to work on. For one of the sessions where everyone was out at the same time, we had a nice little battle. I whacked a tumbleweed at about 80mph and dragged it around for a few laps. The one I hit at 100+ didn't survive.



The Toyo prize money for our series is pretty generous if you can finish up front. They have been making it more and more of a pain in the *** to claim though.




Up on the shelf you can see the LS k member and other swap parts that I've been amassing. Those went to the hangar to make room for tires as they need to stay warmish over the winter. You can see extra red fenders up high if you look closely.



9 new tires, 1 old *** dangerous cycled out tire on a rim, and 1 set of wheels/tires with 1 weekend on them. I think I'm ready for 2019.

Window net expired so I grabbed a new one. They're good for 5 years, old one was pretty faded.



And the below pics highlight something that'd driven me nuts since I bought this car. The horrid panel alignment. I swear the PO must have tried to make this suck. The aftermarket fenders lacked the factory mounts, so flat aluminum plate was used instead which would be great if it ******* lined up. Which it didn't. As you can see.




The amber deletes also look like a 5 year old hacked the bumper with kiddie scissors, JFC. At least the little fog light flappy dealies are a nice touch, they help capture air that would otherwise go around and shove it into what was the brake ducting. As you'll see I've changed this up with some NACA ducts.



I went to the auto paint shop and had some of my red put into a rattle can and a touch up bottle.




As you can see, I painted the back side like an RC car body. Same thing I did with the headlight covers and it works really well, no need for clear as the glossy surface give you that but I went ahead and hit them with it anyway for added protection as the base coat itself is impervious to about everything. As for where they're going?



Here I cut the bumper to slide the duct into. In hindsight I wish I would have cut all the way, but too late now as the foam is already cut for this location. I started the cut with a hole saw, then went after the bumper skin with an air grinder. For the foam I just kept at it with a hole saw, 3.5" for 3" ducting so I had some breathing room for my inaccuracy.



Here you can see the grey is gone. I used that touch up bottle to cover up the cuts and it came out pretty good. The steel bumper beam also required a small amount of trimming, not too much though as I tend to lean on it a bit on track.



Can't have uncolored rivets showing so I bought these. They snap off so much cleaner than the POS hardware store rivets.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

Also included in this round were the fenders. As you can see my suspicions were confirmed, the car's been around the block.



Had to get new stickers since they spanned the fender and door. Stupid placement on more than one account. The car took a big hit at the a pillar at some point on this side.



See what I mean? Vulnerable to tire contact. The replacements will go down lower where it's more difficult to have contact.



Here you can see where the fender mounting area, whatever it's called, is bent. I was able to work around this though. You can also see how beat the rear quarter is, I'm going to see about some PDR once the tax return arrives.



Fancy new 2 tone Toyo stickers that curve for a fender arch.



Left side.



Right side. As you can see the car is bent up pretty good, but at least is still take a corner.



Check out that panel alignment vs what I had before! The passenger door lined up well at the front so I didn't horse with it.



Way the **** better. See how much better the door lines up now? This side needed tweaking and still wasn't right.



Here was the cause. Roll bar padding all over the lower door bar, outside as well. Why was there padding where I will never hit in a crash? Door bar was welded to the pinch seam, illegal AF!



I was pissed until I found this. See the surface rust? That's where the weld was cut. Really begs the question why the padding was there if there's nothing to hide. Either way I'm off the hook on that one.



Finally got off my *** and replaced the upper rear shock bushings. Watch it make the car worse.



Next up I had to concoct something to secure the bumper skin up top. Previously it was held on by 5 3/8" bolts and angle cut brake line that was pretty ****** ghetto. Bryan, the fast guy I always refer to, welded 1/4" bolts to his beam so I did the same. I was initially going to use allthread, but decided welding bolts on was way easier. Next I masked off the foam and hit the beam with a coat of red from my magical rattle can.



The car had horrendous knock back issues. I know a lot of it stemmed from the front hubs which I replaced, but the rear axles had .029" and .044" worth of end play so I set about to fix that. I got new c clips and then rosette welded the axles. That got me down to .0115" and .0135" out back, way the **** better.

I also had the aluminum driveshaft rebalanced as the weights were long gone. On the floor you see a steel driveshaft from a V6 tub that I bought.



The Red Dragon 2.0! This car will receive the LM4 and C6 Corvette T56 that I had originally planned to drop in my current car.



It lives in the hangar for now along with all the LS swap stuff, race car spares, dually, camper, and trailer all safe from the ridiculous hail we get every year.



All this crap used to be crammed in my home garage, but once the tires showed up it had to go.



Plenty of room to walk around to access the door controls. Hopefully someone will give me money for those god awful wheels.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

In order to install the right side NACA duct, I had to deal with the tow hook first. I welded this extra piece of steel in because the hold ended up being next to a bend and the washers weren't being effective at spreading the load.

As you can see, the hose used to ride a little lower in here.

Since the left side was hacked to hell by the PO, I had to make a filler piece to help hold the ducting in case the 1 little zip tie holding it in were to break.

Soooo much cleaner than before.

Came out pretty good if I don't say so myself. I think next time I'll make the cuts into the bumper skin all the way to get those NACA ducts buried a little deeper. They'll sit flatter on the bumper skin and require less trimming of the bumper beam that way.

And now the old brake ducting can be used to blow cool air onto the filter. You can also see my CAD prototype here to shield the intake from radiant heat and to try and contain the cool air I'm trying to feed the filter.

.boB

iTrader: (1)

Interesting read. You've done a LOT of work on that car. So, why are you starting over with RD2.0?

I'd like to rent a hanger for my stuff, too. But I don't want to have to drive somewhere to get any work done.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

I do my work at home or at Rob's shop, hangar is presently only for storage. What I want is a slightly bigger house with a lot bigger garage as I prefer to have my tools at home. This has been a bit of an exercise for my weak old memory. Reason for 2.0 is that there are things about this car I cannot change and things I've done I'd prefer to have done differently. The LS swap now gives me a great excuse to build another car as I can bring that one online while still racing this one. If someone local buys it then there's 1 more car added to our class. The tub is kinda beat as you've seen, it's been a race car for a really long time. I think it was built as such back in 2004 and was used for the development of some of the off the shelf parts you can buy now.

.boB

iTrader: (1)

That's kinda what I thought. Racing really beats up a car. Eventually you get to the point that it's not really fixable anymore. And by starting with a "new" car, you can apply all your knowledge the first time around.

I have a feeling RD2.0 is going to be a real killer.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

My biggest fear is that it will be slower than the current car.


Got the new face finished.

.boB

iTrader: (1)

I suspect that it will be. At first. But once you get the small bugs out...…..

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

Luckily the suspension setup is pretty well copy/paste/go, I just wonder if it will want something different than the current car or if its manners will be different. Glenn used to be on here and he experienced that with that when he built his 2nd car.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

Got the new rubber flap on the wing, this one can actually reach the trunk lid.

Tossed this turbulent ducting and started on a CAD version of a new duct.

The main piece tucks into a ridge on the stock shroud. I'll have to redo the side pieces if my stock radiator ever shows from Amazon. I keep forgetting to weigh the Afco and oil lines, I definitely saved some weight there. The Afco never cooled all that well, people with stock radiators seem to do better than me so I'm going to try that first. The Afco was not a drop in and was super ghetto. I was never happy with it.

My oil pressure gauge had been intermittent. After I found a couple loose grounds and it still didn't work I became more critical. It looks like the long time oil leak I've had is the sending unit. I blamed the rear main and oil pan for a while, but I did a rear main last year so wasn't sold on that still being it. The trail really looks like it leads to the sender, so I ordered a new one. Fingers crossed. Once it's all buttoned up and the temp goes above freezing I'm going to jack the side up as high as I can get it and pressure wash underneath. It's a mess down there.

mikedamageinc

iTrader: (49)

Where's your front sway bar? That's the biggest obstacle for brake ducts hose but doesn't look like a problem for you. Also where did you get the tow hook? Is it just a stock piece off another car? Nice build by the way, and thanks for taking the time to document.

Supercharged111

iTrader: (1)

Swaybar is there, duct is zip tied to the front of the mount for it. I had the bar out at one point to replace the mounts. One of the bolt holes was stripped so the bar bushing was held on with a nut and bolt for one of them and both were covered in years of gunk. The whole underside was, I've been getting after that as well.