Build Day 3/20 Cage bending and misc projects

Another busy build day. Greg and Jeremy continued bending and building the cage. The main hoop is tacked in along with the halo, and the two front down tubes are now bent but still need a little fitting.

Two more pictures with the bumper taped in place. We started planning and cutting the tube bumper that we'll fit underneath it as well.





The main hoop tacked in place:



The wye-pipe we cut out of the car. It looks like we'll keep it and weld a 3" single exhaust onto it with a single muffler out the back:



Greg and Jeremy working on the cage:







The halo:



This is the original radiator. It's probably a good thing it was damaged in the bear accident, because it was in horrible condition.



The stripped down steering wheel. It looks so dainty now!



We also did a noise test with my phone. While it's not calibrated it gave an idea of noise. With only the two front cats still in place we were showing about 85dB at 50'at idle. Here's a video:



We also completed most of the wiring for the cooling fans including getting them wired into the original cooling fan ECM that originally ran a solenoid in the hydraulic system. It now runs a relay that will power the fan.

We also cut a piece of aluminum to cover the sunroof hole, finished cleaning up the rear side window openings, and worked on a bunch of other little projects. No huge break-throughs today, but a good day of working.

We have a tune day at BIR the last week of May, so we've got about two months left to finish the car. Should be enough time, but we've still got plenty to do.

Let there be lights!

Got the dash wiring figured out tonight. Turns out the door connector and the dash connector use the same terminal plug. And putting the dash in the door plug doesn't work right. Weird.






Soren brought over the front bumper, so we set it in place. Looks good, eh?






More work to come this weekend, so check back for a new post Sunday or Monday.

IT'S ALIVE!!

Alright, we'll start with the big news, and the big fun... IT RUNS!

After a couple tries, we got it fire. Turns out you do need to re-connect the plug going the fuel pump control. Weird. But with all the stuff disconnected, our gage pod doesn't work, and the alarm goes off when you first connect the battery. Strangely, disconnecting the gages, starting it, then reconnecting them shuts it off. Luckily we had the horns disconnected so we just had to deal with flashing dash lights. Cross the radiator and starting the engine off the list. Oh, and disconnecting the exhaust BEFORE starting it, was clearly a good idea. Glad we planned it that way. It was nice to hear the engine just through the cats. Guess we'll have to get that exhaust fixed and back in...

Now to less exciting things. We finished cutting the side impact bar out of the driver's door, shedding another 6lbs for a grand total of 31lbs removed from the driver side door. We also got the rear side windows out, one broken, one not. What a pain in the @ss. We're totally breaking out the rear glass.

And we also looked at brakes. The LS400 calipers I ordered from a shop in Missouri showed up Thursday, and we test fitted them. As you can see below, the aluminum LS400 caliper on the right is quite a bit bigger then the cast iron SC400 on the left.

We had to trim the dust shield, but got the caliper mounted on the passenger side to test fit the different wheels we had on hand.

Stock SC400 wheels definitely don't fit.
Nor did the 17" steel rims I had from my Dodge Magnum. Despite have more positive offset, it still couldn't clear the rotor. Guess we better check out the offsets available on Supra wheels and see what we can track down. Luckily with the 2X and our $900 Chrome Lexus wheels, we can use pretty much any wheels we decide we can afford. Too bad we can't afford some sweet Fiske wheels.

Next was a date with the sawzall. Thanks to some uber rusted bolts...

We cut out the exhaust...

so we could have more room to remove the 3rd catalyst and put in an H-pipe with true duals.

We also plan to ditch those HUGE mufflers and save a bit of weight. Just gotta figure how little muffling we can run and stay within the rules. Next week we'll get some exhaust cutting done, start mocking up and tack welding new pieces, and get to work on more of the cage. Thanks to Matt, Soren and Danielle for helping out today.

Build Day 3/6 more pics

Here we were on another build day. Jeremy drove all the way out from savage Wisconsin. And he didn't even bring any cheese curds... BLASPHEMY! Aside from our first attempt at the halo, all the bending went well. Get ready for some action footage, here we are working strenuously to bend the tube. It was exhausting.


And here were are double checking out notes to see how far we had to do the previous 90 degree bend to account for spring back. So exhausting pressing that button for the air over hydraulic...

And a little later, here's the main hoop almost done...

And there she is! Left the legs a little long to trim to fit in the car, but the 30 and 60 deg bends look beautiful.

And after trimming off a half inch at a time, about 4 times, then trimming off blade widths, we got the main hoop to fit. A little more massaging of the sheetmetal around it, and it'll be ready to tack in place. After fitting the main hoop, we decided to widen the halo and made another one of those. It fit much nice, up front at the windshield. Strangely the windshield is wider then at the B-pillar. Kind of annoying. So making the wider halo should help with keeping the front legs of the cage tight to the A-pillar and not blocking too much visibility.

Still got quite a bit of work to do, looks like we'll be working some nights and weekends until its done. Otherwise June will sneak up on us.

Build Day 3/6 We Start Bending!

Jeremy was in town today for our first cage day. Greg will need to share his photos of the cage, but we got the main hoop and halo bent and fitted. Greg and Jeremy bending:


Matt worked on gutting the driver's door. This took about 20 lbs more out of the door. We ran out of cutting wheels and still have the side impact beam to remove and start gutting the passenger door.


We finally got an accessory belt that fit the modified pulley routing and got it installed:


And with that we finished putting the engine back together. We replaced the idler pulley with one from the junkyard that was in better shape. The radiator hoses were reinstalled, and the reservoir was also reinstalled. The LS400 has two pusher fans mounted on the AC condensor in addition to the engine mounted fan. I picked up a pair of these fans and mounted them directly on the radiator. In testing, they seemed to move plenty of air.



With the hydraulic fan removed and pusher fans installed there is a huge amount of space between the radiator and engine. It looks a little weird, but will allow plenty of airflow. We should be ready to start the engine shortly.