Teaser...

So we've been working this weekend again, and I just had to throw up some teaser pics of the car in the final transformation. We think we have the engine timing fixed by bumping the belt back a tooth. It seems to be running really strong. Soren picked up another cooler for the transmission that had 3/8" fittings instead of 1/4". So now we shouldn't have a restriction in the flow. Now check out the pics...


First we have the bumper, its now actually mounted to the car again. Also check out the washer fluid bottle that's now reinstalled!


Just a nice blurry pic of the primed hood.


Next are the cage pics. Looks kind of cool in primer, but GD is it hard to try to paint a cage. Yes I know there are a spots we missed. Or more so, I now know after looking at the pics that I have places I missed. Jerks. Look at the nice parts of the cage instead.




And lastly, a quick peek at our special "patrol" edition wheels. You'll just have to wait to see them when they're done, they're going to look awesome!

More from the track day

Here we are, the car unloaded, ready for its inaugural laps. It was quite a push over the weekend and last few weeks to get to this point. Thank you to everyone who helped along the way.


Soren getting ready to hit the track for the first time ever in the BP SC400.


Our BIR instructor for the day was Chris Lake-Smith. Here's some of Chris's bio from the BIR Performance Driving School website.

"Chris started his career in 1969 in England, finishing second in both the Daily Mail "Star of Tomorrow" FF1600 Championship and the Daily Express "Crusader" Championship, and was seventh overall in the very competitive 1971 European Formula Ford Championship. In 1972 Chris earned a works drive in the factory Elden team alongside future Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan, and set FF lap records at several circuits, including Estoril, Portugal. He moved on to Formula Super Vee and Formula 3, campaigning in England, Wales, Belgium, Portugal, Mozambique, South Africa and the United States. Chris was a senior instructor at the Brands Hatch International Motor Racing School for four years and also instructed at Silverstone and Mallory Park in England. Having had over 120 starts in single-seater races, Chris scratched a lifetime itch in 2002 when he drove a Formula One Benetton at the French Grand Prix circuit at Magny Cours, France."

And he even liked our car! He liked IT, he REALLY liked it!



Out on the first lap, the BP SC400 looks pretty good for not being painted.


The day got nicer in the afternoon. The wind picked up, but it definitely help make the heat more bear-able.


And one last action shot of the car hauling down the straight in front of the pits.



And of course some more videos.
Greg:


Jeremy:


Soren:


Sorry I didn't get video of you Erik, we should have just put the camera back in for the afternoon without the tether.

Brainerd Track Day

The car is ALIVE! After six months, we drove the car onto the trailer on Sunday night and took it up to BIR for a track day. It was a GREAT day, although it was insanely hot for Brainerd, 90F in May? Crazy!

The car has a high RPM stumble that we think is a mis-adjusted timing belt. Other than that the car ran great, it handled great, and was pretty easy to drive. I won't speak for the team, but I really like what we've built here.

It was a great day at the track and Chris, our BIR instructor, was really helpful riding with us for most of the day.











A video I took of the car driving by pit lane. We were worried about the sound level of the car, but it was one of the quieter cars there with just a glass pack muffler. Awesome!


One of the incar videos that Greg uploaded to youtube:

T-minus 2 days...

First off the cage is FINALLY finished! Well sort of. We might and some bracing for the foot-box, and a dead-pedal. But all the required cage components are now in. Jeff had lots of fun fitting in the drunk to weld the rear down braces. He even commented how spacious the trunk was for a coupe, and that it could likely hold multiple dead hookers. Don't ask how he's knows this.


Next the new coolers got mounted. My dad got booted out of the house for some ladies art's and craft's weekend, so I took him under my wing, and he's taking part in a man's weekend with race cars. He did an awesome job getting the extra transmission cooler mounted below, and further below, the power steering cooler. Thanks for the help Dad!



The new wink mirror is in, which will help give us a nice panoramic rearview. Next we need to build a bracket for the gauges. But who needs 'em?


And lastly, a nice shot of the rear, with the trunk remounted, our fancy cheap LED tail lights and a nice shot of the complicated roll cage profile.



And now for some videos, we know you people love videos. First a test shot with my VholdR Contour HD from the main hoop.



We also took some test shots with Erik's Go Pro camera in and around the car. Its got quite the wide angle lens, its pretty cool.



And technically we got a few more things done, but we're not going to show them until tomorrow. Unless of course you want to stop by and help. Thanks to Erik and Jeremy for helping today too.

It moves!

After the total failure of a second Harbor Freight spring compressor, Greg and I finagled (yes, finagled) the modified front shocks back into the car.

To recap, we took the front springs and cut them and installed them in the rear. This took the stock 170# springs and replaced them with 380# springs. We then replaced the front springs with 800# circle track springs from eBay. This required a modified spring perch on the shock, but lowered the car and stiffened it up significantly. Total cost: $30 for used springs, $0.50 in steel for the perches.

We were then able to drop the car onto it's new LS400 wheels for the first time. It's been on jack stands since December. With the lower suspension and sitting on it's wheels, it seems really low.

The stance looks great! The car drove out of the garage and then back in. It was a great evening.













Video of the car moving:

Cage is in!

First item of the day was getting the wiring harness out of the way, and the cage in its final position. So when Jeff showed up he got busy on the cage. Of course he started off with the easy welds.


For the front we used some mini plinth boxes we made out of 2"x2"x0.25" box steel that we had leftover from making the bender. Welding behind and on the outside of these looked to be a HUGE pain. Good job Jeff! Maybe next time we'll make the cage easier to weld.


Just another shot of the cage in its final resting spot. Last item on the list is the rear down tubes. Which we got started making, but aren't quite done. But at least the cage is in place and won't move when we go to the Open Track day next Monday.


We did get finished with the modified driver seat brackets. Braced them a little extra, and should be good to go. I mean it should at least be as good as Lexus quality. Not like our car is going to accelerate away on its own.


Got some more done on the front bumper. The main section and the wings have been welded in. A couple spots need touch up, because this is right when we ran out of argon for the welder. It almost makes me not want to put the bumper cover back on.


The exhaust is cut and ready to be welded, but as mentioned above, we ran out of gas. I think this is the first time in history when a Brawley has ever "run out of gas".


Soren and finished cutting the adapters for his suspension. We have out own home engineered suspension kit to allow us to run stiffer springs. I sure hope they work well.


Just about ready to install. Can't wait to see the car on the ground.


Soren and Matt test fitted a wheel. I'm not sure why. We had to take it off when bled the brakes and replaced the old fluid with some nice DOT 4 Super Blue. Maybe it was to the test fit the stupid style lug nuts we had to get. I don't know, but they fit.

No good deed goes unpunished...

Another weekend closer to the goal, and we're a few baby steps closer. Seemed like we did a lot this weekend, but don't have as much to show for it. Saturday we "fixed" the taillights. Apparently this car is picky about its grounding, and not having the fuel tank grounded (we had unbolted to attempt to take it out a couple weeks ago) made the difference. We jumpered the stupid "Lamp Failure Sensor" for good measure though.

This week I stopped by our buddy Caz's place, and he TIG welded up our stainless wye pipe with some aluminized steel adapters to start putting our exhaust back together. Below you can see his handy work, and the front of the glasspack we're currently running. Putting the wye pipe bace in was a bit of a trick though, as the welding had pulled the two legs closer together and things took some pulling on to line up. But we got it together.


And of course, we couldn't put in the new exhaust and NOT hear it. Duh... Its quieter, I think...

And Sunday Jeff stopped by to get some more welding done. And as you can see, we got the driver side door bars in, the plinthe boxes welded, and dash bar in. Not bad. Its all ready to weld to the car some night this week.



Jeff also fixed up the holes I blew through the sheetmetal and finished welding up the new, lowered, seat mount brackets. Might add a couple more braces, but I think we're good to go.

Saturday we got the beginnings of the new bumper fit together. Its about ready weld on. Soren also protected our new Cold Air intake (through the headlight hole) with some chicken wire. Looks a lot tougher now at least.

And last but not least, as a co-worker is fond of saying, no good deed goes unpunished. And sure enough, we put in some extra time Sunday welding things up, and the dash bar slips while being fitted, and pop, we have a cracked windshield. *sigh*


CORRECTION: Like Erik said, the front shocks are out now. But there's still some work to be done on the adapters for the new springs. Soren picked up some pre-cut pieces, and we got holes in two of them to fit over the shock, but need to cut at least two more to get closer to the expected height. So they're almost ready to go back on.

Another weekend closer

Well Team Bear Patrol racing was at it again this weekend at Casa del Greg. It was a big week for Soren, as you can see below, he made the jump and bought a plasma cutter! So of course we cut a bunch of random stuff to test it out, but forgot to take pics of that. Below he's finishing up compressing a rear spring to get the last cut one back installed. To get some added spring stiffness he cut a junkyard set of front springs, to fit on the back. It should sit a little lower, and complement our front springs once we get them on. Now if only we had the tires on the wheels, we could see how it sits.


Erik stopped by to help finish wiring the new tail lights. He had to bring over his soldering iron because my Harbor Freight special is so awful. But what do I need a soldering iron for, I'm a metal banger?


Here are the cheapo tail-lights we bought so we could sell our stockers. A nice little pick-up on eBay got us some brighter LEDs, and we mounted them inset, so in case someone rear-end's us the lights shouldn't be damaged. Unfortunately our fancy Lexus has a "light failure sensor" and the lower resistance LEDs seem to be triggering it and not working. Stupid technology.


Soren also got the last of the battery relocation done and hooked up. He also fab'd up a bracket for the battery cut-off switch to put right within reach in case of an emergency. We also switched to a dry cell battery since we moved it inside the driver compartment. I think there are a couple things left to get the hold down part of it finished though.


Jeff stopped by after a crazy workout at Crossfit St. Paul. I finished coping the passenger side doorbars so he could get them welded in. The bottom rear section of the bottom bar needed some creative bodywork to get access to. Wouldn't want any sections not funny welded.


Passenger side finished.


And then I even snuck some time to fab up part of a personal project. Its so fun having all these tools now. Cut and welded up a base for a sprayer for my mower. Boring, but I love having all this stuff around to fab things from scrap.


Only a few more weekends left before the track day for practice at Brainerd...um yeah that's May 24th, okay that's three weekends if we don't take the car up the weekend before the track day to show it off.