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.

Build Day 2/20

Saturday was another minor build day and Greg and I got a little further on the car, although it looks worse with a lot more pieces removed.

Shiny new radiator is now installed. I bought a new accessory belt, but got the woring size. This should be running again shortly!

Cold air intake. I opened up the intake box and with no headlight here, this should feed lots of cold air into the engine. This must be good for +50hp!

Cold air intake close up.

Intake as it orignally appeared with a large resonator.

Intake tube with resonator hole plugged. This should add +20hp, right?

Dash is out.

In case you couldn't see it in the last photo. this is the dash wire harness mess.

We decided to take the doors off to aid with the cage building and stripping them out.

The dash is out, drivers side.

Greg lounging in the back seat.

More work on the bender kills a chopsaw

So this week's episode began Monday with the material order not showing up. Jeremy pulled some strings to get us an awesome deal on the material, but we ended up having to pick it up ourselves. So Soren and I rented a 20ft snowmobile trailer and drove to Eagan to get the material. It didn't look as impressive as I thought it would, but 22ft lengths of 1.75" tubing is pretty heavy. Not to mention 12ft lengths of 1", 1.5" and 2" OD bar stock. Let the good times roll!


Also showing up on Wednesday was the die set! Thank you UPS!

Then Thursday night, Caz and Matt finished up milling the big parts and turning down the bushings. Hopefully the lead content in the 12L14 steel gives our shafts some nice lubrication. GD that sounds dirty. Sorry.

Next up, Discount Steel finally finished putting together my order. And they STILL didn't get it right. But whatever, I got what I needed, including a 28"x48"x3/8" plate to make a welding table. Luckily the manwagon has a spacious storage compartment.

Here's el Jeffe putting the wheels on the table. Almost time to stand 'er up and check it out. Note, the camera is in focus, there's just that much haze and weld smoke in the air.

And here's what we got done on Saturday. A rolling, flat, table of awesomeness. All set and ready to begin welding the important stuff on Sunday.

Well we thought it was done, turns out we had a few more finishing touches to put on. Here Jeff's welding on the last of our hooks for holding all our welding tools, hammers, squares, brushes, etc.

And here's the final resting place for the Harbor Freight chopsaw. You lived a good life, but couldn't quite handle all the 2"x2"x1/4" box steel I was making you cut. You'll be remembered, but of course replaced with something awesomer that'll be tax deductibe.

Now for some final shots. Had to air out the garage a bit to get some clear shots, but here are some views of the welding table and the beginning parts of the bender. As soon as the new saw arrives, I'll make a couple 45 degree cuts and we'll be finishing up the bender in the no time. Hopefully by this time next week we'll have our first bent material!