Really Should Stop Modifying my Daily Driver into a Track Car

[dhminer]

Thanks man.

I had to get a second set of hands. I pushed, they aligned and tightened the nuts

 

[Fusion Works]

Well, I got it in place and locked down. Yeah that was a pain in the ass. Wonder why its so far out of spec on the cable position? So far with no cable adjustment I have all gears, with the engine not running. That is a plus.

 

[Fusion Works]

What is going on here?
This doesn't look scary at all. HAHA

 

[dhminer]

Well, I got it in place and locked down. Yeah that was a pain in the ass. Wonder why its so far out of spec on the cable position? So far with no cable adjustment I have all gears, with the engine not running. That is a plus.

I don’t know why it’s so far off, but I have easy access to all gears and it’s straight without any adjustment except for the centering knobs. I’m not questioning it lol. If it breaks I’ll locate a CAE shifter to replace coolerworx

 

[Fusion Works]

Yeah with everything bolted down tight, I have all gears and such with the car in neutral, not running me not holding the clutch pedal down. Haven't done any of the OEM centering adjustments yet.

To me the only major improvement I would make to this shifter assembly, is the adding an extension to the forward back bell crank to move the top ball stud closer to the center of the assmembly to straighten the overall angle of that linkage rod.

 

[Woods247]

😂 I can’t wait to see what you build for this shifter

 

[Fusion Works]

Not touching it for now. HAHA. Would like to drive my car once before next season. Its cold and rainy here, who knows when that will stop.

 

[Woods247]

Not touching it for now. HAHA. Would like to drive my car once before next season. Its cold and rainy here, who knows when that will stop.

Come to RA and be miserable with me in February for two days. I’ll get you a fat discount.

 

[Fusion Works]

That we might could do. Maybe my trailer will be free by then.

 

[Woods247]

That we might could do. Maybe my trailer will be free by then.

It’s actually Barber again not RA. We do have back to back days in December at AMP and Road Atlanta but I doubt my car will be ready by then. Should be good for Barber though. February will be COLD

 

[Fusion Works]

Yeah I am questioning the logic of anything in Feb. HAHA. Its either gonna be pleasant and 70deg or its gonna be snowing and 9 deg. Alabama in the winter is never guaranteed.

 

[Fusion Works]

Well this was an incredible pain in the ass and way more time than it should be.

The trans mount studs are pressed in and crimped in place as far I can tell. Removing them was a massive pain. I will let ya’ll guess why I removed them.
This is the final iteration of my ECU and fuse mounting plate is coming along. This will clean up all of the battery box area

 

[Fusion Works]

Since our cars like to end up on the roof.

 

[Fusion Works]

Ok its been a busy while since I have updated this, but a lot of parts have been made in order to get the car on track for Gridlife.
I mostly finished the battery relocation and wiring clean up in the engine bay. I need to run one wire to the back where the battery is to connect all the battery sensors directly to the battery for now they are just tied up in the engine bay not connected. However I have no check engine light because of it either.


I spent a ton of time on lowering the engine. It was a ridiculous amount of work for probably a minimal gain. I made custom 1in stainless spacer studs to go into the OEM transmission mount on the case. Removing those OEM studs was a massive pain in the ass, they are cast in place I think.


The studs are 17-4 stainless, cuz its stupid strong and I don't have to deal with zinc plating it. These in conjunction with some aluminum spacers and longer studs on the drivers side bracket worked out pretty well. I had to build a custom dog bone and change the angle on my down pipe to rotate it up into the tunnel, which I wanted to do anyways. Doing that cleaned up the exhaust I always felt hung down to far.

 

[Fusion Works]

Some more pics of the electrical clean up:


There are still the proper fuses setup for the main fuse box and the power steering. I still need to attach the huge 450amp fuse at the battery, but I have never had an issue with the run from the front to the back so its not a huge priority.

The two little wires are the transponder wires that run up from the splitter where I have it mounted. They get connected to power and ground when I am running an event that has timing and scoring.

 

[Fusion Works]

Also built and installed all the proper safety equipment. Built the roll bar to SCCA regs, but its all Docol R8 tubing that was TIG welded with the proper filler material. Its bolt in, because I have a sunroof and I probably will have to remove the damn thing in the future to fix a water leak. I can also now get it powder coated. I welded plates to the floor with weld nuts behind them. Then bolt the roll bar to those plates. They tie into much stronger chassis points than the sheetmetal of the floor and the fender wells. I actually reused one of the rear seat anchor bolts along with the three other mounting bolts in the rear down legs. I haven't weighed it but its probably about 45lbs.

 

[Fusion Works]

While building the roll bar, I made some lightweight seat mounts for the Racetech seat and Racequip harnesses. One thing I like about this seat are the proper holes for running a real six point harness the way it should be run. So many modern seats are actually designed for 5pt harnesses which aren't as safe in my opinion. These mounts weigh a third of what those stupid Planted seat bases weigh. The side mounts were some I designed for an RX8. They sorta worked here, but after being on track my butt was too low and I had to put a towel in the seat to get my eyes up above the wheel rim. I think I will add a hole to use a different style side plate to get my butt up a little higher for better visibility.

 

[Fusion Works]

Well Shit. This is the 3/4 hub, gears, slider, syncros, input shaft, etc. I am starting to think the lower pink snap ring behind the 3rd gear somehow got loose, probably due to me forcing the shifter when the two little dog bones on the shifter rattled loose on track at Gridlife. I have some spare parts from the Fusion trans, but its still gonna cost me a few hundred to fix this because the two snap rings from Ferd are $90/ea. WTF. How are two snap rings almost $100 and an input shaft is $54?

 

[Woods247]

You fix this yet? Cmon man

 

[Fusion Works]

OH man, I haven't updated this in a bit. The trans is finally back in the car after many head aches. No idea why this transmission issue has turned into such a debacle.

More than a month ago I was reassembling the case and just about ready to wrap that part up, when "crack". "Aw man WTF"?



Somehow I knocked one of the countershaft bearing rollers loose and it wedged itself between the case and the snout of the countershaft. When I tightened the bolts up (by hand) it punch through the end of the case. Dammit. I can't win. So get that welded up and machined down, then I am waiting another month for the damn parts. Getting parts for this trans repair has been the biggest headache of my life. They have taken so long to get in hand. By this point I am tired of this damn car, so it sits.

Now I have finally gotten the trans back in the car and started hooking everything back up. Should be back on the ground this week and would like to drive it while its not raining here like it has been for the last two weeks. I am going to run Barber at the end of August, not really looking forward to it, because of the damn heat. Thats kinda been my excuse for not moving faster on this car, its too damn hot to go to the track here in the south in the summer.

I have been working on some new race dampers and an offset top hat, not sure if I can make it work properly though or not.