Feb 14 - color

Hard to shoot colors and they come out right, but I think this is close. I put a couple of bends into it to see it at different angles at the same time.  i.e. how a color looks as it rolls over an edge.  Where and how much does it darken up, that kind of thing.

This is the color I spoke of in an earlier post, in 1999 Lamborghini called it candy apple blue.

I have an email thread going with V8 Archie, trying to decide how much kit I'm buying from him to make this assembly bit go faster.  It's about the LT1/F40 combo that I'm going with.  Hard to find individuals who have done this.  I'm at least going to do the flywheel/clutch/pressureplate, I'm trying to decide how much more than that to get from him.

Feb 13 - Oh look, boxes! :-)

I had Nate fab up some cardboard boxes today that will be the models for the steering rack brackets that will be made next week.  That is all. 

Feb 11 - some days are harder than others

Some days the V8 pulls you up the hill....
    Some days you have to pull the V8 up the hill.  :-)

This was me playing brake while I got the rest of the young 'uns to help bring the motor UP out of the shop and into the driveway.  I've got a ratchet strap around my back/hips area and am pulling the V8 up out of it's hole it was hiding in.

 

I had Nate helping out here.  We were dropping the hoist from the motor and seeing if our mock up would hold together to test in the engine bay.  That's a V8 Archie adapter plate there.  It came with my kit when I had bought it off of the guy years ago.  now I'm wondering how do people put an LT1 and F40 together?  My bell housing on the tranny won't clear the pressure plate/flywheel of the LT1.  I wonder if folks are cutting the housing out?  Or if they are getting some other set-up for the flywheel/pressure plate combo?

I know the V8 Archie flywheel I have for a regular old 350 doesn't work on the LT1.  The center hole size and bolt holes are no where near lining up on this motor.

 Oh yeah, it's gonna be close.  The measuring tape says there is 1/16 of an inch in there on each side.  It will be that close getting it in there I think.  I've read that others have done it.  I'll be one too if I can find that big shoe horn I have around here some place.

This is the PS where the harmonic balancer needs to miss the frame rail here.

This is the DS where the tranny has to miss the frame rail over here.  You can tell between these two pics that it will be VERY close.  It will have to be on the money or it won't go in.

Feb 10 - frame is good

Today the first pass of the frame being coated primer black is completed.  We also got the bushings pressed into the engine cradle.  We seem to have slightly bent the cradle and will have to open it back up before mounting it back into the car. You can see the 6 speed transmission in one of these photos we're getting it ready to load into the engine cradle with the 350.

Feb 09 - slow day

Got detailed wire wheeling of the frame done.  All ready for paint, rained today so will start that tomorrow.  Got the races where the front bushings go into the engine cradle all cleaned out.  Will hunt some grease and get the new ones pressed in tomorrow.  I'll start on my templates for steering rack brackets/mounts tomorrow as well.

A new quart of paint will be in at my suppliers tomorrow.  Chevy Volt is due to be turned in, may have to wait for Wed, depends on how long it will take to turn back in off of lease.  Wheels are supposed to be done and back to me from the rim repair place (getting the centers powder coated) late tomorrow as well.  So a very busy day, it will more than make up for slow progress.  :-)

Feb 06 - just like Christmas around here

I got my radiators in on the 6th of Feb.  They are very nice ones.  They were asked about in this forum thread.  I can deal with the radiator caps and plumbing.  For the price, I don't think you can beat them for this application.  Hearing also in those threads about letting enough air into the front of the things will go a long way in making sure that it stays cool back there.

Got more wire wheel work done on the chassis.  Will be able to finish that off 100% on Monday and get some painting done.  Will pick up a new can of POR 15 on Tuesday and finish off the chassis paint 100% before the end of the week.  You can see in some of these images the difference in the surface rust before and after the wheel.

I'll be needing to source some dust boots for these joints.  I'm thinking that they may be of some common size with something else.  If anyone has a lead, let me know.  -Thanks

I've also got the bushings knocked out of the engine cradle so I can press the new ones in.  It needs a little more clean up work before I'll be putting the new ones in, and what you can see there is the left over rubber/rust from the previous ones.  They were 30 years old, I guess it was about time for them to go.  This original car was a 1985 Fiero GT.

Last post of the trampoline parts

I've got yesterday and today's post in one here and it's pretty much done.  It literally works as is, but I'll do some clean up and box some things up from the elements better, but will not post the final.  There wouldn't be any real meat/potatoes about it anyway.

So here are those pics worth a 1k words each:

Trampoline parts - off topic

I built this setup (my buddy at the fab shop made the frame) but I made the support system for it out of old trampoline parts.  Here are some pics for my solar panel mount that I had come up with.

 

I sunk the two poles at least 18" into the ground for the mount.

 

Feb 5 cont'd POR painting

Have removed the body and started more wire wheeling of the old rusty frame.  Here's a pic of Nate running the angle grinder with the wire wheel on it.

Got my old 60k BTU kerosene heater fired up again.  Hadn't run it in years.  Had to hand spin the fan motor/fuel pump to get it to power on and start running.  It was pretty noisy for a while but cleaned up and quieted down after some run-in time.

Here's the body out on the driveway.  Hopefully We'll be able to put it back on tomorrow afternoon.

POR update

Finished POR on cradle today, did top bottom and insides, also got the rear frame rails POR'd as well, also got the piece welded in for the left rear cradle bolt.

Returning to the blog...

I'll have at least weekly, in some cases daily blog entries once again now!  I've got a guy helping out real regular, we'll call him Nate.  He'll be providing updates as they come now. 

This is for the build log of the flagship car of 100 MPG Motors.  It is an early 90's Lambo Diablo kit car.  A D&R Replicar to be exact.  With a mid 90's interior package.  I will also have him doing a copy/paste of the entries from here, to the other build log (kitcentral.com) for progress as it goes.

Once the car is in a drivable chassis state, we will then work on the ability to have the car run on normal fuel injection or switch to fumes only mode.  Then we'll test the automation of cold starts on normal FI and it moving to fumes on its own.  This will test the controls where we leave it on Fumes mode but it uses the sensors to know to start under cold conditions on FI and watch for water temp to rise to switch and how smoothly it can handle that.  It will be computer controlled so this would be a good time to get that ironed out.

Of course in parallel I'll have other guys helping out on the body/door builds/etc.  So we can try to get this car done this calendar year if at all possible.  My goal is a drivable chassis in 3 months.  We'll see.  From there it will depend on scheduling the car into other places for other pieces to be finished off.  Interior.  Body.  Doors.  Paint.

We recently (and will show this in pics tomorrow) got some rust took care of in the tail end on the DS of the car.  Right where the engine cradle bolts up to the tail end of the car, it was so rusted out, the weld nut you should bolt to had fallen thru.  We put fresh metal in it this past weekend so now we're getting the rust knocked out and making the cradle ready to take the engine/transmission work.

I've also got the wheels out getting powder coated for the centers.  I have real Lambo Murci wheels that I want to give the SV look to.  Black centers with silver surrounds.  They should be back by this coming Friday.

So I'm getting ahead of myself with what all is coming this week, but giving folks who used to watch this blog from time to time something to look forward to. 

Appreciate all the well wishes for getting it done.  I'm so glad to be working on making it happen right now.  I can't tell you.  It's been a long time coming.  I've been collecting car parts for about 13 years.  So It's about time to begin the assembly... don't ya think?  :-) 

Lost both of my parents this past year and it was a really bad year personally on a lot of fronts.  What did do well was my business, and I'm thankful for that.  I'm looking forward to not wasting any more time on this thing as these things can go.  For folks with forever projects, you know what I'm talking about.

Thanks,
Coop