Firehawk's N2 racecar project

[firehawk]

The housings for the upper links are now done and partially welded into place. The "humps" for the original brackets gave some of trouble but a bit of adjusting with an angle grinder fixed it. Although now I need to fill the gap I made with the MIG.

[firehawk]

Took the car last sunday to a local rally driver's workshop for building the rollcage so it'll be a few weeks until I can get back to working on it. In the meanwhile, santa claus paid me a late visit. Or maybe it was ZZ Top, I dunno - the presents would certainly suggest so.

Art sent me these from the remaining AEU86 shop stock;



A huge box of stuff arrived from Summit Racing. Of course, I had to spread them all out on my bedroom carpet.


Tilton floor-mounted pedal assembly with balance bar.


Wilwood .625" and .700" brake master cylinders.


Remote reservoirs for the brake fluid.


Wilwood .750" clutch master cylinder with integral reservoir.


Remote adjuster knob for the brake balance bar.


Tilton linkage for the throttle pedal.


Wilwood Forged Dynalite 4-pot brake calipers. Really lightweight!


As the brake MCs are lower than the calipers, residual pressure valves are needed to stop the fluid from flowing backwards when the pedal is released.


Shitload of JIC #3 steel fittings and teflon-lined Earl's stainless steel AN-3 hose for all brake lines. No hard copper lines will be used.


Earl's oil cooler (TRD used Earl's as well), sandwich plate, JIC #10 fittings and plumbing.


Some additional plumbing and a filter for the fuel system.


Threaded tubes and RH/LH rod ends for the rear axle 4-links. Two of the rod ends will arrive a bit later.

[isac]

Quote:Wilwood Forged Dynalite 4-pot brake calipers. Really lightweight!

Did you go build brake caliper bracket (hanger) your own?

[firehawk]

isac Wrote:Did you go build brake caliper bracket (hanger) your own?

Yeah, although I haven't drawn them yet. I don't yet have the brake discs and the car is still at the workshop so I'm going to need them both to make some measurements. A friend of mine will then be able to laser cut the parts for me from the CAD drawings.

I'm planning on using 248x22mm brake discs from a 1983 RX60 Cressida since they're about as big and thick I'll be able to fit under the 13" wheels. The RX60 disc appears to be the very same used by TRD in their N2 cars and should bolt directly onto the AE86 front hub. Most spare parts shops don't seem to carry them anymore, though.

[firehawk]

While the car was getting the rollcage built in, I had to invent something to do with the parts I had at the garage. To test the blasting cabinet we bought, I pulled all the cooling system bits from the engine and cleaned them up by blasting them with a really fine glass bead.



Even old dirty and oxidised aluminium parts came out shiny and smooth - what a brilliant tool! I took the old 13" wheels next and blasted the rim halves clean, and then switched to regular sand to clean the red paint off the centers. I gave the old centers a few layers of gold paint a clearcoat.



Once the old centers had dried, I assembled them together with the new 4.5" outer rims and old 4.0" inners to produce a pair of 9JJx13" wheels for the rear axle.



Then today, I went to pick up the car from the workshop and brought it back to my garage. Several rally drivers recommended this guy and I can see why - he's pretty good at welding.





The diagonal support for the main bar is braced both against the driveshaft tunnel and the 4-link housings. The front strut turrents are also braced to the rollcage with two staggered tubes for additional stiffness.





Some extra details.











Next up is modifying the driver side floor for the pedalbox and the seat, as well as making the mounting points for the steering shaft once the seat position is finalized.

[dazed_driver]

Nice cage! You might consider gusseting the door bars, though. (same thing as in your roof corner, those are gussets... in case you dont know) Will you be gusseting the A pillar to the half lateral? That REALLY helps stiffen the chassis up, and it would be a really nice compliment to the front strut tower tubes.

I like that he tied it to the 4 link boxes- thats always a good move.

Looks great!

[firehawk]

dazed_driver Wrote:Nice cage! You might consider gusseting the door bars, though. (same thing as in your roof corner, those are gussets... in case you dont know) Will you be gusseting the A pillar to the half lateral? That REALLY helps stiffen the chassis up, and it would be a really nice compliment to the front strut tower tubes.

Yeah, gusseting the door bars would be a good idea. The door area is the weakest point of the car and the place where other cars most often hit. I'd really not prefer having someone's front frame rails embedded into my left hip.

The half laterals are very skillfully bent as there's barely a millimeter between it and the A-pillar and the bar is welded directly to the pillar from multiple locations. A very narrow strip of sheet could fit between the two but not really a proper gusset plate.

[dazed_driver]

firehawk Wrote:The half laterals are very skillfully bent as there's barely a millimeter between it and the A-pillar and the bar is welded directly to the pillar from multiple locations. A very narrow strip of sheet could fit between the two but not really a proper gusset plate.

Oh, excellent!

I wish I could bend that well haha

[Kid Karola]

The rims came out sweet! what are they?

[firehawk]

Kid Karola Wrote:The rims came out sweet! what are they?

Compomotive CX Modular. Made in England in 1988.

The CX style centers have been out of production for years but Compomotive does make a "modernized" version, called CXN (no 13", though). The rim halves and bolts are, of course, still readily available and compatible with the old centers.

http://www.comp.co.uk/wheels/modular.asp

The nice thing about the 3-piece design is that if the outer rim gets curbed or dented, it can be easily replaced without the need to replace an entire expensive wheel.