#9 Offseason Mods Nearing Completion

[Daytona Dan]

I am supposed to be on track at Watkins Glen on Friday 2 weeks from today. As usual, it's a race to get everything done in time and with a little luck we'll have enough time left to wash the car before loading it up. My major projects for this winter were (A) door bars, (B) new pedal set and front brakes (C) complete teardown and rebuild of Roush 402R as a solid roller and (D) a late addition to the list, replace the defective Konis that have been on the rear of my car for about 10 track events.

Door Bars: We decided to keep the body on and had the guy that did my brother's 300ZX cage do the door bars and "bodywork" required to make them fit. You will see that we were limited by the lower part of the door frame but I think we ended up with a good compromise between safety and the ability to get in and out of the car. I am feeling much safer already and should be SCCA/NASA compliant. I am 6'1" so my head/helmet is usually above the upper rollbar so we added a center roof bar as well. I have no idea how he did that without torching the headliner! My brother has become more skilled with sheetmetal work over the past couple years building his Z so we have been working nights to wrap up the alumium work. Just about to start riveting it the first pieces so we hope to be wrapped up by Sunday night.

Brakes: Our welder friend also did the custom bracket for the Tilton pedal set. My brother and I are also going to make a quick release panel on the footbox so that we can easily access for fluid swaps and MC changes. The bias adjuster is already in on the dash and everything hooked up with my PBR fronts for now. My StopTech front rotors and calipers should arrive next week, 14" slotted rotors 4 piston calipers (40/44mm stagger).

Engine: We are only waiting on the custom pushrods to come in and hoping that early next week we can get it on the engine dyno to do break in and final tuning.

Shocks: Replacements arriving FedEx today.

Will post more pics later. Wish me luck in getting it all done in time!

[KodiakCoupe]

Lookin good Dan. Looks like alotta work! Those welding skills have to be pretty incredible. Wish I had that skillset.

Git-r-done!

[riptide motorsport]

thats some nice work there!!

[Russ Thompson]

Looks great Dan, really nice work.

[tcoon]

That center bar is a great idea. I am building a racing coupe along with Karen Salvaggio and think I will add one just like it. My head also sticks up higher than it should. I like my head a lot better without a large dent in the top! Since mine is a race only coupe with no headliner I should be able to get the bar right up to the roof.

[vnmsss]

The mods look great Dan! Kudos to you on the work, and to your brother on his amazing welding and fabrication skills. Can't wait to see the finished product, and the report from your day at the Glen!

Karen

[Daytona Dan]

Thanks for the support...you guys helped us forge through the weekend to wrap up the interior panels while my mechanic worked to get the engine completed. After a couple valve jobs last season, I told my mechanic that I wanted more revs and needed it to be bulletproof! With the anticipated increased revs it was deemed prudent to use a stud girdle in order to ensure that everything stays aligned. Had to run longer studs so the rockers would not rub against the threads and as a result had to cut a couple holes out of the valve cover baffling. I don't have all of the reworked engine specs to share right now so please hold off on the technical questions on the valvetrain for now...I'll try to get all that documented when we break it in and post details along with the dyno results.

[Jacob McCrea]

Looks great, Dan - clearly some top notch fab work. I'm interested in hearing whether you can feel the difference in chassis stiffness with the door bars. My guess is "yes."

[kabacj]

Hey Dan,

Nice fab work. How did you know how high to make the nascar style door bars? I am debating the benefits of an X brace vs the nascar style and one of the factors is entry and exit .

We have a few coupes with Nascar style. Just looking to sort the same thing out for the GTM.

Thanks


John

[Daytona Dan]

Thanks again for the support guys. Looks like I will be able to get the engine dyno'd on Friday.

Hey John, I generally took the lead of the race coupes that are being built out West which we know are SCCA/NASA complaint (See Karen's blog). The main difference is that since they are building cars from scratch they have more flexibility so their upper bar will be higher than mine, by about 2 inches (they go right up to the door latch pin). To ensure that I could get it done in time I chose to sacrifice thsoe 2 inches and leaving the lower side of the door frame intact. They will have to fabricate a custom door frame but theirs will be safer. I should still be compliant (since I have 2 sets of bars), am a whole lot safer than I was before doing the bars, and could still add a 3rd bar if I decided to hack up the door frame and go a few inches higher. Getting in and out will no problem at all...I am actually able to get out of the window since I don't use any side windows or scoops. I am very happy about that because you can't count on the door being able to open after a major impact.

[kabacj]

Thanks again for the support guys. Looks like I will be able to get the engine dyno'd on Friday.

Hey John, I generally took the lead of the race coupes that are being built out West which we know are SCCA/NASA complaint (See Karen's blog). The main difference is that since they are building cars from scratch they have more flexibility so their upper bar will be higher than mine, by about 2 inches (they go right up to the door latch pin). To ensure that I could get it done in time I chose to sacrifice thsoe 2 inches and leaving the lower side of the door frame intact


Ahh I see. I noticed that the west coast coupes had slightly heigher bars and that's why I was asking. I have contacted the head of tech for NASA to see what he says for the GTM. The good thing about having other race setup coupes on the track is that there are examples of what is acceptable. The only racing gtm is highly modified with a center seat position.

Good point about window egress. I'm sure I could do it, but it's not going to be NASCAR style graceful.

John

[Daytona Dan]

I dropped off the lump at Big Al's Toy Box in Gaylordsville, CT this morning (very close to Limerock Park). Hoping they will get it on the dyno on Friday. Check out the link...I think it's safe to say they know their stuff when it comes to big power! http://www.bigalstoybox.com/gallery.htm

[Daytona Dan]

Did a shakedown run yesterday afternoon in my car and everything seems well and good. Engine runs very smooth and the new Tilton hydraulic clutch setup is working great. I didn't lay into it too hard as I was on cold tires and public roadways but check out the attached to see where we ended up on the dyno on 93 octane. This was not with my Tri-Y FFR headers so the torque may be even higher now. I am losing HP and some top end with the dual plane street intake that I have to use because of the hood clearance issue. The guys at Big Al's think there's another 25HP or so to be had but I'll be more than fine with what HP I have for now...and the major torque coming out of the corners!

[jkrueger]

Wow, over 500hp! That car is going to be blazing fast down the back straight at The Glen. What kind of lap times do you turn there? The fastest I've done is 2:30 on street tires in a V8 powered RX-7. In the virtual world (iRacing) I run 2:10 in the FR500 mustang.

JC

[Daytona Dan]

Best I've run so far was in the high 2:11s on fresh Hoosier R6s...see vid link. The brakes (PBR fronts) and my guts are mostly what has been holding me back...I had 420 rwhp last season before I started breaking valve springs at end of the season. The downshifts are fun and exciting but I am going to work on changing my style there because that's really beating on my valvetrain and it gets expensive fast. The new pedal setup is much more conducive to heel toe action so I'll be working on that this season. Will report back early next week!

http://www.ffcars.com/forums/21-ffr-type-65-coupe/279765-watkins-glen-09-30-11-a.html

[smithtlw]

Wow, more than 500 lb-ft of torque from 3,000 - 5,000 rpms! Those are some impressive numbers on pump gas. I am looking forward to seeing it run!

[Georgia Coupe]

Dan, those mods are great! I really wish I would have done what you did to your cage in my Coupe. I will add that to my list when I start doing mods.