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RT Turning Signal, Quick Release, and a bunch of things that don’t fit together.
Unpacked the dashboard from the long cardboard box it comes in. After reading the instructions my first reaction was a bit of awkwardness that I have to bend the side of the aluminum sheet to meet the chassis. Wonder if I should pre-bend it somehow, but I’ll leave that for later.
During my visit to JohnK’s garage I saw his Russ Thompson Turning Signal Stalk as well as the quick-release mated to the steering hub. It looked super slick so I purchased the setup for my build as well. I purchased the Russ Thompson turning signal stalk from the man himself who lives just an hour drive away. I purchased the NRG Innovations SRK-400BK Black Thin Quick Release.
The turning signal stalk requires enlarging the steering column hole in the dash. Quite easily done with a dremel with a cutting wheel.
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Fitting the steering wheel hub onto the steering column proved a little difficult. The top of the steering shaft was flared out. The diameter of the shaft (or most of it anyway) is ~1.76mm, whereas the tip flared to ~1.81mm. Perhaps it was damaged somehow? Regardless, due to the increased width of the shaft it won’t fit into the hub.
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The quick release also has a stepped section that I need to fit into the hub of the Russ Thompson turning signal system. Currently the outer diameter of the quick release is bigger than the inner diameter of this hub. The inside diameter of the steering wheel hub is ~48.55mm, whereas the outside diameter of the stepped portion of the quick release is ~54.58mm. I’ll have to resolve this issue as well.
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RT Turning Signal, Quick Release, and a bunch of things that don’t fit together. Pt 2
The answer to both of the above, as always, is having great friends! My buddy who lives just around the corner has a lathe in his garage, so I took the shaft, steering wheel hub, and the rest of the shebang to a guys' night in the garage. We trimmed the top of the shaft so the outer diameter is consistent throughout the whole shaft and spun the inside diameter of the steering-wheel hub to a size that would fit the quick release nice and snug. It turned out great!
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Now that everything fits together, it’s time to mount the quick release onto the steering wheel hub using the provided bolts. I tapped 6 new holes into the steering wheel hub for the quick release. We first drilled into the hub with a drill bit one size smaller than the screw size, then slowly tapped the threads into the hole, enlarging it by a tiny bit in the process. Half turn forward, quarter turn backwards, back off if anything feels funny. For the first few holes near the end the aluminum would start to bind with the tap and I had to take the tap back out and scratch off the sticky aluminum with a scraper tool; suffice to say it got pretty tiring. For the rest of the holes I decided to go at a slower pace and use some motor oil; it turned out way cleaner!
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Tadaaa! Russ Thompson turning signal stalk with a quick release! I’m quite pleased with the results. Note that I haven’t aligned the turning signal stalk hub with anything, but that’s okay because I still haven’t received my steering wheel. After I receive the wheel I will center my steering column, align it with the hub, and finally make new holes on the steering wheel center section to align with the hub.
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Radiator, Breeze Shroud, and Rivnuts
While waiting on the fuel line components, let's work on the radiator! I purchased the breeze radiator shroud as seen from other build threads. I've also purchased rivnuts as well as a rivnut settler to make installation and future maintenance easier. These rivnuts are pretty slick!
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And here it is with the fan attached.
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To protect the other side of the radiator (dang those little radiator fins are easy to bend!) I've cut a piece of cardboard the size of the radiator opening and stuck it on with tape. Should do the job.
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The instructions from FFR manual makes me... worried? The radiator is made from thin aluminum; a soft material. There are also no bottom supports. I found this thread that talks about the breeze radiator mount accessories as well as this thread that talks about radiator mount point failure due to fatigue. ...so I'll definitely add extra support for the radiator.
I have a long strip of inch-wide steel strip that I can use to reinforce the top of the radiator before attaching it to the upper attachment point, but the bottom of the radiator is still very much unsupported. Before I go weld a steel tube at the bottom of the front chassis to support the radiator, I want to ask: Is there a reason for ever adjusting the radiator mounting angle? I'd imagine after you install it you'll just leave it in place?
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Clips for the brake lines
The "insulated clips" from FFR are backordered, so I purchased some clips to clip on my brake and fuel lines. The fuel lines will need to be redone with 3/8 hard lines, but hey they still look good. :P
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Chassis Aluminum Pics and Updates
Here are some updates on the chassis aluminum!
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Here I'm using Second Skin sound dampening material. Before this purchased foam based dampening material but they didn't work well at all; compared to Second Skin they simply don't do the job. With Second Skin the sound difference is night and day; I highly recommend it.
You may also notice that the panels don't look "sharkhide" coated. This is because I've decided to not coat the panels that I'll eventually put dampening material or heat insulation material on. Didn't see a point in doing so.
Near the end as I ran out of Second Skin I started using smaller and smaller pieces. I thought that smaller pieces will also provide "some" dampening and I'd be fine with it, but I don't like the end result at all. I purchased another pack of the material and will be filling in the gaps I left. To anyone else thinking of conserving their sound dampening material: It's not worth it. Just cover the panels!
Another word of caution on these gel sound dampeners: They are REALLY STICKY and REALLY HARD TO REMOVE ONCE APPLIED! Definitely plan out all the mods before slapping on the sheets cuz peeling them off is next to impossible. As I type this I'm trying to figure out how I can cleanly cut out a hole in the panel behind the seats for a rear storage cubby. The sticky material isn't gonna make this easy...
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Chassis Harness and the Fusebox
"Oh boy..." I said to myself after unpacking the Ron Francis wiring harness and layout out all the cables on the carpet of my living room floor. One thing I wasn't sure when handling the wiring harness was how much manhandling the harness could take. I tried my best stuffing the wires down near the fuse box as I tried inserting the fuse box itself through the narrow opening around the steering shaft and supporting cross members. Luckily that was the hardest part and everything else was pretty easy in comparison. The harness had a branch for truck builds. I didn't need it so I cut that part off. I'll wrap each individual end with some electrical tape to prevent any accidental connections. Similar to other builds, I've added a cut and bent strip of aluminum to provide some extra support to the fusebox.
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The rest of the harness is currently resting along the firewall. I'll clean those up as I'm more certain about what I'll do with the dashboard itself.
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Complete front-suspension and brakes
The front spindles and hubs finally arrived! The hub goes onto the spacer with an extremely precise fit; not "tight", but "precise". When inserting the spindle into the hub, make sure to insert it exactly straight and centered. If done correctly the spindle should slide right in. If not it will feel impossible to push through. I made the mistake of inserting it at a slightly off-set angle and had the time of my life getting that sucker back out.
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When attaching the spindles to the upper and lower control arms I made two mistakes. The first was having no idea what "spacer" the manual was referring to for installing the lower castle nut. Turns out this particular spacer isn't a cut steel tube like the other spacers, but rather a thicker countersunk washer shaped spacer. I looked through my inventory trying to find the spacer before asking the forum what it was. Here it is:
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The second was attaching the spindles to the incorrect sides of the car. I even read about this before from other build threads but somehow forgot about it when working on my own. For the roadster, the "right" spindle marked with an "R" goes on the LEFT and the "left" spindle marked with an "L" goes on the RIGHT. One way to tell if you have it installed correctly is by seeing of the arm of of the spindle points forwards or backwards. If it points forwards then you got it reversed. Here's an example: The first picture shows the wrong configuration; the second picture shows the correct configuration.
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Next we get to the brakes. I opted for the Wilwood big brake kit. The instructions were simple and easy to follow. Nothing really stood out to me during the installation process. I've yet to seal the brake-line fitting with pipe-thread tape. I'll need to remember to do that. Either that or I'll find out when it starts leaking when I test my brakes. Here's what it looks like:
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Each brake caliper uses 2 pins to hold the brake pads in place. I thought removing the pads would simply be a matter of removing the pin, but when I tried it the pads couldn't actually slide out from the opening at the top of the caliper. Do I understand this correctly? In order to change my pads I have to remove the brake caliper from the spindle?
Now the only things missing from my front suspension setup are the tie rods and coil-over springs. I emailed factory five about the springs and apparently they never knew it was backordered for me. I'm glad I reached out to them, or else I wouldn't get the springs until much later!
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This IRS doesn't take money, but it does take time.
My IRS components emerged from backorder limbo and now’s the time to get started on the rear end! This one took quite some time with several caveats here and there, most of them avoidable given prior experience. After reading other build threads’ IRS install section, I had a pretty good idea on what to do. Make a threaded rod spreader. Grease up the pivot sleeves. Use ratcheting straps. Etc.
I under-estimated just how hard it was to chase the two holes on the differential mounting arms. I chased the holes in the aluminum control arms with ease, but the steel differential housing is a completely different story. I did not have a drill press big enough to hold the diff, so that’s a no go. My power drills were all too slow (according to my friend who helped me out). The hole that needs to be chased has a slit that catches the drill bit extremely easily and every time it happens it twists my arm in a painful circle. That wasn’t fun.
What ended up working was to incrementally chase the hole using smaller to bigger drill bits. I also used a stepped drill bit to drill out a guide for the longer drill bit to sit. Final piece of the puzzle was to use cutting fluid. I tried WD40 and that didn’t actually help much. My friend’s cutting fluid made a world of difference.
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Next was the diff. I followed the “ratcheting tie-down straps” approach where I slowly maneuvered the diff into place. Slow and steady and 2 mistakes:
The first is not checking the strength rating of the straps. The straps I bought from home depot turned out to be pretty weak and one strap actually broke half way through. I had to switch it out with another one to avoid potential injury. I should have bought heavy duty straps instead.
The second mistake was installing my IRS lower control arms before installing the diff. I asked a buddy to come help with the diff install. While waiting for him to arrive I got impatient and decided to install the driver side LCA. Boy did that sucker get in the way when installing the diff! The tie-down straps got caught on the arms a few times. The LCA also took up valuable space when there already wasn’t much space underneath the rear of the car. If I could do it again I would wait for the diff to be installed before installing the rear suspension components.
Unfortunately I don’t have pictures for the install. Was too busy installing and forgot to take progress pictures.
The rest of the IRS components went in without too much sweat. The key here was to spread each mounting point on the frame before installing the arms. You’ll need to torque the mounting points back down anyway, so spreading it apart won’t change how it sits in the end. The CV axles went into the diff with a few smacks from a dead-blow hammer, no biggie.
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Last thing to note here is that while I torqued the control arm to frame mounting bolts to spec, I did not apply Loctite. This is because I plan to install sway bars later on during the build, and the sway bars make use of the control arm mounting bolts. Once I receive the sway bar mounts and install them, I can torque it down again with Loctite.
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Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
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Engine / Power Harness Pt. 1
One thought constantly at the back of my head is how little space I have in my garage. With effectively what is a one-car-garage with a big shed in the backyard, the space is very limited. Currently to fit everything in I stick the engine under the rear-frame where the fuel tank's supposed to be. I did this by raising the chassis high off the ground so the space under the rear will be enough for the engine to slide in. This is not ideal.
2 months ago I created this post asking about recommended steps to finish before putting in the engine. For the past few weeks I've been prioritizing items on that list; fuel lines, chassis harness, footbox aluminum... and the latest update: Coyote Harness.
Since Paul (@edwardb)'s build thread, FFR has released a gen3 coyote install manual. Reading through the manual however, I found a few items I wasn't very satisfied with. First was routing the send/return fuel lines through the transmission tunnel using soft fuel lines; a big no-no for me. Second of mounting the fusebox on top of the passenger foot box aluminum, cramming the engine harness tightly into the corner and making it rather awkward to install a master cut-off switch. I've decided to go with the layout used by both @edwardb and @JohnK. It just makes more sense to me.
One of the many neat add-ons I copied from other build threads is the center-console cut-off switch. @edwardb's fusebox / harness routing makes this easy to route. The advantage here is the switch cuts off everything except the memory power to the ECU. I threaded the switch through a small hole in the firewall. It doesn't look very good right now but I'm sure I'll figure something out once I get started on carpeting the cockpit.
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Next was the ECU holder; but before we jump into that, there's another issue I'd like to address: I didn't order the FFR Coyote Install Kit.
While I was reading the FFR provided Gen3 Coyote Install Manual I noticed many components I didn't remember ever seeing in my inventory of parts. In the beginning I thought I had to make the ECU bracket and such, but as I read on I came across components that I just didn't have. Some of these components I could buy from shops such as summit racing (air filter, etc), but others I'd have a hard time obtaining (90 degree bent intake tube, engine mount spacers, etc). Turns out I didn't have the "Coyote Install Kit (FFR Part# 16863)". This kit is not included with the complete kit nor was it included with the Gen3 Coyote Engine + Trans package. After realizing this I researched about this kit, and found this post where @edwardb recommended getting it. I'm currently in the process of placing an order with FFR for this "Coyote Install Kit".
Without the "Coyote Install Kit", I had to fab some components. I didn't mind of course! It was actually quite fun! I had some spare aluminum sheets left over from unused chassis aluminum, so I made a ECU mount. Turned out pretty good!
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I made a bracket for the mega-fuse out of a 1" steel strip I had lying around:
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Engine / Power Harness Pt. 2
... and the rest will look really familiar to those who've been following @edwardb and/or @JohnK's build threads:
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Here you can see that I've grossly over-estimated the length of the required wire. I think I'll redo one of the ends just to make it shorter and more pleasing to the eye. Unlike what @edwardb and/or @JohnK did, though, I decided to route the starter wires through the separate harness branch off of the coyote harness. The ECU is quite close to the starter, and the wire is more than long enough to reach comfortably with some room for routing. At the bottom left of the first picture you can see the Breeze Battery Relocator. It's an excellent addition to the build. High quality, great craftsmanship, would recommend!
With the engine harness routed I am ever closer to reaching the point where I can drop in the engine. As explained in an earlier post, I've opted to switch out my FFR provided fuel lines with stainless steel 3/8th lines with -06AN fittings on all interfaces for easy of service. My brake-line parts are on its way from Summit Racing and I should be able to finish that by next week. I've once again borrowed JohnK's line tools so I'm all prep'ed and ready! I've also not completed my driver-side footbox yet. The "Coyote Install Kit" won't come for a while, but seeing other build threads I probably won't want to use the FFR provided pedal mount anyway. I've yet to take enough notes on pedal mounting to make an informed decision on this matter. Regardless, it does not look too difficult.
Other decisions keeping me up at night are:
- Should I finish all chassis / dash wiring before dropping in the engine?
- Should I spray paint the engine compartment facing chassis aluminum? I really want to, but I also lack the equipment to do so properly... (whatever proper means. I've historically been pretty bad a paint work.)
- Should I go with FFR's provided e-brake kit, or should I go with an aftermarket option line E-STOPP electronic parking brake as seen on @JohnK's build? If I do go with FFR e-brake, I'll need to do that before dropping in the engine as well.
If y'all have any suggestions / points of discussion on any of these, please do chime in!
My original goal was to have the engine dropped in before Christmas and have engine first-start on New Year's Day. To be frank I don't think I'll make those deadlines. I'm not worried. I'd rather take my time to enjoy this building process, instead of rushing through haphazardly. I AM itching to hear the engine crank for the first time though! Sometimes I find myself at the middle of the night browsing through people's first start and go-kart videos on youtube. We'll get there soon!
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Stainless Steel Fuel Lines
Out with the Ni-Cop and In with the Stainless Steel! As previously discussed, I've switched over to 3/8th stainless steel fuel lines. It was a lot easier than imagined because I already had previous lines to use as a template. The new lines have an added bonus of being one-piece, so no unions / extra fittings! Less points of failure.
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I used 3/8th to -06AN compression fittings by Summit Racing to terminate the tubes:
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Fuel Lines to Fuel Pressure Regulator
Connected the engine side fuel line terminals with the fuel pressure regulator:
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I've not connected the lines at the rear of the car yet because I haven't decided on a place for the fuel filter. Due to the limited space I have in my garage, I also can't install the fuel tank without finding another spot to put my engine. With that said, can I test fuel pressure without installing the pump/hanger into the fuel tank? E.g. can I put it in a bucket of water and pump that instead?
