Track Day 'Cuda

[CJD Automotive]

If you remember the rendering, I am popping out the fenders at the doors. This leaves the area in front of the door exposed to heat, water, wind noise and all kinds of things I don't want. I need to build a close out that mimics the fender profile and door gap. These kinda kicked my butt:













Didn't get any easier on the other side:








This one shows both wiper motors and covers installed. The hood covers the wipers and intercooler fill



Now I can start building the buck for the fenders...



Made a bracket to mount the ABS. Got it tucked up behind the subframe:












And with that I'm going to call it. Tired of doing this on the computer!

[camcojb]

VERY nice fab skills.

[fleetus macmullitz]

Thanks for taking the time to show us this great build.

[ScotI]

Incredible work. Designing the necessary items to work within the packaging constraints is cool to see & showing what you can regarding how you approach the 'build' portion of each is appreciated.

Very glad to see you're still chipping away @ this. I'll continue watching for future updates as well!

[WSSix]

I'm glad to see you're still working on this beast. Thanks for updating us on the progress!

[syborg tt]

Craig, Holy **** !!

Incredible work and I can't imagine the amount of time you have in the filler panels. I can't wait to see this car in person as it is going to be incredible.

[Aschle]

This thread sucks… I’ve spent my entire Friday night reading through it from the beginning. lol

Wow !!! Amazing work !!!

Jason

[preston]

Thanks for the update. So many "got carried away" projects on this site and the internet but this is probably the most over the top build I've ever seen and I've seen a lot. Glad its still in progress there was a point where I wondered if it had been abandoned.

and holy cow those Inconel wrapped exhaust items - probably cheaper to wrap them in $100 bills albeit quite a bit less effective !

[CJD Automotive]

I've been working on the front end buck for a while now. The rendering was super helpful in helping me layout what I want. With that said, the virtual world and reality sometimes just don't play nice.

The exhaust wasn't built when the render was done, and even if it was, not sure it would have made that much difference. The render also doesn't have the rocker box that encloses the exhaust. I need those parts "kinda" mocked up to see how they intersect with the fender. The lower louvers won't work as drawn, so I've been playing with different iterations to see what I like. I make something, then leave it a few days to take different looks and let my brain stew on it a bit. I'm more of a shape it, feel it, stand back and look at it kinda guy anyway.

So needed a break from that and wanted to complete a project on the car that could give me some instant satisfaction (well, not instant, but a few days completion).

I've ditched the Sutton disaster decoupled 3-link and went with a conventional 3-link. General consensus is to set the upper link 6-8 degrees down and forget it. I'd like a little more fine tune adjustment on it. Multiple hole brackets make pretty big jumps from one hole to the next, something like 3/4-1" depending on who's bracket you choose. I wanted a finer adjustment. I looked at what the drag racers do with the 4 link brackets, and discovered 1/8" adjustments are possible. I called a few of the places that make them, and found one willing to cut me out some blanks for a single attachment and also additional blanks so I could get the width for high misalignment spacers on the rod end. They did a model, looked good, and I got these pieces to weld up:





Welded them out and ready to attach.





The older I get, the uglier my welds are. Didn't feel like pulsing over the top to make them all pretty!

[CJD Automotive]

I am also installing adjustable sway bars, but first let me preface this.

I've had race cars, and swore that my next would be a street car. Combine that with the fact that when I'm at the track, I don't want to work on my car. I also don't want to drive a race car suspension to the track. Adjustable sway bars can solve that. More specifically, dual bar adjustments will solve that.

I looked all over the internet for a splined sway bar end with an adjustable blade. Saw CAD models, but not anything real and able to be bought. Tarett and Rennline make beautiful billet aluminum pieces for the Porsche platform, but nothing I could adapt. Believe me I tried!

With no other option, I bought the barrels that are supposed to be welded directly to the sway bar, as well as the blades (spec'd to my car) and started cutting stuff up.

I cut off the spline end after making the barrel at the angle I needed:



I then used 1/4" steel to build the front, back, and sides. I put a big bevel on the arm side that took a root and 2 cover passes. I beveled the barrel side and welded all front and back:




Once everything was welded up (took forever so as not to distort the barrel), I started grinding and filing. Here's a few pics almost done, had to weld up a few pockets that bugged me. The radius is all weld!





Installed them to double check tire clearance and verify I got the angle right:





I have lever/cable actuators to adjust each blade individually.



I can also connect the bell cranks on the blades to feedback linear actuators. I can move them with an H bridge driver. I could then run trim pots on the wheel and adjust the sway bar and receive position on my dash. Probably won't go that way, but is an option.