When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Hey guys just a few more updates and pictures of the rebuild.
The car finally left AC Automotive last week after close to a month in the body shop. The frame has been pulled straight, chopped in the front, and the new front section was welded in and painted. The front cradle was damaged in the impact and thusly replaced. Somehow the control arms stayed straight and bolted back up to the new cradle without issue. That was nice since I didn't feel like taking the sphericals out and putting them in another set of control arms. Front bumper was replaced new from a GM dealer. Helpful tip - good luck finding a decent front bumper shipped to you for any less than $600. This brand new bumper from the dealer cost $380 and no shipping charge. Obviously not painted, but I'm going to the Plastidip the whole car so I wasn't concerned about it being unpainted.
Left fender also came new from the dealer, right fender came from Mark Nunally's stock pile of parts, as did the rear bumper, front cradle, and wide rear fenders. The body shop didn't install them but I have a lot to do on the rear of the car with fabbing new carbon wing supports, so I'll paint the rear fenders and install them at that time.
Car is just a little dusty after sitting in a body shop for a month! AJ Hartman hood is in place but Aerolatches are not yet installed. Fitment is a little wonky in this pic since the shop didn't spend a ton of time aligning the front fascia since it will be coming on and off a whole bunch in the next few weeks. Plus the hood pins will lift the hood up to line up better.
So that's where she stands for now. Car is back at Autosport Fab in Plainville CT waiting some more race car stuff. Steering rack and pump are coming off and getting send to Turn One for rebuild. We're adding a Fast 102 intake, LS2 Throttle body, and flipping the intake manifold around to run the air intake into the cabin. We've got a new racing radiator that will be leaned forward and ducted out the AJ hood. Those are the two fab projects that need to be completed at Autosport. Then the engine goes back in, I take the car back to redo the front and rear aero and paint, back to Autosport for corner balance and alignment, then to a secret shop for dyno tuning. April 11th should be it's maiden voyage at NJMP. Sounds like a long ways a way but as history as shown I'll probably pick the car up from the tuner April 10th on the way down to the first track day. Fingers crossed that it goes a little smoother than that this time around.
Last edited by Mark@AMT Motorsport; 12-17-2016 at 01:43 PM.
HA! Not Julio at Cartek if that's what you're thinking!
And believe me, I'd love to have my car a month in advance before a shake down day. Hasn't happened yet.
How's yours coming along?
Mines still sitting in a friends parking lot waiting to get on his frame machine. I'm not worried.....we'll have it ready. I'd just like to get it back so I can work on some other winter projects!
Been awhile folks. Actually picked the car up yesterday from the race shop. The amount of work I still have to accomplish is a little daunting. Here are the updates:
Pete at Autosport got to work fabbing a front cradle to hold the radiator in place. Here you can see how it's supposed to look through the hood. The first iteration of the radiator mount was a little archaic.
Once the placement of the radiator was set, Pete set about fabbing up an actual mount for the radiator. You don't want the radiator actually mounted solid to anything, so in this design it's sort of "clamped" in place with rubber pads top and bottom. The bottom of the radiator cradle has some extra tabs so I can mount my radiator ducting to it. We used a Griffin racing radiator. Oil cooler was mounted in front of the rad, and a single Spal fan and the power steering cooler was added behind the rad. Power steering had a full service and upgrade from Turn One.
Other order of business was installing the reversed Fast 102 intake and moving the air filter into the cabin. This was a real time suck. The Fast Intake was too tall with my stock-height AMT Motorsport engine mounts, so Pete took them to his lathe and chopped a 1/4 inch off to lower the motor and create clearance. Then he had to chop out a portion of the firewall to have room for the intake piping. He fabbed up a box to hold the big *** air filter, and chopped a hole in the cowl to suck in the air to feed the motor. Stock MAF is in place, and air box lid comes off with 4 screws for easy-ish-but-not-really filter service.
While he was doing the radiator and intake he cleaned up a bunch of wiring and moved the ECU to the cabin. Again, an expensive time sucking endeavor with no performance gain, but who wants a bunch of messy wires hanging around in the engine bay, especially now that there will be virtually no air entering in the engine compartment.
Sent some pictures of the damaged wing to Kognition who suggested the wing not be re-used. More lovely news. So we ponied up for an AJ Hartman swan neck. Wing should be arriving next week. I'll be making custom aluminum uprights for the wing this coming week.
AJ Hartman hood was installed with Aerolatch endurance hood pins. Hood needs to be lined up properly but the fit and finish are lovely, and it should really suck some air out and add lot of front downforce when properly ducted.
Sooooo that's mostly it for now. Car is going to the tuner on March 18th. Before then I really should have the rear wing mounts fabbed and installed with wing, front splitter rebuilt, front radiator ducting fabbed and mounted, radiator exhaust fabbed and mounted, rear wide fenders mounted, and all the little body panel seams fitted up as best as I can. Doesn't sound like too much work, but doing all that in a free hour or two a day during the work week is gonna make it come right down to the wire. After tuning it's back to Pete for final balance and alignment, and then I'm Plastdipping the car Carbon Red. I gotta feeling that's not going to be done before it's first shakedown run at NJMP April 10th and 11th. Fingers crossed.
Last edited by Mark@AMT Motorsport; 03-03-2017 at 04:36 PM.
Great work and glad to see it coming along. Hoping it is all buttoned up by 4/10. Hood is a work of art.
I am definitely interested in how the fabrication works out on the aluminum uprights for the wing from Hartman. I need them for my C6 Z06!!! (plus camber kit!!)
Yeah Mark....I agree...that cowl trick is INGENIOUS! How did you ever think of that
Ha. Everyone I spoke to said the cowel is really the only proper way to do it, yes including you Doug. We tried to come up with other ideas but in the end the cowel is by far the most effective.
Great looking build, interested in any patterns you may have for your old wing mounts. Or your old mounts if you want to sell them.
Do you need uprights for a Kognition wing Jered? I have CAD files for the uprights as well as extended supports to move the wing back further and higher. My supports are bent so they're useless to you, but if you need some made I'd be happy to send you a quote.
Didn't get as much done as I wanted for the 2 weeks or so the car was at my shop. Had to bring it to the tuner on Friday and he'll have it all week. Getting an ST3, ST2, and full power tune. The cam in the car is very mild so it'll be interesting to see if the the Fast 102 intake bumps the power very much at all.
I put the stock plastic cowel back in place and just cut a hole in it for the intake. Need to try to keep the engine bay air from getting sucked into the intake and raising intake air temperatures. As you can see it mostly blocks it off so rather than making something custom, this will do a 95% good enough job without having to spend all the time on a 100% solution. I've got aluminum mesh to cover up the hole to keep stuff from entering the intake box. Unfortunately it will make it harder to stuff a pair of gloves down there when it comes time for compliance dyno testing (ZING!! for those who know what I'm talking about).
Chopped the underside of the stock bumper out to make way for the ACI splitter. Same splitter I had in the previous version, but this time I cut away a lot of the splitter in order to better facilitate making the box for the radiator. Also cut the front bumper open so I have a nice big opening for the radiator box. This whole bumper process went way smoother than the first time I tried it. Such is the benefit of experience.
I have the top and bottom of the radiator box bent and bolted in, but the sides were giving me hell all day Thursday and didn't get them done in time before I had to put it on the trailer and bring it to the tuner. I hate working with sheet metal. No pictures yet, but I got far enough that I know it will all go together and seal well enough. Car should definitely run cooler and create some serious downforce exiting all out the hood.
AJ Hartman swan neck wing arrived Friday. Thing is a work of a art. I played around with some swan neck mount designs this weekend and came up with a shape that will work and I don't think looks stupid. I'm going to do some fairly crazy CNC stuff on these parts since it's a pretty visual piece of the back of the car and it can showcase some of our abilities. It will be crazy expensive to duplicate, but I will be able to make much more economical versions going forward if anyone wants a swan neck mount for AJs wing but doesn't want to pay $1000 for his full carbon uprights. Already talked about this with AJ and I have his blessing. Will also be making some endplates for the wing of my own design with some CNC tricks as well.
As soon as car is done at tuner it's back to Autosport for a lexan windshield, final corner balance and alignment, and a couple reamaining odds and ends. I'll have about a week with it to finish aero and radiator duct. Car is definitely not going to be pretty for it's maiden voyage on April 10th and 11th at NJMP, but it will be 95% functional. Car won't be painted, probably won't have the wide rear fenders installed, and won't have the radiator exhaust ducted fully out the hood but everything else should be good to go.
11-11-2016, 05:25 AM
