FDEEZ's Build Thread

Talk about your Rotaries!
lOOkatme
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Postby lOOkatme » Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:14

FDEEZ wrote:It's actually American made. Jeff Kiesel from 7parts engineered this for his track car.

Here's how the finished product will look like. As you can see, Pettit rear flares compliment this front end well.

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Once I get it installed, getting help picking out wheels would be much appreciated. I would love to run a squared 17x12 setup if I have the real-estate to support it. However, most folks with this bumper run 17x11 up front. I'll just have to take some measurements once installed. But with 2 inches of additional space on each side, 12 inch wide wheels in the front appear possible (especially if you can fit 18x10 wheels on stock fenders). I'm just concerned about clearing my control arms.

As far as mods to fit 315 tires, I'm already trying to figure out if I'm going to keep, relocate, or eliminate the coolant overflow tank, windshield washer tank, factory fender liner, and the chassis harness. Plenty of work ahead.


I have 18x11.5 +42MM offset (+41MM effective) right now on rolled stock fenders (285/30/18, 11" tread width).

I know the exact amount you can go into the wheel well with an aftermarket coilover (the limiting factor is hitting the spring). All we need to do is figure out how far out the fender flare goes and what offsets people are running. Then I can calculate everything out.

FDEEZ
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Postby FDEEZ » Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:14

Wow, I didn't know you switched to 18x11.5 fronts. That must look killer.

With my bumper, it looks like a lot of folks are running 18x11 +38.1 with 315 tires at the front for a competitive track setup. This car has an earlier version of my bumper and is running a squared 18x12 setup with 335 tires at the front. Not sure I want to jump to 335's, but I'll play it by ear.

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Shadowden
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Postby Shadowden » Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:14

FDEEZ wrote:Wow, I didn't know you switched to 18x11.5 fronts. That must look killer.

With my bumper, it looks like a lot of folks are running 18x11 +38.1 with 315 tires at the front for a competitive track setup. This car has an earlier version of my bumper and is running a squared 18x12 setup with 335 tires at the front. Not sure I want to jump to 335's, but I'll play it by ear.

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There are some interesting things on that car. Why is the splitter spaced down away from the bottom edge of the bumper? What's the deal with the flange on the exhaust pipe sticking out the back so far for?

FDEEZ
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Postby FDEEZ » Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:14

Full details here:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuthBb_t4wk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuthBb_t4wk[/ame]


I'm most likely going to duplicate 99% of everything done to that car except:

- Full roll cage...mine will probably be a 4-point "street bar" configuration
- Wing
- Lexan front window
- Fiberglass doors

Other than those, everything else on that car is on my wishlist. One of the things I like about that car is the Honda S2000 ABS setup. I was considering switching to a BMW M3 ABS setup...but the S2000 seems more within my budget.

lOOkatme
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Postby lOOkatme » Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:14

FDEEZ wrote:Wow, I didn't know you switched to 18x11.5 fronts. That must look killer.

With my bumper, it looks like a lot of folks are running 18x11 +38.1 with 315 tires at the front for a competitive track setup. This car has an earlier version of my bumper and is running a squared 18x12 setup with 335 tires at the front. Not sure I want to jump to 335's, but I'll play it by ear.



What make and model of tire? and how close is it to the fender? camber?

If I were you, run a wider wheel than tread width, makes all the difference. Weldcraft wheels in MI widens wheels, and they do a damn good job. easily get what you want on this car.
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FDEEZ
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Postby FDEEZ » Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:14

I'm not sure on camber, but it's got Hoosier slicks. It'll probably be by December or January that I'll have the bumper installed. So I've got plenty of time to do some research on a wheel/tire combo.

Nice setup you have! I wouldn't have thought those wheels were possible.

FDEEZ
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Postby FDEEZ » Sat Nov 22, 2014 9:14

Haven't worked on the car...too many other projects. I have, however, continued my hoarding of more car-related toys on my spare time.

My JET combination belt/disc sander just arrived. Went with a 6"x48"/12" Disc sander setup.

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While shopping at REI this morning, I grabbed a GOPRO Hero 4 Black. I don't need anymore camcorders (especially GOPROs)...but REI was giving away 1 free accessory with the purchase of a GOPRO. So since I picked the LCD Touch BacPac, I basically got $80 off of the purchase price. I'm not sure how long this deal will last...but fyi if you're in the market for a GOPRO. REI does NOT advertise this deal...you just have to know about it.

It would've been nice to get UltraHD at 60 fps in a small compact package, but this will do for now.

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speedjunkie
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Postby speedjunkie » Sun Nov 23, 2014 9:14

Damn, wish I was home lol.

There is another camera that's set up to be a full time dashcam, but I can't remember the name right now. I saw the ad in a car magazine. I was thinking about getting one to use in the cars to record during normal driving for CYA reasons. Just in case. Actually, "just in case" doens't really apply to C Springs. It's more "when" than "if" lol.
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FDEEZ
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Postby FDEEZ » Sun Nov 23, 2014 9:14

Hey Eric...hope your deployment is going well, and that you're staying safe & well.

The market for sports/action cameras has literally exploded in the last few years. There's quite a bit of options when trying to get that perfect POV or wide-angle video shot. When adding data overlay to your video, the availability of options is short and can be very expensive for dedicated systems. The best value, in my opinion, is to just use a quality smartphone for its video...and use the phone's existing capabilities for data acquisition. You're limited to the phone's GPS sensitivity...but you can always add a better external GPS antenna for more accurate readings. Then you can tie it all together using an app like Harry's lap timer or Racechrono for overlaying metadata on video. The benefit of this option is low cost & and you can always daisy-chain multiple smartphones together for different video angles like Saul_Good. The downside is capturing quality sound.

The option that I prefer is to use dedicated camcorders for the best video/sound capture, a standalone data acquisition device, and then tie it all together using Race Render. Using GOPRO's alone would work well for video capture...but you may need a portable digital recorder for quality sound capture (and a nice audio capture setup can cost thousands). The benefit of a simple setup like mine is that you still have quality standalone camcorders to tinker with when not used specifically for driving.

Personally, I don't think it's worth getting a 4K GOPRO at this point in time. Most folks cannot view 4K...and 4K downscaled to 1080 looks like crap. Not to mention it only captures 4K at 30 fps. For the car, I'm not even going to use 4K...but use 2K at 60 fps. So if someone were to go with a setup like mine, I would recommend focusing on getting a quality, lightweight camcorder that can capture at 1080/60 (Progressive) and has a nice 5.1 surround sound mic for in-car video...and use a GOPRO 2 or 3 for outside video capture. Just my 2 cents.

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speedjunkie
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Postby speedjunkie » Sun Nov 23, 2014 9:14

Yes, things are going really well over here. Time is flying by so far.

Eh, I have a GoPro Hero 2 I think, or maybe it's the first version. I don't remember for sure but I don't really use it that much as it is. I'm not really shopping for anything at the moment, other than a new ECU again, but I'll put that in my thread haha.
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speedjunkie
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Postby speedjunkie » Fri Dec 19, 2014 9:14

I've been shopping around for wheel bearing/hub assemblies and found that same Timken hub assembly for $65 on RockAuto, and it's $124 on AutoZone. Did the one from AZ come with both hubs or just one?
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FDEEZ
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Postby FDEEZ » Fri Dec 19, 2014 9:14

It's good you're shopping around. I paid about $130/each from AZ. Don't forget to grab a new hub cap & nut from Mazda...but you can reuse the old parts if you want.

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speedjunkie
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Postby speedjunkie » Sat Dec 20, 2014 9:14

Yeah I saved links for those as well. Might as well. I'm thinking about swapping the wheel bearings in the rear and maybe putting longer studs in all the hubs while I'm at it. I don't really need longer studs at this point, but it's nice to be able to expand without too much trouble also.
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FDEEZ
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Postby FDEEZ » Sun Mar 15, 2015 9:14

I just got a new job...so haven't had much time to work on the car during winter. Although I only have a few minor changes to the car...this will probably be a long update since I haven't posted in a while.

In preparation for the Halloween open lapping at PMP, I did a few things to the car:

1. Put my Kirkey aluminum seat back in:
Image
I didn't like the harness bar or the racing harness...so I removed them.

2. I removed my glass moonroof:
Image

...and threw in a lighter metal sunroof:
Image

3. Removed my rear wiper:
Image

...and put a temp plug in its place.
Image

4. Finally...threw in some 20W50 oil (poured like cold maple syrup).
Image

The car did o.k. during the warm-up laps on Halloween at PMP: https://youtu.be/vxzYz01sGyI

But because the car didn't "feel" right, I decided to skip doing a hot lap, and head home.

This is the carnage I saw when I got home (all caused by the U-haul trailer). Besides an intake coupler being completely separated from the throttle-body, this is how my intake looked like:
Image

The intake is supposed to be 4 inches:
Image

...but looked like this instead:
Image

So I gathered parts to make another one:
Image

It came out looking like this:
Image

Welding that tab/bracket pissed me off...which is why I don't want to show the welds. Since I had a tough time getting that weld perfect, you could say it triggered a welding obsession in me.

I'm probably in some sort of welding phase right now...and have been trying new things to improve this skill. The first was to get comfortable welding. I didn't like my current setup...so I went ahead and ordered a few things, and this came in:
Image

Like I said, I'm in some sort of welding phase right now...and that includes both tig & mig. So the bulk of that package was a cheapo mig welder:
Image

The other stuff that came in were things to modify my current tig setup.
Image

The torch in the middle is HEAVY! I consider myself a strong dude, but trying to maneuver that torch & its associated cabling is pain. So I snagged a traditional series 17 torch (on the left) & a tiny series 9 torch (on the right)...with some superflex cables. You can immediately see how much smaller the new 17 torch on the left (with stubby gas lens) is from the 17 torch that came with my welder. The weight difference is an absolute night/day difference...I should've done this year's ago.

To get the superflex cable installed, I had to take apart my welder:
Image

Here's the old bulky cable:
Image

...and here's the new one installed:
Image

While I had everything apart, I went ahead and upgraded to a dual flow meter for back purging:
Image

Finally, I changed out all my tungsten for some 2% lanthanated tungstens. I'm not trying to pass any welding certifications, but it's nice learning a new skill. Whatever spare time I have left is spent on learning about metals & their properties...and the right filler rods/techniques to weld them. Pretty boring stuff...but I seem to be consumed with it all for some reason. Hopefully I'll get to actually start working on the car again when I'm done with this phase.

The car feels great btw. Since it was warm this weekend, I took her out a few times...and it definitely feels more powerful than when at PMP on Halloween. Not sure if more power is a good thing...but it's there :)

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Shadowden
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Postby Shadowden » Mon Mar 16, 2015 9:14

FDEEZ wrote:I just got a new job...so haven't had much time to work on the car during winter. Although I only have a few minor changes to the car...this will probably be a long update since I haven't posted in a while.

In preparation for the Halloween open lapping at PMP, I did a few things to the car:

1. Put my Kirkey aluminum seat back in:
Image
I didn't like the harness bar or the racing harness...so I removed them.

2. I removed my glass moonroof:
Image

...and threw in a lighter metal sunroof:
Image

3. Removed my rear wiper:
Image

...and put a temp plug in its place.
Image

4. Finally...threw in some 20W50 oil (poured like cold maple syrup).
Image

The car did o.k. during the warm-up laps on Halloween at PMP: https://youtu.be/vxzYz01sGyI

But because the car didn't "feel" right, I decided to skip doing a hot lap, and head home.

This is the carnage I saw when I got home (all caused by the U-haul trailer). Besides an intake coupler being completely separated from the throttle-body, this is how my intake looked like:
Image

The intake is supposed to be 4 inches:
Image

...but looked like this instead:
Image

So I gathered parts to make another one:
Image

It came out looking like this:
Image

Welding that tab/bracket pissed me off...which is why I don't want to show the welds. Since I had a tough time getting that weld perfect, you could say it triggered a welding obsession in me.

I'm probably in some sort of welding phase right now...and have been trying new things to improve this skill. The first was to get comfortable welding. I didn't like my current setup...so I went ahead and ordered a few things, and this came in:
Image

Like I said, I'm in some sort of welding phase right now...and that includes both tig & mig. So the bulk of that package was a cheapo mig welder:
Image

The other stuff that came in were things to modify my current tig setup.
Image

The torch in the middle is HEAVY! I consider myself a strong dude, but trying to maneuver that torch & its associated cabling is pain. So I snagged a traditional series 17 torch (on the left) & a tiny series 9 torch (on the right)...with some superflex cables. You can immediately see how much smaller the new 17 torch on the left (with stubby gas lens) is from the 17 torch that came with my welder. The weight difference is an absolute night/day difference...I should've done this year's ago.

To get the superflex cable installed, I had to take apart my welder:
Image

Here's the old bulky cable:
Image

...and here's the new one installed:
Image

While I had everything apart, I went ahead and upgraded to a dual flow meter for back purging:
Image

Finally, I changed out all my tungsten for some 2% lanthanated tungstens. I'm not trying to pass any welding certifications, but it's nice learning a new skill. Whatever spare time I have left is spent on learning about metals & their properties...and the right filler rods/techniques to weld them. Pretty boring stuff...but I seem to be consumed with it all for some reason. Hopefully I'll get to actually start working on the car again when I'm done with this phase.

The car feels great btw. Since it was warm this weekend, I took her out a few times...and it definitely feels more powerful than when at PMP on Halloween. Not sure if more power is a good thing...but it's there :)


Does your new job involve welding or are you doing it as a hobby? I have gathered that lanthanated tungsten can be used more universally/easily. Kind of jealous you get to TIG a lot. I spent an hour playing with one and liked it, but not nearly enough time to get good at it. If I read closer, I would have noticed I am not seeing the pictures, so will check it all out later.


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