Another RSR build - The begining

[wax105]

Family is good man thanks!

With the 3.6 I had to make the rear shelf a little higher to clearance the intake, it ends up being a couple inches more and enought to clear. Version 1.1 of the motor will delete the original intake setup and free up some room...

'How did the rear torsion tube/chassis wall reinforcement plates turn out?'

Easy, they didnt! I decided it could wait till the winter... I really want to get this rolling and stuff just keeps getting added on!

A little more work last night...

[SkiDan]

Carl -

Terrific thread. Thanks for sharing.

Dan

[KTL]

Ah yes I forgot about the bump in the deck needed for the taller 3.6. Funny thing about that, I don't recall having to do that when we put a 3.6 in a friend's '88 back in '05. Weird....

Kinda figured you put the reinforcing plates on the shelf since I didn't see them installed in some of the other pictures! No big deal. Plenty of cars have run without them for years. But they are worthwhile. A friend's chassis showed some cracking beneath the t-bar housing in that location recently. But his car has been a racecar forever and it seemingly took about 6 years for the loading to take it's toll after he switched to coilovers. I can see the lower spacer/boss on my car has a hefty weld bead built up around it to spread the load out a little bit and it shows some signs of displacement at the base of the weld on the tub. So maybe in the interim it's not a bad idea to at least beef up that one spot?

Pretty brakes! Is that a Wilwood GT 12.2 in. or the bigger 12.75? Do share some pics of the hat and fastening hardware when convenient. I know we talked about some floating hardware and i'm interested how it turned out. Mine are non-floater HD rotors right now. I'm wondering if it's any benefit to have floaters on my car. Probably only works if the calipers are precisely centered over the rotor? Not sure mine are spot-on, as I had to shim them with washers to get the caliper centered via the eyeball method.

[wax105]

Thanks Dan

Kevin, you would be suprised how precise the old eyeball method really is...

These hats are only floating in expansion, the holes in the hats are slotted to allow swelling of the disc. The two part assembly will aid with minmizing heat transfer to the hub. Not a must but nice to have...





You are right, the rotors are Wilwood GT 12.2, I might swap for the 12.75 when its time to replace if I feel the need to. I'm trying to keep unsprung weight to a minimum.

As for the torsion tube, I'm not to worried about it. The inboard piece is so tight in the tube that there is very little stress on the mounting bolts. After several years of fatigue maybe, I'm betting it will all get taken out before it starts cracking.

[wax105]

Well it's official, this is no longer a wannabe 74' RSR but a wannabe RSR GT2 EVO2!

I'm happy to introduce the new beast to my friends here...









Sorry for the quality, late night Iphone pics

Proper wheel halves will be here on Wednesday for my E28s. Just a couple more bumper brackets to go and lexan windows to finish then its clean and put all the missing bits back in. I'm so close I can smell it!!

[KTL]

NICE.

Better aero in many ways. Most notably the front bumper has a much better built-in spoiler/splitter than does the old IROC/RSR nose. Side skirts and rear flares are much smoother and deeper too. Should turn out to be a killer upgrade!

Dang, did somebody unload a complete aborted project on you? I see you got the nice framed doors and a curved rear wing w/tail as well. Nice score!!

I would like to put a 993 widebody nose on my car. However I ran across some fiberglass slantnose fenders for a song, so i'll use those and some other bits to clean up the front aero of my car.

[wax105]

Hey Kevin,
I still don't believe the deal I got on this COMPLETE kit... I wont tell you guys what I paid cause you will hate me for it! Lets put it this way, really really cheap! Came from a restoration shop in the States that removed it from a customers car, never raced or driven, just fitted.
I know the aero advantages themselves are worth the investement and this is really what I was going for.

74'RSR rear flares anyone??

[Tareq993]

Hi r the RSR flares still for sale?

Thanks

[wax105]

I'm still around, life got in the way!

I pushed hard last September to try and get to the last event of the season but fell short on time. Did NOTHING over the winter but spring has sprung and I have more time now. Getting this done in the next few weeks with an objective of shakedown in the first week of May. The first event at Tremblant is May 27-28

This was the car late last year, needed brake lines, shifter linkage, clutch slave and some fit and finish. Engine and systems are running at this point.





I'll have some more shoots for you guys soon but just wanted to share in the success of the hydraulic clutch conversion. It's not perfect but works really well, just need to make a skidplate to help protect it against curbs! ;0)







Initially made the bracket perpendicular to the slave but noticed to much flex in the backet. Then made another horizontal version and that also flexed too much. In the end I used both and it works perfectly, obviously I replaced the bolts with longer studs. Was just testing at this point...

I didn't want to over engineer this as I've alreaday started assembeling the parts needed for next winter, turbo conversion. So a G50 is in my very near future!!

[KTL]

Looking good Carl. I see you got the breather hose in blue that runs upstairs to the attic and back down again, to the top of the head on your little passenger.

Nice job on the hydraulic slave install. Do share some more pics when you get a chance. And I have first rights to the clutch actuation setup that you'll have all the bugs worked out of just in time to yank the 915 and install the G50 box.

Good job on the header wrap too. Nice & tight. Just be sure to keep that stuff dry. When it gets wet it accelerates rust like crazy. I'm sure those OBX headers don't need ANY help with rust progression!!!

That car is going to be one bad mofo when you're done. Looking forward to seeing it go.

[Cory M]

love the new bodywork, but I'm a little biased

[wax105]

I've been too busy to give you guys the play by play but things are coming along nicely! The list is getting smaller but still quite a few little thing to button up before I get out... Hopefully in the next couple weeks if I'm lucky and don't sleep much!

I drove the car out of the garage late last month, what an event that was for me. Didn't even have brakes yet but I wanted to try my resurrected Fabcar shifter. All I had was this:



A couple rod ends, a U joint, some steel and a few hours later I had this:






I don't have a picture of the final assembly but if anyone needs I'll get one from in the car... What a shifter!!! So tight and direct, love it!

Fast forward a little and here I was last night wipping down my precious that just came back from the body shop. Man how I hate body shop dust and fume!!





But the result is always nice, you guys like the paint?!?



I'll get the bumpers, hood and tail back tomorrow. Can't wait!

Let me get some sleep if I ever want to really finish version 1.0
Car looks to good now to stay N/A for very long...

[KTL]

Dayum.......... Looking like an actual car now. I like the paint job.

Remind me again where you got the front rotor hats? I think i'd like to get a set of floaters/expanders like yours. My Wilwood front rotors make a LOT of plinking sounds (the metal contracting while cooling) when I park it after being on the track.

Nice fab work, as always, on the shifter. Make sure to reinforce the left side where it typically cracks.

Fabcar Shifter - experiences wanted

[wax105]

To those that have been watching this thread from the beginning, I am proud to say we officially have a race car!!



Last weekend was its first track shakedown and race. In a perfect world, I would have tested first but time constraint being what they are that wasn’t possible… This was the Tremblant Summer Festival, the second of a three race championship held at the mythic Le Circuit. I had missed the Spring Classic and wasn’t about to miss this one. A three day event with an official test day on the Thursday. I arrived “readyish” on Thursday morning with the alignment and setup spot on but some electrical odds and ends to sort out. Come hell or high water I was gonna drive this thing!



I got everything buttoned up at around 3:00; I had a small oil leak that had been plaguing me as I couldn’t identify the exact source. I decided to go out anyways to see if the chassis checked out. After three laps I came in as the oil dropping on the header was smoking way too much. As I got back to our pits and stopped the car, the oil doused header wrap flamed up! I had buddies all around with extinguishers in hand and the first one to pull the trigger unknowingly had an ABC unit. For those that don’t know, that’s the horrible yellow powder stuff that goes everywhere and sticks like a S.O.B! I wasn’t worried for the car as the flames where small but it was on fire just the same… That’s when she stopped being a jewel and became a real Racecar!

I had the biggest smile of satisfaction a guy could have as I came out of the car, even with the thing on fire. She was to die for, more grip then I could ever have hoped for.



I went out Saturday morning for quali but again only three lap before I had to come back in. I chased the oil leak and finally pinned it down late Saturday afternoon. That left me with race# 2 and 3 on Sunday to go and play a little. I had some shifter issue in final 2, only finishing with 2nd & 4th gear but managed to clock a 1:57, respectable for a first proper shakedown. Settled the shifter issue, good nut & bolt check, made a couple sway bar adjustments and went back out for final #3. Finished without any real problems and with only 10 laps under green broke 1:52 3 times. Just to put this in perspective, GT3 Cup Challenge was also there and the average race best lap time was 1:42. I am confident this car as it is right now, severally under powered, is good for a 1:47-1:48. Add 6-7psi of boost and we’ll be eating Cup Cars for breakfast!!! Forgot to mention my tires were 2 year old throw aways…



Won GTE class but obviously was in the wrong categorie as I didn’t get any fast laps in during qualifying. But Hey, winning is winning!

Now the fun part starts, developping this diamond in the rough.
She is SWEEEEEET!

[KTL]

Congrats on the maiden voyage Carl! That's awesome. Sorry to hear about the fire and glad it was dealt with quickly, albeit with the dreaded ABC extinguisher.

Good to hear it drove w/out much evil its first time out. That's pretty good, considering you were starting from a nothing-but-bare chassisisisisis. Sounds like there's a lot more speed in you & the car.

Where did you finally trace the leak? Leaving a pee spot on the track is never appreciated but you can temporarily live with it if it's not on the exhaust. Sounds like your leak was in a perfectly not good location. I had a similar problem with my recently rebuilt engine's maiden voyage this weekend. Cam seal leak was slowly dripping on my header collector (my collectors are inboard next to the engine case). Gotta fix that before my next event.

I know what you mean about a win is a win. Had my ride out for the first time this past weekend and day 1 was sorting and shakedown. Missed practice and qualifying due to getting the car all ironed out. Went out for the race on intermediate tires (full tread Toyo RA-1) to take it sorta easy on the car & myself first time out this season. I put some hard driving on the new engine to break it in good. I was classed with a 928 in steroids in the unlimited class and unfortunately he had a stuck throttle and had to pull off into the tire wall. I was the only other car in unlimited so I "won." I got the $3 plastic trophy to prove it!

Next day I got the carbs dialed in some more & found some hidden horsepower- it helps when you adjust your throttle linkage to have something more than ~50% throttle opening...... Put on the new sticker BFG tires and qualified 2nd amongst the GTS3 class I should normally be competing with. Q1 goofed up and missed impound so he got sent to the back. I had the class 3 lead at the start and only had to battle at the very end to get the lead back. Pseudo-win for me! Unbelievable!!!!

[wax105]

Kevin, thanks for your continued support buddy!

Since it's only you and me here I'll tell you where I guffed up!

When I put the motor back together, I inadvertently put the crank case breather cover on backwards...
I had not noticed the notch on the underside of the casting that mates with the notch in the case. Took me long enough to figure it out but happy it was an easy fix and mostly that my freshly resealed engine had no leaks!

Yes, I'm confident there is quite a bit more speed left in the car and me as we stand. I'll be testing till the next race labor day weekend at Calabogie Motorsport park and then back to Tremblant for the Fall Classic.

This thread is pretty much dead so I guess I'll be hanging out in the turbo forum from now on.

[Tim K]

Sorry, I don't talk much but, I've been following with great interest! Nice work.

Without having tried the stock rubber mounted a-arms on this car, can you offer some insight on the new bushings?

Tim K

[Cory M]

The finished car looks great, sounds like you are experiencing some normal shakedown issues, glad that fire wasn't worse!

[wax105]

Thanks Cory! I've had bigger growing pains in the past...

Tim,

There are some guys that like a certain amount of compliance at certain places when they build racecars. I'm from the other side of the fence, coming from a single seater background I like ZERO. Steering response was tight and what I was expecting.

Leaving aside the camber/caster/track adjustabilty of a 935 style front end, these bushing are all you need.

Did I mention this thing was a dream to setup on the scales!

[KTL]

Carl,

Glad to see you're easily working out the bugs and also really pleased with its tunability. I agree it's impressive the adjustability these old dogs have in them. They're old technology but still very workable.

Once you get settled with the car and start turning some fast laps, you GOTTA share some video. I wanna see that hotrod boogey!