The Jedi 911SC

[TeeJayHoward]

Originally Posted by TeeJayHoward

Right now I'm leaning towards removing the other rear seat and doing a parcel shelf in its place. A nice, tall, square box. Something I can remove if I ever need to access the upper part of the transmission or the starter. Thinking it over this week.

Realized I never did mention what I decided to do. Instead of a parcel shelf, I'm likely going to put a flat sheet over where the rear seats are. It won't be square, it'll be tilted. Why?

...so I can triangulate the torsion tube into the chassis in the event that something happens to it and a large chunk of the middle of it is chopped out. I hear tell that does occasionally happen, often when a bigger, newer transaxle happens to fall into that spot.

By putting some square tube across the uppermost edges of the rear seat, I can increase the "wall" by the feet, provide a place to weld some nuts in for the flat sheet/cover, increase the rigidity of the chassis, and hopefully prevent the suspension arms from ripping themselves free a few years from now.

But that's all just plans for the future. Last night I made use of my PCA discount at our host and picked up an item needed for my next major "chop up my car" plan:


I can already hear the, "Wha....?"

Why am I buying "pretty" things when the car's not yet ready for them? Well, two reasons. Firstly, my new pedal box is going to require a new fluid reservoir. That's gotta be mounted somewhere, and I don't want to have to undo my work because the end goal (CF frunk liner) doesn't work with my custom bracketry. Secondly, I intend to chop up a large amount of my frunk where the rusty bumper attachment points are, and I'd like to reinforce that area... In such a way that, should I so choose in the future, about 300 sq in of radiator space could occupy the frunk - WITHOUT removing any storage space. I think I've got it laid out correctly in my head to where the entire radiator can go underneath this liner. But I can't know until I actually get the liner.

What's that? Another, "Wha...?" A radiator? Don't you mean an oil cooler?

Yeah. See, I like the 3.0L engine. But it's got no balls and to bring it up to the kind of engine standards that the cheapest minivan has these days would cost a bazillion dollars. So I'm getting the car ready, 'cause if that engine pops, I ain't spending $20K+ to replace it. The rest of the car's being built to handle pretty much any engine. That EZ36 in the corner? The EJ25 in my shed? An LS from the junkyard? Doesn't matter. The wiring and cooling will be in place. Whatever engine I want, it'll just be a matter of a cradle, an exhaust, and a tranny adapter, and it'll snap right in. All I'm losing in return is my donut/spare (which can go on a roof rack) and the jack (which can also go on a roof rack, or where the rear seats were). In theory, I could probably add another 100sqin of rad core under each headlight if I replace the oil cooler at the same time as the engine.

Not that I don't intend to keep the 3.0L for a long time yet. I've still got that DBW setup to install, and I'd really like to start spending some money on a Safari suspension. So to that end, I've also got a 964/993 fan/oil cooler pack coming in. I'm going to investigate what it'd take to use that instead of my trombone cooler. I know all about the differences in the front end, the ducting, etc. I think I can make it work anyway, but won't know until I've got the physical item in my hand instead of a chopped up cardboard box held together with duct tape.

[Ryan_Cunningham]

Nice work! I think you've convinced me to do the same thing to my '72's roof... At some point.

[TeeJayHoward]

Originally Posted by Ryan_Cunningham

Nice work! I think you've convinced me to do the same thing to my '72's roof... At some point.

1) Only knife-edge the front (or rear). Do NOT try and slim down the edges by the drip rails. You will have SO much regret if you do. A finger sander look like it'll might make that front/rear edge easy, but a Dremel prevents the fibers from splaying out.
2) TAPE OFF THE AREAS YOU'RE NOT WANTING GLUED before you apply the beloved black goo. It does NOT want to come off afterwards. (Although, to be fair, it was STILL less painful than the black paint this car came with.)
3) It really is a pretty easy and rewarding experience. And so much easier than the metal sunroof insert.
4) Bondo brand body filler sucks. Apparently UPol is great. But the Bondo spot/glazing putty is killer, and one tube goes a long, LONG way.
5) When ya do it, take lots of photos. No, not for your own records. For US! I wanna see it!

[TeeJayHoward]

Not a real update, just a pic for the heck of it.


I was cleaning some stuff in my garage, and decided to put the EZ36 next to the 3.0L back behind the 911. Now I can actually access my toolbox without turning sideways and smearing engine grime across the front of my pants.

[TeeJayHoward]

I pulled up a part of the battery tray, since it was in my way. I'm thinking I might chop all this out this weekend, box it in, and set it up for either an oil cooler or a radiator, depending. To that end, I also bought my first ever air tool:



I also think I'm going to wait for it to be boxed in before I replace the rusted areas around the bumper support bracket.

[TeeJayHoward]

Cut some holes in the front of the 911. Once again, had a buddy help. Bodyshop style reciprocating saws are 110% worth it.




The plan is to weld in a backplate, but I can't even mock one up until the carbon fiber frunk liner thingie gets here.





We also played around with a Jeep Cherokee radiator, trying to fit it in there in such a way that it'd work. I'm not sure it will. There's 29" of empty space right now. If I hack off the edges I left in, it can go as high as 31", which is the core width of the XJ rad, but I'd have to make all new bumper mounting brackets. There's exactly 35" between the two inside edges of the current bumper shock thingies. The XJ radiator width with end tanks is 34.9". I'm not against replacing them with some sheet metal, but I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to do it, either. The inlet and outlet locations are annoying and the overflow cap is in a terrible spot. Basically the inlet port would go right where the driver's bumper shock thing is.

Then there's all the stuff going on below the bumper. If I put the rad "inside" the front of the car, I can install the lower valance, but no fan or shroud. If I put it "in front of" the car, but behind the bumper, I've got room for fan + shroud, but can't install the lower valence.

Yeah, the XJ rad might get resold and a custom radiator designed instead. (I'm trying to avoid chopping up my fuel tank and doing the usual radiator layout.) I threw the bumper on to try and get a better feel for the free space:



Backplate's the next step, at any rate. Once I've got that in, I can lay down some rubberized undercoating and paint the frunk.

edit: I'm still waiting on the carbon fiber frunk liner I ordered in Feb. (Almost the end of April as of this edit.) Pelican told me that Rennline told them that there's an issue with the part. They're re-tooling, and it'll be 3-4 months before they get done from now - August, maybe? So I'm just gonna fiddle around and do stupid little things here and there until the new part arrives. It'll be a while before another decent update.

[TeeJayHoward]

Looks like an Audi 5000 radiator will work. Ordered and received. So, time for a shroud. Started by prototyping with some posterboard from Staples:




Grabbed some 20ga from the local metal store and hacked off a piece:


Bent it up:


Drilled some holes for the fan bolts:


It got floppy, so I grabbed some of the scrap I made, sliced it up, folded it 90*, and used it as a support:



Test-fit the fans to make sure everything's in the right spot:


Then hacked up some lock nuts:

[TeeJayHoward]

And welded them in:


Currently waiting on some paint to dry, then I'll spritz the other side and call it "good enough".


edit: Good enough.

[TeeJayHoward]

I got tired of waiting on Rennline to actually MAKE the CF frunk liner I paid for, so I cancelled the order and spent the money on something else. Going back in time a bit, when I bought the CF roof, I also grabbed a replacement rear seat. It didn't fit at all. Quality was fantastic, it was just for a pre-915 car. Apparently Dansk doesn't make anything for the 915 or G50 vehicles. No biggie, there's a place up in Canada that does. So I spent some of my refund on this:



Fit and finish on these parts is TERRIBLE.


There's all kinds of creased metal, and it doesn't match up with the car in a lot of pretty important places.



At this point, it doesn't really matter, I suppose. I've already hacked my car up, why NOT just make this garbage fit? So I called a buddy over and we got to work. The rear seats were removed:

[TeeJayHoward]

Some cleanup was done on the edges:


The vaguely seat-shaped metal was trimmed:


Holes were punched in the edges:



And then the welder got brought out. Buddy o' mine hadn't welded before. He learned!

[TeeJayHoward]

I lost a bunch of photos around this point, but the seats eventually got welded in fully. We then masked and sprayed some sound deadener in the frunk/gas tank area, the underside of the new seats, and the inside floorboards:





And there's where it sits now.

Also, new image host. Tried to upload to imgur, apparently got banned. Even though the only things in my album were car pics.