BRZ Rally Car

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I still see parts attached 

So just the interior to be pulled and you can get to seam welding and the cage?

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

You can use the stock tank for rally?

Yep, with protection under it.  I may eventually put a fuel cell in the back seat area.

adam525i (Forum Supporter) said:

So just the interior to be pulled and you can get to seam welding and the cage?

I'm going to do the suspension modifications first and either get it back to being a roller before it's cage time, or if everything goes well I'll actually drive it for a while.  In theory it won't have to come this far apart for cage work, the main thing right now is getting everything out of the way to work on the strut towers and underbody.

What top mounts are you going to be running in the front?

In reply to Nesegleh :

Escort rubber/sphercial bearing combo.  I can track down the exact ones if you want.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to Nesegleh :

Escort rubber/sphercial bearing combo.  I can track down the exact ones if you want.

If it's not too much trouble...

Although I haven't ran into any issues yet I still feel bad thrashing the Volvo with the solid ones lol

I love the pace of this

In reply to Nesegleh :

This is what mine are. The spherical is replaceable with a circlip.

Trying to get as much practice welding bolt on parts as possible before I start on the chassis.  Diff skidplate flat:

Bent with pliers:

Welded:

I left it on there while it cooled to minimize warpage, then removed for paint.

For lower control arm gussets, I tried to do a more mild approach than the heavy "tank grade" stuff I did on the Merkur.  Should still be pretty strong:

I swear I can make prettier welds than this, I was just jumping around a lot to try and keep the heat from being concentrated in one spot:

Rears, similar deal, although one plate on each side since they're load bearing:

And paint:

While I was covered in metal shrapnel anyway, I did some fabrication for the rear shock towers.  They're made out of a giant steel tube, and need a wacky cut where they meet the unibody on one side, so I "unrolled" the tube in SolidWorks and used that as a template:

Lots of grinding later, looks about right but I won't know for sure until I cut a big hole in each rear suspension mount:

In reply to bluej (Forum Supporter) :

(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

Extensive.

So, the tank had to come out to safely weld in rear shock towers?

Same up front with the engine? 

I'm interested in what you are planning to lift/correct roll centers/etc. And yes, your pace is inspirational. Carry on.

In reply to wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) :

Yes, this stuff is all getting out of the way for towers as well as welding on some mounts for underbody protection.

As far as suspension geometry, I'm way more concerned with toe change throughout the suspension travel than I am with roll centers or camber curves- the typically bumpy, loose surfaces mean that the suspension is almost never in the same place from one corner to the next, so predictability is worth more than ideal geometry.

If anything really wacky happens to the geometry I can space the subframes down, but I don't anticipate any issues at the ride height I'm aiming for.

I do have some neat little fixtures for locating the front strut towers, that's something I'll get into pretty soon hopefully.

Part of the reason I'm getting to spend so much time on this right now is that I had this week off for a road trip, which was cancelled at the last minute because my friend, the other driver, tested positive for covid- he's asymptomatic and doing just fine, but I was exposed to him so I'm quarantined and awaiting my own test results.  I currently live in the guest room and the shop, here's a picture Sara took from a safe distance yesterday:

Good thing I have plenty of stuff to do!

Yikes, hope you dodged it! That sucks for your friend. He still roll out on his own?  Sounds complicated.

Oh boy.... Hope you come out ok! 

In reply to bluej (Forum Supporter) :

He's leaving soon, hopefully all goes well for him.  It was bad timing but could have been worse, I guess.

I'm 6 days from exposure and have no symptoms- no test results yet but I'm hoping I didn't get it, obviously.

Today was thick metal day, so I loaded up a fresh spool of .030" wire and did this for what I desperately hope was enough of a fixture for my (designed to be self-fixturing) strut tabs:

An absurd amount of welding later:

I really, really hope they're strong enough, I threw as much weld as I could at every available seam.  I really should get something bigger than my Eastwood mig 135.

Decided to install the diff skidplate and cool down for a bit- I'm trying something a little different and using these little rubber bumpers where it is close to contacting.  The hope is that they give it a little bit of a cushion rather than just slamming into a hard surface when it does its' job:

Installed:

Then I bent up the core support reinforcement/front skidplate mount:

Zap zap:

It has m10 bungs welded into it for attaching the skidplate, and should be stupidly strong since it bridges a bunch of already-beefy unibody pieces.

I did some other little stuff like tacking misalignment spacers to the rear tower tops:

And failed to photograph the broken exhaust stud removal and replacement, figuring out the misalignment spacer situation for the rear control arms, and probably some other stuff I've already forgotten.

I finished out the day by painting parts:

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

So much progress! Quarantine is good for you 

Man, and I was all proud of my heavy-metal welding for 3 hours today.....then you go and make me feel like I didn't do much at all lol.....

Also, Ray is highly entertaining on FB. 

That looks like a bit more travel.

Curious...  after the rallycross, you mentioned "needs more power"... what are your plans for that? 

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

Did I?  No plans right now, in theory there's some improvement to be had in the exhaust but there are many higher priorities.  Long term I'm going to experiment with different final drive ratios, I need to get another diff to play with but I have a theory that Tacoma gearsets may fit, meaning lots of cheap options.

I'm at a slight crossroads with fuel lines- as shown by this cut one from the junkyard engine, the factory lines are actually metal with a plastic coating:

This means that I can legally run them through the interior- do I just stick some grommets in the firewall and reroute them through, or make new ones instead?

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Make new ones. Cleaner, easier to route out of the way. Pit through the tubes like nascar does for MAXIMUM protection. 

Believe me. you don't want your balls set on fire with gasoline and a spark.