BRZ Rally Car

Probably going to be hard to reroute wihtout bending them super funky? Id say new.

I get where you guys are coming from, I just can't get it out of my head that Subaru probably builds a better line than I do.

Are you all sunburned from all the welding? Hope you wore long sleeves. 

I'm confident in factory fuel lines. Do you need to relocate them? Why wouldn't you use them? 

In reply to Mezzanine :

They run under the floor, which means they're in prime position to get destroyed on a rally car- I want to run them above the floor instead.

So I've hit a snag- my plan for the rear towers starts with cutting a big hole through them.  I thought this hole saw would do it:

I'm having a lot of trouble making any sort of progress with it, though.  The steel on this car is drastically stronger than the stuff the Merkur was made of, and is basically laughing at this hole saw:

I'm at a bit of a loss on where to go from here, other than spending an entire day trying to drill two holes.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Jigsaw with a bunch of steel-cutting blades, or plasma cutter(which I'm guessing you don't have or they'd already be cut).

Edit: drill holes with a ~1/4" bit(or whatever) all the way around the perimeter of the circle, then either jig/sawzall them, or try your hole saw again. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

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.

Doh... I read "car is too low" as "car is too slow".

Nevermind. Carry on. 

Looks like you have an excuse to buy a plasma cutter now. 

Can you add some scrap sheet metal to the existing hole so the pilot bit in the saw has something to spin in?

Maybe that would keep the wrath of the hole saw in check to some degree.

I agree.  Tack a piece of scrap metal across the hole so the pilot drill can keep the hole saw centered.

One side down- the upper support stuff you can see through the hole should be easier to cut, and I can do it from the top.

I may try the weld-on pilot hole on the other side, but hopefully I've got my technique down now, unpleasant though it may be.

That helped!  Reducing the focus required to keep the saw centered let me put more effort toward just accepting that, yes, I'm gonna shower myself with hot sharp pieces of metal for 20min straight to get this done.

It was still extremely unpleasant and I'm glad it's done.

All of my adventures trying to holesaw things without a guide hole have ended worse than what you ended up with here.  

Plasma cutters have gotten stupid cheap..... Although then you shower yourself with molten metal... 

The edges may not be smooth, but there are two big holes in the back of the car and the towers slide into them the amount that they're supposed to so that's good enough for today:

Your willingness to just hack right into this is inspiring. 

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

There is no prize for ruining the car slower... 

hopefully its less tempermental than the merkur

Welding inside a trunk in the middle of the summer is no fun- hopefully I'm done with it! First the tubes:

Then the top plates:

And finally the mounting trapezoid things:

I had originally designed these with gussets, but honestly after the amount of welding to various unibody pieces on the top and bottom, if these move anything I tie a gusset into is moving as well.

As always, a day of welding ends with some spray paint:

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Looks great! Planning on tying those into the cage?

I need to stop following this thread. It makes me feel totally unproductive lol.

Nicely done on the towers. 

In reply to Nesegleh :

Yes but I'm hoping they're strong enough to run around without it for a while.

Did a bunch of parts removal to get ready for front towers:

The plan is to use this neat 3d printed fixture to locate the tops:

It bolts in like so:

Then the top plate slides on:

And the sides get welded (these are the two smallest but you get the idea):

Then I'll have to get the fixture out- the bolts have slots cut into the ends for a screwdriver, but if it's really stubborn I can just hit it with a hammer and snap the ears off, I have two of these:

Then I'll have to cut the old tower top out from underneath- ideally I'll fold it outwards and weld it to the sides of the new tower, but we'll see how feasible that looks when I get there.

I'm calling it quits here for today, because after doing this every day for a week my hands feel like I stuck them in a meat grinder, and I need to be able to work with more precision than they're currently capable of.

Wow, very impressed with your fabrication so far.  Especially the "bend and weld" stuff- super cool!

I don't envy the big whole saw part though.  There's a lot of whoop ass packed into that process.

That is so. Cool. 

New clutch arrived- Exedy's "stage 1" kit, hopefully it'll hold up just fine.  For those who have never seen it, may I present the highly informative comic from the back of the box:

I'd like to think I buy Exedy's products based on their performance alone, but the cartoon clutch friend probably has something to do with it too.