In reply to twentyover :
So, care to educate us? How do we select the fuel proof stuff? How do they seal?
In reply to twentyover :
So, care to educate us? How do we select the fuel proof stuff? How do they seal?
If I fits, I sits.
Also, today I realized that both cars in my garage have been in a GRM print issue
What a difference those shop lights make!!! 
I spy the window A/C unit too......
So, did you ever find anything more out about the chassis? did you contact Petty racing to see if they have info in it?
Dusterbd13-michael said:In reply to twentyover :
So, care to educate us? How do we select the fuel proof stuff? How do they seal?
They have an elastomer sleeve /grommet that goes over the cable and the acorn shaped nut that compresess' the grommet to closure. To be candid, I did not look for fuel resistance. I'm not sure I would worry about it for ME, but this is not answering your question
So I did look at cable pass thrus for fuel cells since this was on point. Not sure how a sanctioning body feels about random holes being drilled in the fill plate of fuel cells, not sure who you will run with. Fuel safe offers a pass thru they are pretty proud of.
https://fuelsafe.com/wh04m2/
Again, not sure this is the solution I would use.
Another alternative is looking the a Tanks Inc pass thru. They appear to use cable glands, pretty confident they are fuel resistant. Their earlier versions used a polymer sleeve with a bolt running thru the middle (I know, I have one- somewhere, out in the barn)
So not sure I actually answered your question
I was trying to replace the brake pads on my daily, but the screw-type caliper compressor I borrowed from Advance didn't have a plate that fit my Mazda3, so I turned my attention to the stock car instead.
I pulled the plugs out of the top of the oil pump and... it's gutted. It's missing its second shaft and there are no gears in there whatsoever. I think someone actually guessed correctly that this would be the case several pages ago. I guess that makes sense, there were no outlets so a functioning pump wouldn't be doing anything. I'm not as gutted as the pump is, but I was kinda hoping I would be able to use the existing pump and save some money.
I was wondering if I could potentially find the internals from the OEM, but then I saw this:
Yeah...
That would appear to be some pretty heavy scoring in the pressure side. At this point I think it's safe to cut my losses and start the search for a new pump. NASCAR Ebay has lots of used ones, and the 3 stage ones I've found are usually under $400. I'd like to keep the dry sump system under or around 1 Steve if possible, so that would do nicely. I'm thinking a three stage pump would work pretty well for this car, the pan has two pickups, and the oil tank I have has two inputs as well, so add the pressure side and you get 3 (the magic number!)
Small update: I took the oil pump off last night. Now that I know what bracket it uses I can look for a replacement. It's a cool piece, it appears to be very modular, so perhaps I could swap the current bracket to a new pump if I need to. The tag says Weaver Brothers.
In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :
Yeah I just use the cheap small brushes from harbor frieght
might be worth reaching out for dry sump rebuild. I'm running a 3 stage on mine, kind of scary I never rebuilt it or disassembled
http://rebuild.scpdrysumps.com
In reply to ctk339 :
That could be a great solution for the pump, I'll have to reach out to them. Thanks for the lead!
If I were able to get the pump rebuilt for a reasonable price, it really has more stages than I can use. I'm not aware of any pickups from the top side of the engine, just the two in the pan. I would imagine these pumps aren't supposed to be run dry for a long period of time, I wonder if I could use something like this to distribute the oil to every stage? Oil Pump Manifold
I don't have much to report on the car right now. It's still sitting in my garage and I'm still scrounging parts together to finish the dry sump system. I just bought a couple of oil tank brackets from Speedway, so once those get in I'll be able to fab up some mounts and try to permanently mount it. I'm checking eBay for a good used NASCAR 3 stage oil pump, because I don't think I can get mine rebuilt and even if I could the new parts would likely be more than a used pump anyway.
In the meantime, my projects have been reorganizing my garage and adding tools - I just bought a used drill press and bench grinder for a steal, now I have to build a workbench to place them on. I've fixed my toaster, and now I'm planning the next upgrades to both the stock car and Elvira, my Miata. Plans for the Miata include: wider wheels and tires (and flares to match), swapping the deck lid for one I have with a lexan spoiler, trying my hand at building a splitter, possibly reinforcing the frame rails, and replacing the starter and a busted sway bar end link. Come to think of it, those last two should probably come first...
Maybe I'll make a build thread for Elvira too. That car has a lot of local history as an SCCA race car, both in Solo and in Hll Climb, and she's still going strong.
So I bought a 10" oil tank last fall from Roush, but earlier in January there was another racing auction that had another identical tank for sale, and I bought it for half the price of the first one - $65 instead of $120. The biggest bonus is that this one is already all kitted out - it has all the heaters, probes, brackets and whatnot instead of a bunch of plugs like the old one did. That stuff probably would have cost at least $100 on its own on the used market. So all that's left is fabbing a bracket to hold the tank in place, getting the tank flushed out, buying a new pump, and making all the oil lines to go from the engine to the tank. Oh, and take off the pan and remove the stock location sump pump. Not too much, in the grand scheme of things. This car isn't my priority right this second- I have to fix my truck and prep my miata for the approaching autocross season - but I'm looking forward to starting this thing again.
What's wrong with the truck?
In reply to MiniDave :
Both front wheel bearings are bad, and while I'm in there I should replace the upper and lower ball joints on each side and replace the brake pads. Pretty simple, but I just finished a big front-end job on my girlfriends car a couple weeks ago and I'm not hugely looking forward to doing it all again.
Cool project! I have an old NASCAR chassis and have found there are quite a few Facebook groups that deal with used NASCAR parts. They might be a possible source for the dry sump bits and pieces you are missing?
AMiataCalledSteve said:So I bought a 10" oil tank last fall from Roush, but earlier in January there was another racing auction that had another identical tank for sale, and I bought it for half the price of the first one - $65 instead of $120. The biggest bonus is that this one is already all kitted out - it has all the heaters, probes, brackets and whatnot instead of a bunch of plugs like the old one did. That stuff probably would have cost at least $100 on its own on the used market. So all that's left is fabbing a bracket to hold the tank in place, getting the tank flushed out, buying a new pump, and making all the oil lines to go from the engine to the tank. Oh, and take off the pan and remove the stock location sump pump. Not too much, in the grand scheme of things. This car isn't my priority right this second- I have to fix my truck and prep my miata for the approaching autocross season - but I'm looking forward to starting this thing again.
You might want to pull the oil pump indermediate shaft and shorten it so that the pump end isn't just whipping around unsupported.
In reply to APEowner :
What if I simply removed the oil pickup tube but left the rest of the pump alone? Would I be running a risk of burning up the pump and dumping metal shavings into my engine?
I should have done this a long, long time ago - like two years ago, which I suppose is indicative of the insanely slow pace I've been moving at with this build:
Especially since it was so flippin' easy. It's just 4 bolts per seat, and now I actually have room for activities!
My current to do list:
Clean this gross nasty floor
Paint all the exposed areas of the cage with rustoleum
Remove all the old padding and replace what is bad
Do everything else.
Also, I checked a set of brake pads I bought at auction against the calipers my car has, and they won't fit. No big deal, I got them for almost nothing. If anyone would like a new set of stock car brake pads for really cheap, let me know and I can send you the details.
Zip tie some foam over the end of the steering column - your head will thank you!
In reply to MiniDave :
They sell foam pads for stock cars that attach to the steering wheel and are very inexpensive, so I'll probably pick one of those up eventually.
AMiataCalledSteve said:In reply to APEowner :
What if I simply removed the oil pickup tube but left the rest of the pump alone? Would I be running a risk of burning up the pump and dumping metal shavings into my engine?
That seems like a bad idea. It'll be running dry and will likely seize. I don't know what would give out when that happens but it could be the drive gear which also drives the distributor. There's also the metal shavings in the oil issue.
In reply to APEowner :
Yeah, that tracks with what I was worried about. Unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be a whole lot of step-by-step instructions on installing a dry sump system that includes what you do with the internal oil pump. If you or anyone else happens to know of a comprehensive guide, I would love to find it, otherwise I'll just have to muddle my way through like I've been doing so far haha
AMiataCalledSteve said:In reply to MiniDave :
They sell foam pads for stock cars that attach to the steering wheel and are very inexpensive, so I'll probably pick one of those up eventually.
I think he meant with a zip tie or something to cover the end so you don't Smack it with your head and wind up super gluing it back together to stop the bleeding. Mine wasn't my head but I did it
Oh lol, that makes a lot more sense hahaha
Got some more time in the garage tonight, and after I tightened up my new FM sway bar end links on Elvira I turned my attention to the stock car. The drivers side had a fiberglass floor mat riveted to the floor for heat insulation:
When I got the car a couple years ago (geez...) it was completely soaked. Though it has long dried, I've been vaguely worrying about all this water being held against the floor while it sat in the parking lot for a while now, so tonight I finally ripped the Band-Aid off and drilled out all the rivets to take a look.
It's not too bad! som bubbling under the paint and a little surface rust, but nothing that can't be cleaned up with a wire brush and re-painted. The only bad spot is this one spot where a rivet went through the floor:
I think this part will need to be patched. I don't have a welder, or most of the other tools for patching metal to be honest, but maybe this will give me an excuse to go out and buy one.
I also took off this aluminum box on the passenger side of the floor. I wasn't sure if there would be anything under the cover, but ultimately it served no purpose other than to provide a little heat separation for the passenger's feet, and it didn't catch much debris during the car's short retirement, so this side is pretty much perfect.
Just a quick update to say that I bought some supplies to start cleaning up the floor of the stock car, but I'm mostly here to make an excuse to make my 500th post :)
I'm officially entering Dork-dom now lol
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