So it has been a little while since an update. I’m supposed to have this car loaded for the SCCA Majors tonight but we will see. We’re having braking issues as I’ll show.
Anyway, so since my last post the new fuel cell is installed. It’s another ATL cell, great quality and fit. If you need a cell, check them out! This one is another 8 gallon cell.
She’s a beauty!
Getting things put back together. I used all new hardware, figured out some better backing plates, etc. There’s bars running front to back and side to side underneath and then of course the two up top.
Once it was all back together I had to mount my cover back in, before it was riveted in with a lot of rivets. It made removing it a pain as I had to drill them all out. So this time I just put eight bolts in so it can be removed if needed without such a headache. Nothing fancy:
Next up was installing the new fire suppression system. It’s a much nicer unit than my older one. It’s a SPA FIA approved kit. I installed two nozzles in the cockpit and two in the engine bay, I am probably going to add a third in the bay just to keep things covered.
First things first I mounted the bottle, it’s a bit larger than my older one but I decided to mount it first and then plumb everything up.
Time for the fun part.
This was very simple to install. It came with the tubing which is a bendable plastic feeling tubing, not sure what material it is, anyway, clip your nozzle into the end of it and it locks in. Then mount it where you want it.
The nozzles
I also took the opportunity to install a second handle. This one on the driver side cowl. The other is on the passenger side of the dash. I figured this would let a worker who ran to my window be close to one if needed without having to reach in through the net and stuff:
Next up I decided to waste a little time making a new lid for my airbox and wrapping it in carbon fiber vinyl. Which I think adds HP? The old lid didn’t fit right and was kind of mangled on. So I made one from ABS plastic and mounted it with three screws for easy access to the filter.
Meanwhile I got the interior back in as well. New stronger seat mount, proper hardware, I installed a new FIA Sparco 6 point which is one of the H&N models. You can see I skipped painting for now, some of the cage was painted but I just scrubbed the interior as clean as it would get as I was running low on time for now.
So now onto the brakes. Simple right? No, this is where my issue is.
What started out as a simple pad and rotor swap has turned onto more but I think I really just ran across a problem that existed no matter what. To make a long story short I saw the calipers looked kind of dated so figured why not I’ll buy new ones. I did but they didn’t fit. I forgot the car has MK2 Golf calipers. I finally got the right ones, they didn’t seem to fit right. After messing around they were good but then they wouldn’t bleed. Over and over again no luck.
The MC (straight out of a ship wreck it seems) Inside the booster:
Easy, buy new ones and maybe that fixes it? Sure but so far I have three master cylinders and not one fits! It’s now Wednesday and the car is supposed to go to the track tonight, I have another MC coming in to O’Rileys this morning that I pray fits. Meanwhile AutoZone should have a booster in by 3 which once again, I hope fits. The thing is so rusted I can’t read any markings on it. To make things better I stupidly wasted an entire bottle of Motul bleeding the brakes. So I had to run out and find something that will work, my Advance carries this stuff, which I have known people to run. It’s not cheap though at $55ish a can.
At least the new rotors and pads look pretty… I guess…
So while all this has been going on we dove into vinyl wrapping the car. Let me first say those who wrap cars well have my utmost respect. This is no walk in the park! My wife and I spent hours and hours wrapping each panel one by one. It turned out decent for our first time, it’s far from perfect, I have some bubbles to work out but it does look better than the paint did. I’m happy I stuck with blue versus the Kamei scheme because for a first timer this was much much simpler.
Note that fearful face.
I’ll get more shots when I hope we make it to the track tonight. We don’t go out until Friday morning so technically we can go tomorrow too but I’m OCD and like to have plenty of time to setup and stuff.
So that’s it for now, the engine bay looks like this right now as I wait for new parts to try.
Time to go for a quick MTB ride then head to the shop/parts store to stress all day. Wish me luck!