I wonder if you could just clear coat it
I wonder if you could just clear coat it
Well, probably good to blow the cobwebs off round here and give the people a little update.
It's been an interesting year for the Wreck Racing team. Covid sent most of our workforce away from campus a few months after the last update, and access restrictions and online course difficulties kept those of us still around out of the shop until recently. Now that life is returning to campus and we're back in the shop, we've been working hard to get the machine pumping again so that we can bang out this S10 in time for the Challenge!
Suspension:
A lot of CADing and reCADing has been going on in the downtime. Front plans have been finalized and weld up of the modified front has begun.
Rear CAD is taking shape as well, working out building the geometry around the large transverse v6 package crammed between the framerails.
Engine electrical:
After getting nowhere with immobilizer and compatibility struggles with our mismatched ECUs, engines, and transmissions the electronics team has decided to abandon the stock Honda ECUs. In the interest of time, we're starting new with a freshly pulled junkyard TL harness and a rusEFI ECU.
Bodywork:
The front bodywork has been attached together into one front clip piece and the widebody arches have begun to be shaped out of foam. We'll be using this mold to construct fiberglass front panels. The rear bodywork and cab are in the process of being trimmed away to be as light as possible.
It's going to be a tough two months, but we're working hard to pick back up and get this thing to the Challenge!
Forgive me for skipping to the bottom, we can have sponsors? Sponsors that help us? Like, pros?
In reply to Justjim75 :
Following the rules of the challenge, all parts on the cars are budgeted at retail or fairmarket value and all design and fabrication is completed by college students who are members of the Georgia Tech Wreck Racing student club.
As a student organization, we do however have corporate sponsors featured on our cars who give us the funds to purchase our materials and tools necessary to build the challenge cars and support our shop space.
We also approach companies about directly donating access to use tools and budget exempt resources like dyno time or mold making tooling. For instance, Ninelives racing kindly gave us some compute time on their server last year to process our 3d scans. Keeping with challenge rules, our members still do all of the work in these instances. One of our members does the 3d scanning for the Ninelives products as a part time gig and used his access to those software tools to take and process a scan of the S10 truck.
Making some progress, got a front subframe grafted on...working on bracing
Andddd she is (mostly) braced. Still need to do the bottom but I wasnt feeling like getting showered by globs of hot steel today. The cab can at least go back on now and other work can continue. Fun bit of metalwork but everything tastes like grinder dust now...
Looking real good! Don't forget to paint the frame before dropping the cab back on.
papamilad said:Fun bit of metalwork but everything tastes like grinder dust now...
Black boogers are evidence of a good day's work.
Some more progress on the car. Getting close to making control arms and wrapping up the front suspension.
Steering system was a big move this weekend. We are using a depowered (read: leaking) from a BMW E30 as the factory S10 has some garbage recirculating ball nonsense. To make something work, we took a trip to the junkyard and got a bunch of different ujoints and shafts but ultimately settled on adapting an aluminum E36 steering shaft we found at the yard. We basically sawzalled the steel spline right at the firewall in the E36, turned down a sleeve to fit it on the S10 steering shaft and then cut and sleeved the aluminum E36 shaft to size (also because it looks like the car was in a wreck because the shaft was bent). Some pictures of the process:
Bonus pic of the stock we used to sleeve the shaft, we were thinking about sitting on the roof and riding chariot style
Justjim75 said:Forgive me for skipping to the bottom, we can have sponsors? Sponsors that help us? Like, pros?
Only what goes on the car is on the budget, yeah? Find someone to donate a mill to you.
Awesome work, dudez! This gives geezers like me hope for the future of your generation.
Did not miss welding upside down. A little 10 footer shot to avoid some weld quality scrutiny haha
If my school had any programs like this when I went, I might have been more motivated to finish my bachelor's degree.
Turbine said:If my school had any programs like this when I went, I might have been more motivated to finish my bachelor's degree.
Never too late to transfer!
We've been a little lazy on the updates while we rushed to finish the build, but we're excited to see everyone in Gainesville tomorrow!
So Awesome! Looking forward to seeing more shots of that rear suspension.
O to the M to the G!
What do we have here? A rwd drive chassis running a transverse, mid mount fwd'er?
Do I count 3 coils per side? Is it a Honda?
Far from the usual path taken with a S-10.
Edit: actually, the engine looks too forward and wrong orientation to be
"fwd" transmission????
The paint job and the remaining door hinges and striker plate imply that there might be body work to go with it too.
Honda J Series
man this thing is sweet. those tl motors are pretty peppy too. i bet that thing shreds. curious what the weight distribution is.
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