200$?!?! Alright, I'm coming over... The Crinkles story

In reply to rdcyclist :

Thanks for reading it, and that 3 year old is now 8, which means that the ECU has been "in progress" for 5 BLOODY YEARS.

2024 will be the year of a functional computer for sure. 

Well, next up I wanted to build an air intake, and obviously free parts trump cheap parts so lets see what's laying around.

Yup, the original airbox, it's plumbing, some conduit from the trash, and a thermos with a broken lid. 

Thermos was a perfect fit. (only the outside section so no insulative properties, unfortunately)  And conduit was heat gunned and bent to shape for the BOV. 

The airbox, when flipped around backwards, fits onto the manifold tube which also fits onto the thermos. The reservoir for the power steering is pushing it up a little high right now though so I guess WAY too much work will go into building a lower one. 

Starting with more old filing cabinet, 

cut, bend, fold.

Tack and weld, (And bubble test, and re-weld, and test and re-weld, and test and re-weld, and test and re-weld)

Add the tubes from the old reservoir. 

Then the top, brackets and shorten the dip-stick,  and a quick 6 hours later I can get back to solving the original problem I had!

So, with the airbox running backwards now, I cut off the mount for the MAF and repurposed it into a splash guard. 

With much widening required as well as a lot of plastic "welding" with the soldering iron. 

Looks like it was made by a neanderthal, but should be pretty well hidden anyway. 

The top also had some unnecessary lumps sticking up so they were boxed over as well.

And after making sure it would clear the front clip, I added some bolt down brackets and Voila, filtered air!

Now I just need to attach the BOV tube into it...and you know...finish the wiring and the ECU and make it run and all. 

More slow progress coming along, April is coming up fast, huh? 

Airbox needed a temp sensor so I built up a plastic "bung" to hold it. 

My original plan was to drill out and cut threads into this spot but I didn't have the right size tap so I drilled it all the way out and just melted more plastic around it to hold it in place. 

 I also needed to add a nipple for the MAP sensor which was installed similarly, except the nipple was all brass so I heated it up and then used the hot brass to cut the threads through the airbox. 

Back to the BOV inlet, I made an inlet from some scrap steel that I bent to match the shape of the rubber flex tube. 

I cut a hole for the tube to slip through and planned to just use weathstripping glue to seal it in place, for this job I would need a helping hand!

Ba-dum-tiss. 

But seriously, I couldn't figure out to clamp it all together so I just put a glove in there and filled it up instead. I was happy with how well this worked...

Except that the glue ended up not being strong enough anyway so I shot 2 sheet metal screws in there and then cut the ends off. Oh well. 

We can't all be pretty. But after tracking down the pin-out for the stock MAF, I figured out how to wire in the new sensors and got everything installed.

Only one more sensor to go! (I think) Hoping to get the crank sensor done tomorrow and work on ECU troubles on Sunday. 

In reply to More Tools Than Sense :

That inflated glove trick is awesome. Well done.

Is Crinckles coming to the Challenge this year?

The glove and the Thermos are awesome!

Indy - Guy said:

In reply to More Tools Than Sense :

That inflated glove trick is awesome. Well done.

Is Crinckles coming to the Challenge this year?

It's a possibility, however, there will likely have to be some concessions. I really wanted to get all of the body work done for the debut but if we can get it running and driving reliably before April, I don't think my brother is gonna let me put it off another year. 

Well, I managed to free up some mornings and really wanna see how well/ quickly I can get this body work done. 

(Also, sOmOnE hAsAn'T FiNiSheD ThE EcU, Ahem.)

So I started with finishing the hood. Scratch that, I started by building a dust collector. 4 HVAC filters and 2 Bathroom fans'll do. 

Then, I finished the hood. Well maybe not finished but at least finished the widening of it. 

As you can see, gaps there. 

It was pretty easy to fill those, I just taped some flashing to the front and filled the space with fiberglass and resin. 

Sanded it down to close enough for now, and presto. (Still needs plenty of Bondo but we getting there)

So then I turned my attention to the part we've all been waiting for....Box Flares!

Humble beginnings. 

But add a whole pile of packing foam and a ton of hot glue together... And wait... Am I, PROUD of this? 

I think I might be.

Still a lot of work to do, but I am very happy with the overall shape. 

That's pretty solid, man.  I dig it.

I think the wide body is the best thing to happen to the overall shape of that car.  Loving the ingenuity and work you've done so far!  Hope to see it at the Challenge.

That looks really, really good. Excited to see the next steps. Are you making molds, using them as plugs, or just glassing straight over the foam?

I went 'Oh no, why doesn't he extend the body with a horizontal fillet? He's going to ruin the li...... hhhhEEEYY That looks AWESOME'

Hat's off to you Sir.

Very nice!

Thanks folks!

 I was originally going to make a mold from this and then glass inside of that, but after sanding down the hood and having it not take that long to get a smooth result, I think I can save time and budget by just glassing over the foam and right onto the body. 

However, I did some test pieces over scrap foam.

And yes, fiberglass resin does melt styrofoam, so I thought, I'll just put some saran wrap over it...

Nope. At first I though the plastic wrap melted as well. But there doesn't seem to be any holes in it. I read somewhere that the heat given off by the reaction can melt the foam too. 

It seems wild to me that it would get that hot. I made some more test pieces today with, foil tape, packing tape, and just latex paint as I read that those can work to seal up the foam. 

All 3 seemed to be working when I left them this morning but time will tell. 

In the mean time, I got the other side mocked up and it went together pretty smoothly. 

As far as I can tell by eyeballing them/ tape measure wise they match pretty well. I'm sure they are dimensionally off by a noticeable amount but since it's really hard to look at both sides of the car at once, I think it can pass the sniff test. 

The next part of the plan was to fill in all the extra gaps and low spots with this.

But it 100% did not live up to it's name. The plastic nozzle broke off almost immediately. Trying to get it out of the can while not smashing it into melted marshmallow proved impossible so I just gave up. 

I may buy another can, or try to find a different solution. But I'm now wishing I had made all parts of the foam higher than necessary, since sanding them down worked better than I anticipated. 

More Tools Than Sense said:

And wait... Am I, PROUD of this? 

You should be! That looks great!

Well, I've been a bit busy over the last few weeks. Lots of family illness, work trips, we adopted 2 cats, and I had to climb a mountain. 

Oh, also I had to stop and tell this guy, "You can't park there".

But I've still managed to make some progress, albeit slow. 

I figured out that packaging tape is the ideal solution to both smooth over and protect foam from the 2 part epoxy. So I covered just the foam parts and laid out the first bit of fiberglass. 

It looks real rough, but I can assure you, it's only pretty rough. All those bumps should come out with the sander but I need a finished, sturdy product before I can start in on that. 

On the other side, there were some low spots, so I got a bit of clay. Like 50 pounds of it to be exact. 

So I did, what I thought was a pretty good job of smoothing over the low spots, but I said to myself, self, lets do the fiberglass tomorrow...

Tomorrow. 

Yeah, so 'moist' clay does need to stay that way, especially when laid out thin. So I spent like an hour picking out all the dried up pieces so I could do it again. 

This time I covered with packing tape immediately and laid down the first layer of fiberglass within the hour. 

Again, lumps and bumps abounds but it feels much smother to the touch than it looks so it should be doable. 

Now, I need to get the body panel laid on it's side to do the next step, because of, you know, gravity, and I need at least 2 people to get the body off safely in it's current state. So while I am waiting for that, I decided to fix a minor issue.  How we gonna get gas in it? 

Well just by turning the filler tube 90 deg, it's pretty darn close to the top of the fender, so...

Good thing I didn't use that first mark. This one works great. Orange safety cap sure is ugly, if only I had a nice chrome one?

Oh, right, I do.

I also have a grinder and some JB Weld. 

I'll be back after it cures. 

Supposedly you can use drywall compound to make things smooth...

Didn't take a great picture of the Fuel cap, but you can see it in the background. It still needs a spacer underneath to put the cap closer to flush, but that's easy. 

And what's in the foreground? Adding some more bumper foam to pad out the transition between the 2 roof parts. The bumper foam is great because it doesn't melt from the resin and can stay encapsulated inside. 

Still needs a lot more layers/ smoothing but should do. 

I mostly wanted to do the first layer while the shell is installed on the car to be sure the angles all sit right. 

It did not seem to flop down at all when removed.  Which I had my lovely wife help me with, and no foam was injured and a minimum of cursing and insults were flung.

I've been mixing a lot of resin and adding a lot more layers which is all slow and unimpressive work.

The most exciting thing to happen was that my stirring stick got caught in the drill chuck as I was removing it and it somehow flung the thing across the garage at a high rate of speed. 

That's about 8 feet off the ground and 20 feet from where I was standing, made a nice little dart. 

Well, I've run out of Fiberglass mat at this point but more should be arriving soon. I'll take a break to do some truck maintenance and get back to updates once I have something that looks like progress to show off. 

Just realized it's been almost 3 weeks since I've posted. No posts doesn't mean no progress though.

I finished all of the outer layers of fiberglass. After which, my brother stopped by and insisted we put it back on the car, since he had not seen it in person.  Still very rough in photos but I have high hopes for the process. 

Next, we pulled it back off the car and I finally stripped out all (most) of the foam inside the fenders and started filling them in to reinforce the resin.

Inside I am using the stranded mat that is just loose fibers, it goes down way rougher, but also much thicker much quicker. 

As of today I'm a little further along than this, about 3/4 done all of the interior fill. Here's the first side done. I left foam inside the front because that part is the impact foam from an old jetta bumper and will make for plenty of strength without adding much weight. 

Well, any more pictures of the body wouldn't look much different so here's a different picture. 

Stay tuned, (Pun unavoidable) for updates!

Is it coming to the challenge this year?

Seems like it's gonna be a next year thing. My brother was pushing us to do it in time and we could technically do a half hearted showing, as-is, but I really want to make a solid debut with a finished(ish) car. Especially if we have to drive 14 hours to do it.  The fact that I've got a work event on the 5th and plans to take my kids to see the eclipse on the 8th are the nail in the coffin for this year. But, next year, the challenge takes top priority.

In reply to More Tools Than Sense :

Damn, I was hoping to see it this year. 

Nice to know people are actually excited for the build, and sorry I can't show it off yet but, ah well. The fiberglass epic soldiers on. 

This side fender has been a real pain in the lug nuts. You can probably see how wonky the edges look here. Well, when I removed the foam support, I didn't leave enough of a corner here, since I had plans to leave the rear panel open anyway. Well, there was some sagging, as to be expected for a man of my age, and now I've had to do a god bit of cutting and building up to try and get it back to the right shape. 

Oh well, I'm getting plenty of practice and once I get to the other side it should be cake to finish. And speaking of finishing, I started a little experiment here, 1/2 fiberglass, 1/2 bondo to make a sort of budget gel coat. 

So far it seems to go on smooth and flex pretty good once cured but I still need to put it under the sander for the final test. (you can see it from it's good side in the above photo too.)

Looking over the tuning software, we weren't getting any signal from the wideband O2 sensor. Well I figured the fix was that the gauge felt self-conscious. 

So I drew a panel in Fusion 360 and printed it out. 

Problem solved! (well, that and attaching the ground wire) I'll have to fix that rough spot and maybe draw up a vent cover too, but we'll see. 

Well other than that, I got slowed down a bit when the harmonic balancer ripped apart on my 335D, but one $300 crank pulley later, she's back in action already.

Only like a 2 hour job on the BMW. Which is insanely quick for a car that doesn't have enough room for a large rat to make it's way through the engine bay. 

Aww yeah. Speeduino is officially functional. 

We had a good bit of run-around getting the first start to happen. A big problem was that the fuel pump is still not controlled by the ECU. But a jumper wire bypassed that issue. We also sorted out the TPS sensor, Got the wideband sensor working and of course got a base tune installed. 

We even got to take it for a test drive!

And nothing sounded weird or off, driveability seemed dead stock on the short test. Only issue is that the AFR gauge was dipping pretty low even though the tune was calling for max fuel.

So we know what that means, item number 6 on the list and a trip to the happiest place on earth!

Awesome!

I cant wait to see how the car looks when finished. This is such a cool build and the body lines I am watching come together are very very cool. Super IMSA esk and I freaking love it. Keep up the good work!