Busa Grande - the Hayabusa powered Baby Grand

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

They're not going to want to take time to take down their tooling and set up new tooling to make a single adapter without me paying through the nose. 

Finally got some time in the shop. Burned in the biscuit bar mount and fabricated and burned in the radiator mount. Felt really good to hit these two milestones - so I celebrated with the first tomato sandwich of the season. 

The real star of the night



 

Tomato sandwich?? 

Now I'm hungry...

Needs red onion....

In reply to java230 :

Tomato sandwiches are life. A little mayo, few cracks of pepper and a sprinkle or kosher salt. Done.

Maybe a little celery salt if you're feeling fancy.

Did some painting on the fresh metal and bolted a few things back on. She's a roller again! Very rewarding to have it looking like this again. 

Some areas need another coat of paint still. 

Subaru hatch backs look huge next to this

The start of driveshaft adapter Part Deux has arrived. 

 

I need the engine in to mock up plumbing. I don't mind the way it looks in there - feels pretty damn good. 

TIGHT

The weight is really centralized on this car. 

I would consider ceramic coating those header pipes rather than the wrap. It works as well or better and won't trap moisture and rust the metal. It can be done DYI. I use coating from Car Chemistry. I think Jeg's or Summit sell it. Blast the header and solvent clean then spray several thin coats on. I use the black satin and it cures when you run the engine and is good to about 2000 degrees.

These headers are already rusted and due for replacement over the winter. Previous owner ran them naked, but I'm not interested in baking my feet that much. 

Version 2.0 will get a nicer treatment. 

The ceramic coating reduces the radiated heat off the header by like 90%. Totally worth doing when you replace the header.

Not a "Sexy" night in the shop, but meaningful and important progress. 

The former iteration of the car had a "Daytona tank" meaning a very large supplemental tank on the right side that would feed the high pressure pump even on the high banking. 

You can see it in this photo, as well as why I maybe didn't want it there. 


Fuel tank plus hot exhaust plus battery all in one tight space! No thanks.

I played with the idea of a swirl pot in the back for a while, and then remembered the black magic of Holley Hydramat. A few clicks later and this is going in my fuel cell. She'll never starve for fuel between this and all the cell foam. 

 

It wasn't a ton of fun getting things plumbed in the cell, but worth it.

I was in a plumbing mood so I moved on to brakes. The old masters were leaky Tilton 1" units. These are fresh Wilwood .75" brake masters and a .8" Girling for the clutch. 

A picture for context. 


The packaging, she is TOIGHT

Paypal refunded me for that faulty driveshaft adapter from Hawk Machine after they, again, never responded.

Today, I get this email from Hawk:

"Hello David. If there was a problem the the adapter you could have called or emailed us.I would have tried to fix whatever it might be.Now that you got your money back from pay pal. you should return the part."

berkeley these guys.

He has since responded saying I should have just sent the part back.

Why anyone would send a part back to a supplier that hasn't responded to anything and cross their fingers they'd get something back in return is beyond me.

Here's my email on June 26th

His final response this evening
"I'll send you a label and the boxes are free at the post office your email just showed a picture.it didn't say you wanted it returned or exchanged."

So he saw my email, and chose to ignore it I guess since I didn't demand a refund or a good part. 

If one of my customers reached out to me about the quality of my products you can be damn sure I'd be responding to make sure it was made right.  I guess he considers this to be of fine quality. I don't.

OK, back in the shop a bit. New job has been eating my time - and I also bought a Miata that I've been enjoying tooling around in while I finish my basement in preparation for my shop space to come home.

That said, I got to run some brake hard lines tonight and this $25 tool did a great job straightening out the nicopp tubing. 

If you return the part, is he gonna sell it to someone else? Seems like the part is scrap to me, so not sure why he wants it back so badly. 

Though I also understand from his perspective he might feel like you just wanted a free part. I've definitely gotten that feel from some of the 'returns' I've had to do because of ebay. 

I think it's worth trying to connect via phone. Some people are really poor communicators but they are still good people.  

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

It has been more than a month and he hasn't managed to send me a return label. If he resells it that's on him. I doubt the next person will be happy with it either. 

I have not made a lot of headway on the car lately. October was dedicated to the LeMons car so we could compete in Halloween Hooptiefest (we finished 31st). 

Compounding that is the lease on the shop ends December 31st, so I've been preparing to move everything into my drive-in basement. It's a big basement - 34x40, and the car(s) are small, so they should all fit. My goal has to make it easy to keep clean, and decent to work in. 

Step one. Lighting. Basements are always dark. Mine was no exception.
Before

After (phone is doing a lot of light compensation)

 

I plan on adding even more lighting, but this is a nice start and the LED strips don't use much amperage. 

Next up, the floor. The concrete is in great condition, but it has been years since it was even swept. I don't want to make a lot of oil stains and whatnot, and having something shiny would help make things even brighter. 

Lots of pressure washing, degreasing, and more pressure washing. Luckily the basement has a full drainage system around the edges that lead to the sump pump. The area is all sand, so moisture has never been an issue, but the builder wasn't into cutting corners. 



I used Rustoleum Rock Solid 2-part epoxy. It went down fine - stinky - but their estimation on space covered is WAY off. According to their math I has a 7.5 car garage. Plan on a 1.5 factor if you use this stuff. I've dragged some heavy sharp things across the cured sections and they showed no sign of anything, so I'm hopeful about the durability since it will be low traffic. 

I had to do the basement in three sections so I could move things out of the way. I can see the seams, but my fiance says she can't. 

That's it for now. Having everything at home will make quick tinker sessions easier, and not renting a shop saves some considerable cash. That savings goes into the "Dave builds a new shop at home" fund. I already have the site cleared...

And here's a gratuitous LeMons selfie
 

Some quick LeMons pics as it was pretty much the only racing I got this year thanks to pandemic.

I redid the interior information this year. 

Bimmerworld sells a windshield defrost kit for $115 to your door. I approve. Install was fiddly, but it kept our vision clear and no more rag on a stick. 

It was real cold and pissing rain Friday night. Luckily I keep a wide range of ez ups and I learned long ago to invest in good lights. 

Moar!

On the busa and the rx7!

Been spending a lot of time moving things into the Racement. Busa Grande has landed!

I could fit 2 in the trailer. Not ready for a second though. 

How to make a Miata look big


 

That thing looks like an absolute riot! Cant wait to see it all back together.

I want a drive in basement

In reply to Placemotorsports :

Can recommend. Though I try to not have gas in the vehicles if they're in the basement.