Rotaryracer said:The words "while we're in there, we might as well..." have led me down a very slippery slope!
Know what ya mean, that gets me every time. 
Rotaryracer said:The words "while we're in there, we might as well..." have led me down a very slippery slope!
Know what ya mean, that gets me every time.
In reply to nlevine :
Thanks nlevine! Yeah, even with the 1LE PBRs, that's a lot of car to haul down with not a lot of friction surface. There's still some limitations on what we can run for brakes, but at least 4-piston Wilwoods are now approved which definitely helps with performance and reduced operating costs.
Thanks for following along!
So, the motor needs to come out. Let's get crackin'!
First, actuate hood holder (those gas struts on the hinges are just for show at this point)...
Start stripping her down...
Yank that heavy metal hood off in preparation for extraction...
)
Woah! I remember the FS thread.
Watching with great interest!
My buddy in the shop next door to me has a lift, a beautiful '91 IROC street car, and a desire to help get this moving...these are good friends to have. 
Roll cage/jack point thing? Dunno. You may also notice the lack of subframe connectors.
Fuel pump and filter setup - two outputs are T'd together, versus separate pumps. Yeah, that's gonna be changed around a bit.
The rodent-spitting exhaust. This makes it look about 1000% better than it actually is. What you can't see is the horrific assault and battery committed on the pinch seam and rocker cover to put this in.
Need to reduce diameter from the flange to the piping? MOAR WELD.
Harness mounts from "back in the day".
Scruffy Hamburger baffled 7 qt pan, plus an old Fram racing filter installed by Thor himself.
I LOVE THIS.
What a great find. I will be following along for sure.
I’m getting less and less salty about you getting to the seller before i did with every picture you post
Patrick said:I’m getting less and less salty about you getting to the seller before i did with every picture you post
I think I'm on your significant other's holiday card list for saving you from this. The next "deal" I find, someone else needs to jump on the grenade for me! 
The car was as represented, but I woefully underestimated how much it would take to resurrect it from the dead, both in man hours and dead presidents.
In reply to Rotaryracer :
Thor has installed many spin-on oil filters over the years.
A little lacking in pictures, but we rolled her next door to my neighbor's shop, put it on the lift, and got to cracking. First up...driveshaft and transmission out.
Decoding the tag, I have the least desirable non-World Class T5 from an earlier car. At this point in the project, I still believed that I would be using the T5. Current me laughs at former me.
Got all the life out of that clutch.
A few wrench twists, a few bloody knuckles, and this happened.
Oooh, purdy!
Not so purdy.
Off with her head(s)!
Flywheel has seen better days, but at least they used ARP hardware.
Yeah.....a thorough freshen' up per class regs or perhaps something a little more stout? Happy Thanksgiving!
After experiencing some very interesting cooling system effects with thermostats (water pressure forcing them to shut, core plugs blowing out, heater cores and hoses exploding) I can greatly respect ditching the thermostat in a race engine in favor of using a restrictor to get the block water pressure correct.
759NRNG said:Yeah.....a thorough freshen' up per class regs or perhaps something a little more stout? Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to you as well! I figured today was appropriate to post a few more updates, since I feel like such a "turkey" for ignoring this thread. Ta-dum-dum. Thanks folks - I'll show myself out. Try the veal!
Motor updates to follow, but largely a freshening of what's in there. The class has moved on since that motor was built in 1997, but it'll be perfect to start with and get seat time. The guys at the pointy end of the spear easily have more in their motor than I'm budgeting (ha!) to have in the whole car.
Knurled. said:After experiencing some very interesting cooling system effects with thermostats (water pressure forcing them to shut, core plugs blowing out, heater cores and hoses exploding) I can greatly respect ditching the thermostat in a race engine in favor of using a restrictor to get the block water pressure correct.
Yep - these things need all the cooling, so no thermostat going back in. It was stored with 15 year old antifreeze, which happily kept the block from cracking, even if it did end up leaving things a little crunchy. Nothing some time at the machine shop spa couldn't fix.
In reply to Rotaryracer :
I kept hearing you want to size the pulleys and restrictor to get 50psi in the block.
What I was experiencing with a certain engine/pulley combo was enough pressure to force the thermostat shut, at which point the pump would generate well over 120psi. I stopped checking at 3000rpm. At 6000rpm it had split a hose that was service rated to 250psi.
Knurled. said:In reply to Rotaryracer :
I kept hearing you want to size the pulleys and restrictor to get 50psi in the block.
What I was experiencing with a certain engine/pulley combo was enough pressure to force the thermostat shut, at which point the pump would generate well over 120psi. I stopped checking at 3000rpm. At 6000rpm it had split a hose that was service rated to 250psi.
This is good data...pulleys will probably be largely standard (not going crazy there...yet), but will talk to my engine guy about restrictor recommendations.
Updates, since I'm lagging at least a year behind current state!
Motor was taken to the machine shop for a refresh per current rules, using largely as much as was saveable. Upon disassembly, they found the timing kit was getting pretty worn out, the Lunati cam referenced in the 1997 motor build sheets was getting ready to wipe a lobe, there was at least one broken valve spring (might've been more), a couple of valves were in rough shape, and the piston rings were also seized to the pistons. Nothing too unexpected, and they didn't find any major issues, so we'll call that a win. The block was already bored .030 (rules now allow for .040), so she's a fire breathing 310. 
After a hot tanking to remove years of grunge, the guys at Engine Assembly (sadly now gone) in Rochester started getting things cleaned up. Heads got a valve job and were milled flat, crank was polished, and reassembled with new bearings, rings, timing gear, and a cam. Rules dictate nothing over .500 of lift at zero lash, so ended up going with an off-the-shelf Comp Cams Nostalgia 30-30 (Duntov cam). No pics of disassembly or reassembly, unfortunately, but you'll see the finished product soon enough.
While the motor was getting refreshed, I dropped the carb off with the machine shop's "carb guy", since it was in desperate need of help after the trial start. He got that all cleaned up and rebuilt with new gaskets and jets, then ran it on the test motor to ensure things were happy. It'll still need some final tuning, but should be close enough to fire it up and break in the cam.
So, with the drivetrain out, it was time to do something with the rolling chassis. Since this started off as an SSGT car, it has a bolt-in roll cage that was then welded in when converted to American Sedan. There were some modifications done along the way due to changes in rules (you'll see "stubs" from the rear diagonals that were cut out when SCCA mandated no more than six connection points for fear of chassis stiffening), and some additional driver's side bars were added. Some of this was okay, some of this was "creative", some of this was sketchy, to be generous. I'll say that I could have technically done nothing to the cage as it would be grandfathered with the original logbook based on earlier rules, but I also agreed with the sainted Mrs. Rotaryracer early on that safety was key and decided some updates were in order.
First off, as received, in all it's glory:
There were are a few things going on here that I wanted to address:
Since I haven't welded in years (and I wasn't that great at it when I did), I dropped her off with Jim Fitzmaurice at JR Fitzy Welding & Fabrication in Rochester. Jim's known for building stout cages, and although I wanted to preserve the main hoop to keep that sweet, sweet grandfathered status, I wanted it to be safe. At the time, I thought the factory dash might stay, so we also opted to keep the front portion of the cage intact. You'll see in later updates the factory dash got yanked out, and in hindsight, changing the front portion would've provided some extra clearance for entry/exit with a halo seat, but you live and learn...
On to pics of the new hotness:
Now let's hope I never have to test Jim's awesome work.
The passenger door bars are, uh, interesting. If it was to keep access to the door handle when shut, might have been worth repositioning the handle and having a standard X that doesn’t terminate in the middle of a tube.
Also, the bends up to the driver’s door bars aren’t as strong as a straight shot to the tube, through the rocker. But if you can’t weld to the rocker and clearancing it would be too much structure removed, maybe that’s the best you can do.
Regardless, excited to see it coming together.
Glad to see you're still making progress!
jfryjfry said:The passenger door bars are, uh, interesting. If it was to keep access to the door handle when shut, might have been worth repositioning the handle and having a standard X that doesn’t terminate in the middle of a tube.
Also, the bends up to the driver’s door bars aren’t as strong as a straight shot to the tube, through the rocker. But if you can’t weld to the rocker and clearancing it would be too much structure removed, maybe that’s the best you can do.
Regardless, excited to see it coming together.
The passenger side will only be protecting air, so to be honest, I was on the fence on even redoing anything over there. The thought with the X-structure was that it will do a bit better tying the front leg and main hoop together, but structural analysis isn't my forte. I figure it can't be worse than it was, but I think some of the design limitations are inherent in trying to update the existing bolt-in cage versus cutting it all out and starting from scratch. Maybe for the next car...
Thanks for following along!
NOT A TA said:Glad to see you're still making progress!
At a glacial pace, but still chugging along!
While the engine and chassis were getting finished up, I connected with Pam Richardson, one of the long time members of the American Sedan Ad-Hoc Committee (ASAC), as she had graciously offered some help and advice. Pam's son Danny has competed in #15 for some time and is typically on the podium at the nationals events...that dude is fast. We talked through a number of ideas on where to take the project, but she also put me in touch with Tom Brown (#23) down in Horseheads/Breesport, NY...about two hours south of me. Tom has been running ASedan for over 20 years and has forgotten more about how to build a 3rd gen Camaro for road racing than I'll ever know. Meet Tom's car (running #2 here):
There are a couple of Aquilantes in 4th gens in that pic, and Danny's #15 is down the grid. I don't know who's in the fancy VW. 
Despite some progress being made with the cage and motor, I basically had no idea what the hell I was doing. I can read a rulebook, but that just tells you what you can or can't do, not what you should do to make the car safe, reliable, and fast (in that order). Basically, I needed a Yoda....and Tom was crazy enough to volunteer to help bring the old girl back to her former glory.
In talking with Tom, we discussed the overall plan to get the old girl competition ready and back on the track. One thing discussed was the T5 transmssion...I knew I had the non-World Class version of the transmission, which is arguably weaker than the World Class T5 that came on later cars. The "weaker" vs "stronger" T5 discussion is kind of a moot point...basically, the unsupported third gear will only deal with so much abuse before it decides to exit stage right. Yes, not shifting like a gorilla will help it last longer, but the typical program for a T5 in ASedan is one trans in the car, one rebuilt trans in the trailer ready to swap when the one in the car breaks, and one trans on the bench being rebuilt after being broken....not exactly optimal, and T5 parts are both a bit thin and not inexpensive.
Tom recommended I check out AutoGear, conveniently located nearby in Syracuse. These guys are building brand new (and improved) Muncie transmissions and have basically become the go-to solution for a fairly priced road race transmission that lasts. They're also active supporters of ASedan, getting us the correct ratios per the rulebook...not necessarily optimal, but legal. When Nathan and George heard I was local, they happily offered to have me come up and watch my new transmission be built. Since I've long believed that transmissions are assembled of equal parts black magic and small elves shoving cogs into place, I jumped at the chance to watch these guys do their stuff. For guys that have existing Muncies, they also rebuild original GM transmissions.
I'm sure i've screwed up the sequence of pics below, so please don't use this as a pictorial guide for "How to Build Your Very Own Muncie in 1,134 Easy Steps".
It all starts with a brand new, heavy duty case....
And a bunch of parts...
Gears, and snap rings being snapped...
Purdy...
The magicians (or black magic and elf tamers)...
IIRC, this is a comparison of the main shaft of an AutoGear part to a stock Muncie in for a rebuild...
Press being put to good use...
Gears and synchronizers....looking at this picture, I have no idea how that is standing upright. Definitely black magic.
And in!
Gotta move those gears somehow...
Serial number 1107 has been born.
Time for testing....bust out the big honkin' drill with the custom input shaft interface, spin it up, and shift through the gears.
And done! Loaded it up and took it home that day. If you're in need of a bulletproof Muncie for your street or competition car, AutoGear are the guys to call....great people, great product. No affiliation other than a very satisfied customer!
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