The "Rice Rod" - '31 Model A pickup with a 2JZ

megaphone came out well.

did you "port" your runner opening transitions to match the cope?

In reply to malibuguy :

I did the best I could, but not gonna lie they could certainly be smoother.

Now capable of midnight Doritos runs!

thanks for letting me be a small part of one of the coolest builds I've worked on. 
 

This thing is super cool, and it was great meeting it's equally cool builder.     Looking forward to seeing the turn signals come to life

In reply to jfryjfry :

Think you could get the Ricerod parked on the street in one of your scenes? 

The prob is they want nd cars.  This one foregoes the "n."

nd=non-descript

besides, cars on set get treated pretty crappy.  His rod is killer and I'd hate to see it get abused!

In reply to jfryjfry :

Very true, definitely wouldn't want anything to happen it!

Got the signals working up front. 

I have no shame. Judge away, it works.

Also touched up and installed the original Ford badge. Surely now I won't be asked what kind of car it is!

I also added some temporary head rests by cutting up the old shuttle bus seats and vel-croing them to the wall. I've been rear-ended before, and do NOT want the rear window frame's edge catching my noggin. The vel-cro wasn't enough so I had to add zipties. Eventually I'll have a pro do all this, but I wanna drive.

With all that done, I took the rod to the 'world famous' Caffeine and Octane monthly show here in Atlanta. I'm still a little crowd-conscious, and didn't want to stay the whole show, so I parked in the outskirts. Maybe next month or two I'll go all-out and plan on talking to people about it. At least I found some Lexus brethren to park with. This was the fastest and furthest I've driven it so far. First time on the highway, getting up past 75 mph according to phone gps (no speedo yet). Some notes:

• Aerodynamics, wow.
• No leaks!
• No gauges is kinda fun. I literally just have the oil pressure wired to an LED, nothing else. 
• The rear is very stiff, in fact I think it might be binding. The rear coilovers and/or mounting may need revision.
• Can't tell if the steering is "darty", or if that's just what narrow tires are like, or just the wind. Might need to get a real alignment done. It's a handful on the interstate at speed.
• Exhaust system has enough "wiggle" in the mounting to rattle against the frame. It's loud. Not sure how to fix this without dropping the exhaust low enough to scrape. Might have to make some "clearance dents" or add extra more mounts to restrict movement, and some thermal wrap for both thermals and contact.
• This is not a fast car. It wants turbo.
• People love this car! So many thumbs ups, waves, and camera snaps throughout the entire drive, especially from kids.

I love everything about it, especially that color.

Bias-ply tires are wandery 

So how long till turbo???

With bias ply tires the alignment should have slight positive camber and about 1/16 to 1/8 inch toe in to have any hope of straight line stability at speed. Also extremely pressure sensitive, align first, then juggle pressure until you get it best, which may not be very good

I could always slap on a set of modern wheels/tires just to make sure the suspension is sound. Who wants to see Infiniti G35 wheels on a '31 Ford lol

Turbo...maybe next year. I need a new project as a break from this project, and I'm deciding between another bonkers Challenge build and a vintage dirt bike restoration. I don't have the space for two projects at once unfortunately. 

Do an old 2-stroke enduro.  They don't take up any space.  And they're a quick project.  And they're street legal.  And they're tons of fun.  And they're cheap.  And now I'm shopping again.

You could finish the bike and be adding a turbo to the rice rod in no time.

In reply to maschinenbau :

Looks awesome!!!

In reply to maschinenbau :

Old boat project?

In reply to bigeyedfish :

I still have this guy stashed away in the garage... https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/motorcycles-and-bicycles/vintage-honda-2-stroke/174235/page1/

No boats! Even I don't have time for that!

In reply to maschinenbau :

What about making the bike into an awesome little scrambler or street tracker or something that the Rice Rod can carry around?  Have enough paint left for a color match?

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I need to update that thread with new pictures, but the original paint is actually in good shape! Once upon a time I used to build hipster fixie bikes for bombing around the city...would be fun to paint a frame to match and add some fork mounts to the truck bed.

maschinenbau said:

In reply to bigeyedfish :

I still have this guy stashed away in the garage... https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/motorcycles-and-bicycles/vintage-honda-2-stroke/174235/page1/

No boats! Even I don't have time for that!

I want that. I done NEED that, but i want it...

I dropped the exhaust to insert some clearance dents and thermal wrap. The passenger floor is still hot as hell, but at least it dampens the metallic noises when it bangs against the frame.

This past weekend was some excellent shake-down. I drove 70 miles round trip to a car show Saturday. Nothing much to report. The ride quality on the highway is great right up until it isn't, basically the threshold of it bottoming out the shocks or not. Sunday I drove through some older parts of town, where I acquired a great many thumbs-ups but also struck many pot holes and other rough road obstacles. I did scrape exhaust a few times.

Okay, maybe I scraped exhaust a few too many times, or I sanded a little too much from this pipe... Half of the system including the cat is supported here. 

So I took the cat off, ground a groove into the crack, clamped it up and welded it back together.

Even added some gussets for good measure.

I am a little worried about moving the failure point further up to the turn-down pipe off the cone. Any time I bottom out on the flex pipe, all that force stresses the manifold. The Low Life is real. 

In reply to maschinenbau :

Sounds like you need to make room for a flex coupler somehow?

Would longer springs lifting the car/truck an inch or two be doable?  Sounds like you could use it both for greater compression distance at the shocks as well as getting the car off the deck to better deal with terrain changes.

70 miles in a car you built like this has to be a good feeling.

A turbo would make it quieter. Just sayin'... 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to maschinenbau :

What about making the bike into an awesome little scrambler or street tracker or something that the Rice Rod can carry around?  Have enough paint left for a color match?

I think a matching Honda Trail 70 in the back of this would be awesome

when can I get a poster for the grosh?