The Project Pad

MORE!!
I got the front cross member supports finish welded.





As well as the 20/24AN radiator inlet/outlets, finish welded in all their glory. Very smooth transitions on the inside of these pieces. Now that the radiator is fully mounted I can make the inlet/out fit for great routing of coolant hoses.

I also got a chance to seam seal up the rear inner strut towers.
Now I just need to do the inner wheel wells in the back. It looks soooo much cleaner using grey not the white seen here. Its getting a touch of primer asap

UPDATE!!!
I drew up some water/methanol nozzle bungs and had them machined up by a friend. They are 1/8”-27 NPT. The inner end radius exactly matches the inner end radius of the Ross Machine oval tubing.

More. I got the intake manifold runners all drilled and prepped for bung welding.




I used a piece of solid stock 1.25” the put down in the runner so the bung will sit evenly and flush in the runner when its finish welded. It just needs final texture/smoothing before the plenum is welded on. See pic


And here they are all welded on.

Woot! looking good!

UPDATE!!!
Ok lets get caught up!

I got a lot of time over the Christmas/ new year holiday period to work on the car.

I used a hole saw and some carbide action to make some IC breathing holes in my front x-member. There’s no use having a massive intercooler if its not all getting air, so now it is!!

The holes will be flappered down and smoothed.
Here they are prepped to weld


Here they are all welded up.

I also added sleeves in the rect. Tube for the IC mounting screws. It’ll be nice not losing the IC mount bolt in the inside of the brace each time I take it off/on hahah.




I also added some mounts for dzus fastener plates at the front of the cross member, these are to retain the belly pan I will be making.

MORE!!
With the driver and passenger seats moved quite rearward, I needed to make a passenger side footrest. There will also be a small, false-floor built in for a heel rest.

Here it is framed out.



Note the jigsaw construction.

Skinned in 0.063” 6061




And finally here it is with dimple die holes, they add sooo much rigidity it’s incredible.




in place, well about

UPDATE!!!
I finally tore back into the re-doing of the driver’s side engine mount arm. There was nothing really “wrong” with the first version, but it was made to be replaced haaha and utilized the oem accessory bracket. I have no use for this oem bracket, as im only running an alternator and we cut off the ALT mount to fit the intake manifold haha, so ground up remodel had to happen




Templates being made



Ready for some welding.

Here it is welded together



Its getting to look like a mount arm




Front portion mount plates

MORE!!! Mockup/temp. alternator and idler pulley mounting. Ryan is machining me some exact pieces to help keep everything right on-plane, as it should be




The front/upper support is getting a plug weld to its plate for add’l strength.

And here is the idler mount being machined, its going to be gusseted as well. It is quite strong and sits just out of the way of the alternator.

MORE!!

Upper mount arm plug weld is done!


I got my machined bits back from ryan, the idler mount and alternator through bolt mount are done and ready for install.


The alt. mount piece is cut from a large T shaped piece of stock, so we can put the through bolt as close or far from the block as we want as well as use the “T” legs to give it a larger/stronger footprint on the lower mount plate.

And through bolt clearances front and rearward

MORE!!
All the pieces are ready for final welding.

The alt mount and tensioner mount are both drilled and tapped and mounted to the bac of the plate with m6x1mm bolts. They are very hand tight haha, so I can align them, but still tight enough that they don’t move if I let go of them.




Haydn hooked it up bigtime!!! He let me borrow his Dayco accessory belt laser alignment tools!!!!!!!! These things are sweeeet. One is curved and relieved to sit in the serp pulley grooves, and has a laser line that goes across the other pullies. We got them spot on!!! Thanks again
And some pics!

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!

Ok once again let’s get caught back up to the work that has been completed.
As per requested by others hahah

death 4kqt wrote:header porn is the best

timmmy wrote:MORE.... lets get to the good stuff already

Ok, ok, I got it hahahaha

Well here she is!!!

I’ve had the manifold collector seam welded in and out for a while now, and now that I have a ton of weld-els, it’s time to dig right in and get to building.

The collector has been seam welded inside and out, completely. And with that mostly polished up, its runner time!

Based on the vr6 firing order, the front three cylinders and the rear three get paired together for the divided manifold. This saves me a lot of headache in regards to making the runners equal length.

So, I made all the runners, mostly based on smooth flow. The center line lengths have been calc’d from the centerline radius numbers that Vibrant provides.

ROUND 1 pictures





the 3,4,5 runners are all right around mid 14”, the 1,2 and 6 runners were about 15 ½”, 16” and almost 17” respectively. That was not going to work for me so I cut half the manifold back up. It looked all cool first go around, but cutting it up, while dishearteneing is something that needs to be done to make it better hahahaa.

MORE!! So I cut a few of the runners off and set to making them shorter. I want all the runner lengths to be a close in length as possible. So I changed them around and set to re-calc’ing the center line lengths. Closer but not close enough, they are now within about 1.5” of each other, not good enough. So I cut it back apart!

ROUND 2 pics!!
And here she is in all her glory!!!!!!!!!!
So its tacked together, awaiting finish seaming and backpurging at Higbee Fab.

UPDATE!!!
With a target runner length of 14 5/8 inches, we came pretty damn close.
The runners are with ¼” deviation from target length, that’s pretty damn close!



And with the runners finalized it was time to start on dual wastegate mounting.
Collector is now drilled for dual Tial MVR 44’s.

PICS!

MORE!!!
Wastegate tubes are tacked on, now I just need to mark them, pop them off, and smooth/grind them to fit as flush as possible inside the collector.




Wastegate to runner clearances are good, I will most likely be running banjos on the Tial fitting to improve clearances.


I had Ryan @Higbee Fab, use the small water cooled torch to weld the inside of the collector where the WG tubes meet the runners. I’ve begun smoothing and polishing it , here’s a few pics, much more to come once its finish polished on the inside.

UPDATE!!!
Ok, now a small, out-of-timeline update for some pics I couldn’t find hahaha


The exhaust ports on the VR are more of a rounded-corner, square and obviously the exhaust manifold runner tubing is round. I started off by carbide-blending the squarish holed flange towards a more round shape. Hahaha that sucks, its going to take forever to do QTY6! Transitions in ½” 304! Ahhaha not going to do it.





So I enlisted the help of a local machine shop to bore the 24v flange to 1.65” inner. This is the exact ID of the exhaust runner material. It will be much easier to make the shape transition in the alloy had vs the 304 flange.

More! Here is the bored flange in place on the head



Here you can see the shape differences marked on the head



And a sexy vband weld pic



And for the downpipe im running a BW S300 DP flange / vband. Here you can see the inside and outside line up, fits great!

MORE!!!
I finally got a HUUUGE pair of snap ring pliers so I could take off my Holset compressor housing. I got it off and then cut off the Holset specific v-band connection. I will be adding a short outlet extension to the compressor cover to get the clamp away from the hot manifold runners. A Vanjen clamp will be welded to the end once location/angle is finalized.

I busted out the carbides and smoothed the compressor outlet as best possible. I will get it a bit more once the extension is welded on.




I also picked up a 15,500 MILE!!! R32 head, it is suuuper fresh and clean. Its still that nice, matte alu color, it hasn’t even started to golden up at all.



And lastly I got my helper spring dividers back from my machinist buddy and they look sweet!!

UPDATE!!!
I also got a chance to start on my cold air intake. With the dual wastegates there is very little room to fit a filter / intake down on the engine side of the framehorn. So I drilled a hole, and will run the intake/filter around the outside of the frame and tuck it back under, between the exh manifold and the radiator. I’m looking at making an airbox that is fed via the bumper but also a removable top so I can run, larger, more aggressive ducting from the headlight area for track days etc. here’s a few pics, much more on the airbox contraption to come later.

MORE!!!


I also picked up a stainless vr6 crackpipe, cheeeap and brand new. I will be installing my remote thermostat housing connection in the middle of the pipe and make a smooth transition towards the water pump. I will also make a few “anti-rotation” tabs to help hold the crackpipe as the weight of the thermostat (not much but still) will be trying to make it rotate under its weight.


Then I will be able to finalize the 20AN inlet/outlet for the radiator!


I got some more parts back from my machinist buddy, a coolant / crackpipe receiver piece as well as an outlet block for the back of the head. I have a few 6061 weld elbows that I will utilize to make a very low clearance unit that easily clears the steering arms.


the small hole in the head outlet unit will be manually opened up, I just didn't want to drill it all, ill be making a very smooth transition.

The smaller hole on the back of the crackpipe receiver is there to allow coolant to circulate while the thermostat is closed. As per the factory unit.
Pics!!

Another awesome update - great work.

Done any test runs with the meth injection on your intake mani? Just curious about the depth of the meth bungs... seems like the conical spray would hit the sides before it reaches into the runners. I plan to inject w/m into my runners too - nothing fancy though, just drilling holes and threading them.