Rear hubs

At least the rear hubs are done. Not much I know but I hope to get the suspension parts soon so I can start welding.

Still no progress on the chassis but I got some new ideas while trying to see how everything fits. Wheel travel is about 40mm upwards and I figured shock needs to travel more to get better control so I decided to try cantilever suspension. With 1.5:1 rocker ratio I get 60mm of shock movement with less spring pressure and better adjustability.

We changed the rear suspension setup a little. Instead of a ladder bar there now are two link bars like in 4- link suspension. More adjustability and easier to build and not so much of a copy of certain imperialists' suspension.

Tube work continues...

I also took the original UB-52 to long term storage so I will not work with that.

More tube work

Pekka sent me more pictures and this is really starting to look great. Floor is now changed to sfi25.4 specs. There will not be a funny car cage so only a few tubes more and this is finished.

Roof with diagonal support and gussets

Tube work

Looks like it is just matter of weeks when I get the chassis to my own garage and can start planning how to continue. Even if the chassis looks quite finished there still are 10's of tabs and mounting points to be welded. And then there is the rotten body that needs to be attached. This might still take years to be driveable.

Oldies

Body off!

Finally got the rear cage support tubes done and the body could be lifted off. Now the chassis is off to welders and they will probably add rest of the tubes. Floor tubing might change even if the current plan is approved by inspectors of FHRA. SFI 25.4 floor specs are with two main tubes in the center.

Here's a video of the 10.81 run from BRC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L91wA_lAxIQ&feature=youtu.be

Bug Run Classic 2013

We, Valtteri with his split, Heebah with his trusty old street car and Make the mechanic, head off to Stockholm on wednesday evening and arrived to rainy Tierp late in thursday afternoon. After a while BRC organizer Lena arrived and made a few phone calls and we got in to Arena, so we had plenty of time to put up our tents and set up a depot and enjoy the evening.

On friday I had enough time to strip the interior, heat the oil and do some fine tuning, like add few more degrees of advance, raise the rev limiter a bit higher and such.  Then at the first run the transmission got stuck at the second gear and the time was something 16.xx and I thought that was it. After a few calls to Alho-Matic we figured that there's not much to be done if we can't fix it through the oil filling hole. Thankfully transmission specialist Janne was there to fix that and Jari and Jukka were putting the rest of the car together. Something was bent as there is no reverse gear but that didn't matter at all. I couldn't drive more on friday as there was some oil spills at the track so I had to wait until saturday.

First run on saturday resulted new bp 10.96 @ 196,5 km/h and hitting the rev limiter at the end. For the second run I raised the limiter again and that did it. Time was 10.81 @ 200,7 km/h and I never thought 200 km/h was possible with 875kg all steel street car. I must have gained 20 - 30 hp since the dyno session by changing the velocity stacks, straight exhaust and ignition advance. The engine started to spray oil from the valve covers so I thought I'd better stop while everything was still OK, as Heebah had broken his car on friday and had to be taken back to Helsinki with a trailer. I had to drive my car in to the ferry so I did not want to risk anything. Mission was accomplished.

I do not think there's much more to be done as I do not want to cut the car. High 10 and over 200km/h is definitely not bad for a true street car and cutting just hundredths is not my thing. I will see if the engine gets a new life in the tube chassis or not.

Our "team" at Tierp Arena with amazing sky. Valtteri did great for first time at the track with his split and popped a whiilie right away. Heebah got new bp before breaking hockey stick.

Paper to prove.

Back at the ferry.

  

At last I got the back half tubes done, thanks to Tami Brander Racing. I also got the missing 1" tubes from him and the chassis is ready to be welded once we get the body off. Then I will take the chassic to my own garage and add rest of the tubes.

Nice plywood jig.

Chassis should now be strong enough to be taken off from the table and get welded.

And the current car got new velocity stacks, 80mm longer than the old ones based on the calculator. At least they're golden, if not adding any power... I also made new straight exhaust without muffler, but that's just to scare the norwegian competitor this friday at Tierp.

Dyno time

Once again I went to map the car as it run really rich after changing the old tired Malpassi fuel pressure regulator to Aeromotive. At Street Slide the lambda was 0.71 from 5500 - 8000 so it really needed some tuning. During the day the power went from 260 to 281 so it's still not where it should be. Power is not dropping dramatically after 8000 and that really is a good thing. If I have the energy I'll try different intake and exhaust lengths or then I might just give up and go and charge the engine somehow. Or make the Datsun finally driveable instead.

This is not even whp but calculated power with 6% driveline loss. So with 265hp at the wheels there's no chance of going 10's with such a tank. But it doesn't stop me from trying.

40kg's of steel waiting to be welded. It's probably hard to see but these are parts for the rear hub housings and mounting tabs for the chassis.

1,5 days and four tubes. That seems to be better than last time, full day and only one tube. Now at least the body can be lifted off as all the main tubes are fitted. We still have to fit the rear end tubes and then the chassis is ready to be taken to the welders. They will fit the rest of the tubes.

This is much slower process than I would have thought but there is no deadline for this project. At least the "original" UB-52 is ready for NNC Street Slide without modifications from last year.

A bit different way to route the tubes to front axle. As I wanted to save all the original sheet metal under the hood there were not much alternatives.

Alex sent me a pic of the final design for the rear suspension. There is no change at all in toe in with 77mm up-and-down movement. I think we're getting somewhere with all this. And great service from Alex, there's no way this could have be done without simulation.

20+ hrs of work and this is where we're at. Seems to be a slow process but now the main chassis is ready to be welded and then I hope we can move on to back half. A lot of tubes are still missing as I want to build the floor to SFI 25.4 specs but they will be added after the body is off.

The framehead is only used as a jig to locate front axle. It will be removed.

Any takers?

Treasure hunting

Sippo did some treasure hunting and found a stash of original fenders from different years. I got a set of original 1952's in need of some tlc for the tube frame. All in all they are not so bad and definitely doable. Maybe I could live with repro fenders but as there are originals available, I'd better use them.

OK, I finally decided what to do with the new body. As it was so rotten I figured that I do not have the energy to even try to save it. After all, both heater channels, front- and rear valances, rear quarters etc needs replacement. For a real homegrown tube chassis it doesn't need to be perfect, just well made. And now I can avoid using NOS panels.

Even the cross panel was so rusty it needed replacement. This way everything is easier.

Front beam is 5" higher than standard, no need for dropped spindles.



A bit better picture of how the rear end should look like. Chassis dimensions are based on RLR back half (or full tube chassis) so this can be used to convert them to IRS.

Sneak peek about what is to come. Improved rear suspension using off the shelf components like hubs, calipers, discs, 930 stub axles. Fully adjustable and virtually no change in toe-in and minimal change in camber througout the suspension travel.

Paradise Motorsport makes similar system and at least one of their built cars has managed  to run faster than norwegian pan car with Vw suspension so it can't be bad...

Friday night barn find

Well, not exactly, but thanks to Tero I was able to get another 1952 beetle. Of course it had to be closer to -20C and dark but I just had to get the car under work so no excuses there. Although still not sure what to do with it I decided to take it completely apart for closer inspection.

 After a few hours we got the car to warmer and well-lighted place, Pekka's newly finished old barn soon to be filled with steel cows.

This is how it looked when we pulled it out. Not bad.

The car came with most of the steel parts, only fenders are missing.

Not bad at all.

 After spending most of saturday the car was finally dismantled. Most of the bolts came off easy but some needed a little welding and persuasion. Thanks again Pekka for all the help! That's all, I ran out of time and had to head back home.

Building kit, probably waiting for soda blasting. Let's see what Pekka can arrange.

No rust here.

This is the worst place, probably rotted due to earlier fix to the quarter panel.

Some rust here also but all in all there's maximum of two days for metal works. Not bad at all for a Finnish barn find.

Original nonwelded chassis. Needs two little patches but can't remember seeing better pan in ages. And the fact that no one has ever had to weld or fix it in any other way really adds value to it.