Christian's build in MA; US Exocet #148

[buildercg]

Worked on the car much of the weekend. I disassembled, cleaned, painted and re-assembled the clutch/brake/gas pedal mounts, mounted the radiator and fabricated a hinge for the hood.

The hinge took most of the day today. I did have to cut about 5 inches off the underside of the hood; but at least 2 1/2" had to come off to allow my stock radiator to clear. I have to get another piece of 1/8" steel plate before I can test it out. All in all, I think it'll work well. I'm going to use a couple of lockable Aero latches to keep the hood closed and I may add a piston.

Unfortunately, my pics didn't come out this evening so I'll take some when I get better light (hopefully tomorrow).

[steadfast]

Looking forward to seeing the hinge.

[buildercg]

Apr 25, 2016 17:27:17 GMT steadfast said:

Looking forward to seeing the hinge.

Well, I was hoping to share images tonight but the photo sharing site I've been using, Imgur, seems to have changed recently as I cannot upload new images, see my old images, or add new images in the manner I used to.  I need to figure out what's up with it.

Anyway, progress was made tonight. The hinge is built and assembled. I now have to trim the hood a little bit to allow everything to fit. It's late to do noisy cutting so it'll have to wait until later this week (rain expected tomorrow and I don't run power tools in the rain).

[greg]

Yes I'm annoyed with imgur too.

The trick is to upload them one at a time. Then you get the traditional page which lets you add the img tags for the forum.

[buildercg]

Sorry it took so long for the pics. Imgur is cooperating now though.

Here's pics from last night. Too cold and wet to finish this up. I still need to trim the nose to get this to fit. As you will be able to tell, this setup would require modification to allow any kind of oil or air cooler to be mounted in front of the radiator, but as I don't have either I'm okay (for now).

This is fully custom fabricated; my first real metal bending (my son and I home built a brake press to do the bending).  The two brackets are made out of 18 gauge sheet metal purchased at the local big box store. I only needed about 18" x 12" in total. The brackets have very little flex.

The movable part of the hinge is comprised of 2 pieces of 2" wide 1/8" thick steel held together with six M6 grade 8 flange head bolts and nuts. The fiberglass is sandwiched between the two pieces of metal. I figure this will give good grip and lessen the stress on the fiberglass by holding it from both sides and by giving a relatively large surface area. 

I used 2 M6 grade 8 flange head bolts along with the appropriate rivnut to attach the brackets to the frame. 

The M6 bolts that hold the movable part of the hinge are temporary until I figure out something that won't come unscrewed. I'll probably go with a piece of 1/2" round tube steel, a large washer on each side (plus in the middle), and a couple of carefully placed cotter pins on each end as the permanent solution.

I'm nervous about flexing/cracking caused by the weight of the hood plus movement as the car is driven. Once I have the hood fully assembled, including my Aero catches I may weld a lightweight frame to the movable part of the hinge that can then fiberglass to the underside of the hood.

I used a couple of layers of cardboard in the engine bay to provide prevent the hood from sitting flush on the frame. A mistake I made was not extending this the full length of the round bars, so I have to jockey the hood a bit when performing my the many fittings I've done while working on this. The bottle cap in the first picture made a perfect tool for determining the round edge I needed for the hinge to work and also to cut the holes in the brackets.

Test fitting/figuring out where to drill the holes.


First hole drilled.


Second hole drilled.


Basically complete; the bottom steel plate obviously needs to trimmed as I don't think the RMV will let me go Mad Max with a kneecapper sticking out. Note the piece of scrap fiberglass I used for checking clearances. This came from one of the three trims I've already performed on the underside of the nose. The fiberglass thickness varies quite a bit. I have a separate piece that's the same length but only about 2/3rds the thickness.

[buildercg]

I finished installing the hood yesterday. The hinge works great and the Aero latches are worth the cost. I had to weld supports in for the latches. I cannot post pics from my phone so I'll get them up later.

I'm hoping to join the skate and chassis today, temporarily, so I can determine the best place to weld on my headlight mounts and to figure out the size and shape of the fuel cell. Then the chassis will be off for powder coating.

[buildercg]

With the help of my wife and son I got the chassis mounted to the skate yesterday. It took a lot more time than I anticipated but we were successful and very few scratches to the powder coated cross members. The bolt holes for rear end are all about a 1/4 inch off, but I figure I can easily remedy that with a strap. After the chassis had it's weight on the front end for a few hours the bolts all line up in the front (they didn't when I tried to lift the front cross member up to the chassis).







As earlier promised, here's pictures of the installed hood. I now realize that I made a mistake finishing the hinge positioning without having the engine in place as the hood hits the engine. I'll need to refine the bracket position.

[buildercg]

Rear end fits better today after the chassis rested on it overnight. I was able to 2 of the 4 bolts in place with no issue today. The other two will require some minor jockeying.

I fixed the hood hinge by drilling new holes an inch lower on the brackets which raised everything up accordingly. I made small adjustments to the Aero catches and now the hood clears the engine. I have to test with the radiator in place but I think there will be no clearance problems.

Unfortunately, the fiberglass underside of the hood scratched the powdercoated valve cover. Hopefully it will buff out.

My steering column got pulled apart by over 2 inches when I removed it last fall using a strap. I didn't discover this until yesterday when I attempted a test fit and the steering was not close to assembly. I tried pounding it back together with my rubber mallet and struggled until I built myself a support structure to hold it upright. Problem solved. Steering now fits.





As I was pounding on the shaft, I noticed that the other end (steering wheel side) was moving a bit. I pounded it back a little but I don't know if it's in the correct position. Can anyone let me know what the correct length is supposed to be on the steering wheel side?

[buildercg]

I'm going to order my fuel cell tomorrow but don't know the correct OHM range to use for the dashboard fuel gauge. I haven't been able to find a definitive answer online or in my reference manuals. I think its either 0-90 or 2-110. Can anyone confirm this for a '92?

I plan to obtain a high pressure fuel pump even though I'm not going turbo or supercharging now so that when I do go in that direction I don't have to buy a new pump. Aside from possibly running rich, will this cause me any major problems?

[jwagner]

Somebody that actually knows what they are talking about may weigh in (and without reading your whole thread to look at your setup). IIRC fuel flow is proportional to pressure, so unless you tune it you should stay pretty close to stock pressure. In a '92 your regulator is up on the fuel rail, so as long as you don't overload the stock regulator I would guess you should be pretty close to stock fuel pressure. The ECU should adjust for any subtle differences in pressure, except at full throttle, where you use preset maps in open loop mode. Guessing you might be just a touch richer at WOT, but that shouldn't hurt anything.

I would probably spend some quality time with google since somebody has done this before.

[buildercg]

Thanks jwagner. I should have prefixed my post with "I know nothing about fuel systems other than what I've tried understanding on google for the last few hours".

[buildercg]

So I just discovered the stock radiator overflow tank and the Jackson Racing cold air intake from my donor won't fit. The tank is not a big deal but I was really hoping/budget was counting on using the intake. I looked at trying to modify the intake overhang but shortening it puts it right where the radiator is supposed to be and it's designed so that it can only be installed facing forward.

[buildercg]

This is basically the Jackson Racing intake I've got from my donor. I'm going to spend more time tomorrow and see if I can get it to fit.

Ordered a simple clear Dorman reservoir. It's basically square and should fit fine.

[gwnwar]

buildercg.. First off Happy Birthday..
Steering shaft/column length 603.7mm > 605.7mm or 23.77in. > 23.85in.
You should be able to sell the Jackson Racing cold air intake for more then enough for an intake system..
Don't cut up the Jackson system put it on Miata.net or eBay.. Make sure you remove the harness extension to sell with intake..

[gwnwar]

On the fuel gauge full to empty 2ohm > 110ohm