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Our plan is to bring the car out to the July 6th event at PIR. We definitely won't be competitive this year, probably not next year either. But we're trying to get the team set up for the future, hopefully, we're successful. Actually, a funny comment because the three options we voted on for a car this year were a fox, miata, or e46. We pretty much all decided on the e46 after a bit of debate.
Had kind of a shitty Christmas. My dad was supposed to come over for the weekend but then bailed on me and my kitty died last night :( He stopped eating/drinking on the 24th and then stopped breathing right before dinner on the 25th. I got to be with him for his last breaths and I buried him in one of my jackets that he used to love to sleep on. Been pretty rough though, we got him when I was 5 and we had a pretty deep bond. He loved to cuddle and he'd purr anytime he even came close to me, he also loved to be held more than any cat I've ever met. I've really never met a cat that was as affectionate as him. I'm gonna miss him a lot.
This was taken on the 23rd, when he decided to be cute and curl up under the christmas tree.
Sorry man, that sucks. The owner of our car had a 20+ year old dog die while we built it for LDRL, her name was Greta, which is why we call the car by the same name. Martin and myself at AR Auto Service have extensive knowledge with the e46 chassis, let us know if you need anything. See you at the track soon.
Well, I haven't made a ton of progress since the holidays. My car fund is mostly dry for the time being and I've run out of things to do that are free. I did get my windshield fitted. I rough cut it on the band saw and then finished it up with a grinder and a flap disc set at a very low rpm.
I also made some ultra swag gussets for the cage. I had originally spaced the centers of the holes evenly but after cutting them out I realized it looked funky with the different size dimple dies. So I re-did the holes with even spacing on the spaces between. I think it came out looking a lot better. The lower one is the evenly spaced set.
One of the items on the list for this year is a new trans mount. While the other one worked perfectly, it was heavy and caused exhaust clearance issues. Along with my trans mount, I would remove my frame rails since the car is caged. I need to buy a bathroom scale so I can take weights, but it's a pretty damn decent chunk of weight being taken off of the car. I'll probably see if I can sell them to an LS swap guy who needs them.
Because I'm tired of smashing my pinch welds, I figured I'd steal a page out of Moti/Ryan's book and add jacking points to the side of my cage.
That's it, that's all for right now. Hopefully I'll have some more updates sooner, rather than later.
Long time, no post. I had actually planned on taking some sick days to work on the car this week since I'm having trouble finding time for it with the LD car. But then I got the flu, so I actually had to take sick days. So my pace has been slow, but I got some work done on the car. Got the last few elements of the cage fully welded. Got the windshield mounted with extra large head dzus fasteners. I started to make a new trans mount before realizing that I'm gonna need to rebuild the exhaust at the same time. And while the exhaust does need to be re-done, I just don't think I have it in me right now. So my current plan is jack the car up a 1/4" and just call it a loss. That won't help at bump, but hopefully it'll help in some of the other areas.
Here's the windshield, it still needs to be trimmed around the edge a little so it's not such a tight fit and has room for expansion. But the car has a windshield again!
Finished welding the other cage elements, started tacking on the gussets. Also made a foot to use for the jacking point.
Do you have a pic of the door closed with the jacking point. I have a similar configuration and can add the jacking bar, it's a great idea.. need to see the outside with door closed please.
Do you have a pic of the door closed with the jacking point. I have a similar configuration and can add the jacking bar, it's a great idea.. need to see the outside with door closed please.
I imagine it looks like a normal door with no hole yet
^ He's right I haven't added the hole yet, but I was going to try to fill it in with a rubber plug of some sort and then cut an X in it. That way, hopefully, it's semi flat most the time, but you can stick the jacking point through the door. At least, that's the current idea in my head.
I imagine it looks like a normal door with no hole yet
I just realized he did not weld the jacking points but rather slides them in and pins them - no hole required if door is open for jacking up. I may need to plagiarize this as well
Windshield is from 949, although you can get it cheaper if you're willing to wait a few weeks. I had originally planned on doing it right away last summer, obviously, that didn't happen lol.
I'm not too worried about flex up front, it's all been seam welded. I have a feeling bolt in fender braces wouldn't really do much other than add more weight up front. I had tossed around the idea of tying in the front shock mounts to the cage. But I'd rather get the car running as it sits right now, I can always add that later.
I just realized he did not weld the jacking points but rather slides them in and pins them - no hole required if door is open for jacking up. I may need to plagiarize this as well
Your cage has so many nice features, but you don't have a real dash bar?