Looks like a good layout, Rick. Will look even better with the CF all done!

C ya,
Dutch

 

cant wait to see the hood! Interesting read as well

 

God dammit, Rick.... I've spent the last 2 days working my way through this thread... only to find out your car is a worthless pile in your garage!
On the other hand, you've given me a direction for me own R53. Your build (engine wise) is a revelation for us lesser mortals! I hope things turn out well for you, and I wish you the best!

 

Ok so I havent updated this thread in MONTHS. The car is still broke, give me a break. Still looking for that magical ATM machiene that just starts spitting money at me when I walk by.

I have been doing a little work to it though. Mostly fixing some of the crappy fiberglass parts.

Today it was unseasonably warm (Upper 60's) so I took off my M7 wing and went to my buddys body shop. The wing looked good on the car before, but as soon as I started blocking it all the waves in the CF and fiberglass where visable and I saw how crappy the thing was actually finished. It took me a few hours to get the blade of the wing down to somewhat level, but tomorrow I am going to hit it with some clear and block it down some more. I still have 2 big waves in the carbon that I want to come out. The fiberglass base wasn't as bad as the exit scoop was to do, but it was still a bit of a chore to get flat. I had to add some filler under the base where the brakelight is because of a few nasty waves that wouldnt come out. More sanding tomorrow, and maby some pics if I think about taking my camera.

 

I was shocked you lasted this long wirhout doung something....

 

**** you will never fail to impress me with your aptitude at body work haha, you say it so nonchalant, "oh yeah just gonna remold some fiberglass scoops and do a bit of wing remodeling, no big" haha. Wish I had your talent!

 

Really doing basic body work is one of the easyest things you can do. Now making your own fiberglass or CF parts, or getting into the more advanced body and paint work is more difficult. Well its off to the body shop again, I'll get some pics.

 

Didnt get as much done today as I wanted. The clear is getting sprayed on the blade of the wing sometime tonight, and I will level it out more after a good long drying period. I did get the base pretty straight, then noticed that the entire thing is twisted a little. Its not enough to really notice, but if you have a good set of eyes and stare at it long enough you might. All of the waves are worked out of it, and it's ready for some high build primer.

I did take a few pics but the waves really dont show up in them if you dont know what you are looking at.
Here they are, in the new bigger size than all the prievious pic's in this thread.





This is the one you can kinda see the big wave in. It shows up as a dark spot on the right edge of the blade, My thumb is pointing right at it.


Other than that it blocked out pretty good with no aditional clear coat.

 

Keep at it Rick. Need to get it back on the road.

 

The way things are going it's going to be ready for paint before the motor is pulled. Still keeping my original idea for the paint scheme, (this time atleast) even though all the plans for the engine have changed since this thread was last updated in September.

 

Are you sticking with E85?

 

Nope... Eventualy I might do it again, but not right away. I really need to put togeather a well thought out fuel system to do it right. The hardest part is going to be coming up with a fuel rail that can use an external regulator and converting it to a return system instead of MINI's dead head system. Pumps are easy to come by, and an inline booster pump should do the trick. Outside of that the 550cc injectors are going to be too small, and the stock ECU wont support the 880cc injectors that will be going in with the rest of the fuel system.

 

So, whats the setup going to be then?

 

Truth be told 880's are really to small....

Got a buddy making "375hp" on E85 and his injectors are getting up there. This is on a Dyno Dynamics though lol. Thats why I put the power in quotes. These are on 1000cc

Shouldn't be to hard to do a return fuel system ive been looking into it. Thinking of doing some custom in tank pump setup and return and posting it up for people. A long with a hard wire for the pump.

 

The Clint Eastwood special.

You all will find out when the engine gets pulled and sent away for the build.

 

I like that!

 

With the car running a 90% IDC with an AFR of mid 12's on E-gas ByteTroniK and 550's, I think the 880's ought to be plenty. You can always get a little more by raising the fuel perssure too.

What would you use for a rail and regulator on your setup? When my original pump failed at Tobz, we pulled all the plastic around the pump off to see what we could fit inside. Doing a custom in tank pump is possible, but an inline booster pump would be easyer to do. (And it would produse more noise per dollar.)

 

What did you have those scaled at?

If you are going stand alone might as well go 1000's that way you still have room to grow. This is only if you are going to a E85 setup. Racegas only needs about 10% more injector.

I can get a rail made. Not to worried about that. Just use a custom rail with -6an fittings feeding from a -6an line returning to a am mini fuel pressure regulator. Then all that returning to the tank with a -6an line. I was going to mess with it when I get home from work. I have a couple idea's to return it and feed it.

-6an has been proven to 700+ awhp (its what I run on my EVO lol.)

Just remember that by uping your BASE fuel pressure you can get yourself in a bind depending on your relief for your fuel pump (Walbro 255 will bypass at 80ish psi) and the amount of boost that you are running. It is better to have bigger injectors running at a lower base, with the fuel system to back it up.

 

Well the wing is almost done, still has some slight waves even after 6+ layers of clear! I will hopefully get the rest of it blocked out tonight, and spray the final clear when the next car in the shop gets sprayed.

I did get some good pics of the bad spots, so you all can see what I am talking about.

Sorry for the blurryness.







This was before the blocking last night, I know its hard to look at, but it looks pretty straight.

 

I didn't see any info on how you started this wing. Did you use a foam core or did you make a mold? Very inserted in your projects keep it up

 

This is M7's C-wing, I'm just straightening out the stuff that they left out. Since I have been building cars and using fiberglass or C/F, I've found that all of it needs work. Some pices look good out of the box but if you use a straight edge on it it's always pretty bad.

I know the point of my build on this car is not to have another pretty show pice that is never driven, but that dosent mean that I need to live with mass production quality looks. Lucky me, I know how to do all of this stuff fairly well, so it's something to do while I wait to rebuild the engine, and it's decently cheap. So far all I have done here has cost me $10.00 and a case of Bud Light.

 

did you design everything on your hood yourself?

 

The DFIC exit is another M7 pice, and it needed just as much work as the wing. (Atleast it's fiberglass, so I could use filler rather than build it up with clearcoat.) The NACA ducts came from APR, since I bought them for $80.00 each the price has gone up to $140.00 EACH, last I looked! They really didnt need any work though.

I just came up with the layout to make everything fit, and functional.

 

Today I was a little bored and decided to see what my car would look like painted with a matte finish dark silver. I just buzzed the driver door down with some 1000 grit and ran it back over with some medium cut compound.

I LOVE IT! Deffenatly going to be adding the flattening agent when I respray the car. I'm still not sure if I will do the orange peril, but it could happen.

Anyways heres the pic's, a couple of them are a little blurry. (Stupid sun was blinding out my camera.)