Great, another V8 FC drift car build thread :/

StephenSheppard · 12-11-2012, 11:35 AM

Haven't updated in awhile due to breaking my hand with a drill. yep a drill. It was super fun........

Basically my hand met a drill body that was spinning really fast and broke some of those little bones behind the knuckles. Hurt like hell was swollen up pretty good as well. Also i started a new job and that's borrowing a lot of my time lately.

I'll get back on this pretty quick though, my hand is nearly operational now.

StephenSheppard · 02-25-2013, 12:58 AM

Soooooooooooooo........

Ya I forgot to update this thread.......like a lot.

Let me try to figure out how this was going.

I started mocking up the radiator brackets. These were unfinished parts of course I was just trying to get some sort of direction on what I liked. Turns out I didn't like any of it lol. Here's some pics anyways.

I messed with that for a couple days and couldn't get any kind of setup that was stable enough or would keep vibrations down to something I felt was appropriate for an aluminium jam bouncing around in the front of the car.

So I ignored the problem hoping it would go away or whatever lol, and moved on to finishing up the x-brace for the bottom of the front of the car.

I painted it and all that on my FB hood cause why not right? Later that turned out to be a waste of time and I had it powdercoated black with a bunch of other stuff.

Then I moved on to cut and notch the outside of the frame rails where that annoying little tab of metal sticks out that everyone beats in with a hammer to gain tire clearance.

I welded in some steel. Kind of bootleg but whatever.

I can't really remember what I did next so I'm guessing, but anyways at some point I modified the pedal assembly for the new Wilwood clutch master cylinder that comes with the Granny's Speed Shop SBC kit.

Basically I figured the alignment of the MC bolts and welded on tubing to support the firewall at the new hole locations. Copying the factory setup seemed like the thing to do. I just used a slightly larger size of tubing since it's not critical or anything.

StephenSheppard · 02-25-2013, 01:05 AM

The next pic in the camera was this, but it jumps past some other stuff. I guess I forgot to take some pics, get over it I guess.

You can see the radiator bracket changed quite a bit. Still had the bent rod passing through the diagonal square tubes at this point. That was again revised. I have heard you never dead head pipe into a frame rail......so I did that first thing as my approach to extending the frame rails lol......oops. Well I did leave some other stuff welded less so it can crush. We will come back to that. Added the mount tabs for the radiator bracket to the round frame extensions. The radiator is just hanging there in the pic trapped not actually mounted in any way.

Got this stuff powdercoated.

StephenSheppard · 02-25-2013, 01:19 AM

Added some round stock to the inside edge of the fender well holes since I'm leaving the hole open and I don't feel like getting cut everytime I touch any of that.

Had the subframe powdercoated.

Pretty sure this is the pic just before I started prepping the engien bay for paint. Took everything off the chassis, then sanded, and sanded, and wire wheeled and basically it took forever since I can't dedicate huge amounts of time to teh car all at once. You can see there was a couple improvements made to the frame rail extensions.

Seam sealer and some primer happened.

Bought a couple hundred dollars of stainless steel 3/16" tubing and fittings for the brake system. Bought more later lol.

Bought an ASD hydro E-brake

Cut my broken windshield out and finished primering the engine bay.

This stuff comes off super easy with a razor blade and then a soft wirewheel in a drill.

No windshield status

StephenSheppard · 02-25-2013, 01:33 AM

Then we skip ahead in time again.

And........................................

Painted.

Paint came out pretty nice. I dig it. The whole car will be painted that color when it's all said and done.

One the "bumper" I tried to stay away from doing too much heavy welding in hopes that this stuff will be destroyed in case of a say 20mph or more impact. hopefully it's a sound thought process. Also hopefully I never find out. To be realistic it is a drift car so the coolers will probably be destroyed in a decent speed collision.

Painted the wheelwells also. They will get all scratched up of course but figured it could start by looking decent and then I won't care about what happens later really.

Installed the subframe

StephenSheppard · 02-25-2013, 01:47 AM

Something happened here

More stuff goes to be powdercoated. The x-brace, the radiator bracket (revised for the third time), the slave cylinder mount, the steering rack brackets, the front LCA brackets, the engine cradle, and the trans bracket. Maybe some other stuff I don't know it's hard to keep track off honestly.

A neat picture with tubing nuts and sleeves lol

Painted the brake booster and loosely mounted it and the brake master cylinder. Began the process of building the MC lines to the firewall bulkheads. The proportioning valve will be inside the car. One problem with the FC factory MC is that it has two front outputs right off the MC. I had to buy a plug for one of the outputs so that there would be just the one. The fronts brakes divide after the proportioning valve now, more on that later.

Built the front brake lines up to teh bulkheads in the firewall as well. almost a finished product at this point.

I didn't like how the rear MC brake line was laying out so I started over lol.

Front line is on the right in the picture at the firewall.

Here's what's in the wheelwells. I used a staright -3AN bulkhead and bolted that through the brake line holder. All the brake stuff is now -3AN no more inverted flare stuff or any of that. Doing 37 degree flares is far faster and easier then doing double 45 degree flares, plus it looks cooler. I chose steel stuff due to the fact that is far more resilient than aluminium stuff. I don't need a brake line failure because a little rock popped a hole in something. Also the stainless stuff weighs such a small amount more it's not even worth mentioning really.

StephenSheppard · 02-25-2013, 02:01 AM

Here's what it looks like on the inside of the firewall in case you were wondering. The bulkheads are 90 degree jams. In this picture they are not pointed in the right direction though. Yes there's tons of clearance to any moving parts.

Before and after sand blasting the LCAs

I already had MMR's Delrin bushings in my control arms. They fit so well I had to rig up a bearing puller to get the dam things off so I could sand blast the arms lol. So if you ever wondered, yes they are very nice and fit almost a little to well. Good stuff though. I love the response these bushings add to the car.

When I was done I clearcoated the arms then reinstalled the bushings. Not sre how the clearcoat will hold up but figured it might be worth a shot.

Sexy!

Installed them with new stainless hardware.

Installed the wiper linkage with new hardware as well.

Hung the coilovers with new hardware..............I think you're beginning to notice the trend here.

Unbolted my single piston front brakes and tossed them in the trash, time to finally put the 4 piston factory brakes on again. For a low powered car as before though the single piston brakes worked perfectly fine. They would lock up at speeds above 60 mph if you really gave them hell.

Basically I tore down the wiper motor, cleaned it, sand blasted the body of it. Cleaned everything else and reassembled it. In the picture the top was still drying from repainting so here you can see the little electric motor parts.

I was going to rebuild a set and sand blast them since I have a few but I think I'm going to go with rebuilt units from a parts supplier to save me some time. They will probably be painted black but I don't care too much what color the calipers are honestly.

I may still rebuild them myself, I'll see how I feel about it later I guess when i get ready to get that done.

12-11-2012, 11:35 AM	#1
StephenSheppard Rotary Fan in Training Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 58 Rep Power: 13	Haven't updated in awhile due to breaking my hand with a drill. yep a drill. It was super fun........ Basically my hand met a drill body that was spinning really fast and broke some of those little bones behind the knuckles. Hurt like hell was swollen up pretty good as well. Also i started a new job and that's borrowing a lot of my time lately. I'll get back on this pretty quick though, my hand is nearly operational now.

02-25-2013, 12:58 AM	#2
StephenSheppard Rotary Fan in Training Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 58 Rep Power: 13	Soooooooooooooo........ Ya I forgot to update this thread.......like a lot. Let me try to figure out how this was going. I started mocking up the radiator brackets. These were unfinished parts of course I was just trying to get some sort of direction on what I liked. Turns out I didn't like any of it lol. Here's some pics anyways. I messed with that for a couple days and couldn't get any kind of setup that was stable enough or would keep vibrations down to something I felt was appropriate for an aluminium jam bouncing around in the front of the car. So I ignored the problem hoping it would go away or whatever lol, and moved on to finishing up the x-brace for the bottom of the front of the car. I painted it and all that on my FB hood cause why not right? Later that turned out to be a waste of time and I had it powdercoated black with a bunch of other stuff. Then I moved on to cut and notch the outside of the frame rails where that annoying little tab of metal sticks out that everyone beats in with a hammer to gain tire clearance. I welded in some steel. Kind of bootleg but whatever. I can't really remember what I did next so I'm guessing, but anyways at some point I modified the pedal assembly for the new Wilwood clutch master cylinder that comes with the Granny's Speed Shop SBC kit. Basically I figured the alignment of the MC bolts and welded on tubing to support the firewall at the new hole locations. Copying the factory setup seemed like the thing to do. I just used a slightly larger size of tubing since it's not critical or anything.

02-25-2013, 01:05 AM	#3
StephenSheppard Rotary Fan in Training Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 58 Rep Power: 13	The next pic in the camera was this, but it jumps past some other stuff. I guess I forgot to take some pics, get over it I guess. You can see the radiator bracket changed quite a bit. Still had the bent rod passing through the diagonal square tubes at this point. That was again revised. I have heard you never dead head pipe into a frame rail......so I did that first thing as my approach to extending the frame rails lol......oops. Well I did leave some other stuff welded less so it can crush. We will come back to that. Added the mount tabs for the radiator bracket to the round frame extensions. The radiator is just hanging there in the pic trapped not actually mounted in any way. Got this stuff powdercoated.

02-25-2013, 01:19 AM	#4
StephenSheppard Rotary Fan in Training Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 58 Rep Power: 13	Added some round stock to the inside edge of the fender well holes since I'm leaving the hole open and I don't feel like getting cut everytime I touch any of that. Had the subframe powdercoated. Pretty sure this is the pic just before I started prepping the engien bay for paint. Took everything off the chassis, then sanded, and sanded, and wire wheeled and basically it took forever since I can't dedicate huge amounts of time to teh car all at once. You can see there was a couple improvements made to the frame rail extensions. Seam sealer and some primer happened. Bought a couple hundred dollars of stainless steel 3/16" tubing and fittings for the brake system. Bought more later lol. Bought an ASD hydro E-brake Cut my broken windshield out and finished primering the engine bay. This stuff comes off super easy with a razor blade and then a soft wirewheel in a drill. No windshield status

02-25-2013, 01:33 AM	#5
StephenSheppard Rotary Fan in Training Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 58 Rep Power: 13	Then we skip ahead in time again. And........................................ Painted. Paint came out pretty nice. I dig it. The whole car will be painted that color when it's all said and done. One the "bumper" I tried to stay away from doing too much heavy welding in hopes that this stuff will be destroyed in case of a say 20mph or more impact. hopefully it's a sound thought process. Also hopefully I never find out. To be realistic it is a drift car so the coolers will probably be destroyed in a decent speed collision. Painted the wheelwells also. They will get all scratched up of course but figured it could start by looking decent and then I won't care about what happens later really. Installed the subframe

02-25-2013, 01:47 AM	#6
StephenSheppard Rotary Fan in Training Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 58 Rep Power: 13	Something happened here More stuff goes to be powdercoated. The x-brace, the radiator bracket (revised for the third time), the slave cylinder mount, the steering rack brackets, the front LCA brackets, the engine cradle, and the trans bracket. Maybe some other stuff I don't know it's hard to keep track off honestly. A neat picture with tubing nuts and sleeves lol Painted the brake booster and loosely mounted it and the brake master cylinder. Began the process of building the MC lines to the firewall bulkheads. The proportioning valve will be inside the car. One problem with the FC factory MC is that it has two front outputs right off the MC. I had to buy a plug for one of the outputs so that there would be just the one. The fronts brakes divide after the proportioning valve now, more on that later. Built the front brake lines up to teh bulkheads in the firewall as well. almost a finished product at this point. I didn't like how the rear MC brake line was laying out so I started over lol. Front line is on the right in the picture at the firewall. Here's what's in the wheelwells. I used a staright -3AN bulkhead and bolted that through the brake line holder. All the brake stuff is now -3AN no more inverted flare stuff or any of that. Doing 37 degree flares is far faster and easier then doing double 45 degree flares, plus it looks cooler. I chose steel stuff due to the fact that is far more resilient than aluminium stuff. I don't need a brake line failure because a little rock popped a hole in something. Also the stainless stuff weighs such a small amount more it's not even worth mentioning really.

02-25-2013, 02:01 AM	#7
StephenSheppard Rotary Fan in Training Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 58 Rep Power: 13	Here's what it looks like on the inside of the firewall in case you were wondering. The bulkheads are 90 degree jams. In this picture they are not pointed in the right direction though. Yes there's tons of clearance to any moving parts. Before and after sand blasting the LCAs I already had MMR's Delrin bushings in my control arms. They fit so well I had to rig up a bearing puller to get the dam things off so I could sand blast the arms lol. So if you ever wondered, yes they are very nice and fit almost a little to well. Good stuff though. I love the response these bushings add to the car. When I was done I clearcoated the arms then reinstalled the bushings. Not sre how the clearcoat will hold up but figured it might be worth a shot. Sexy! Installed them with new stainless hardware. Installed the wiper linkage with new hardware as well. Hung the coilovers with new hardware..............I think you're beginning to notice the trend here. Unbolted my single piston front brakes and tossed them in the trash, time to finally put the 4 piston factory brakes on again. For a low powered car as before though the single piston brakes worked perfectly fine. They would lock up at speeds above 60 mph if you really gave them hell. Basically I tore down the wiper motor, cleaned it, sand blasted the body of it. Cleaned everything else and reassembled it. In the picture the top was still drying from repainting so here you can see the little electric motor parts. I was going to rebuild a set and sand blast them since I have a few but I think I'm going to go with rebuilt units from a parts supplier to save me some time. They will probably be painted black but I don't care too much what color the calipers are honestly. I may still rebuild them myself, I'll see how I feel about it later I guess when i get ready to get that done.