That's some tidy welding on the engine mounts! What are you using to weld?

Cheers mate, I`ve got a little invertec 200 (I think) air cooled TIG welder. I`m either going to rent or buy a water cooled one for when I do the cage as the duty cycle on the water cooled is low, plus I cant weld Ali with this either. Just a 3.2mm tungsten, 1.2mm A15 rod and pure argon on circa 10l/min. Does me well although if I was being critical of it the arc control could be better

 

Was going to say, looks far too neat for MIG! I only just mastered not getting pigeon poo last time I had the welder out!!

 

Awesome looking build - subscribed! I'm going to enjoy watching it unfold.

That's some tidy welding on the engine mounts!

I'll second that, it looks faultless.

 

This is one of my favourite threads on nutz. amazing work

 

Only a quick update I'm afraid. Manage to spend about 6 hrs on the car yesterday as I'm a family do. The rear of the cage is almost complete, bar the harness bars.





Forgot this pic, the main hoop brace is complete. I've attached it to the tunnel as it gives more room behind the seats than if I had gone corner to corner. I've checked with various people and it still conforms to msa regs



It needs the harness bars adding and some final trimming around the main hoop once the welds for the other joint bars are in but its another big piece of the puzzle done.

I hope to add the roof bars in this week and measure up the gutted doors so I can cad up the door bars and get them bent. Then ill actually have to start welding the damn thing![emoji3]

 

So as usual its been a while since my last update. Work has been royally getting in the way of any decent progress. I`ve had a few intermittant saturdays and evenings that I`ve been able to work on the cage, combined I`ve got alot done and the welding has begun

I got the triangulation bars installed that tie into the strut tops and got the front structure welded. It was a bit of a faff as the header bar tucks into the top of the windscreen surround but its a nice near solution







I also measured, in a very precise manner, using a combo of string, digital protractors and an assortment of rulers, the angles and lengths of my door bars, drew them up in cad and got them bent. They turned out spot on and I`m proper happy with them



I then spent a very long time getting the to match up side to side, both in angle and with the vertical tubes





Still alot of welding to do and a few pics missing, the doors are gutted and now weigh around 6.5kg, still alot but the work left to remove g`s isnt worth it at the moment

Hoepfully alot more progress this weekend and I wont leave it so long between updates next time

 

Looks excellent! With the car basically being the skeleton of the car is it worth extra mods like p5 rails and poly bushing or does this sort of cage do the full job?

Also what do you plan on using this car for?

 

Poly bushes are coming and the cage will provide all the stiffness I need. Got a bit of seam welding to do too. I also picked up my clutch set up when I was in the state's last week. Its a thing of beauty and ill get some pics up later

 

Sounds good. What will you be useing the car for?

 

Mainly track/sprint car. It will still be road legal but wont see much use on the road other than the occaisional sunday service or cool car day at work

 

So..... I`ll just leave this here



Clutch porn!! Picked this kit up in the states on my recent trip, Titan Motorsport were massively helpful in sorting out the hybrid kit and had it sent to the hotel ready for me to pick up. Very simple and hassle free, plus a damn site cheaper than getting the same set up in this country. It should also handle everything I throw at it. Just need to sort out the concentric hydraulic release bearing and get the spacer machined up when I have my engine

It was a bit more slow and steady progress over the weekend, welding all the door bars took way longer than planned, getting in behind places meant a half out of moving the cage in a very limited space (with the aid of ratchet straps) all to weld about 10mm of seam and then have to move it again. Got there in the end tho, behind the a piller was the biggest pita





I`m getting some sheet bent up this week for the gussets which should allow me to crack on with the cage this weekend

 

Awesome fab skills! This is gonna be a beast when it's finished!

 

Titan Motorsport!? They made some evil Supras as i'm sure you know. On that note is it a 2JZ going in? Awesome work man, admiring your fabrication skills big time!

 

Titan Motorsport!? They made some evil Supras as i'm sure you know. On that note is it a 2JZ going in? Awesome work man, admiring your fabrication skills big time!

Yeah they made some savagely quick supra`s, have you seen the Ekanoo Racing Supra, that thing is mental!

No 2JZ, or even 1JZ, here I`m afraid. All will be revealed soon!

 

I'm liking this build a lot so far. You've done some fine work!

 

lovely build.

cant wait for next update

SUBSCRIBED

 

looking good!!!

Dan have a word with carben fibre in exterior ref 'wings'....if you know what I mean!

 

no I dont sorry....

 

Dan-R!!!

 

Holy crap where does the time go. I had very little progress before christmas, work got busy and it seemed every free weekend was taken up with menial tasks like christmas shopping and weddings!lol.

I finally got sick and tired of lugging my welder and x47 gas bottle around the workshop so I made a little trolley for it. I`m so glas I did this as I`ve recently switch to an even bigger bottle which is nealry 6ft tall!

Couple of cheeky weld shots







and all finished



I`m going to add a removable 2 tier tray above the welder so I can store the foot pedal and collets/tungstens etc too

Then it was back onto finishing the subframe and engine mounts. I dont know why but I did one mount then put off doing the other side for some time. I remounted the engine and used the lower half of the column, albeit the wrong way round to give me a clearance envelope. If anyone has the lower UJ they want to sell me it`d be very much appreciated, I think I stupidly left my one on the rack when I sold it



Then my phone died and I`ve got no `in production` pics, just the finished item





I also stamped up the mounts so I know which side goes where (shouldnt matter, but they are ever so slightly different)



Then it was onto the engine side of the mount. There is very little space here as the steering shaft and a water pipe for the engine all try and run in the same vicinity and then I had to fit the engine mount.

Again I only have a few weld shots and the finished product, I got carried away whilst making it and forgot!







So thats it, engine is in



manifolds fit (although both will be remade so the orientation of the turbo and inlet are correct)



plenty of space for a 3" downpipe too



Then in typical fashion when I had a weekend of TIG planned, I ran out of argon, balls!! So i broke out the mig set and started stitch welding the front end. I attacked everything with a wire wheel and scraper before I started but the seam sealer trapped in the panels still spat every know and again. It was one of the most hateful few hours I spent on this car, sat in a wheel arch at a funny angle in full PPE was not fun! I took circa 3kg of crap out of both front arches, the seam sealer in places was 10mm thick! I`ll be reapplying it but not in that quantity!

All nice and shiney



I hammered some of the flanges together so that there wasnt large gaps to fill and then hit it with the mig



And finally, that parts I`ve waited ages to get, mainly because no bugger will make me some ( got my mate ian to do it in the end, life saver) and the ones that are sold by the generic places are very long and narrow and full of holes!

Everyone loves a good gusset! I`ll trim these shortly and fit a couple of bosses to mount the hardtop





Loads more planned this weekend, the cage should be finished and more seam sealer should be gone!!

 

EPIC !!!! love love love it

 

Oh my days amazing

 

Awesome build thread Dan, I remember you telling me about your plans when you picked up the widearch 5, if it's still the same then I can't wait to see it finished. Subscribed. :thumb-up:

How's the old Greenie treating you?

 

It is indeed the same one. Wide arches are patiently waiting to go on, bit of trimming and welding of the rear arches first but it won't be long. The green beast is treating me (well the missus) well thanks. Sailed thru its mot and just wrapped it satin black. Couldnt be bothered spraying the front arches and repairs to the rears so wrap was easier!

 

Everyones favourite time, UPDATES!!

So the middle of Feb is upon us and I`ve no idea how I got here, the past 6 weeks have flown by. I`ve been collecting and ordering bits and have been doing lots and lots of head scratching. I got to the stage where the seat, pedals and column needed mounting.

Oh yeah, pedals. I ordered a kit from OBP as it was a decent starting place and didnt break the bank like the tilton/ap offerings did. I also needed to tweak it (grind bits off) to get it to fit



For the cost I`m very impressed, so we will see how it performs

I also needed to mount the rear bumper after having removed a load of structure to make way for the exhaust and diffuser, so a quick cad drawing and a few holes and bending later and I had 2 of these



I`ve added a couple of rivnuts to the body and to the bracket and it fits beautifully

So back onto the cockpit saga. I had no definative datum as the seat/pedals and column were all floating at this stage so I set the pedals in the ideal position, then figured out where the column went and finally the seat. It took many many many (I could go on) iterations of this and lots of tweaking, I must have been in and out of the seat 30+ times but it was worth it. Now that I had the position I started making the upper column mount, I tried to use the OEM stuff but it just wouldnt fit

I`ve used rose joints for both the mounts as means the dont have to be perfectly alligned like a ball bearing would need to be to still function.

I cut some tubes and tacked together the frame work



then welded most of it



before fitting it back to the car and triple checking the position before tacking it to the dash bar



I forgot to take pics of the lower mount in the making but its all come together very nicely







I havnt fully welded it in yet as I want to come back to it with a fresh pair of eyes and sit in the seat without having sat in it loads during the day. my perception of level/felt right was waining.

I`m off on holiday next week and I`ll be picking up a full suspension bush kit, hydraulic release bearing and all the flanges to make the inlet & exhaust manifolds plus the downpipe!