I just got a new job...so haven't had much time to work on the car during winter. Although I only have a few minor changes to the car...this will probably be a long update since I haven't posted in a while.
In preparation for the Halloween open lapping at PMP, I did a few things to the car:
1. Put my Kirkey aluminum seat back in:
I didn't like the harness bar or the racing harness...so I removed them.
2. I removed my glass moonroof:
...and threw in a lighter metal sunroof:
3. Removed my rear wiper:
...and put a temp plug in its place.
4. Finally...threw in some 20W50 oil (poured like cold maple syrup).
The car did o.k. during the warm-up laps on Halloween at PMP:
https://youtu.be/vxzYz01sGyIBut because the car didn't "feel" right, I decided to skip doing a hot lap, and head home.
This is the carnage I saw when I got home (all caused by the U-haul trailer). Besides an intake coupler being completely separated from the throttle-body, this is how my intake looked like:
The intake is supposed to be 4 inches:
...but looked like this instead:
So I gathered parts to make another one:
It came out looking like this:
Welding that tab/bracket pissed me off...which is why I don't want to show the welds. Since I had a tough time getting that weld perfect, you could say it triggered a welding obsession in me.
I'm probably in some sort of welding phase right now...and have been trying new things to improve this skill. The first was to get comfortable welding. I didn't like my current setup...so I went ahead and ordered a few things, and this came in:
Like I said, I'm in some sort of welding phase right now...and that includes both tig & mig. So the bulk of that package was a cheapo mig welder:
The other stuff that came in were things to modify my current tig setup.
The torch in the middle is HEAVY! I consider myself a strong dude, but trying to maneuver that torch & its associated cabling is pain. So I snagged a traditional series 17 torch (on the left) & a tiny series 9 torch (on the right)...with some superflex cables. You can immediately see how much smaller the new 17 torch on the left (with stubby gas lens) is from the 17 torch that came with my welder. The weight difference is an absolute night/day difference...I should've done this year's ago.
To get the superflex cable installed, I had to take apart my welder:
Here's the old bulky cable:
...and here's the new one installed:
While I had everything apart, I went ahead and upgraded to a dual flow meter for back purging:
Finally, I changed out all my tungsten for some 2% lanthanated tungstens. I'm not trying to pass any welding certifications, but it's nice learning a new skill. Whatever spare time I have left is spent on learning about metals & their properties...and the right filler rods/techniques to weld them. Pretty boring stuff...but I seem to be consumed with it all for some reason. Hopefully I'll get to actually start working on the car again when I'm done with this phase.
The car feels great btw. Since it was warm this weekend, I took her out a few times...and it definitely feels more powerful than when at PMP on Halloween. Not sure if more power is a good thing...but it's there