Build thread

[speedjunkie]

I've been meaning to start this project for a few years now but I finally got off my ass and started. I picked up a couple Kirkey Road Race seats and planned to drop the butt of them between the rails to get maximum low, like the stock seats. I might still do that just for extra foam, but I don't really need to to get low enough to fit with a helmet. It already has a 15 degree layback, but I'm adding a bit of additional tilt to the seat, partly because I like to lean a little further back but also out of necessity because the bottom of the seat is curved so it won't sit flat on the rails anyway. I had to mount it a little further forward on the rails because the seatbelt receiver mount sticks out and was pushing the seat closer to the door, so now it's centered on the rails. I also need to have the shoulder bolsters shaved down, like this Corvette owner did https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c7 ... or-c7.html. I used a mallet to bend them in a bit but it wasn't even close to enough. Right now I'm just using spacers for mock up purposes on the front bolts, but I'm going to see if my buddy can machine some angled pieces that I can have welded onto the bottom to mount the rails to, just so there is some added support throughout the seat. I wouldn't trust the spacers for street driving, much less racing or aggressive driving lol. I'm going to have to drill new holes in the rails for the rear bolts because the back of the seat is several inches shy of the rear bolt holes. Or maybe I can get the seat modified for that too. And I need to figure out some way to mount the bottom straps of the 6 point harness. I'm still contemplating installing a brace for the back of the seat, but I'm not sure where I'd attach it since I still have a full interior. I'm 6'3" about 240 currently with a 38" waist, and this seat fits great and even with a helmet on I have an inch or two above my head and my eyes are level with the top of the steering wheel.

Kinda hard to tell from this pic, but there is decent space.
20210321_231655 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

Still way too wide on the shoulders.
20210321_231945 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

All the way back. I guess I could mount the seat a little further back if I cut a hole in the side to make room for the seatbelt mount, but it's sitting about the same place as the stock seat all the way back and I don't really need it any further back.
20210321_231951 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

All the way forward. I can still get to my two cycle and other fluids in the rear bin.
20210321_232011 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

[speedjunkie]

I talked to Ethan Gorra about machining some adapter blocks for me. This is a very crude drawing of what the front one needs to look like.
SmartSelect_20210323-000656_Gallery by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I ran into a snag for the rear one though. I was going to just drill an extra hole in each rail for the rear bolt, but I guess I hadn't checked the full extension of the rail to make sure the rollers wouldn't hit it. I didn't think they would, but I guess so, so forward movement would be limited. It looks like I'd still be able to get into the rear bin, but it would be better to have the full movement of the seat to allow the most room to get in there.

This is where I was going to put the rear bolt.
SmartSelect_20210323-000731_Gallery by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

This is another really crude, one dimensional drawing of the bracket I'll need made. The nut and bolt in the pic is where the rear bolt hole is for the stock seat. I put that bar across there to try to keep the rails parallel so I could mark where to drill the holes.
SmartSelect_20210323-000713_Gallery by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

Ethan suggested going to Cole Duran at 4D Engineering here in town to have the mods done to the seats. I don't know Cole but I've definitely heard his name, and I think Chase Edmons had a bad experience with him. I'm still waiting to hear back on price and time frame.

[speedjunkie]

I decided to just shorten the shoulder bolsters myself, although I'll probably see if I can get the trim pieces put back on, or maybe just use some kind of weather stripping on there so it doesn't tear through the cover. There are no jagged edges though, it's all smoothed off.
20210327_190047 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
20210327_190052 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I think I'll be taking the seats to Ethan Tuesday night so he can start fabricating the mounting brackets and spacer pieces and then Cole can weld them on. Trying to figure out where to mount the eyelets for the bottom two straps on my harness.

[speedjunkie]

I dropped off the seats with Ethan after work today and he got back to me pretty quick with a quote. Let's just say it was a little rich for my blood lol. So I talked to Brad, Zico, and Brett about ideas on what I could do. I was talking to Cody and he just put aftermarket seats in his FD and he's giving me his stock rails, and he sent me a link to some aftermarket rail options from Vivid Racing. They have a couple different versions that might work better for me, but I think I'm going to try to modify the extra set of stock rails first by welding on some tabs to side mount the seats. That will give me the option of changing the layback of the seat too. Unfortunately, it will make it so I can't adjust the seat side to side if I don't end up liking where it is. Oh well. So I'm picking up the seats tomorrow and I'm going to get to work on the other option now.

[speedjunkie]

I drove the car tonight with the new seat only bolted in with the two front bolts. On right turns it was fine, on left turns it flexed a bit LOL. But I LOVE the seat. I put the original cover and padding back on it for tonight. It's a little tight on the ribs, so I might tap those out a little to give just a little extra room, but other than that it's perfect as it sits. I need to put a helmet on again just to make sure, but I think it'll be good.

I also designed a new style of horn button last night. I've been wanting to for a while because the plastic ones look so cheap. Mine will be flush with the surface of the steering wheel and sit tight in the opening, and it won't use wires. I already drew it out, although it'll need to be drawn in CAD still before machining. I'm thinking about printing it before getting it machined.

[speedjunkie]

I drew out the new horn button with measurements today and sent it to Collyn and he already started on the CAD for it. We'll finalize it within the next couple weeks when we see each other, and hopefully get this thing cranked out so I can start testing it and maybe even start producing them. I was able to find parts at ACE hardware that I think will work better, although there are still one or two things I need to iron out for parts I plan to use.

[speedjunkie]

I got home yesterday from my work trip to Hawaii. I met up with a couple FD guys there and helped one of them pull his engine, and the other guy was having issues with his stock twins only making 7psi but luckily I had that problem years ago and knew what it was, so he ordered the parts and is back in business now. WOOHOO!

I contacted Ethan about the seat brackets and he said their laser programmer quit, so Austin gave me the name of another guy that can cut them and he's doing it for less than half of what Ethan quoted me. SWEET! He said he thinks he can do them tomorrow (Sunday). With any luck I'll have them both mounted this week sometime.

[speedjunkie]

I picked up the brackets from Nick on Sunday and took the seats and rails to Xavier's house last night and he welded the brackets on. Turned out pretty well overall. Only one bracket has a weld that doesn't look perfect, and that was because we didn't realize there was oil or grease or something on it, so it was contaminated. Either way, it'll be painted and under the seat so it won't even be visible. I thought about clear coating them because the other welds are beautiful and colorful lol.

2021-04-27_02-12-14 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I'm taking the seats back to Nick so he can weld some extra aluminum pieces on the inside of the seats where the mounting bolts will be coming through, to bolster that area in the hopes of lessening wear over time so the holes won't elongate. I probably don't NEED to do this, but I'd rather have peace of mind. I'm thinking about leaving the spacers and bolts in the front also so the weight isn't solely on the brackets. Xavier and I were talking about also adding gussets to the front brackets to strengthen them too, maybe at a later time. Although maybe I'll see if we can do that before I paint them.

[speedjunkie]

Nick welded on the extra material Thursday night and Friday and I got the seats mounted that afternoon and that night I took them to Xavier and he added some gussets to the mounting brackets. The way they're sitting right now with padding, I'm almost back up to as high as the stock seats, although I still fit with my helmet and I can slide my hand above. And the shoulder bolster is really close to the door panel again, somehow. But they're pretty sturdy.

Saturday evening I drove the car to Collyn's house in Berthoud to test them out. Well, they're not that bad, but they're not as comfy as I was hoping. Even after driving back to my house from Xavier's my butt was kinda hurting. On the drive to Berthoud, I think my butt bone was hitting the seat occasionally, which is really not good. So now I'm trying to decide if I should cut the butt of the seats and drop them down and add more padding, or check into some seat rails that really allow you to drop them all the way down because the sliders are on the side. The only problem is I don't think they're wide enough to fit these seats. Odula (sold on RHDJapan), FEED, and Auto Craft (both sold on Vivid Racing) make them that I've seen so far, but Vivid hasn't gotten back to me about the width and I haven't contacted RHDJ yet.

[speedjunkie]

RHDJapan got back to me and basically said they had no idea because the manufacturer doesn't give that info. I'm guessing they don't even have any in the warehouse, maybe they get drop shipped. So I decided to just stick with this project and I'm going to drop the seats off to Nick tonight so he can drop the butt down for me. I had found some high density foam on Amazon I think, so I'll get some of that and maybe some memory foam and do some testing to see what is the most comfortable, and what compresses the proper amount so I'm not sitting too low either. I'll probably just put the original covers back on the seats for the time being, as much as I just want to get this whole project finished ASAP.

I decided to look into the boost control issue again. Where I left off before was basically just testing the wire from the ECU to the boost control solenoid, which I did last night and it was good. There's one more wire in the connector for the solenoid and I'm not sure where it goes. I tried ground but that isn't it, unless the ground is supplied by the ECU once some certain parameter is reached. I'm going to post about that issue and water injection and AC on the Syvecs forum and see what they think, but I'm thinking it has to be something with the ECU, because it controls all of those things and none of them are working properly.

[speedjunkie]

Very small update, but it feels like a big win.

A few years ago when I replaced my backup camera, I couldn't get it to work. Recently when I had the stereo out, I actually read the instructions (crazy, I know) and realized I had the wire for the camera hooked up to the wrong input. I corrected that but then couldn't find the camera since I removed it back then. I found the camera tonight and hooked it up and it works. WOOHOO!! The quality doesn't look great, but whatever, at least it works.

On the topic of the stereo, I think I'm going to pull it out again and solder the adapter cable connection instead of using the splices that I'm currently using. They just take up too much room and it's tough to get the stereo to sit back far enough. Also, I think I found both speaker connectors for the rear speakers so I'm going to check continuity to make sure and then use the stock wiring for those speakers and pull out the wires I ran.

[speedjunkie]

I hooked up the rear camera tonight after the drive, and I pulled the B pillar plastics to find the speaker wires, but I only found the one on the passenger side. I have looked everywhere on the driver's side and I see nothing. I'm getting very aggravated by this.
2021-05-15_10-49-30 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

[speedjunkie]

As it turns out, that connector doesn't ohm out with the stereo connectors, so I'm not sure what it's there for. I pulled the wires I ran previously for the rear speakers and ran them back to the Bose sub connector. I also soldered the stereo adapter harness to the stereo harness, the connectors I was using were taking up too much space. The stereo did slide back farther, but something is still in the way a little. It's good enough though.

I replaced the driver's side hatch plastic since I already had it pulled halfway out, and I'm going to replace both B pillar plastics while I'm at it. I've had those pieces for at least a few years now, might as well swap them in.

I should get the seats back tomorrow, so I'll go to JoAnn or somewhere local to get foam to try. I would like to try some high density foam in the bottom and then some memory foam on top of that. Chris emailed me with a couple things to check for the boost control and water injection issues, looking for 12v at the connectors, so I'll do that tomorrow. He says he has another ECU there for me to try if I get to that point. And I think I'm going to get some square aluminum and make the frame for the front splitter. I haven't talked to Adam about it for quite a while now, I get the feeling he doesn't want to make it or just doesn't have the time lol. I need to get that thing made though so I can put the new body pieces on and get the car painted at some point.

[speedjunkie]

Seats aren't ready yet. I finished installing as much of the interior as I can right now. I checked the boost solenoid connector and it had 12v. According to Chris, it might actually be an ECU problem, but I also remembered I downloaded the newer version of the app at one point so I'm wondering if the ECU is confused on which app to follow. I'm not sure that's possible, but it's a thought.

I should have known I had 12v there though. I took the car out Saturday and tried to boost and it hit fuel cut or ignition cut or something, because I had forgotten to reconnect the boost solenoid connector. Once I plugged it back in it worked fine. It's just not letting ME pick the boost setting.

[speedjunkie]

I picked up a piece of high density foam from JoAnn Fabrics after work and I went to Nick's to check on the progress on the seats and tried the foam in the seat that wasn't cut yet. I think that foam will work great, but until I drive on it I won't really know.

He's doing great work on the seats, I think dropping the butt will really help a lot. We discussed angling the sides down into the bottom because I'm afraid if it was just straight down that corner would kill my butt over time no matter how much foam I put in there, and the main part is getting more foam directly under the middle of my butt and spine. He put some tape on there to simulate the gradual drop but I'm thinking the top part can be widened a bit more to make it even more gradual. We'll see.
received_989051811633342 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
received_498238897887766 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
received_299870094943755 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I don't remember what got me started on it again, but I started looking into the fuel starvation problem again. As it stands right now, I can use basically 3/4 of my tank and I have to refuel with five gallons left. Even for normal driving I want to fix this issue. I was looking at Adam Griffith's build thread on 7club and didn't realize he had already built a surge tank inside his fuel tank. I asked him about it and he said it worked great but he had issues welding because of the zinc coating on the inside and outside of the tank, so he's going to do a Radium internal surge tank and a couple Hydramats. It's a perfect setup really, but I'm worried about the longevity of the Hydramats and whether they'll work with E85 if I ever choose to use it. Plus the extra fuel pump for lifting the fuel into the surge tank seems to be an extra failure point and heat source for the fuel. I was thinking I'd need to add one way check valves in the little plastic tank for the Radium kit anyway, so I might as well just skip that kit and build my own with the check valves and some guides for the fuel to the check valves. I have another crude drawing indicating everything lol. The red part is the tank, the green part is the guide pieces, and the yellow ones are the check valves.
2021-05-20_12-41-13 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

The main hindrance to this project is that the opening to the tank is so small this is going to be like rebuilding the engine through the exhaust tip. Because of that, the size of the pieces you put in have to be fairly small, or you just have to build the whole thing once it's already inside. You can't even get the plastic tub out without breaking it into pieces.
20210519_211120 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
20210519_211320 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
20210519_211425 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
20210519_211433 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr