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Beautiful work as usual, Andrew.
One question - did you make sure to have a work path that allows you to complete the welding of the header?
It's a bit hard to tell from the pics and one area that seems to be somewhat of a problem is at the 2 into 1 merge of the collector.

Moti

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Moti

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I'll give that shot a try Jesse and see if it'll work. Thanks.

Moti, I strategically placed a few tack welds that once cut will give me welding access. I don't have the collector in front of me, but I believe two or three tack welds are all that holds the two sides of the collector together at the third Y.

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-Andrew
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The week started off by finishing the exhaust system. I still have to install bungs for the other two O2 sensors and make some sort of retaining system for the collector.

I also found a local place to shorten the driveshaft for $50. I spent literally an hour trying to get it to fit into the transmission and was baffled when it wouldn't fit. I felt really dumb since it slid in easily before.

After removing the engine and transmission to do some frame modifications to allow the header to be installed/removed without removing the engine, I noticed three little bumps on the stub-shaft. Apparently they grounded their welder to the lathe and the current caused these three little bumps; they were enough to cause the driveshaft to not go in to the bushing. After I blended them the Dremel, it went in with no more problems. Fortunately, they were past the area where the seal contacts the shaft.

The next project is the nose....more to come later.

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-Andrew
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Looks purdy! Awww, what a cute little drive shaft!

Seriously though, awesome work... =)

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Are there any splines or length adjustment on the driveshaft? Curious how that works, if it's needed etc.

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Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.

Andrew,
I'm getting ready to order my nose cone, but it looks like you have yours sitting on 1X2 boards. Is the standard Haynes Roadster nose cone not high enough? How high does the top of your Duratec sit above the top rails?

Love your exhaust, hope to start mine in the next month. Please share any lessons learned on fabing the exhaust.

Mark

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Mark Conley
Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5947

I'm fairly sure that Andrew's front suspension box is much lower than the Gibbs car and he just makes up for the reduced height with the 1x2s.

Moti

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Moti

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Marcus, the stubshaft has a female spline cut into the center and mates to a male splined shaft in the transmission. I measured it to have about 1/2" worth of plunge in compression and as many inches until the shaft comes out in the other direction. I figured since the rear diff isn't moving with the suspension, there wouldn't be much plunge travel needed.

As a side note, this stubshaft has 22 teeth on the spline. The OD is 34.95mm. If anyone wants to compare it to the NA and NB transmissions, feel free. It would be interesting to see if older driveshafts could be used with NC transmissions. The flange where the driveshaft mates to the diff fit the RX7 diff perfectly.

Mark, Moti hit the nail on the head. If you build a Haynes Roadster frame, you should be pretty darn close to having a nose that fits straight from Jack. (more to come on this whole "if you build to the spec, then spec parts will fit" nonsense later........)

My best advice on the exhaust is to mock everything up first and have as much stuff in place as possible (even if its just held in with tack welds or magnets). I've seen people use welding wire, pool hose, whatever...just have a plan before you start cutting tubes.

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-Andrew
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I am kind of embarrassed to be posting this but I figure it may help someone else who needs a wider nose someday.

My nose debacle from last fall continued this spring when the nice, new, shiny Haynes Roadster nose showed up from Jack. As soon as I put it on the car, there was an "oh crap" moment (see first picture).

So apparently my frame, which I thought was about a +2 at the front, works out to be like a +3.5 due to the odd combination of shapes and tubes that differ from the book frames (or my Harbor Freight tape measure has a tolerance of +/-2" and mine is reading on the low side).

Since I had a nose in hand, I figured the best option was to widen it.

The first step was to cut the nose in half. Then after determining how much additional width was needed, I reattached the halves using 6" lengths of 0.75"x0.125" aluminum and rivets. I used two rivets on each side to keep the nose from "lozenging" while I laying the fiberglass. To fill in the gap, I used two layers of aluminum tape.

Next, I wet laid 4 layers of chopped mat. The first 3 plies increased in width by 2" per ply; ply 4 was the same width as ply 3.

I want to give it a day or two to cure before moving on to the next step - I plan on sanding the outside in the area around the splice and removing a little bit of material. Then wet-laying in 3-4 plies of fiberglass cloth while tapering the width of each ply. In the end, there will be no edge to crack and there will be a splice on both sides of the nose for added strength (at least this is the plan). Hopefully this will also reduce the thickness of the required Bondo.

I also managed to successfully add several pounds of ballast to the nose during this process. So much for my predicted 45/55.

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-Andrew
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The wider nose looks better than the standard Haynes nose (that I don't really care for).
But, wasn't it just easier to send the nose back and get a +4 nose?

Moti

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Moti

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Possibly.....but the Haynes nose sort of grew on me after it was sitting on my car. I did some poor man's PhotoShopping in MS paint and I liked what I saw when I tested widening the Haynes nose.

Plus I think a full blown +4 nose would look a little too wide for my taste. The widened Haynes nose has sort of an S2 look to it.

I also had a buttload of fiberglass stuff laying around from the previous disaster so I didn't have to buy anything additional.

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-Andrew
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Yeah the wider nose definetly looks way better.

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+442 - Miata

I was finally able to get the rad mounted now that I have a nose. The idea of some sort of shock mount cross brace has been going through my head for awhile - after seeing Locofinn's, it sealed the deal.

It has also proven to be a nice place to mount some headlight brackets and the upper rad mount. The lower rad mounts are the typical tubing deals.

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-Andrew
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The scuttle was this past week's project.

Murphy was at work during my first attempt at rolling the flange for the hood. Even though the gap seemed fine on some test pieces, when it came time to roll the actual part, the roller became a shear and cut through in several places. After taking the dies to the belt sander and lightly beveling the sharp edges, the second try came out much better and there was almost no evidence of scoring.

Other than that, the MDF formers seemed to work fairly well with the 3003 aluminum though I found if there was more than 5/8" of a flange on the corners, it was difficult to get it smooth enough to rivet to.

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-Andrew
Build Log
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Very impressive sheet metal work Andrew.

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