Thanks! I picked up the Bridgeport at a machine shop about 40 minutes away. They were moving and getting new equipment. I paid $1600 and they helped load it. I'd say it's really worth closer to $1200 in this area, but it came with a basically new shaper head I plan to sell one day and they go for quite a bit. You can tell it has many years on it, but perfect for what I need.
I tried to be productive while I was out and do some component research and finally order some of the stuff needed to finish the chassis. I really want to get this thing painted so my to-do list is focused on all of the brackets and mounts that are left. I’m sure I’ll miss some things but I’m tired of running a dehumidifier in the garage non-stop. I guess I went a little crazy ordering parts and SWMBO was nice enough to set up a mini Christmas tree for my return from Austira!
While I was away I also did some thinking on the front diff mount as posted above. I still need to get around to that. Another issue I’ve been putting off is the transmission driveshaft flange angle. I’m fairly familiar with the Hooke’s joint from school and am a bit embarrassed to admit that I never bothered to measure the driveshaft angle in my attempt to shoehorn this engine in. It had ended up quite offset to the passenger side and seemed fine at the time as I was thinking more about weight balance and general clearance. However, I decided that I couldn’t keep putting it off and it had to be fixed before moving on. Thankfully I found I was able to just make some new u-brackets for the engine mounts and was able to knock it all out in half a day. I never did measure the original misalignment, but I know it was too much for me to be comfortable with. With the new mounts and bruised ego the misalignment is sitting at about 0.5 degrees, good enough. I was very surprised to find that I still have plenty of clearance down the tunnel and a little additional room for the future turbo! I really thought it was going to be a much bigger project and I’m very relieved. For the driveshaft, I sourced a “Driveshaft Shop” HOPL 1 adapter which mates to an off the shelf Spicer 2-3-329. For the Miata diff I ordered a Rockford Drive Line R2-3-3173. These 3 parts basically convert the oddball flanges to a standard 1310 u-joint. I felt this would simplify things for the local driveshaft shop. In the end it seems to be quite a bit cheaper than trying to source a complete unit based on what I’ve seen some others pay.
With the engine in its final position I wanted to get the engine bay diagonal in place. I figured some creativity would be required but was totally surprised to find that it fit pretty much according to the plans. It looks like a bit of a mess, but there’s at least an inch of clearance between all of the engine stuff and that diagonal.
Then back to the steering rack. I got the unit off eBay and the seller was nice enough to include the U-shaped mount brackets but unfortunately they weren’t designed to go all the way down to the mounting surface. I whipped up a simple set of U-shaped pieces on the mill out of 6061-T651. They meet up to the factory brackets and sandwich the rack. Then I bent some 4’’ pieces of 11ga in the brake and milled some slots for adjustment. I used the laser-mirror bump steer method to rough out the rack height and the slotted brackets should allow plenty of adjustment for final assembly. This Porsche 944 rack is about an inch too long, but one benefit is that it ends up raising the rack height, which combined with the slight bend in the LCAs is just enough to eliminate any of the common tie rod to LCA contact issues common with the Miata spindles. Regular 1’’ sq 16ga tubing was used to tie the rack brackets to the frame. Simple but effective. I also bored out those factory Porsche mounts so they’ll accept some hardware-store by-the-pound 3/8’’ Grade 8 hardware. Overkill but super cheap. Every time I go I buy two or three pounds and at this point I stock almost everything up through the ½’’ selection.
Speaking of hardware, the local Ace was going out of business and I picked up some fully loaded hardware cabinets for $10 each. I've re-purposed one for Grade 8 hardware and have similar plans for the rest.
The rack is 11/16’’ 40-spline which needs to connect to the S2000 column. I thought about several ways to do this, but for the sake of simplicity I ended up cutting off the Honda u-joint. The shaft there is 0.765’’ so I turned/milled an adapter that fits over the shaft and is the common ¾ DD steering shaft on the other end. I really hated cutting off a perfectly good U-joint, but it was an odd spline and I like the final solution. I also noticed that it had some rough spots under rotation once I had removed it. From the now ¾’’ DD column, it goes into a ¾’’ DD to ¾’’ DD u-joint , then ¾’’ DD intermediate shaft (a tad heavy), and finally a ¾’’ DD to 11/16’’ 40-spline u-joint. No excessive angles and this required only one weld (which thankfully wasn’t on a u-joint) so I’m happy with that. A bit of a pricey solution though as Bergeson was the only manufacture I could find that stocked the Porsche spline. I think I have more in u-joints than the rack cost. With all of that in place I was able to mount the master cylinder reservoirs. I just used 11ga as it was on hand. Overkill but they do feel nice and sturdy.
Ran the fuel lines down the tunnel. Just 3/8''x72'' brake lines with 5/8-18 inverted flare to 6AN adapters. Just ordered all of the fittings for the hoses..ouch! Did a simple setup for the battery mount. CG is a little high, but it fits and wiring will be simple. There wasn't much space left as options since the passenger bulkhead is reserved for a heater.
The roll bar seemed to take forever, but most of that was waiting on shipping. First JD2 shipped the wrong die, not a big deal as mistakes happen. Then the new die had a U-strap that was made incorrectly. In the end it took 3 weeks of waiting before I could bend the hoop. They were nice by email and both problems were resolved without any additional cost on my end, but Craig in Sales was a jerk on the phone. I won't go into detail but the whole call was just very unprofessional. I'm happy now but for a short while I was wishing I had went with the Pro-Tools unit. That rant over...I was really impressed with how it bent the 1.5'' .109 wall tubing. It took some serious effort, but mostly because I haven't built a proper floor-mounted stand yet. The bends are pristine.
It’s a steerer now! I really need to get around to the rear control arms. I figure in its simplest form, this thing needs to go, stop, and steer. Right now I’m 1 for 3…but the other two really aren’t far behind. Actually, the pedal assembly is mounted I have all of the Miata calipers...hmm. I REALLY need to get going on those rear control arms. That’s it for mounting the major components. This is just too much fun! I’m really hoping to get the chassis mostly complete in the next few months. Then paint and start final assembly over the winter. I hate to put a timeline on this project, but I might be able to do a first test drive next spring. Much sooner than I expected considering I only started in January. Having all of these build logs and support threads to reference have but such a valuable resource.