Category: Misc.

So here’s the finished, painted panel with the grommets installed. The purpose of the plate is to block off a larger hole in the drivers footbox where the 3 hydraulic hoses come through.

Another item I wanted to tackle was these bolts on the front of the drivers footbox that retain the Wilwood pedal box.. These are the bolts as supplied, and I wasn’t happy with them rusting. Remember, this thing hasn’t even been out in the rain yet.

So I replaced them with some high strength stainless, and installed the hose panel. Yes, I got some brake fluid on my hands while installing the panel… I’ll clean that up and repaint it soon.

Since the go-cart has been sitting for so long, my thoughts have been wandering and there’s a few things that have bugged me a bit. Figured I’d take this time to fix those things while I’m waiting for Whitby’s.

Bought a 12″ marine stainless steel grab bar from West Marine in Annapolis. Cost less than $25. I like that it takes up some of that blank real estate on the right side of the dash, and gives the passenger some reassurance… even tho they wont need the bar with the belts and seat, but maybe it will keep their arms from flailing about. 🙂

The camera angle makes it look un-level… I promise it’s not. Installed with 5/16″ stainless hardware and a 1/8 x 1 x 12 aluminum bar behind the dash to reinforce. Its nice n strong.

Also made a 3.25″ plate and drilled 3ea 5/8″ holes in it. Gave it a first coat of paint till tomorrow. Anyone thats ever worked with the triple hydraulic reservoirs should know what it is… I’ll finish and show ya tomorrow.

Well. Its been almost 2.5 months since I posted in here. Why? Because I have nothing to tell you. I’m waiting on the bodywork and painting to be done before I take the go cart to Whitby’s to have the body installed. They told me 6-9 months, and this Thursday, Oct 25, will be 9 months.  They have yet to reach out to contact me even once. They dont return calls or emails, but do answer FB Messengers. Every time I ask about time frames, they go silent.

I was at a car show about 2 weeks ago. An F5 friend showed up with his car. The bodywork and paint were done by Whitby’s, same way mine is being done. He told me his took 16 months. Which means I’m halfway there. If that 16 months applies to me, I’ll get to drive down in June of 2019. Maybe have the car ready for next fall.

It’s taken so long, the excitement of being able to drive this machine has worn off. Its become just another project to finish up, like building a deck or repairing a fence.  There will be no fanfare, no grand rollout… just a job to finish. I havent even visited it in weeks… not to look at it or think about what it will be like.  Its just something to walk around when I go looking for a tape measure for that fence…

I’ll post back when there’s something worthy of posting… perhaps next year. Until then, thanks for reading, stay safe and be sure to love your pets every day.

I’ve been doing some fuel injection adjustments on the FiTech, more about that later. I’ve been interested in the PWM, or Pulse Width Modulation, feature available in the FiTech. What it does is instead of running the fuel pump 100% all of the time, it will run the pump at slower speeds during periods of lower fuel consumption, like idle or steady cruise. It does this not by altering the voltage… that stays the same… but by pulsing the power many times per second. This effectively turns the pump on and off very rapidly instead of always just being full on.

As I was researching and learning about this, I discovered that the fuel pump I have is not good for this. Matter of fact, from Walbro’s website, if their pumps are run in a PWM configuration, they will fail very quickly.

I had installed a Walbro 194 liter/hour pump during the build, so that had to go. I bought an Aeromotive 340 liter/hour pump that works very well with PWM.  Now understand that the 340 # is at 40 psi. As the psi goes up, the flow comes down. Aeromotive supplies a chart that shows at 58 psi, where the FiTech runs, it will still maintain 300 LPH and only pull a spike of 13 amps. This gives me plenty of overhead for fuel availability, as my engine should only use about 150 liter/hour at max power and rpm.

Removed the fuel pump hanger from the tank. This is the Pro-M hanger that uses 3/8″ in and out lines and has a return tube down in the bottom of the tank for less aeration and slosh. The stock Fox Mustang hanger (this car does use a Mustang fuel tank) has 5/16″ pressure and 1/4″ return lines, and the return tube is way up high in the tank. This is Hi-Po stuff right here. 😉

And here it all disassembledOld pump and hanger disassembled

Here’s the parts and pieces included with the Aeromotive kit. A few nice things to point out… The electrical connection supplied is the sealed type, with seals between the connectors and around the wires. And the rubber foam insulator that fits around the pump. Hopefully this will make the pump quieter with less vibration.

New Aeromotive 340 pump installation kit

And after getting the pump installed in the hanger and doing a little wiring work, here’s the new assembly all ready to go back into the tank.

Got it installed, hooked the battery back up, turned on the key and thought the pump had failed. I couldn’t hear it. The old Walbro was loud and I could hear it run to prime the fuel injection system for start. This one is silent.

Hit the starter and she fired right up. After letting it warm up, I looked at the PWM settings and it said it was running at 75% of full power. I think I can peel it back some from there, but I’ll work on the other settings first to get it running very, very nicely.

Thanks for following along…

Havent done much lately.

Got the CNC hydraulic reservoirs installed filled and bled.  I used some different fittings on the bottom so I could align them where I wanted them to go, then tighten them down. Quite better than using a 90* pipe fitting, then having to sacrifice tightness for direction.

Had a beautiful weekend about 2 weeks ago, met my local Capital Area Cobra Club for breakfast, then went for a nice ride. I rode first with Gary in his Coyote powered MkIV Factory 5, then took a ride with Alan in his 12 yr old 351 powered Coupe. Yeah, it was a good day.

Since then, I replaced the power steering reservoir due to a pinhole leak in the bottom.  Also replaced the -10 feed hose from the tank to the pump. The hose I was using wasn’t real good for making the tight U-bend, so I replaced it with a more flexible, corrugated teflon lined hose. Called a neighborhood friend and asked if I could stop by, she was like “Sure!” So that made for a nice test drive to bleed the steering. She was good enough to take a pic for me…

I did get on it pretty hard for the first time when I was on my way home. Couple of things… It surprised me how well these tires stick. It surprised me how aggressive it was when it did break loose. It surprised me how quick and aggressively it wanted to kick out and lastly, it surprised me at how quickly  and aggressively it snatched back in line when I let off it. 200 treadwear tires made the difference… they are about as close to race tires as you can get on the street. Its gonna take me some time to learn this beast, and I will always respect her… she can kill me. Got to feel a little bit of that.

Last weekend, I met friend Gary at an autocross down in Waldorf. We hung out for a while and explained to me how it all works. Then he said it was his turn… “C’Mon!”.

I rode along with him for his 3 afternoon runs. One run was way slower than his norm as his tires were a bit cold and we were sliding all around. By the time we got to the last run, it was his fastest ever. He said having me in the car made it faster because it gave him extra traction… desperately needed in these cars that already have plenty of horsepower.

Here’s a video of his first 2 runs before I got there. Good times, and the best way in the world to learn your car.  See his youtube video here. 

Yesterday, I did some small work and made a new punch list. It really is small, non-glorious items. I’m making some pull straps for my seatbelts to be able to loosen them easier. I chose a blue nylon / polypropylene that I think will work very well for my accent pinstripes on the body. Adjusted my mechanical throttle linkage to be a little less sensitive and added a dual return spring to the fuel injection. Installed the 2 heater eyeball vents and the heater hoses. Replaced the way-too-long-with-a-stack-of-washers power steering pump bolts with proper pieces. Pulled the passenger seat and did some adjusting on the belts. Need to work on getting these set for they will be good for most anyone that rides with me.

Got to chat a bit with Jeff at Whitby’s on Messenger… still no time line and it’s been 7 months. Looking forward to something good soon…

Sorry its been a while…

While I’m waiting for Whitby’s to reach out and tell me it’s time, I’m still tinkering here and there. Worked on the Serpent Express trailer some more, getting the cover tight and the framework secured down.

Brother Doug came to visit for a weekend and I kept him busy. We did a few laps around the neighborhood in the Boss, didnt get arrested! Got home and spent some time cleaning her up and loaded her on the trailer.

Next morning we took her to the Anne Arundel County Animal Control Pistons & Paws car & motorcycle show, all to benefit Friends Of Animal Control. Another local F5 Roadster builder joined us, Gary Luigi, with his semi-complete and legal Coyote powered machine. It was cool to be parked together so we show a kind of with-and-without-body kind of thing.

While were at the show, I noticed a small wet spot developing under the left header where it bolts to the sidepipe. Investigating abit, we found the clutch fluid reservoir was leaking where the fitting is on the bottom. Since these are an NPT thread and I was using 90* fitfings, its difficult to get these to seal correctly because you need them in a particular direction. Back home,  we tried several things, including Loktite thread sealant, good for brake fluid. No joy. We also found another reservoir that was leaking at the cap. We couldnt understand that one, and never did figure it out because the fluid was about an inch below the cap.

So anyways, I decided to not deal with it. Lots of other builders have used the CNC Triple Reservoir and I decided to do the same. Found it on Amazon Smile and with Prime, it was here in 2 days and free shipping.

So today I’m working on building a bracket to hold this assembly, then I’ll get it plumbed in and working right.

Couple of nice things: These use an expandable / collapsible diaphragm seal under the cap, with a small vent hole in the top of the cap. This allows expansion and contraction of the fluid as well as sealing. Nice design. I also ordered 3ea straight 1/8npt x -4AN fittings and 3ea -4AN to 3/8 hose barb 90* elbows. This will allow me to direct the fittings in the proper direction and still tighten them down nice n tight.

Update when it’s done… 😉

 

Lots of little items got wrapped up today…. carpet, seats, belts, reinstalling all the interior panels… I think it looks good. Custom without being brash, clean, I fit and I feel comfortable. I feel good that I’ve done a good job, although there are a few things I would change were I to do it again. Anyways, here’s some pics. Hope you like it…

I had set the driveshaft alignment earlier in the build, but I never felt very good about it and wanted to revisit this. So I spent some time researching last night and I got it. What I’m looking for is to have the rear 1* below parallel with the transmission. I also need the 2 ujoints to be within 1* or less of each other, and no ujoint to be over 3* itself.

It tooka few hours, but I got the rear axle pointing down 1.1* from the trans, with the front ujoint at .2* and the aft ujoint at .7*. Not perfect, but right there. It’ll work. All this required lifting the rear of the trans 1-1/8 inch with a spacer.

Thats done. I installed the Metco driveshaft safety loop thats been in the garage for about a year. Nice piece, and I believe it will stop the bad stuff from hurting, should the front ujoint decide to fail.

I checked the rear axle cover bolts due to a little drip that had developed, found they were barely hand-tight. Torqued em down to 25 ft/lbs and good to go.

Did some interior carpeting work, but didnt get to finish. Complete pics tomorrow, but here’s a teaser…

Hope everyone’s enjoying spring!!

Been out of town for a while, and now the weather is finally getting nice, so it’s back to work! Havent done anything in nearly a month…

Removed the center console cover to cover it in 1/8″ foam and my grey leather, just like the dash and the switch panel. Cut out the holes for the shifter, parking brake and seat heater switches. The notch at the front is for the wire harness that comes out of the dash and goes to the back of the car.

Next I installed the brackets that mount the switch panel and the seat heat switches. Used a 14mm socket to press down on those switches nice n hard to click them into place.

Decided to go a little cleaner on this item than the dash and the switch panel… decided to use heavy duty velcro rather than exposed screws. I think this stuff will hold… its not a very structural item.

Not a bad looking interior for a first-time builder with not much imagination.

Began test fitting the carpet. All the pieces fit very nicely. After this pic, I removed all the carpet and spray painted black wherever the carpet pieces meet and I didnt want any shiny silver showing through. I also went around with a silicone caulk gun and closed up any holes I could find.

I think its gonna look pretty cool.

 

Tomorrow… I glue!!

Cant post the video here, but after spending a lot of time getting the alignment and ride height all squared away…

I drove it!