A new PFP...

DP told me today that another Package From Portland will be shipped tomorrow. It will soon be time to get working again :)

DP also promised that the body would ship by the end of December.

Look for some new postings soon.

I have the new engine

Picked up the new LS7 engine from Rock Chevrolet this afternoon.  Rock/GMPP replaced my old engine with a completely new one at no charge. Still don't know why the old one failed but Tom Rominski of Rock and GMPP could not have been nicer to deal with.  

With cold weather here, I will have lots of time to install the new engine and put the car back together.

Good News

Tom Rominski at Rock Chevrolet called today to let me know that GMPP has agreed to a warranty replacement of the entire engine.

HOORAY.

Thanks to Tom and to GMPP. Good service and it is good to know that the GM Crate Engine Warranty is worth while. This is a strong argument to purchase a crate engine instead of a junkyard or small engine shop rebuild.

The new engine will ship this week and I should be able to pick it up by early next week. :)

Engine Back to Chev Dealer

I've pulled the engine and carted it to Rock Chevrolet.  They will "inspect it", communicate with GMPP and GMPP will decide to have it fixed by Rock or replace it. 

After circulating the metal particles from the internal problems thru the engine's oil pump, bearings and around the pistons, cam, lifters etc. it seems to me that it would be less expensive and all around better to replace the entire engine.

I certainly hope that their decision will be to replace it. :)

More Video from the Ambush

This guy should have his Corvette confiscated! My wife's 82 year old mother drove better than that.  I apologize for the sun's reflections on the windshield. The top of the dash will eventually be painted or covered with a dull black. Our makeshift fix was black duct tape (left side) or tan masking tape (right side). Neither was perfect but both were improvements from the shiny aluminum.

 

More fun, safe and controlled driving.

Also check out the video in the previous post. It shows the same video as before but I've succeeded in getting it updated with a video of higher resolution.

Now over 2100 road miles

We arrived home from the Ambush last night. I think all the folks involved had a great time. Denise and I certainly did. Thanks a ton to Paul Whittle for finding and guiding us on the super roads of N. Georgia, Tennessee and N. Carolina.  He also found several great restaurants for the group to visit. 

The D2 ran flawlessly (except for the brake light switch) and handles amazingly well.  In total we put over 1150 miles on it over the 8 days we drove it in the mountains. Total miles now exceed 2160.

Check out the following video.  Please note that I have my wife convinced that the speedometer reads about 40% to high. Please don't tell her :) . 

There are a couple of places that show the wrist strap for my kill switch swinging to the side. I think a 45* angle on that strap indicates 1.0 G lateral acceleration in a turn.  Also note how quiet it is and how quickly it accelerates.

 We have more videos and will attempt to post better files within the next couple of days.

Mountain update

Update:  Total mileage is now over 1900. About 900 in the Smokies,  The car has been totally reliable except for the hydraulic brake lite switch. Bought a replacement yesterday from a local auto parts store and installed it this AM.  All OK now. 

Engine oil temps are tracking coolant temp within about +5/-15* F. Gas mileage has been 16/18 MPG. Not bad for a high HP car being driven aggressively.

We have taken a couple of hours of video but are unable to load them onto my laptop's hard drive because the hard drive is almost full. Will get that done when we get home next week.

Video before leaving for the Smoky Mountains

We are about to leave for "The Ambush".  This is an annual gathering of mostly Seven Sports Cars in North Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. We enjoy driving on the wonderful curvy roads in that area. The following video shows the new windshield, wipers, seat cushions, MoTeC digital dash and our weak attempt to add "Flames" like my Stalker had. As the body progresses, the flames will get better.

Several things to report

1. Added FIA roll cage pads to the frame inside the cockpit to protect driver and passenger's heads if there were a mishap.
2. Replaced the original 1/8" Lexan windshield with a larger and thicker 1/4" piece of Lexan. The original piece flexed and wobbled at speed. This is much more stable and was done at the same time that the windshield wiper was installed.
3. Fabricated and installed small supports for the center of the windshield. It is quite stable now.
4. Denise painted our "hi-tech" "Ugly Duckling" front bumper

5. In over 950 miles of driving Illinois' "Finest" Roads none of the 4 shock absorbers had ever traveled more than about 1/2 their available travel. I know this because I've installed small rubber O-rings on each of the shock shafts. The O-rings  are pushed down on the shaft by the shock body and mark the extent of shock travel.  This is a cheap, simple and effective way to monitor shock travel.

Although the car is very stable in a straight line, it rode quite hard. There are several cloverleaf highway interchanges near my home. I have been known to drive around these in an aggressive manner and noticed that in a certain washboard section the car would tend to skip over the low spots and just hit the high spots. Fun for me but disconcerting for my passengers.

A set of softer springs were purchased a couple of weeks ago and I finally got them installed tonight. The car now rides much better and is more comfortable to drive.  It also tracks much better thru that washboard section.  I need to review the data logs for detail but noticed 0.9 lateral G's on the dash. Not bad for cold tires on a very bumpy public road!

Mileage  now totals 1002.

We are leaving tomorrow for a gathering of mostly Stalker, Caterham and Birken owners in the Smoky Mountains. I promise to get some pictures taken and posted before we load up our trailer and leave.

Engine oil cooler now operational

Completed two tasks today:
1. Denise stitched up some denim covers for our memory foam seat cushions and we installed them today with head rests. Not fancy but functional.
2. Routed the engine oil thru the oil to engine coolant heat exchanger. Ever hear of a task that you thought would only take an hour but took much longer?  This happens to me all the time.  Guess what! It only took me about 55 minutes to remove the old oil adapter from the side of the block, replace it with the adapter that routes oil to and then back from the cooler via AN-08 fittings and hoses, make two hoses with Earl's push lock fittings and install it all.  Wow! There is a first time for everything.

I promised updated pix today. Sorry, we chose to go to a cruise night car show instead. Hopefully I'll get the pix posted tomorrow.

Got another Package From Portland

It contained the window wiper parts. Spent much of the weekend making a bracket and installing it.  Have also been driving the car. Over 900 miles so far.

How many kit cars have a two speed wiper with adjustable  intermittent feature?  Mine does!  Pix tomorrow.

I've also finally installed the dry sump oil tank temperature sensor and wired it to my MoTeC CDL3 dashboard.

The next step is to connect my engine oil to engine coolant heat exchanger. The heat exchanger came with the LS7 engine and has been installed since the beginning but I never routed engine oil thru it. Now that I have the oil temp sensor connected I can record back to back tests and see how much faster engine oil comes up to temp and how much cooler it ends up when running the engine hard.

We plan to leave this Thursday for "The Ambush". This is a week long gathering of mostly Lotus 7 guys in the Smoky Mountains of North Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. We will spend most of our time driving the most fun roads I've ever found. Hilly, Curvy, Smooth Roads thru beautiful country with little traffic.  Also a great group of people. We might even have a beer or two over dinner and talk about the good times:).

Previous post not quite 100 % accurate

I thought we were street legal but the Illinois Secretary of State's Office changed their mind.  Because the car has no body, I had to start the process all over again. The result was delay after delay but an Officer of the IL SOS Police Department affixed an official VIN tag to the car today and I truly think the title and license process is done.  HOORAY!

In the meantime the intermittent speedo reading issue was fixed by simply reducing the gap from the magnets rotating with the wheel hub to the proximity sensor mounted on the spindle. KOSO recommended "a maximum of 8 MM" clearance. I had set clearance to about 6 MM. Reducing it to about 3 MM has fully resolved this issue.

I have also purchased and installed a MoTeC SDL3 data logging digital dashboard. Great product with great support. More on this to come.

Now that we can finally drive and enjoy the car on the street, we plan to do this a lot before we run out of nice weather. BTW it was 96*F in Chicagoland today and the D2's dual radiators kept the engine cool. Engine temp is controlled by the LS7's thermostat at a minimum of 195*.  A couple of times when stopped in traffic coolant temp got to 203* and the engine control computer turned the fans on.  The temp quickly came back to 199* and the fans turned back off. It is great when things work as designed :).

The Ugly Duckling is Street Legal

We have passed the NSRA inspection, traveled to Springfield Illinois to complete the state paperwork to obtain a title, renewed and transferred the license plates from my Stalker and obtained insurance coverage.  Lots of time involved but those tasks got done.

The pictures submitted to the state follow:

Front view

Rear View

Right side

Left side

 

Now that we are legal and insured we can actually drive the car!  Hooray!

I have about 250 miles on it so far. All gentle street miles with no adventurous driving.  Compared to previous kit cars that I've driven it is extremely stable on the highway. Also wind buffeting in the cockpit is much less than we were used to. This is even with the crude Lexan windshield and wiper blade/motor that I have rigged up.

The Ugly Duckling reference mentioned above came from a fellow we talked to at a Sunday evening Cruise Night Car Show that we stopped at.  He commented about the D2's lack of a body. I replied that it was coming and showed him pictures of the current state of the body that we had printed from Palatov's website.  He smiled at the pictures, nodded at the car and said "that is the ugly duckling". He then looked back at the pictures and said "and it will become a beautiful swan".  That seems like an appropriate observation to me.

While waiting for the body, I have plenty of work to do.

The speedometer is accurate up to about 40 MPH but then seems to read low.  I suspect that one of the speedo magnets has fallen off the right front wheel hub or the sensor to magnet gap is wrong.  In addition the fuel gauge seems to not be showing correct levels.

Fixing the above are my next priorities. Then getting a digital dash and data logging system purchased, installed and working.

More posts to follow.  The really fun stuff has begun.

Goals, Frustration and Progress

Setting and achieving goals has always been a really big deal to me.  Since I was a teen, I've set written personal, sports and financial or business goals around the beginning of each year. Once set, I concentrate on and work hard to achieve them.  I think about and spend at least some time dedicated to achieving those goals almost every day.

With several notable exceptions, I usually achieve those goals.

After my wife Denise and I ordered the D2 last November, several of my 2013 Goals involved our new Palatov D2.

In January of 2013 they all seemed very reasonable and achievable.   The result has been excellent so far but it has occurred much more slowly than we had hoped.

Despite diligent efforts and a large commitment of time, I FAILED to achieve most of the goals that were set.  I'll continue to work on and finish the car but took some time off and will work on it with a little less urgency.

It now has headlights, brake lights, tail lights, turn signals, hazard flashers, horn, windshield, wipers, speedometer, odometer etc.

It is now street legal (I think) and will be inspected for legal compliance and safety by a representative of the National Street Rod Association next Tuesday evening. If it passes inspection and we receive a corrected Certificate of Origin from Palatov, I'll be ready for the Illinois State Police inspection and then finally get it titled and licensed by the Illinois Secretary of State.

Hopefully we will have a street legal car that we can actually drive within a couple more days.

I'll post again when that milestone is achieved.

Weight distribution

A friend questioned how I thought the D2 would handle with 64% of the weight on the rear tires. He thought that the ideal weight distribution was 50/50 front to rear.

My answer was that 50/50 was great for a car with little horsepower. The D2 has plenty of power, larger rear tires than front and needs the rear weight bias to achieve outstanding acceleration without wheel spin.  My USAC midgets always had 60%+ rear weight bias and I am sure that the D2 will be able to utilize the extra rear weight to achieve great forward bite.

Penta Star XP turn signal controller arrived today.

Finally - the device to control the turn signals and flasher lights arrived - along with separately ordered IP-67 waterproof push button switches to control the turn signals and hazard warning lights. They are now partially installed and the left rear turn signals operate.

I also moved the emergency electric cutoff switch's location in the dashboard today. After readjusting the shifter linkage, I decided that there was a possibility of inadvertently bumping the cutoff switch when shifting into 5th gear and shutting off the engine. This would not be a good thing:). Consequently the cutoff has been moved several inches to the right on the dash and the XR-S speedo/odometer/fuel gauge is placed where the cutoff switch was.

The KOSO XR-S electronic speedometer/odometer/trip odometer is also permanently installed on the dashboard, calibrated and tested. It utilizes 4 rare earth magnets inserted into the right front brake rotor mounting bolt heads and counts the number of times per second those magnets pass a sensor. From that information it can compute, display and store vehicle speed and miles traveled. It also has a fuel level display and low fuel level warning. Made for motorcycles but is a neat device for my D2.

The plan tomorrow is to finish wiring the turn signals and warning flashers in the rear and begin the installation of headlights and parking/turn signals in front.

We have tail and brake lights.

The rear bumper is widened and brake/tail/license plate lights are mounted and working. Waiting for a Penta Star motorcycle oriented self canceling turn signal controller to arrive from Amazon. Thought it would arrive today but now hope for tomorrow. Also ordered 6 point Simpson seat belts that are expected to arrive Friday. The WoLo Bad Boy horn is here along with headlights and the cute little Koso SR-X digital speedometer and odometer. 

Worked tonight on making a bracket to mount the SR-X's proximity sensor pickup to the right front wheel spindle. This will measure the time between brake rotor studs passing by the pickup when the car is moving.  The SR-X will display MPH, record trip and total miles traveled and also the current fuel level.

Wow, that Bad Boy horn is loud!  I love it.

I will post more pix when the turn signals and SR-X speedo are working.

Radiator ducts and side panels from the latest PFP

The radiator ducts and front side panels are now installed.

We ordered different rate rear springs Wednesday.  They arrived yesterday and my next project is to install them on the car with slightly revised spring perches and reset the ride heights. 

 

I am also planning on preparing the car for state inspection and licensing. The first part of that will be making a wider rear bumper and mounting tail/brake/turn signal lights and a license plate mount with light. 

 

It is beginning to look like a real car!

Got another PFP Tuesday that contained the radiator inlet air ducts and side panels. Installed same today but ran out of time and energy to take and post pix. Will do that tomorrow.

Also got some pix from DP of the current status of the body. Looking good.

Weighed it today...

581 lbs. in front (35.4%) + 1059 lbs. (64.6%) in back = 1640 total.

This is the complete car, after being driven once around the block, less the body, radiator shrouds, passenger seat, seat belts, lights, windscreen and bumpers.  Includes 2.5 gallons of gas, 8.5 quarts of oil in the dry sump, 4 quarts of oil in the transaxle and full of coolant. I think the goal of 1750 lbs. total finished weight is realistic.

Also installed the radiator fans today and trailered it to a local cruise night car show. Needless to say,  it was the hit of the show. I actually feel sorry for the guys with really nice cars that sit alone while the crowd descends on and gawks at my little Hot Rod. :)

Update -- Updated with pix

Our neighborhood suffered severe weather this week and we were without electric power and Internet for most of 3 evenings. Consequently not much has gotten done.

I did however manage to install and adjust the shift linkage. DP provided beautifully CNC machined bell cranks and levers for the shift linkage that feature sealed ball bearing pivots. The shift pattern is very short, direct and light. The entire lever movement from 1st to 2nd gear is only about 3.25"!  No play or slop at all. Nicely done DP.

 

.

In addition the dashboard is installed and progress has been made on organizing the wiring.

Another PFP is in FedEx and expected Tuesday. Lots to do now that we have lights and power tools available again. Next target is to install and test the radiator fans that arrived Thursday.

It drives!

The throttle linkage is now done, I rebled the clutch hydraulics, waited for the rain to stop and the streets to dry. Then put it in first gear and drove it around the block! Hooray.

Note the birds chirping when the car is pulled back into the driveway. It truly is quiet. My initial impressions are that the steering, despite the 50% faster ratio is still quite light and the car is easy to turn. Also the selection of the first gear ratio is excellent.  The car is very easy to start from rest but will still go 60 MPH in first gear at the engine's redline. The brakes are also plenty sensitive without to much foot pressure.

Now onward to the shifter linkage and dashboard.

Rear brakes and ...

clutch lines are now installed and bled. It is now ready to drive (slowly) around the block as soon as the drive by wire throttle linkage is completed. This probably will not occur until Friday because of family plans on Thursday.

We have brakes...

at least front brakes. The Wilwood 7/8" Master Cylinder for the clutch arrived today. It is now installed with the Tilton pedal assembly, the brake master cylinders, residual pressure valves and the front brake lines. It appeared to bleed nicely, which means that the hydraulic lines have no high and low spots which would allow air to collect and not bleed out properly.

The plan for tomorrow is to complete the rear brake plumbing and install the drive by wire throttle linkage.

Got another PFP

(Package from Portland) that contained the foot pedal and battery mounting plates.  The final mounting for the battery is now done.

I spent much of the weekend experimenting with different master cylinder sizes for the clutch.  Smaller cylinders make the pedal easier to push but require more foot pedal movement. Consequently softer pedals would take longer to shift gears. I decided on 7/8" being the best compromise and ordered a new Wilwood "compact" size master cylinder today. My test cylinders were in the older - large size cylinders that I had left over from the Stalker.  There is not enough room for the old style to be permanently mounted in the D2.

Tonight was spent designing the routing for and building the front brake hydraulic lines. Hopefully the master cylinder will arrive tomorrow and I'll be able to finish the brake and clutch plumbing. 

Progress is being made.

Got a PFP

(package from Portland) late Wednesday afternoon..  It contained the quick steer mounting bracket.  DP designed and machined a very neat aluminum bracket that adapted a Coleman Quick Steer Unit to the standard D2 chassis. The Coleman Quick Steer unit goes into the steering shaft between the steering wheel and the rack and pinion. It has an internal 1.0 steering wheel (input) turn to 1.5 output turn ratio. This increases the steering speed by 50% and in my opinion greatly assists a driver in controlling a car being driven at the ragged edge of control.

Some have asked for a better overall view of the car. See below for a 270* video of the car.  Note that the half shafts that drive the rear wheels are now installed. The battery and starter cables are also now in place although we are waiting for another PFP next week that will hopefully contain the battery and pedal mounting brackets.

We also took another video of starting and running the engine. I love those mufflers.  Time permitting, I'll post it tomorrow (Friday).

Cooling System

The cooling system, including coolant flow to the engine oil cooler is now complete. As seems to be normal, this took much longer than anticipated.

Because of limited space, my choice of very large mufflers and the D2's dual radiators, the cooling system is quite complicated.  I counted 22 radiator clamps in the system!

I started the engine and let it idle for about 10 minutes.  As expected, all the hoses and both radiators heated up evenly.  No leaks! At least for now.

Tomorrow I'll install the half shafts that drive the rear wheels. Had planned to do this today but ran out of time.

Saturday was spent chasing AN plumbing fittings and half shaft bolts. Also attended a family party. Good weekend.

We have fuel pressure...

at 58 PSI,
and 70 PSI of oil pressure...
and ignition...

and it runs!  Hooray.
This short video shows the LS7 engine's front crankshaft pulley as it would be viewed thru the passenger seat, if there was a seat installed.  The water pump/alternator belt was removed because there was no water in the engine and I did not want to take a chance of damaging the water pump by running the engine with no water to lubricate the pump. We ran the engine for only a few seconds because there was no coolant in the system.

Note how quiet the engine was. This was taken inside my closed garage. I am now confident that I'll have no problems with the sound police.

The next projects are to finish the cooling system and begin the task of shortening the wiring harness.

Family time tomorrow. Will work again Wednesday.   :)  :)

Productive Weekend

I spent most of Saturday trying to find appropriate fittings and hoses to plumb the dry sump tank. The shop that normally has "everything" didn't.  I finally remembered an AN-12 suction rated hose that I had used on a long gone midget that had a Cosworth engine. Then another trip to get the fittings to go with that hose. This allowed the completion of the engine's oil return hose to the dry sump tank and the suction hose to supply oil back to the engine.

Another time consuming task was making a fitting that screws into the engine block to supply coolant flow to the engine oil cooler. GM uses an aluminum tube with an o-ring for this. The tube fits into an adapter with a 28mm by 1.0 thread. The bends in the tube were in the wrong places. No one that I could find makes an M28x1.0 to AN-10 male adapter. My solution was to machine the GM fitting and an aluminum AN-10 adapter so they would mate. Then I prevailed on a friend to heliarc weld the two pieces together. Now I can use standard AN hoses and fittings for the oil cooler.

Also finished the installation of the engine, transaxle and exhaust system.

I did not accomplish my goal of getting the engine started. Still need to mount the fuel tank, run the hoses to the fuel pressure regulator and then back to the tank. Also need to jury rig the wiring before the engine can be started. After that, I'll probably work on shortening the computer's wiring harness to fit the car.

Slower than I would like but progress is being made. If I can figure out how to take and post a video, I'll post the engine's first start in the car. Hopefully tomorrow.

Been Busy

The engine and transaxle are bolted in. The front and rear suspension is reinstalled. The completed dry sump tank arrived today and is in its place. Lots of man hours invested but major progress has been made.  The goal is to start the engine by Sunday night. Much more to do. Will post pictures and another update tomorrow or Sunday night.

Christmas in May!

The chassis, bumpers and several brackets were dropped off at 7 AM Tuesday morning to be sandblasted and powder coated. Larry Dickson of Fox Valley Sandblasting and Powder Coating in Yorkville IL promised to do what he could to answer my plea to get the job done quickly.  He certainly did as he promised by calling me the next day shortly after lunch. He said they were done and to come back and pick up the completed job.

It was picked up and back in my shop about 36 hours after it was dropped off!  Wow. Great service and a wonderful job. Thanks to Larry and his guys.

We also got a call from a trucker that has another care package from Palatov Motorsports. This should be delivered tomorrow before noon. I should finally have all the parts I need to keep busy for quite a while.  The ball is in my court.  Just the way I like it.

We have an exhaust system!

Picked up the car from Midwest Hot Rods in Plainfield IL yesterday. Dan Ulreich did an excellent job of mounting the mufflers and fabricating 3" Stainless Steel tubing to connect the mufflers to the LS7 headers and making tailpipes to route the exhaust out the rear. Dan also welded various AN-8 and -10 fittings onto the oil cooler, radiator and engine oil manifolds.  Great job. ThanksDan.

Yes the mufflers are big. Magnaflow and other muffler tech advisors suggested that the larger the muffler's internal volume the quieter a given setup was likely to be.  I did not want to be told to load up and go home from some racetrack because the car was too loud. It will not need to be overwhelmingly loud to convince people that it is fast. I think the extra couple of pounds is worth the driver/passenger comfort and piece of mind.

 

Denise and I also picked up the dry sump tank from Saldana when in Indy for the Old Timers/Hall of Fame dinner Thursday.

 

Although the tank is not exactly in its correct place, you can get an idea how closely packaged things are.

 

The next project is to mount the steering quickener. DP ran out of time to get this done so I said that I would take care of it. Then disassemble the car and get it to the powder coater by Tuesday at 7 AM. Busy weekend.

Ready to load into my trailer and gain an exhaust system

Graeme asked for pix of the full car as it is now.

It is now in my trailer and ready to go next Tuesday to the shop that will fabricate the exhaust pipes to the mufflers and tail pipes from the mufflers to the back. Note my high tech cardboard dry sump tank. This should suffice as a place holder for the exhaust fabricator until the real tank arrives from Saldana. Also note the overly long stock GM wiring harness. I've begun to figure out where and how to shorten it so that it fits the D2.

This view shows the left rear of the car. Note the brackets and mounting for the engine oil to engine coolant heat exchanger. The fabricator will weld the AN-8 oil and AN-10 coolant fittings to my modified GM oil cooler. As shown in a previous post it would not fit within the frame rails . Also note the nice air inlet duct that DP fabricated.  It picks up cool and filtered air from a high pressure area upstream of the left radiator and feeds it thru the 4" ID duct to the engine's throttle body.  I hope to be able to post another update Friday that shows the completed exhaust system.

Moving along. Slowly

JT was still unable to get working on my exhaust system. Spent most of the week finding a quality shop that could quickly fit me in.  Two or three months ago this would not have been a problem. Now that spring has sprung in the Midwest all the good fabricators are busy.   The current plan is to deliver the car to a shop this coming Tuesday.  They promise it back by Friday. 

Also spent time on the dry sump tank design and agreed with Saldana Racing on a modification of DP's suggested tank. In addition, I made a cardboard mock up of the tank. This is now taped in it's place so that the exhaust fabricator will know how much room he has to deal with.

DP shipped a care package of needed parts Wednesday. I hope this includes the floor boards and at least the driver's seat so that I'll be able to mount pedals and get working on the steel lines for the clutch and brakes.

After the exhaust is done, I'll pull the engine and get the frame powder coated. Once that happens, progress should speed up. I hope!

Moving the Engine Oil Cooler

A couple of posts back I said that moving the engine oil cooler would be "a piece of cake". Wrong!

I spent most of the weekend cutting the LS7's stock oil cooler manifold apart, fabricating and mounting brackets so that it can be mounted to the frame, using part of the stock maniflod to route oil thru AN-8 hoses to the now remote oil cooler etc.

It is complicated to describe. After I order some aluminum weld on AN fittings from Earl's Indy Servishop and get them welded in place, I'll post pix of the assembled arrangement.

Mufflers are in. Hopefully JT will be able to finish the exhaust system this coming week. Lots more to do but progress is being made.

Added lower trans mount. Modified dry sump manifold.

DP suggested that I fabricate a link between the bottom of the Porsche transaxle and the frame to absorb rear wheel torque. When the engine torque is multiplied by my 9.01 overall 1st. gear trans ratio and fed thru to the rear axles, this would be well over 4,600 ft. lbs.  IF the tires were able to hook up 100%. Sounded like a good idea so I did it.

Also modified AN-12 45* fittings so that when welded to GM's LS7 dry sump hose manifold, the hoses to and from the dry sump tank will not interfere with the chassis, exhaust pipe or motor mounts.

The mufflers arrived on time but J.T. the header guy is still trying to finish his current project so that he can work on my exhaust system.

I wish this was February. I want to be driving this thing. Working on it and solving normal issues is fun but driving and racing the car is what it is all about for me.

Engine Mounts Finished

Finished the engine mounts, rubber cushions and transaxle mounts today. I decided to raise the engine 1/8" via a shim on each side to provide better clearance between the transaxle and a cross frame tube.  Still need to grind off remnants of the original mounts. This will be done before powder coating. DP said there is no need for rubber isolation of the transaxle mounts, so I did not spend the time to do that. There is always the option to do it later if needed.

See pix of right side, left side and transaxle mounts below.  The rubber pad below the mount is 1/2" 70 durometer. Top pads are 1/4" in slightly softer 65 durometer.

Note the water jet cut header flanges I had made. GM does not offer these. The headers are made of stainless steel. The exhaust pipes and mufflers will also be stainless.

I also began to scope out the GMPP engine control computer wiring harness. This was made for a much larger car and I will probably shorten it to fit better.

Engine Mounting Challenges Resolved- Almost

Got the oil cooler hose adapter from Gandrud today. It should work out well. Still need to adapt the hoses to the oil/water heat exchanger and mount the heat exchanger. That should be a piece of cake once the exhaust pipe and muffler are fitted. Left side shown below.

Also note the new flat mount for the stock GM LS7 motor mount. The silver large OD washers will be replaced by flat 1/2" rubber sheet that has a 70 durometer rating. The rubber sheets will be above and below the aluminum motor mount. Final welding will be done by the header guy.

 

Right side shown below.

 

The old bracket remnants will be removed when the engine is pulled after the exhaust system is finished and before power coating is begun.

Engine Installation Challenge #2

The GM hose kit to route oil to a remote oil cooler is expected to arrive today. Will post pix ASAP.

Also DP's LS3 E-Rod engine mounting brackets interfered with the LS7 headers.  Consequently the decision was made to use the stock LS7 engine mounts and modify the frame to mate with those mounts. This has been done and the engine and transaxle installed. The engine/transaxle have been removed to allow final welding and dressing of the frame and mounts.

I think DP will look at and probably adopt a similar arrangement so that future D2's will accept all LS engines without frame changes.

Pix will be posted when that is done. In the meantime business and family obligations will take up most of my time for the next couple of days.

A friend that is a dragster chassis builder and header construction specialist is scheduled to take the car for several days next week so that he can construct the exhaust pipe and muffler combination.  This assumes that the Magnaflow mufflers arrive in time as promised.

Engine Installation - Challenge #1

DP designed the D2 to use GM LS series engines. The prototype used an emissions compliant LS-3 E-Rod engine which fit very tightly in the frame designed to mate with. It never occured to me that my LS-7 would have an engine oil cooler on the block's left side.  This is a feature GM added after I looked at GM Crate engines at the IMIS show last December.

The LS7 uses a dry sump oil system that pumps oil out of the block to an external dry sump tank, then returns the deaerated oil back to the engine to be pressurized and pumped into its bearings. The hoses to and from the dry sump tank attach to the engine on its right side.

Oops. Those LS7 add ons interfere with the frame tubes. This will be solved by detaching the cooler from the engine block and feeding it remotely via a  remote oil cooler manifold available from GM. This manifold comes with hoses that will be routed to the cooler.  Similarly I can fabricate an angled hose connection block for the right side drysump hoses.

Let the work begin.

Chassis Ships

We had originally hoped to have the chassis ship by the end of January 2013.  Due to numerous delays it did not ship until April 18.  The carrier was Stewart Transport.

Several days later I was able to meet the truck at Grundy County Speedway in Morris IL and transfer it to my trailer. This saved a day because Stewart's driver had run out of hours to legally drive and could not have delivered to my home until the next day.

It is finally "home" and I can begin to work.

The roller chassis weighs only 775 lbs as shown.  This includes tires, wheels, brakes, radiators, full bladder style fuel cell, electric fuel pump etc.
Obviously no engine, trans or body.

 

LS7 Engine

The engine was purchased from Gandrud Chevrolet in Green Bay Wisconsin. They were super to deal with and even delivered it to my home at no charge!

The engine was dyno tested at my friend and former Indy Car engine building partner Mickey Nichos' NAC Machine Shop on a Super Flow engine dyno. After some very conservative tweeking of the computer map it made 574 HP and torque was at or above 450 Ft. Lbs. from 3100 to 6500 RPM.

Decision Time

After returning from the London Olympics and a side trip to Paris France a serious search for a new project began about Labor Day of 2012.

We looked at many many different cars. Some made in Europe, most in the US. We even considered building a dragster!  Everything we looked at had some disadvantage.  Obsolete or poor design, to large, to heavy, not yet built, not unique enough or whatever.

Two different friends that I greatly respect suggested that I check out the Palatov cars at www.dpcars.net

This led to a visit to see and drive Dennis Palatov's prototype D2 in Portland Oregon last November. I was impressed with the car and with "DP".  This led to an order being placed for chassis #004.

The next decisions were what engine and transaxle to use. Without going into details a GM LS7 engine and modified Porsche transaxle were selected. The LS7 promised a reliable, tractable 500+ HP with a very wide power band.  With the gear ratios selected for the transaxle, first gear should get me to 60 MPH (about what my Stalker would do in a normal start in 2nd gear) and fifth gear should get me to just over 205 MPH at the 7000 RPM red line.

Stalker Development

My wife Denise and I greatly enjoyed driving the Stalker around town, the people involved with the Stalker community and the relatively low key racing I did with it.

I also greatly enjoyed designing and implementing numerous engine, chassis, shock, spring rate, aerodynamic etc. improvements to the car. It won numerous events and was pictured in several enthusiast magazines. At Virginia International Raceway it achieved speeds of over 170 MPH on the back straightaway. It was also drag raced a couple of times and achieved a best 1/4 mile ET of 9.944 at 141.5 MPH. Not bad for a street car on pump gas!

Eventually I ran out of things to improve and wanted a new challenge. Consequently the car was sold in August of 2012.

The Beginning

Most of you know me as a Midget Race Car driver

or the builder driver of a Stalker sports car

I built the Stalker begining in 2005 after retiring from racing midgets.

Originally it was powered by a Super Charged GM 3800 V6 engine that made about 300 HP. Over the years that engine was replaced by another 3800 with modifications that brought the power up to almost 400. Eventually that engine "expired" and was replaced by a GM Crate LS376/480 engine. This was the first V8 to be installed in a Stalker.