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.

 

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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.