An angle grinder with a cutoff wheel is used to cut the gussets out.The floor plates and gussets are first tacked in place then welded with a Tig welder.The cage is coming together and looking beautiful!Now patches are made for all the holes in the unibody and they are welded in place.Tight mitering makes for good welds. The diagonal and other minor tubes are tacked in and welded.The floor boxes couple the main hoop to the floor and frame rails. The floor box also welds to the floor plate that doubles the floor sheetmetal. This is exceedingly sturdy.
I’m curious as to what type of racing class this will be entered into. I’m not too knowledgeable about all of the classes and series, specifically the ones that would allow an engine swap of this nature. That being said, I’m excited to see how this turns out. We all know the stock engine (even boosted) isn’t the best for power, but the chassis is very well balanced and highly tunable.
Jeffrey, They are entering in multiple Hill Climb events & Global Time Attack “unlimited” class. The chosen motor is about the same weight as the stock one, but with more potential & reliability at a much higher HP level.
M50 is probably a hundred pounds over the FA20, trans probably a bit more too, and it’s definitely longer and taller but power does talk. I’d suspect most of it is really about having an M50 developed rather than it being the best decision if there were a blank slate.
A lot of nice fab work on this car; always fun to see stuff like that.
I’m seeing 430 pounds for an M50 longblock. Vorshlag has weighed both the FA20 and the M20, both with trans at 20 pounds more for the M20, and I’m seeing references to the M20 being about 20 pounds lighter than the M50.
Like I said, not a huge difference but it’s definitely not in favor of the iron block I6.
Try using dry ice when removing the sound deadening. It breaks off in chunks instead of having to scrape goo off the floors.
I think you skipped over a key detail that is evident in some of the pictures. The roof skin was removed so that the top parts of the roll-cage could be fully welded. Apologies if i missed that detail somewhere but i have seen a few different cage builders do it different (like cutting holes in the floor to drop the a pillar bars and tip the cage forward to access the top) and i think that pulling the roof-skin is the most efficient way of doing it.
Is there a reason why the a pillar bar has such a huge gap? Ive been in cars like that and the bind spot it creates is horrible. It seems like there are also alot of dead tubes that could have easily been placed on the same plane or triangulated to others. Is the rule book that strict to where you couldn’t fix that? Or is there a reason for it that im missing
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I’m curious as to what type of racing class this will be entered into. I’m not too knowledgeable about all of the classes and series, specifically the ones that would allow an engine swap of this nature. That being said, I’m excited to see how this turns out. We all know the stock engine (even boosted) isn’t the best for power, but the chassis is very well balanced and highly tunable.
Unlimited RWD is the class. Go to the GTA website and see the rules.
Jeffrey, They are entering in multiple Hill Climb events & Global Time Attack “unlimited” class. The chosen motor is about the same weight as the stock one, but with more potential & reliability at a much higher HP level.
M50 is probably a hundred pounds over the FA20, trans probably a bit more too, and it’s definitely longer and taller but power does talk. I’d suspect most of it is really about having an M50 developed rather than it being the best decision if there were a blank slate.
A lot of nice fab work on this car; always fun to see stuff like that.
The FA20 motor and trans weights 480 according to the internet. M50 with trans is about 400 . THe inline bmw motors are pretty light
I’m seeing 430 pounds for an M50 longblock. Vorshlag has weighed both the FA20 and the M20, both with trans at 20 pounds more for the M20, and I’m seeing references to the M20 being about 20 pounds lighter than the M50.
Like I said, not a huge difference but it’s definitely not in favor of the iron block I6.
Try using dry ice when removing the sound deadening. It breaks off in chunks instead of having to scrape goo off the floors.
I think you skipped over a key detail that is evident in some of the pictures. The roof skin was removed so that the top parts of the roll-cage could be fully welded. Apologies if i missed that detail somewhere but i have seen a few different cage builders do it different (like cutting holes in the floor to drop the a pillar bars and tip the cage forward to access the top) and i think that pulling the roof-skin is the most efficient way of doing it.
There is another reason that we will cover later .
Is there a reason why the a pillar bar has such a huge gap? Ive been in cars like that and the bind spot it creates is horrible. It seems like there are also alot of dead tubes that could have easily been placed on the same plane or triangulated to others. Is the rule book that strict to where you couldn’t fix that? Or is there a reason for it that im missing