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Next, John lightly and carefully stretched the angle aluminum to complement the roof line profile. It’s easy to take metal forming for granted. That is, until you try to do it yourself. I tried to use a metal shrinker/stretcher once and did nothing but massacre several feet of perfectly good aluminum. As always, John makes things appear easy.
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Apparently, stainless steel button head allen bolts are for chumps. These titanium Hi-lok fasteners are super low profile as their heads are absent of any hexagonal, slotted, or “X” type fastening features. |
Once each of the roof rails was contoured to shape, John then turned his attention towards mounting them to Project 240LSR’s roof. John is a bit of an exotic fastener connoisseur… or maybe fastener snob is a better way to put it. Normally, a series of stainless steel button head allen bolts would be acceptable for any racecar. Not for John though.
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If you look closely at the Hi-lok fastener, you'll notice that its shaft has a hexagonal fastening feature so that it can be held in place while the nut is tightened. There is a special tool for this, but in its absence an Allen key and 12 point box wrench can be used. |
While the average car dork might spend their free time scouring the Hot Wheels aisle at Target, John spends his exploring warehouses filled with aerospace surplus. The result of this rather eccentric past time is a collection of perhaps hundreds of pounds of exotic aerospace fasteners. If you ever get the chance to critique Project 240SX LSR up close, you’ll notice that John tapped into his collection wherever he could. One demonstration of John’s fetish, are the titanium Hi-lok fasteners that secure the roof rails in place.
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With these modifications complete, team MotoIQ was within striking distance of finishing Project 240SX LSR and making it to Speed Week. All that remained was addressing Project 240SX LSR’s brake system and a few other small but menacing nuances. We’ll catch up on those and finish up on our “Hail Mary” in the next installment. Until then, why not check out the rest of our series here?
Sources:
GTI – Gialamas Technical Innovations
