a little TRIVIA for you!

Automotive Trivia

"Flathead" or "L-head" car engines were common into the 1950s. The Ford flathead V8 is more famous than many of the car models it was installed in. What makes a flathead engine a flathead?

A. Above the pistons the cylinder head is machined completely flat rather than slightly domed. The combustion chamber is confined to the upper end of the cylinder.

B. The valve covers are made of cast iron which gives them a flat appearance compared to stamped metal valve covers. Sturdy cast iron (or alloy) is necessary because the rocker arm shafts are bolted to the valve cover rather than the cylinder head.

C. The exhaust and intake valves are located beside the piston in the engine block. The cylinder heads appear flat because they only contain combustion chamber space rather than all the valve train gear (rocker arms, valves, springs, valve covers, etc.) found on overhead valve (OHV) engine cylinder heads.


- RockAuto Monthly Newsletter

Sometimes you just have to make it.

The snap-on adapter for our 18mm compression tester didn't have a valve core nor did it have threads to put one in (guess how we found that out). I had the snap-on rep send us a replacement, but this one didn't come with an 18mm adapter.... So I figured it was safe to assume more time would be wasted if I didn't take action.

I cut a valve stem off of an old wheel turned it down to .250" and then I drilled out the adapter to .251 and a little crazy glue.....

Having access to a lathe is invaluable.

Finished cage

In this shot you can see the many tubes and where they tie into the front bottom of the half lateral and the footing.
 

In the picture below you can see were  the cage is sent forward to the firewall. This is taken from under the steering wheel.

In this picture you can see the rear stays that support the main hoop on the outer bends and the rear cross bars that support the center expanse of the main hoop. Both of these sets of bars terminate at plates footings on the tops of the rear shock (strut) towers.

This picture gives you a good idea of the relation of the cage and the drivers controls. It also shows the forward components that connect to the firewall.

 

Taken from the passenger foot well you can see the tubes that triangulate towards the firewall. These tubes will help to keep the front half of the car from bending up into the cage. On the other side of the firewall is the back of the shock tower. You can also see the footings for the front of the half laterals (that run along the driver and passenger window/door openings) and how they are joined by the sill bar, bottom of the door x-bar, and the bar that supports the top window bar.

Finished cage

Here are more pictures of the finished cage.

Below you can see the plating that was done to the top of the front shock towers to keep them from being ripped out in case of impact from a rough landing after clearing a jump!

Here's a look at the back half of the cage you can see the seat mounts, harness bars, cross bars and in the right side of the picture you can see the rear stays that head to the rear shock towers to help support the main hoop and tie in the rear half of the chassis to the front.

Below is the footing for the main hoop right behind the outer sides of the forward passengers floor pans. Notice how the plating is set up and how the tube is welded into the corner, not just at the base. Also take note how the tubes from the sill-bar (bar that runs along the bottom of the door opening) and the bottom door bar (part of the bars that X in the door opening) meet up at this point and tie into the main hoop.

So you wanted to see the finished product

Door bar gussets:

A-pillar to window bar support gusseted to the door bar.

Rear x-bar gusseted with the harness bars installed. Notice the passenger harness bar is lower than drivers because the passenger seat can be set lower.

 

Here you can see the seat mounting brackets.

 

Here's a look through the windshield opening where you can see how close the half laterals that start on the floor and run along the a-pillars (sides of windshield), bend tightly along the top of the door frame and meet up with the main hoop that is behind the drivers.

So this week we started with roll cages and fabrication.

Andrew Garcia took a few more pictures of the car. Check 'em out!

 

 

Check these sites for more pictures and build progress on roll cages and the types of racing and the safety ideals behind it.

 

This link shows videos of the types of accidents rally vehicles must be prepared to withstand: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=rally+car+crash+youtube&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=544E67C1EC978DA5DAAA544E67C1EC978DA5DAAA

 

This company DIYAUTOTUNE is building a LSR (land speed racing) car. It is a 240sx, similar to the one you guys built this year. It has an enourmous amount of safety equipment due to the unpredictable nature of 200mph racing:

http://www.diyautotune.com/cars/project/diyautotune_s13_240sx.htm#15

Check out this video of an LSR twin-turbo V8 that is in the process of being tuned on the dyno towards the end:

 

A grassroots effort to race on the salt! Compare this 240sx to the one built by DIYAUTOTUNE:

http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticles/ID/3069/The-Hail-Mary-Part-2-Aint-No-Rest-for-the-Wicked.aspx#Related

Check out Izzys cages. He shows plenty of detailed pictures of his builds. He build cages for any type of vehicle. He even shows pictures comparing good work vs. bad:

http://www.izzyscustomcages.com/240sxCage.html

Can you design a cage for your future car?

 

Earlier today Kelvin and I took a mini road trip to west milform to check out my future car ;)
A 1999 hatchback civic  #honda #stickshift. The civic was in great condition.
We decided to take kelvin's s13 on this mini road trip and it was a success.

2007 Suby WRX STI Rally (The First Steps)

Friday, Mr.Gamarra's friends Billy and Justin were able to bring in a 2007 Subaru WRX STI that they are in the process of fabricating a roll cage for a customer.

They came to the shop to weld gussets in the roll cage, which are basically triangles (bent like a slice of pie) that are welded onto any crossbars to reinforce the cage. The following pictures show the emptiness of the car at the beginning stages. The yellow boxes show some examples of where the gussets would be welded to.

You can see that practically everything in the car has been stripped out: the back seat, the front bumper, and in the first picture if you look closely enough you  could see that even the engine has been taken out, leaving only the transmission.

The passenger's seat

The driver's seat.

You can't tell in this picture but the windshield isn't on yet either, this was to prevent the insides from rusting up from the rain we were getting.

 The back windshield wasn't on either, it was just taped down.

The wall between the cabin and the trunk has been taken out. Just a reminder on how the top of the roll cage is put in: You would put the bottom part of the roll cage inside the car first and get everything welded on, then you would cut the body open from the underside (around the backseat area) and drop the roll cage out and under, then continue welding the top of the roll cage in. After all this you would slide the roll cage through the hole in the body, then simply weld the hole closed. Remember that this would be done on the underside of the car, where appearance isn't focused on.

One thing to note about Rallying:

You can't make money in Rallying so if you do it, do it for the hobby and fun of it. It's really fun to rally and it's an activity not many people can experience. As far as numbers go, if you can do all of the work yourself in rallying a car, it would cost around $5,000 for parts, and if you didn't know how to do any of the work at all, it can run up to around $12000 for parts and labor. But don't let this figure scare you, because it's not like you would be spending that much yearly, or ever at all (unless you rally another car.....then you would) however, event entry fees are around $2,000. In my opinion, its worth it, because being a rally car driver, that's good, is a skill to brag about because it means that you can operate under pressure and that you have amazing reflexes. Also that you can drive in all-terrain practically. 

Some more from RavenWorks

CNC cylinder head porting prototypes and a supercharged dry-sump Hemi!!

Pictures at Ravenworks

These are pictures of a few cars that belong to the shop where my friend Dan works.

Hot rods at school!