An EProd car is born
 

Here are some shots of my latest car.
Quick details:
All fiberglass hood, fenders, quarters, hatch. Flared 2 inches to clear tires.
Driveline and suspension are next.

WOW~!...cant wait to see the finished product in action..

Don't know if I'll make it that far west racing this one! Maybe halfway, like Topeka... I'm shooting to have the car on the track for some testing in early May. My big hold up now is the fact that the Aim MXL Pro I ordered has been backordered for over a month.

What hatch are you using? Looks nice, Tripoint, AWR, Japco? I need to drop some serious weight from mine, it's a hefty 2900 wet, w/me (155#). Of course it is not an EP car, just wish I had known more when I started... I look forward to your updates, keep'em coming, Carl

I made the all the body panels myself. One of the guys I share the shop with used to build boats and he made all the body panel molds. When I was ready for the hatch frame he walked me through the whole process of mold making etc. (he runs a 'vert so he didn't have a hatch) The frame weighs just under 4lbs and the 1/8th polycarbonate is about 11lbs so the whole package is just under 15lbs instead of the stock 57lbs.

That's the stuff I want to see! Hell of a project.

Wow, nice custom work there.

wow, such great DIY work, big props to you!
tell us more about your hood... weight? source? cost?
thats gonna be a fun car on track!
congrats, looks awesome!

Everything you see was done by me. Body panels, cage, paint, wiring etc etc. The hood weighs 14-15 lbs and attaches with hood pins. There might be $25 in materials.

Here are pics of the cage.

Can you show us what you did under the hood with the front of the cage? That looks like one stout cage.

The fenders look great along with the hatch. Several racers build there own fiberglass pieces. Most of them do so because they don't like (or don't want to pay the high price + high freight) what's avaliable commerically. You could for sure go into the fiberglass business.

Here's the engine compartment. I have been mocking things up so it hasn't been painted.

Looks great! Keep the pix coming.

That's a very nice looking car, the cage is beautifully made and looks well designed. The body work is also very good. I really admire people like you with the skills to do so much of the build on your own.

What kind of tire/wheel sizes do you run in Eprod.

Wheel size is limited to 15x7. Tires are whatever you can fit UNDER the fender even if its flared. We run 9.5" wide slicks that are specially made for a narrow rim.

On another subject, I put the car on scales today. I just wanted to see what my neurosis about adding lightness to the car has gotten me. I gathered all kinds of parts that aren't installed on the car yet and put them in the general location they will be in relation to the wheels. I didn't add any fluids so these are dry weights but with me in the car. One thing I didn't account for was exhaust pipe but a did throw a muffler in the pass. corner. There also was no starter.

LF RF
540 528

LR RR
563 478

TOTAL 2109 lbs.
My weight is 189 on one of the scales. So the car is 1920 dry
Minimum weight for the class is 2350 lbs with driver.

Here are some shots of the 'office' under construction. After being on backorder for over a month my dash/dataq system finally showed up. Its an AIM MXL Pro 05. I'm making my list for all the sensors and extra wiring I need.

The whole engine harness has been pulled back through the firewall and is in a ball by the ECU shelf on the passenger side. I'll be painting the engine compartment this next week.

You'll love the hell out of that dash once you get on track. I drove a customer's car in an enduro with it, and it's really nice. He wired in some bigger and brighter warning lights (superbright LEDs) that make it impossible to miss. He did it for the video camera, but it makes it hard to say, "I didn't see the light....". ;)

JOHN!!

Looks awesome!

Nice to see you at Sebring! :( Didnt get a chance to see the Turner on the track. I was looking for it during one of the sessions when the 997 was ready to go, and I had some time LOL.

I am really gonna have to squeese in some time to get across town and check her out. Swap some more ideas along the way :)

BTW.. For those who might think he is an amatuer. Dont believe it. He isnt just some dude with tools in mom and dad's garage.. he he he

Scott, the Turner got punted off the track by a Corvette on the outside of 17 during the Enduro. The front right corner is crushed.

Which minute of spare time were you looking? The first or the second one ;)

Ouuuuch. Im sorry to hear that.

But just think.. now you can re-re-engineer the shocks etc again :) Just another oppertunity for improvement...

Not sure have an event at Atl this weekend.. and the next two after I should be in Texas working on some cars.
o.O

Umm soo yeah. I will prolly end up seeing it on the track first! LOL

What cars in Texas will you be working on? :)

Scott fills the weekends he isn't driving making Porsches fast for Farnbacher Loles, it's probably one(or a bunch) of them.

Ahhh... at the GP.

Well I'll be doing worker registration, so if that's anywhere near driver/crew, pop in and say Hi!

Its been a while since I've updated info on the car. I spent the Fall traveling doing the Zoom Zoom Live Tour and I got no time in on the car. I dug up some pics for everybody's enjoyment.

There are two of my clutch set-up using a flex plate. I had some QuarterMaster clutch stuff laying around and figured I could save some weight. I had a spacer made to fill the gap in the dish of the flexplate. I could have turned it myself but then I thought,"This thing is going to be spinning 9K!" so I had a friend who does it for a living do it. It turned out great. The whole thing came in at 12lbs 7oz including the counterweight and hardware. The whole clutch and flywheel package weighs in at just under 18lbs. The stock assembly weighs about 36 lbs. The big thing is rotational mass though and this set-up is low.

The other picture is of the brake duct I made. It puts all the air into the center of the disc from a 3" hose. This will keep the disc from having one side getting cooler than the other because it all gets cooled from inside.

John, everything looks to be top craftmanship.

Question:

From your comments about E Production & Topeka I presume you will run with the SCCA. What is your work around of GCR rule 18.6.3. Side Protection vrs what you have ?

David

I'll wait ten minutes for the rule to change :wallbash:

Actually I've been waiting to see how this all shakes out, as soon as I get an idea of what I can get away with I'll grudgingly add whatever will get through tech.

I just sent this picture to our local SCCA tech guy and was told that I needed a horizontal bar. Seems kind of silly, looking at your passenger side cage there is no way anything is getting thru that.

http://thumb14.webshots.net/t/59/559...4ythYYX_th.jpg


Paul

I've dealt with a lot of "local" tech guys" and until I hear something from National I don't consider it carved in stone, and even then...
Lets not bring the SCCA cage issues here from the prodracing site! By the way I'm "JG" over there.

My final comment on this thread about roll cages & SCCA roll cage rules. I presume both John & Paul know of the SCCA GOLD card roll cages. When WE read the SCCA roll cage rules & do what ever the HELL WE want to do when building our roll cages we wind up with ILLEGAL roll cages. & if someone protested any one of us for our ILLEGAL roll cage we would start our pouting routine while saying that the protester is a pi$$ ant. I am not going to sit & argue with the CRB about rules if there correct or not correct because it's like pi$$ing in the wind when your down stream in the wind. Been there done that with the SCCA CRB & I'm still trying to dry out.

Have Fun
David

This cage was actually started years ago and the car was just going to be a track mule. I didn't have the time to go racing and I was going to throw a V8 in it and just have fun. I sold a couple businesses and got dragged back into racing by some friends. The car plans changed and the pass. side bars were already in so I left them for now. I will try to leave them and add a token bar somewhere but if I have to I'll cut them out and start clean.

I may wait and only do it if I decide to chase a points race or do the Runoffs. If I get protested and lose, well I know it didn't fit the rules and there it is :fawk: We all know it didn't make my car faster but thats the rules. I can live with that.