What was the width of the Kirkeys and how did you mount them to get them to sit low in the cockpit? Are those the intermediate or the deluxe road race seats?

-b

 

They are the Kirkey Deluxe Road Race seats. Not as low as they look. There is a AEM Management system under the drivers seat and a Hump under the passenger.

Pic will show how I did it. Seats are bolted through the top into a threaded bung welded into the seat frame.

 

I hate seat installation with a passion

 

Pics of my FC in progress.

















^^^^^^^^^^
Not much space between the tube and the car!

 

Nice job, are you doing the work or did you farm it out to a shop? If it is a shop, mention their name.

Show more pics when you have it painted and complete.

Russell

 

Raven Performance in Markham, Ontario. I'm really happy dealing with them so far. Love the job they did on the rear strut towers.

Will do!

 

Here are the pics of the cage painted.


No, the belts weren't painted...just the weird lighting.

 

Nice job on the paint. I am glad you chose a light interior color. Makes it easier to see spills and damage to the welds in case you bump it.

 

My favorite color biz gray... Good choice.

 

What color is that...biz gray??? I'm going light machine gray and will post up again after this weekend.

 

Light or dark machine gray = biz gray. I think it depends on where you are as the Home Depot in CT has dark and the one in Rochester has light. Not the most durable product but easy to touch up.

 

Just finished the cage in a M3 T2 car, lots of fun. Tomorrow we are installing all of the interior after paint.








Custom fabbed 16 gauge a-pillar gussets



Low seat



Custom low pro seat brackets 3" adjustment



We are painting the cage a light grey also. Went to miller paints and had them custom grey us with a 6 pack of aerosol cans.

 

Nice setup. How many points?

 

Standard 8pt, follows SCCA rules!

 

Has a fresh coat of paint since these pictures were taken. More pictures later.

 

Finished the BMW lasr week, painted the cage a light grey.

 

That's some hardcore gusseting!

 

Leather seats in a race car, that's a little different (I know, class rules). The Touring class seems like a strange one, with having to retain the stock interior along with a full cage, it's not like you're still going to use it as a road car, so why make you go to all the extra expense and/or trouble of retaining the stock interior. It'd be cheaper to allow you to strip it, that way you could also sell off the interior to make back some money, as that's an expensive class with all new cars.

 

Touring wasn't meant to be cheap. It seems more of a place for manufactures to showcase their cars. IT is supposedly intended as the point for "cheap" entry level racing, although I don't want to even think about what the cost is going to be for a front running ITR car, or even just a Speedsource ITS '7.

-b

 

I've always wondered - what is the purpose of the "A pillar gussets"?
Thanks.

 

Quick question- Does anybody have experience with the Pro-Tools 105 tubing bender? http://www.pro-tools.com/105.htm We (My brother and I) are using this bender for my cage. We are using this bender and are having problems with getting the correct angles. We are using the Bend Tech EZ software http://www.pro-tools.com/bendtech.htm . The problem lies in there is to much flex in the bender and the tubing angle reads inaccurate i.e a "90*" bend is actually 85ish. It is not a big deal on 90* bends because you can visually see the angle, but a 25* bend is harder to eyeball. We were able to build the main hoop and halo, but it took us a while to get everything to the correct angle and measurement. Currently we are going to seam weld the bottom portion of the bender to try and strengthen it and try to shim the pivots on the dies. Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Eric

 

Sounds to me like your just experiancing "Spring-Back". I usually have about 4 degrees of springback on my hossfeld... of course it varies depending on the degree of the bend. I usually bend, then check the degree agains a known angle then do minor tweeks until the desired angle is achieved. Of course, that's a whole lot easier with hydraulics

 

Thank's Scott. Unfortunately it's not spring back. To get to the 90* unloaded I had to take the dial to 95* and let it spring back to 90. The problem was I only had 85* of bend in the pipe. We are working on getting the flex out of the bender. It should get us a lot closer. We are also going to buy a big protractor and bend welding rod to the proper angle and use it for a guide. Once again thank you for your input. I agree a hydraulic bender would make life easier, but we can overcome that (besides I need the exercise) We have had a steep learning curve so far. Hopefully it gets easier from here. I will try to get some progress pics posted

Eric

 

Here are painted cage pics of my interior. Here is a link to my project page: http://rides.webshots.com/album/5562...ions/FullAlbum

Paul

 

The factory uses them to stiffen the front A-pillars up in case the car goes over on to its roof. They weigh very little and really make the front more rigid.

Watch this!