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My life is full of fixing my mistakes. One of the biggest screw ups to date on Wilson was modifying the fuel fill set up. I hated what Porsche designed, but I messed with it & made it worse.
FINALLY I have a slick solution. Genuine Spaco product baby!
Made the decision to fabricate the front & sides of an FIA style rollcage today.
Even though this isn't a race car, by the legal definition it probably will be when I'm done with it. Only road legal with heat & a/c.
I know many people say don't drive with a rollcage because of injury in a collision (head hitting the bars)- a very good point, but the other side of the coin is how safe is the windshield & a-frame collapsing on the occupants upper body? I hope that I can position the occupant low enough and back enough that with the multipoint harness & these seats that head injury is unlikely.
Ordered up some DOM 1.75" x .120" tubing & a nice USA made bender. It's not cheap, but if I can pull it off, then I will own a bender and pay for the required additional tubing for the same price as ordering the front cage & have it shipped. The tubing supplier is local.
My goal is to have my seating position as low and rearward as possible. The sparco seats (expired 4 pt Sparcos will remain, I can neither justify or afford the expense of upgrading at this point in time).
This will require a change to my existing seat brackets... I will relocated tabs about 2-3 inches rearward & also add 10 degrees layback.
In the past I didn't know how to overcome the slider latch, and this forced me to weld the tabs in front of the square tubing, but I'll try tomorrow to change it.
Thought I done told ya'll that I like the gt300 cars for inspiration in the aero dept since Wilson will also be in that hp class and this is a modern race class so I consider the technology better researched than old aero (I could be wrong).
Anyway, I want my car to not only work well but also look nice & I think the Japanese lead the way.
Wilson will be later today. I'm modifying the cheap-*** wing to work (hopefully very well). I wish I bought a bigger wing, but at the time I was expecting only short 50 hp bursts of nitrous in the straights and thought this was a good compromise of downforce & drag.
This is a cheap $200 wing, promoted as "real carbon fibre", but I am sure it's ABS plastic LOL...
Designed with 2 short uprights for a S2000 or Corvette trunk lid, I am converting the short uprights to be horizontal brackets, allowing me to move the wing rearward on one-off 1/4" 6000 series aluminum uprights (cut with a jigsaw).
My research shows a wing mounted *rear* of the hatch works better. And has the bonus of hatch no-fuss accessibility on the 944.
Back yard hill billy machine shop. Sponsored by Lucky Lager.
Got 24 feet of 1.75" roll cage tubing cut in 3 equal lengths & it just fit in my wife's sedan that she graciously lets me use.
Modifying my seat brackets for 3" setback & 10 degrees layback took like 5 hours on the driver's side but the test fit was.... in a word: excellent. Totally nailed it!
Yes I am going to use the pass side on the driver's side because it slides better (there was warpage to the motor controlled driver's seat brackets that I welded 2 years ago)... and I want' a slider to work well damn it!
03-13-2017, 12:22 PM
