Too Late for Winter Project Reports?
05-23-2009, 12:27 PM
#1
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Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
Too Late for Winter Project Reports?
Hey All;
One drawback of doing this for a living is that your own projects have to take a
back seat and wait for the time/money/energy to do them. Time was not a
factor this year, but that means money was. Energy is sometimes relative to
the difficulty of the project, and this one sapped a lot of it, mostly mental.
We started here with my ever evolving 84NA;
I already had made the fiberglas headlamp delete nose, and a pretty cool
modified stock bumper beam. Until I just looked at this photo again, I'd nearly
forgotten why I even got into this project. As you may also note, my aging
original urethane air dam was in its death throws. It was likley to have been
banned as a moveable aerodynamic device! I decided before it fell off I better
do something. Oy... what a hornet's nest!
Another reason I decided to take the plunge was that I saw what appeared to
be a great price on the Kokeln 944 Turbo race bumper from Automobile
Atlanta. HA! A lot of you probably cringed when I mentioned AA I bet.
I'd heard a lot of stories over the years, and now I have my own. I will never
do business with them again, for what started as a Kokeln product in the
catalogue ended up arriving to me as a GT Racing 292R bumper. ????
Live and learn.
In any event, I thought I was not too dissappointed, as it is also a pretty nice
looking piece... until I tried to get the GT part to fit! Hours and hours and hours
and hours and hours and........................... So anyway, the first thing on the
list is to mod the NA fender lip to match the Turbo shape. The NA shape looks
like at left, and changed to at right;
I took this opportunity to improve on some things too. The stock lip under the
turbo fender is very shallow, which makes the edge pretty flimsy. When I
formed the new edge, I made the lip much wider to give it more strength. Also
in this pic you can see the stock fender brace, which is just stamped tin. I
made a much more solid replacement out of aluminum chanel. The flange on
the side of the fender where the air dam bolts is also fairly vulnerable. I made
a backing plate from 1/8" aluminum and bonded it inside to reinforce the
fender against bending from minor air dam/bumper biffs.
The finished product;
The next item on the agenda was to create a bumper reinforcement with some
easy to use tow hooks for transport. I removed the bumper shocks and built
this frame from 1.75x.095 roll cage tubing. The upper assembly is a support
for the top of the bumper, fabricated from aluminum. In case of a minor
impact, my aim was to try and preserve the sheetmetal by creating only
minimal attachment of the bumper to the body. I reinforced the fenders for this
reason, and attached the bumper only with three bolts on either
side, and these bolts are 6mmx1.5 PLASTIC bolts. With minimal attachement, I
hope the bumper flexs and absorbs minor impacts, and breaks away in more
severe ones, leaving the sheetmetal unharmed. You can also see the side air
guide panels made from 1/16th ABS sheet.
Furthering the bend-but-don't-break theme is the under body paneling. These
are made from ABS sheet. The center panel ahead of the stock aluminum pan
is 1/8", the rest being 1/16th" The center panel is shaped to bend like a
spring. Another part of the project was removing all of the Wurth body coat
from both sides of the fender/well. The panel to the lower right is to protect the
fender from those nasty inside out dents from stones sticking to the tires. The
panels in front of the wheels (below) are flared downward to imrpove airflow
by deflecting it down instead of letting it escape into the fender well. This also
substantially stiffens them to brace the lower rear portion of the bumper.
Yet another part of the project is new brake ducting. The air enters the
bumper at the lower outsides and terminates at the original rotor dust shield -
that most people toss out - which makes a perfect place for a fabricated hose
mount.
The bumper scoop attaches to the back of the bumper, and also helps hold the
grille in place. You can also see the fabricated faglamp holders above the
scoop. The scoop then feeds air into the white flex hose, which...
... feeds air into this fabricated aluminum manifold, which passes up and
through holes cut in the steel inner fender well. These alloy manifolds start as
flat aluminum sheet, which are then formed by hand (wish I had a pinch
roller!) and welded down the length into a 3" round tube, then hand formed
and finished into an oval shape. The goal here is to have the least length of
fragile flex hose possible. It shreds like paper if it is left to dangle in the wind
and fall afoul of the turning wheel, like on most cars. This setup allows me one
short piece of well protected flex hose that will last FAR longer. At $75 for a 12
length of the good stuff, it gets expensive quickly!
By the way, if any of you get the sneaking suspicion you have seen some of
these components in other settings, you are right. The grille is plaster lathe.
The bumper scoops and white flex hoses are rain gutter components. Before
you laugh, go and price this stuff. ONE racing bumper brake scoop costs more
than I have in ALL of these bits, and I wasted two bumper scoops in the trial-
and-error protoyping process! The value of being clever and resourceful?
Priceless!
A few detail shots. The driving lights are from WalMart, added for those late
Fall afternoon sessions where it gets dark midway through. The tow hooks are
super easy to deal with, and are carefully angled to pull straight when the front
tow straps are crossed for transport. Nice paint too, eh?
The final touch? New vinyl graphics, designed, cut, and installed by myself,
of course. Based on the old theme but highly augmented from last years
much plainer design.
I can't even begin to chronicle all the hassles and headaches from this project,
from wrong parts to miserable quailty. Suffice it to say that I don't want to do
this again... unless I'm getting PAID! It also occured to me that - with this
new nose - no amount of signage is going to undo the difficulty in trying to
convince slow drivers in fast cars that it is NOT A TURBO!
One drawback of doing this for a living is that your own projects have to take a
back seat and wait for the time/money/energy to do them. Time was not a
factor this year, but that means money was. Energy is sometimes relative to
the difficulty of the project, and this one sapped a lot of it, mostly mental.
We started here with my ever evolving 84NA;
I already had made the fiberglas headlamp delete nose, and a pretty cool
modified stock bumper beam. Until I just looked at this photo again, I'd nearly
forgotten why I even got into this project. As you may also note, my aging
original urethane air dam was in its death throws. It was likley to have been
banned as a moveable aerodynamic device! I decided before it fell off I better
do something. Oy... what a hornet's nest!
Another reason I decided to take the plunge was that I saw what appeared to
be a great price on the Kokeln 944 Turbo race bumper from Automobile
Atlanta. HA! A lot of you probably cringed when I mentioned AA I bet.
I'd heard a lot of stories over the years, and now I have my own. I will never
do business with them again, for what started as a Kokeln product in the
catalogue ended up arriving to me as a GT Racing 292R bumper. ????
Live and learn.
In any event, I thought I was not too dissappointed, as it is also a pretty nice
looking piece... until I tried to get the GT part to fit! Hours and hours and hours
and hours and hours and........................... So anyway, the first thing on the
list is to mod the NA fender lip to match the Turbo shape. The NA shape looks
like at left, and changed to at right;
I took this opportunity to improve on some things too. The stock lip under the
turbo fender is very shallow, which makes the edge pretty flimsy. When I
formed the new edge, I made the lip much wider to give it more strength. Also
in this pic you can see the stock fender brace, which is just stamped tin. I
made a much more solid replacement out of aluminum chanel. The flange on
the side of the fender where the air dam bolts is also fairly vulnerable. I made
a backing plate from 1/8" aluminum and bonded it inside to reinforce the
fender against bending from minor air dam/bumper biffs.
The finished product;
The next item on the agenda was to create a bumper reinforcement with some
easy to use tow hooks for transport. I removed the bumper shocks and built
this frame from 1.75x.095 roll cage tubing. The upper assembly is a support
for the top of the bumper, fabricated from aluminum. In case of a minor
impact, my aim was to try and preserve the sheetmetal by creating only
minimal attachment of the bumper to the body. I reinforced the fenders for this
reason, and attached the bumper only with three bolts on either
side, and these bolts are 6mmx1.5 PLASTIC bolts. With minimal attachement, I
hope the bumper flexs and absorbs minor impacts, and breaks away in more
severe ones, leaving the sheetmetal unharmed. You can also see the side air
guide panels made from 1/16th ABS sheet.
Furthering the bend-but-don't-break theme is the under body paneling. These
are made from ABS sheet. The center panel ahead of the stock aluminum pan
is 1/8", the rest being 1/16th" The center panel is shaped to bend like a
spring. Another part of the project was removing all of the Wurth body coat
from both sides of the fender/well. The panel to the lower right is to protect the
fender from those nasty inside out dents from stones sticking to the tires. The
panels in front of the wheels (below) are flared downward to imrpove airflow
by deflecting it down instead of letting it escape into the fender well. This also
substantially stiffens them to brace the lower rear portion of the bumper.
Yet another part of the project is new brake ducting. The air enters the
bumper at the lower outsides and terminates at the original rotor dust shield -
that most people toss out - which makes a perfect place for a fabricated hose
mount.
The bumper scoop attaches to the back of the bumper, and also helps hold the
grille in place. You can also see the fabricated faglamp holders above the
scoop. The scoop then feeds air into the white flex hose, which...
... feeds air into this fabricated aluminum manifold, which passes up and
through holes cut in the steel inner fender well. These alloy manifolds start as
flat aluminum sheet, which are then formed by hand (wish I had a pinch
roller!) and welded down the length into a 3" round tube, then hand formed
and finished into an oval shape. The goal here is to have the least length of
fragile flex hose possible. It shreds like paper if it is left to dangle in the wind
and fall afoul of the turning wheel, like on most cars. This setup allows me one
short piece of well protected flex hose that will last FAR longer. At $75 for a 12
length of the good stuff, it gets expensive quickly!
By the way, if any of you get the sneaking suspicion you have seen some of
these components in other settings, you are right. The grille is plaster lathe.
The bumper scoops and white flex hoses are rain gutter components. Before
you laugh, go and price this stuff. ONE racing bumper brake scoop costs more
than I have in ALL of these bits, and I wasted two bumper scoops in the trial-
and-error protoyping process! The value of being clever and resourceful?
Priceless!
A few detail shots. The driving lights are from WalMart, added for those late
Fall afternoon sessions where it gets dark midway through. The tow hooks are
super easy to deal with, and are carefully angled to pull straight when the front
tow straps are crossed for transport. Nice paint too, eh?
The final touch? New vinyl graphics, designed, cut, and installed by myself,
of course.
Based on the old theme but highly augmented from last years much plainer design.
I can't even begin to chronicle all the hassles and headaches from this project,
from wrong parts to miserable quailty. Suffice it to say that I don't want to do
this again... unless I'm getting PAID!
It also occured to me that - with this new nose - no amount of signage is going to undo the difficulty in trying to
convince slow drivers in fast cars that it is NOT A TURBO!
Last edited by RedlineMan; 05-24-2009 at 09:33 AM.
05-23-2009, 03:32 PM
#3
Drifting
Great Brake ducting!!
The sticker is a classic too!
The sticker is a classic too!
05-23-2009, 04:27 PM
#4
Rennlist
Basic Site Sponsor
Basic Site Sponsor
Very nice work, John. You know, as you keep stripping weight out of it, you're probably getting close to the p/w ratio of a stock turbo anyway! 
__________________
Larry Herman
2016 Ford Transit Connect Titanium LWB
2018 Tesla Model 3 - Electricity can be fun!
Retired Club Racer & National PCA Instructor
Past Flames:
1994 RS America Club Racer
2004 GT3 Track Car
1984 911 Carrera Club Racer
1974 914/4 2.0 Track Car
CLICK HERE to see some of my ancient racing videos.
Larry Herman
2016 Ford Transit Connect Titanium LWB
2018 Tesla Model 3 - Electricity can be fun!
Retired Club Racer & National PCA Instructor
Past Flames:
1994 RS America Club Racer
2004 GT3 Track Car
1984 911 Carrera Club Racer
1974 914/4 2.0 Track Car
CLICK HERE to see some of my ancient racing videos.
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11-20-2015, 12:08 PM
#9
Rennlist Member
I was lucky enough to get a ride in this car in June at The Glen and I can tell you the craftsmanship is beautiful and both the car and driver are seriously fast. Form and function are integrated into every single part of the car. He had no problems keeping up and passing "faster" cars because he carries so much speed through the corners. It was fun watching the "faster" cars slide ahead on the straights only to get reeled in and passed because the car is so well balanced and driven. It was one of the best moments of the DE's I did this year. Thanks again for the ride.
Buzz
Buzz
