Paul Newman takes last laps....

Paul Newman takes last laps at Lime Rock Park.

Dam alot of bad news lately, altough this one is good news in a certain way.
He is quite the inspiration for me, I wish him good luck on his journey....

"Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Lime Rock Park was closed down for an hour and
half today to honor Paul Newman. He was attended
by his family, close friends, Skip Barber, mechanics
on his race team, and those who happened to be at
the track. PLN toured the track in his Corvette race
car with his Buick V8 powered Volvo station wagon
following. He had come to say goodbye. Diagnosed
with terminal cancer he is not expected to live beyond
September. Race driver, actor, humanitarian, family
man and friend, they did not come any better."


LimeRock was closed down today Wednesday for an hour and a half so Paul Newman could take a few last laps there in his GT1 Corvette and say goodbye. He was diagnosed with cancer 18 months ago and is not expected to make it past September.
Hearing this has left a sick feeling in my stomach. Newman was and will always be one of my racing hero's.

American racing legend, Phil Hill, dies at 81

RIP Phil.......



Phil Hill, the only American-born driver to win a Formula One title, passed away last night of complications associated with Parkinson's disease at the age of 81. Aside from his success with Ferrari in F1 during the 1961 season, Hill was also the first American to win at the 24 hours of Le Mans, taking the title twice more and winning the 12-hours of Sebring three times.

Described by friends and colleagues as reserved and genteel, Hill was a breath of fresh air in the international racing scene and finally inducted into the International Motorsport Hall of Fame in 1991.

He is survived by his wife Alma, son, two daughters and four grandchildren, all of whom have our heartfelt condolences.

Jack point !

After seeing some this on some other build threads I'm really surprised I didn't think of this before!

Basically just a tube that's connected to the cage so you can jack the car up from one centralized point and get both wheels in the air at the same time. Which is great for enduro pit stops ala Nascar style or just convenient so I can place both jack stands at the same time.

I would of liked to have placed it a bit closer to the middle of the rocker but there was some things in the way (maybe side exit exhaust). The bigger issue was also the sill tube bends out and the jack tube would not of lined up. In the end my location works perfect.

Would of been sweet to have air jacks but.......yeah right!

Was simple cut the hole with the hole saw - then slide the tube to mar the trim point - then cut a notch.......done.

after the notch was cut.......
testing with the jack........



Nothing like some cold beer to celebrate the end of cage fabrication !!!!
Bottoms up! ......yeah it was freakin' hot in the valley.....it's always hot there.....

Door Bars fabricated!

Granted I'm vintage racing and the racing is not at the same agressive level of what I encountered on the "Setup" tv show or even your local NASA or scca race. But the single door bar always made me uneasy and was never a permanent solution.

I decided to maintain the main tube already welded in and transform the existing tube into a door X design. This should once again help with chassis stiffness and more importantly safety.

I will be adding dimpled "taco" gussets to the X as well as many other parts of the cage.


Now for the driver side I decided to run and additional tube connecting the center of the x to the door sill tube. This should help in a side impact. Also as I said I will be adding many gussets...

So now I'll feel a bit more safe in that seat.....

Front cage Completed!

Front Completed!

Well after much thought about my previous ideas for the front shock tower tie-in....We came up with another Idea. Problem was when we start actually looking at all the different sheet metal structures that make up the "shock tower" on the 2002. After many ideas we decided that with this design we leave the stock structure of the strut tower unchanged. Basically I will use the new tubes and gussets to integrate them into the stock structure and the resulting design should increase the overall stiffness and strength of the front of the car.

Basic idea was to lay a thick 1/8" plate over the top of the mounting area. The run horizontal tubes from the dash bar (like many e36 and e46 designs) and then run one tube from my existing lower "dash bar" to give it some horizontal support.



vertical support tube mount to the lower dash bar...

he gap on this tube is not as bad as it looks it just the way the tube is laying there as none of this is tack welded in yet.Completed layout (not welded yet...duh)
Maybe not as pretty or elegant as I might of imagined but we managed to come up with a unique effective design.


This is what it looks like in one big pile...... ready to get prepped for welding....

Firewall BREACH!!!

What do you think my car is powered by?

A hungry poor brazilian !!
This is what happens when you drink beer and work on your car
But seriously, I was in there to check the hood clearance on our new new "strut tower" design. If you look back at my ver.1 and ver2. ......something just didn't work for me. Thanks to Dimitri I think we finalized on a "strut tower" tube design. I feel much better now !

First step was to check the hood clearance........I'll shave my hood reinforcement support bar that I fiber glassed in just enough to make room for the tube.
Next I broke out the cardboard and started laying out the strut plate and tranfered it to steel, using 1/8" plate. It was a total bitch to cut it out while maintaining straight lines etc.... even more challenging to cut out the center opening.
Next the moment we've all been waiting for......drum roll please

First hole in the firewall.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





Getting the hole cut and lined up in just the right spot? ....priceless!
TUBING is 1-1/4 x .120 wall

It's all downhill from here!

let's see how our idea all comes together