The Physio I had been taking for the foot I had broken didn't seem to really be making anything better than what Mother nature had been doing already. Just a waste of time, I thought. I finished my sessions and carried on with life. Best physio is using the thing.
I picked up a Mazda GLC for the school shop. Nice Rwd 1980 model. Sadly it wouldn't work for the project I had intended (see below). Needs a head gasket and registration, but the floor is pretty rotten. Too much work with not enough reward. I'm looking to unload it. Interested? $50, come and get it.
Over spring break (two weeks in this district this year), Colin "The Yellow Dart" M. and Calen "The Pocket Knife" R. came by to paint the
Insane Impala a nice coat of flat black. Although flat black has always been
my favourite for "hiding a multitude of sins," some imperfections really showed up. Maybe the kids will finally
believe me now when I say you have to keep sanding! Oh well. If it's really bad, we (they) can sand and
paint it again.
The week after spring break Colin masked and sprayed the flames, yellow to orange with inside flames the base colour. Pinstriped in blue.
Also did a bit of tuning on the Impala after repairing the damaged timing light cables. Running 2°ATDC really let the idle lope, but it ran much better at 12°BTDC.
Yes, those are home-made clear taillights on the Impala. We reversed the rims ourselves, too.x
I finally started building one of my dream cars - a Lotus 7 clone. I have mentioned wanting to build one in previous postings, and now it's coming to fruition. I originally was going to use an S-10 Blazer as the donor, but the components are so big and so heavy. The GLC seemed like a better choice, since everything was so light, but it was an automatic, and sourcing the components to turn it into a manual was getting quite expensive. I decided to look for a different donor.
I found 3 Corollas in the wreckers with the excellent 3TC or 2TC engines. The cost of major components alone was adding up to the price of a whole car.
Found a Corolla in Sumerland, but it was an automatic.
Lots at the coast, but it's at least $70 in gas just to go down and look. And what if I find one? Gas tank back, bus ticket down, gas tank and permit up.... Gets expensive.
So I went trolling...
(CAUTION - RELIGIOUS DISSERTATION TO FOLLOW - CLICK TO SKIP)
My sweetie and I attend a Bible study where we had discussed a verse that said
We came to the understanding that God wants to do lots of cool things for us. Exceedingly abundantly. Beyond our wildest dreams. So I had a bit of a discussion with God about this. I knew I wasn't asking for world peace or anything, and that the idea was pretty selfish, but I wanted a good donor Corolla to work with. Preferably a GT-S. I knew God had done this before, helped me find project cars that end up working really well for me. Not that a car is going to give any glory to God, but I enjoy it so.
So as I'm trolling through the backroads and scummy parts of Kelowna, I pass a Corolla GT-S for sale in someone's front yard. I knock on the door to ask about the price, and it's an elderly couple from my church. The car is their grand-daughter's, who just got married. We chat, I find out the price, and talk to the girl's father, who it turns out is a cousin to a girl I went to Bible college with in Calgary. God answered. I bought the car.
If this religious talk offends you, deal with it. Learn to accept others. Am I beating you over the head to become religious? Nope. But I cannot remove my faith from my life. Get over it.
So now I am stripping the car in my garage, and have a few pieces left to remove before I send it off to the
crusher.
Since the "Lotus" will be my next racecar, this warrants a new section below, especially since I will not be
developing the Sinister Sentra any further.
In the mean-time, I fabricated four levers to corner balance cars using simple bathroom scales. The idea is to
adjust the suspension so that all four wheels are weighted evenly diagonally. When this is done, the "weight" of the
vehicle is the same on both left and right turns, and the car is much more balanced. These levers are very much like
RugglesScales, but my own design. Not that you can get really creative with this sort of thing.....
My hopes are that I can pocket a bit of coin doing this sort of thing for people. Might as well put what I have
learned to some practical use. Love this Capitalistic society.
Things I have found on the web:
Shapiro Supply - Excellent prices!
Craigslist.org - Classifieds
Stock MINI breaks the sound barrier
Things that are really ticking me off lately:
Things that are really exciting me lately:
I also started building the frame, changing slightly from "The Book"
to look a bit more "Lotus-esque" instead of "Westfield-ish." As of this writing, I am at the point of trial fitting
the drivetrain for final mount location, then on to the suspension....
The Sentra ran the first event of the season, one nice freshly painted rims (Silver) and last year's tires
flipped outside for inside. I ran pretty mediocre, but was the only one in the class to pull off a clean run,
thus taking 1st! (AutocrossRacer.com) I have doubts as to how well I will
do this year. I've been working with a few of my competitors to improve their car setup, and sadly, they listened.
This will be the year I learn to drive better. I lose more graciously.
Of course, I could always build a faster car than theirs!
This month marks the start of a new project - The Lotus 7.
I have been wanting a 7 since my Uncle David took me for a ride in his Super 7 back in the early 80's. Recently, due to grand success with Ron Champion's book: "How to Build Your Own Sports Car for £250 and Race It!, many people are building their own "Locost." I bought the book. I'm building the car.
The cockpit has been shortened about 2 inches, providing a bit more room in the engine bay. My height is in my torso, so this shouldn't be a problem for me. Resale, however, might be somewhat limited. The donor vehicle is a complete 1986 Toyota Corolla GT-S I aquired for $800.
As of this writing, the frame is mostly complete, sans suspension. The donor is almost completely disassembled. I anticipate this project taking about 2 years.