Doright wrote:How do You like Aviation so far? I been Pro A&P for 20+ years wishing I had listened to Mom & Dad been a Lawyer or Doctor myself lol or kept Playing with my computer when I was a Kid
http://www.oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html

Be-leave it or not but It was cutting edge tech back then
God what a POS that was Had to write your own programs from a Book and use a Tape drive thinking back I ask myself why didn't I stick with it? why did I wanna play with Big Engines ???

Haha. I love it. I left a smaller company working as director of operations and moved on to flying for the airlines, so I am back at the bottom again but the schedule and change in scenery is nice. I was a car mechanic for 9 years prior to flying so i know the pains of that industry. I have never looked back.

Mike95Dodge wrote:Awesome job so far. Big job to take on first hand but definitely worth it in the end. If I can suggest one thing. When applying body filler make tight neat passes it will save your shoulders later and makes it easier to sand. 8-900 hp that's insane for that car I had a 95 GSx burnt orange was almost to 450hp and I thought that was nuts then again that was almost 10 years ago lol. Good luck and keep us posted.

Thanks for the advise, anything to save elbow work, there is enough of that going on already! The process of welding up the fuel cap cover was so slow and tedious that I had to start over once. I (MIG) welded it up, grinded, sanded, added filler, primed, and I just couldn't get it flat. Best guess was that I got the very thin fuel door cover too hot when welding it initially and it buckled a little. I used stripper and cut the first attempt out and tried again with a new door. Welded much slower going corner to corner. The welds were not very pretty from so much spot to spot tacking, but it worked much better.

When welding up thin metal space the welds apart and as u tack weld them in blow compressed air from your air compressor and blow gun. That minimizes heat distortion. I do that on a daily basis.

redline165 wrote:
Thanks.... I'm leaning that way as well. I just have yet to find a charcoal that is dark enough for me yet. But, that being said I have not really looked hard yet.

600hp was the old setup. I plan on going bigger with this one. A street driven 8-900hp car. Technology in the tuner market has come light years since i was back in it. I will defend myself and say that there will be zero aftermarket "body kit whatever you call it" on my car. I love the stock look and am going to keep it that way.

Nice. That is a crazy amount of power. You will
Be beating every car, especially with the awe. I was once going to get a GST but it did not happen. Who knows what might have been lol.
I have heard dsmlink is good tuning software. But have not used it.

Back to auto body, I agree 100% on the stock look. Body kits are outdated and just don't look right most of the time.
Tuned in to see the finished product. Throw some engine bay shots in there too.

Still trucking along. I finally got a proper air compressor which has helped tremendously. Most of my time recently has been going after smaller spots that needed tedious work done to make it look right. (fresh welds in random places that were not laying flat)




Lots of little spots in here. Very tedious and painful on your finger tips


More of the same. Its not in this picture but i blasted out most of the old seam sealer so i can put some fresh stuff in there prior to paint.


I did a little bit of seam welding here just because i was not happy with the new front radiator support was sitting with just the spot welds. But due to my lack of welding skill it got a little sloppy in the corner so some grinding and filler was needed.


Same as above


More Sand Blasting in some spots i missed on the first go around


The goal here was to get rid of the "goo" left by the factory sound deadening. This took quit a while to get it off the underside of the rear seat and out of the hatch area but it looks really clean and smooth now. I wasnt going to do this seeing it was the interior but i kept seeing it and it drove me nuts. Sand is cheap, it only required time.


Same thing here. I left the spare tire well along just because its going away here soon.












The Driveway doesnt look nearly as bad as last time!


Next step is a few small welding projects to make life simpler later on and fix some "buggers" from some earlier mods.

Looks good.... Good price on the compressor as well. Is that 220v with 5 hp motor and 60 gallon?

Na, its the 60 gallon 3.7HP 220A. I was holding out for the other but at almost twice the cost I couldn't justify it. I got this one from lowes for 375. Display model that they wanted to get rid of. CFM's are good enough for light spray work and pretty much every tool i could need. Only thing i have to be careful of is how quick i spray, i dont have a very good moisture system setup yet so if the compressor runs for more than 5 minutes it gets a little warm and i notice a little moisture. So far ive sprayed 2 fenders, side skirts and some small misc things with primer and it had to refill right at the end to keep up with the HVLP set at 22PSI on the gun. I wont be spraying any Base Coat in my garage. I've found a local guy with his own shop that is willing to loan me his booth on weekends and at night for a case of beer and a good cleaning of the booth after im done (says his guys never do it anyways... and he drinks PBR!) I will actually be enlisting his help when spraying the exterior (part everyone can see) to make sure its done correctly.

Nice progress.
Removing sound material is a pain!
Did it on my Acura a few years ago with a torch and steel scraper and wire wheel.

Nice find on the booth!

After a long few days of work some good progress was finally made. Primarily due to the help of a good friend to keep me on task. He did bring over his welder/plasma cutter setup which while the plasma cutter is a great tool for what we were after, it drastically delayed progress because of us "playing" with it. The welder worked great but the gas system was acting up so we had to go without. It made a mess in spots but it got the job done just fine.

First we got the spare tire well cut out, got the frame rails for the future fuel cell and potential battery box fabricated and welded in place, (Rear frame rails on these car are not straight and what a pain in the **** it was getting those things jigged up)













You can see where the wife played with the Plasma Cutter as well on this one. haha


Next project was to repair the modifications from a previous dual in-tank fuel pump setup that had 2 -8 lines coming out that simply would not fit without notching/cutting the sheet metal. That metal was not THAT bad to weld on because i used an 18 gauge backing plate but the contours made it hard to keep flat, still, and to honestly just get comfortable inside the car long enough to throw down a steady bead.

You can sort of see the cuts where the fuel pump sending unit was, I don't know why i didn't take a good before picture of this.

Goal 3 for the day was to repair damage from a previous drag strip repair of the front drive shaft carrier stud. probably 10 years ago I hit a piece of debris and it bent/broke the carrier stud somehow and the drive shaft was making an awful noise. After a quick diagnosis and being 2 hours from home with no trailer I pulled the seat and had to cut the interior metal out of the way and drop a random 12x1.25 bolt in there. It worked fine but it looked like crap so I decided now was the time to do it. The bolt part was easy. took 2 minutes, haha. My buddy made the cover for it and it came out nice, it was just a 22 gauge metal cover to make it a little more pleasing to the eye but it worked. Again... no gas on the welder so it still looks messy but it will do the job just fine and look nice once I get it cleaned up.





And finally the bear of a task that for some reason I decided to save until last, the new corner pockets. These things tested every bit of patience I have. The hardest part actually was fabricating them from sheet metal. I started with paper templates, then moved to cardboard, then went to the final sheet metal pieces. I did the mock up pieces with tin snips to get the idea and then after I changed my mind 4 times about how i wanted to do it, i made use of the aircraft maintenance hangar from my previous job to make the bends and cuts perfect. It actually turned out pretty well.

















Then came the installation. it was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle because I was primarily spot welding due to the thin nature of the metal and my lack of ability to weld very thin metal. (especially without gas) It worked out in the end, but i did have to get creative taking measurements to make sure that the headlight bracket was square before I welded everything together. Little messy but it should not be a problem after a little elbow grease.









All in all it went pretty well. The welding was challenging due to no gas and basically after working for 10 hours in a row you get tired. haha. Thanks for following guys!


PS: I want a plasma cutter. That tool is fun!