The Frankenprotege rallycar worklog

[wgnths]

Oh nice haha! I think I know whose fault it is too lol

[jay]

Well, there goes Idaho. I couln't work on the car all weekend, had to work, but John got the speedisleeve on there and sealed it up. WEnt to put the flywheel on today and golly it doen't fit with the sleeve in place. This wasn't an issue with the street car, but it is here, so the flywheel had to have the pocket relieved by .016 to fit over the sleeve, and that slowed us down enough that the trans won't be on till tomorrow, so the front main won't get replaced till Wednesday, still need to check rear struts to see why they're so stiff, leaving zero time to shake down and roadtest. I won't enter this things' first rally on a big halfbake rush job.

[SgtRauksauff]

aww, too bad. WAY better safe than sorry, though!

[heinze.ketchum]

Just backread the whole thread, and I gotta say this is amazing. I'm thinking a complete GT4 swap (engine included) sometime in the future might be a good project for my BG, and this has been a real eye-opener to how much work it could be!

I sincerely hope you get this car going soon, I'd love to never have to worry about my transmission again!

[BFMRGTX]

I'm sure he'll post vids of him trying to break it. Just a matter of time.

[jay]

I gotta get my revenge on this car one way or another. It gave me at least 3 overall stage wins, 2 1st place trophies, and a fair amount of fun before this conversion, but after this hassle, it OWES me.
Heading back up this morning to put the transmission back in.

[Mazda_Powered]

good luck man, things will go smoothly!

[jay]

Gearbox is in. Found a bolthole with suspect threads in the trans case, and when it came time to drill it out for the timesert, the bit got stuck and it goes without saying that it broke when John reversed the drill. So after work this morning I hope to hit the hardware store for a busted-bit remover, as things aren't going any smoother than they have been so far...

[SgtRauksauff]

blowtorch?

[jay]

We just remade the rear trans mount that hole was used for, and told it to grab hold of one of the centerdiff mount studs instead. Easiest solution, stronger too. Car's back at my house, gonna try to get it finished tomorrow, though right now I wanna run it off a cliff and may ignore it till next week...

[worldhazard]

There's a WildWest this year... =) and than Mt. Hood.. c'mon jay!!

[jay]

Hey if WW doesn't get canceled, we're there. New ECU and everything. We'll have all summer to get the car damn good and ready.

[jay]

I won't have all that much time to work on the car today, but I did something I coulda done long ago but never got round to it. Now that both cars are here, I thought I'd get a measuring tape out and see how far from normal the engine's located. Even though I know how many hours we put into locating it as well as possible, I got a bit of a surprise. This mill sits less than 1/2" closer to the passenger side as the setup in the street car. It sits *exactly* the same front to back as the street car, 7.5" from front valvecover to rad support, 13" back of valve cover to firewall. The engines are sitting at the same angle as well, that part is no surprise since we wanted the tailshaft parallel to the ground and so does Mazda with the bpt trans. Rallycar engine sits just over an inch higher, that's the biggest, pretty much the only, difference. I thought it was sitting at least an inch farther forward, but it just ain't. I bet vert. CG is unchanged. Yes engine is higher, but trans is heavier and sits as low as before. The car is more nose heavy, but with 40mm more track it may handle the same as it did. I can't wait to find out.

[SgtRauksauff]

HAH!! That is just great! All that workin' and finaglin', and damned near stock location. Good work!

[jay]

I put the rest of the car back together today, gonna fire it up tomorrow and see if it leaks. Then I gotta replace an inner CV boot. No idea how, but there's a small hole in it, looks like a drop of some manner of rubber-eating liquid fell on it and ate through it. Man oh man I have no idea what coulda done it but it's yet another issue I "get" to fix...