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It might be time to grab a coffee and some chocolate hobnobs – here’s where we’re at.
Saturday was a useful day at the workshop. I’ll split this into 3 lumps, the chassis, the body and the ancillary kit.
The chassis work is into the stage where it gets complicated, intricate and time consuming. The rear tree behind the roll cage is being fabricated from scratch; this was always the intention as the previous tree on Chaos whilst being very neatly packaged given the space constraints, was too small for the Corvette body and there’s ways and means of making it lighter and easier to work with.
With the Vette having such a large rear deck behind the cage, there’s acres of space to house all the kit required (oil catch can, 2 fire bottles, 1 air bottle for the transmission and 1 air bottle for the fresh air system).
It’s a two pronged approach to sorting out the rear of the chassis; a new roll cage will go on shortly but the seat needs remaking first – the previous seat is still mocked up in the chassis just to provide a guide as to where I’m located to calculate headroom but ensuring my feet aren’t somewhere they really don’t want to be. Having been rotated in the seat and moved down, the ergonomics around the normal area the pedals would be sat it, is somewhat cocked up.
The whole reason for this was of course to get the body to sit correctly in its finished state. The mock-up of it place looks damn near perfect but has been a compromise in other areas.
With me sitting as low as possible and the body mounted as far forward as possible so the cage meets the body at the highest point in the roof, it was still coming up shy of where it needs to be, so a hole’s had to be cut in the roof – this allows the very top of the back hoops to protrude. In an ideal world, the rear section of the roof area would be fibre glassed over with a larger radius but done so as to be not visibly different from original. We’ll see how it goes, there’s bigger issues to tackle first, the body itself being one of them…
So…fibreglass race car bodies, there’s great ones, there’s good ones, there’s bad ones and there’s odd ones. There’s also original ones – those period correct ones from an original mould, with all their imperfections. This here Corvette lives in that last category. After dimensioning the body to calculate centrelines and check for general straightness, a few things became apparent, and these weren’t good.
The worst issue was the rear wing – it’s twisted in the middle and taller on one side. With the Vette being one of few bodies from back then with a cast-in wing, it’s a nuisance as the fix means re-fibre glassing an area of the car with compound curves and lines in multiple directions. While some of the issues sound quite minor and are only really noticed by those with a critical eye, the rear wing situation would pose a problem. Back in period, the Vette was a new style of body that whilst seemingly aerodynamic, had severe handling issues from around 900ft (speeds around 190-200mph at that point on the track). Instead of air running up and over the wing, it circled it and got around the back, into the dead zone, causing lift. Spill plates fixed this and helped channel the air – however, a wing that’s longer one side that the other will want to turn the car, much like a rudder on a boat. The upshot is that it’s fixable, it’s just a nuisance.
Next up, the front strakes in the hood. These are mostly straight but for some reason tail off to the right as the lines blend into the nose. An easy fix with some new glass, but again…nuisance. Lastly – and purely an aesthetic / accuracy issue; the front wheel arch line which is quite pronounced and a nice feature on a largely curvy body, stops far too short. Back in period this line was longer, almost running out to the ‘A’ pillar. More glass…
Lastly, some positive stuff – safety first, kids…
One SFI-20 firesuit and HANS device. I’d previously worn an RJS firesuit which felt like wearing cardboard – Simpson on the other hand have always produced some of the nicest safety kit available and this one is very flexible and fits nicely. The HANS device is one of those safety innovations that make you wonder how we survived before it was a thing. The weight of it vanishes once you’re strapped into the car, and you never really feel constrained by its presence. It’s a requirement for racing at this level but I’d recommend it to anybody in any formula, they’re brilliant.
Lastly, the blower restraint – these vary from just a bag around the blower to a full works deal like this one (SFI 14.3 spec)
From the bottom up:
- Bottom plate sits between the top of the manifold and underside of the blower.
- Ballistic bag wraps around the blower.
- Top plate sits between the top of the blower and underside of the injector spacer.
- Straps galore – the aluminized straps fix to the headers (2 per side) and one to the rear that fixes to the mid plate.
- The black straps wrap over the injector to prevent that ripping off if an explosion is severe enough to burst the threads on the injector bolts.
I’m hoping to get all the bits in one place in a few weeks to assemble it all, so it’ll make more sense then .
Next update – body stuff, chassis stuff and the start of the engine disassembly for final checks before it goes back together. |
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Author: Chevyonfuel
Author
24-11-2019 22:33:12
