2004 ..... Making Improvements.....

January 2004

The goal this winter was to disassemble the car to the frame and rebuild from scratch. I intended to remake everything I was not happy with. It was also a great opportunity to have the body cracks repaired and have it painted.

Well the year didn't start out that great. I found out that the reason the car felt sluggish was because it had a broken intake rocker arm. These are TD rockers. The best made as far as I know. Paul V. has never seen one of these break in years of racing until now and quite frankly we both think it is a fluke.
Here is a close up of what is left of the rocker.
This picture is a close up of the rocker itself. Notice that it cracked around the bearing. Fortunately the bearing itself did NOT crack open. That would mean needle bearings in the motor. Very bad.
All of the stuff. Parts.... Parts everywhere.
I removed every component and get the car to the bare frame in exactly 1 week. Naturally I was careful. : )

February 2004

Believe it or not, I didn't take any pictures this month. Anyway, I took the engine down to Paul V. in late January and go it back this month. Since he was working on the motor anyway, I asked him to put the high compression (13.9:1) pistons back in. With the higher compression I would need to run race fuel (VP C12), but what the heck. I would be kidding myself to think a beast like this would ever be "streetable". This change was worth about 40 hp.
I also took the body to Norm's Fiberglass near South Bend, Indiana to be repaired and painted. It took a while to decide on a color, but finally I made up my mind.... Corvette Millennium Yellow. I expect to get the body back around the end of March.

March 2004

Here is a picture of the bare frame. I stripped all of the paint with a wire wheel brush. Yea... that took a while.
The front box.
The rear.
I'm painting.

April 2004

The newly painted body!

I made an opening door. It really helps getting in and keeps the paint / fiberglass in better shape.
This a picture of the frame with the new blue paint.
I set the engine in first for this reconstruction.

May 2004

Slowly the assembly begins. As I am building, I am fixing things I was not happy with.
The front clip. New silver paint and clear coat.
Remade front firewall and side air dams. This will greatly reduce the dirt in the car as well as make for a better air director under the body.
Coolant tubes passing through the lower firewall.
More assembly
Still more....
And more....
DS rear suspension
The dash is now in with some more stuff.
The master cylinder cover. Much better.

June 2004

In June I completed the assembly in anticipation of the CFOGi show at Heartland Park Topeka.

The Show!
- The show took 3 days. There was Autocross, Drag Racing, a Track Day (I helped organize that one : ) ) and the show itself. Here are pictures of all the events.

July 2004

This month I had another major problem. While preparing for a track day at Gateway International Raceway (the first time was 11/15/03) I heard a problem with the engine while idleing. I found that I had broken a valve. At the time I did not know how serious the damage was to the piston and side wall.

August 2004

I decided to take it apart and take a look. I found that the valve had broken but it looked like it had chipped the head first and the rocker jumped off of it. This caused the valve to bind. Fortunately it just tapped the piston slightly and (worse) the side wall. Concerned about the motor being perfect again, I decided to save money to take it back to the original engine builder. Let the saving begin.

September 2004

And saving...

October 2004

And saving...

November 2004

I scheduled to take the engine to Paul Vanderley this month. When delivering it he said that it would be about 2 months before he got a chance to look at it. He told me it would be done around the end of February.

More saving...

December 2004

And saving...

INDEX:
Page 1 = Overview, Vehicle Summary, History 
Page 2 = 2001 - The Dream
Page 3 = 2002 - Getting Going
Page 4 = 2003 - It's ALIVE!
Page 5 = 2004 - Making Improvements
Page 6 = 2005 - Here's to a better year...
Page 7 = 2006 - The Story Continues...
Page 8 = 2007 - Wider is Better ; )
Page 9 = 2008 - Wider is Better - TAKE TWO ; )

Page 10 = 2009 - All Systems GO!

 

GO TO THE NEXT PAGE TO SEE THE PROGRESS IN 2004 ----->