Project Death Kart by Goofydug

13 minute(s) of a 63 minute read

I haven't really touched the car all winter. It was too damn cold and I wasn't gonna eff with it.
But, my basement is warm and I acquired a few parts over the winter that needed some McLovin.

Say hello to my new hot dash, courtesy of Santa Matt!
(Sorry for the crappy cellphone picture)




I really liked the way Matt's gauges looked in the rocco, so I'm gonna rip his stylez.
I made a cardboard template then cut it out of thin steel. Primed, painted and bam.






The gauges sit just a little back from the glass so I painted the inside of the cluster so it's dark like my soul.




Autometer doesn't sell the speedometer I wanted with a black surround, but all my other gauges have a black surround. I painstakingly masked the gauge face, lightly sanded the bezel and sprayed it flat black. Now it matches the rest of the gauges perfect.




My mini basement workshop



3/15/2009

Small Update:

I got a sweet aluminum spacer for my front motor mount. It should stiffen up the front a lot and get rid of the slop and play that the stock setup has.






I tore out my cabby dash, pffft eff that thing
BUT now I need to make brackets to fit my sweet early dash. Research tells me to find an old rabbit and cut out the mounts, then weld them into my car. Anyone have an old rabbit I can chop some mounts out of? Bueller?

4/29/2009

HOLY HELL.

We made HUGE progress tonight with the 034 programming. One of the guru's from the 034 boards, Preston, came over and helped out. He was super nice and very skilled with the programming. He redid a lot of the programming, figured out my coilpack was 90º off, figured out some timing, kicked a couple tires and BAM. It idles with a little love from the pedal, much better than is shown in this video, but it's not perfect yet. We're going to calibrate the A/F this weekend, then do some road tuning!

I also have a nice little oil leak from the lower left side of the block. It's either coming from a small freezeplug or one of the gaskets from the plate on the side of the crank. Eh, either way it means some shits gotta come off and get fixed. Oh well, I kind of expected something like this, I'm glad it's not too bad at least.

WOOOOOO!

6/2/2009

The car is almost road worthy, we're tiding up the wiring and assembling a few more things, mainly on the interior.
I've had a rather decent oil leak since the first time the car started. I thought it was coming from the intermediate shaft or the small freeze plug right next to it. So I replace the seal and o-ring on the int shaft and siliconed the shit out of the plug. I started the car up again tonight and it's still leaking, maybe not as bad, and I think from a different spot now. It's very possible (and probable) that I had two leaks before, and I've only fixed one. I think it's coming from the oil pan gasket now, which seems really odd since everything is brand new and torqued to spec.
Could my oil pressure be way too high for some reason, and it's forcing oil out of otherwise fine seals? My oil pressure gauge isn't playing nice either, so it's useless right now. Is there some type of sealant or anything I could use in addition to my oil pan gasket?

I'd really like to figure this out before I take the car out on the road.

Oh and my header is starting to melt my axle boot 'cause it's so close. sweet.

6/7/2009

Matt and I worked on the car for a few hours on thursday night, got some things figured out and buttoned up. Seats are in, harnesses are in, dash is in, gauges now light up again, the fan works, and the wiring just keeps getting cleaner and cleaner!

Brian Johnson came over today and figured out my brake lights and turn signals! It turns out my hazard switch was missing an internal piece (how it got out of there I have no freaking idea, previous owner must have been messing with it). JohnnyB and his amazing parts stash came to the rescue with a NOS hazard switch that actually fits my dash. Boom, I have blinkers and turn signals.

It turns out the brake lights weren't working because of a bad ground. They're wired funny from the factory, I have no idea how Brian figured this out. Actually, I have no idea how he figured either of these things out, but I'm soooo glad he did.

The elusive fuking oil leak... I dropped the pan the other night, cleaned it up and put sealant on both sides of the oil pan gasket. Still leaks. I muttered some angry words and gave it a really dirty look, but it still leaked.
Today I said eff it. I dropped the oil pan again, took out the pump, removed the belts, and with the help of mr.buff Brian we pulled off the damn crank bolt and pulley. The suspected gasket behind the crank plate was fairly soaked with oil, I'm pretty sure this nails it as the culprit! I think my paint job on the block is to blame. I had a small masking mistake underneath the crank plate gasket, and I think it stopped it from getting a good seal. I cleaned the hell out of both surfaces, siliconed both sides of a new gasket and reinstalled it. I'm waiting to get a new crank bolt on monday before I am able to put it all back together again.

I also retapped a few stripped oil pan bolt threads while i was in there, hopefully this will help as well.

It's getting so close!

6/10/2009

The oil leak has not gone away.

Either:
A. I suck at diagnosing oil leak origins.
B. I suck at fixing oil leaks.
C. I'm going to burn this car to the ground.
D. All of the above.

I need some serious help on this one. It looks like it might still be coming from around the intermediate shaft area, but I just replace the o-ring and seal AND put sealant in there. I can't tell where else it would be coming from, any ideas?

So tonight I said ****it and decided to drive the car up the block anyway. I strapped into the harness and made it about a block and a half before I noticed it was getting hot and the fans weren't coming on. I turned it off, adjusted the fan temp activation, burned my hand on the 200+ degree radiator, and then the car wouldn't start because it was hot and the battery wasn't fully charged. yay. I pushed it back to the house and did some wiring.
Pictures to prove it happened in real life:

oh yeah, here's my new wheels too

6/11/2009

So, good and bad news.
The good news is I know where the oil leak is coming from.
The bad news is I don't know how to fix it yet.

Joe was correct, the oil galley freeze plug wasn't sealing properly. Luckily I had a new one in my stash, so I popped the old one out (not easy when it's 4 inches from the frame rail), and put a new one in. Steph, being the awesome wife that she is, got Fidel to come over and help out. So he and I put the new plug in and... drip drip drip from the new plug.

The sealing walls around the plug must be messed up, allowing oil to seep through. How do fix this? Should I use a super strong sealant? ...weld in the damn plug? ...thread the hole and put a short stud in there?

Huge thanks to Fidel for being awesome and coming over super late tonight to help out! I can't thank him enough, so if you see him, please thank him for me.
Thanks to Brad too for coming out and lending me his eyes and helping me figure out how to remove the old freeze plug!

It's soooooo close, but still so far away.

6/15/2009

That mother effin oil galley freeze plug was to blame. But lucky for me the MIVE crew is awesome and came together to help me out. Fidel talked to Katherine who used science to figure out the best Loctite product to use, Katherine gave said product to Matt who brought it over to my house and gave me a hand installing it with the tool that Fidel made.
That loctite 680 is some serious stuff. It was already setting up while we finishing the installation. I'm very confident that the plug is in there for good, and that makes me happy.

I want to thank everyone for all the support the build, it means a lot to me. I really want to thank Matt for his constant help and ideas for the past 4 years, I couldn't have done it without him. There were a countless number of you that helped along the way and really pulled through in the last couple weeks for me (Brian, Fidel, Bryan, Geoff, etc). I can't name everyone, but you know who you are and how much I appreciate everything.

BUT, the project is not nearly over and I've already got some things to upgrade and tweak. I haven't figured out a good hood solution yet, but I have some ideas I need to try out. I'm going to be breaking in the motor for the next month or two, then taking the car to a dyno to get a good final tune. After that I need to beat the crap out of the car on the track and enjoy the machine we've built.

Look for more progress in the near future.

2/8/2010

I pulled off the car cover recently and have been updating a few things.
I've done some of this already, the rest is underway:
- Fuel gauge
- New oil temp sender so I have an accurate reading
- Carpeted fiberglass rear floor
- New door handles so the passenger doesn't die a fiery death
- Low temp thermostat
- Rebuilding old-style strut mounts
- Hood?
- Smoked tails
- Wire LC1
- Hook up and calibrate speedometer
- Wire headlight relays
- drl's
- Align saggy doors
- Misc powdercoating

3/8/2010

I'm knockin' stuff off the to-do list.

I got busy making a rear floor. Almost done, I just have to find some good carpet for it and some padding for the underside.










I found a good deal on some new smoked tails on the 'tex. I kinda like em, kinda not sure. I want to get the car in the sunlight so I can see it better. meh?




I rebuilt some old-style front strut mounts that I had sitting around. I found new oem bearings online, threw in my poly bushings, and stripped and powdercoated the mounts + bolts.








I'm also hoping to put a hood on the car sometime this summer, so I stripped and coated a hoodlatch. Exciting, yes I know.




My old LC-1 wasn't working, it wouldn't talk with the laptop. I sent it back and Innovate was nice enough to send me another. I finally got around to wiring it up. It has a reset switch and activity LED, and I didn't want them all ricey and out in the open, so I made a sweet little panel that hides behind the removable speaker vent on the dash. I think it's pretty neat.

11/22/2011

peace out ITB's