kilokub
Diary
Page 12 - 8/07/07 to 12/28/07
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8/7/07

Nothing major happening right now. I sent Rob Moore an email and left several phone messages. I told him to just send back the parts of the transfer case and wing mounts and I will get them plated and colored, then return them to him for final assembly. This is getting stupid now, what with everyone just not getting around to finishing stuff.

Mark Anderson and I were talking about the car tonight, poling around under it, etc. I clarified for him that Joe Montalto will do NOTHING on the car until it is running.

I did get Brett out here to measure for the couplers, and gave him a bolt and flywheel, balancer, and CV joint to take with him. So THAT should be making some progress.

I MAY get Gary on the headers if he can make the time. I did ask Fast Intentions and Danny if they wanted to participate as a sponsor on building the headers. Danny was too busy to answer at the time. I'll call tomorrow and see where that lies.

I have received about 4 bids on the transmission. I am NOT going with Salim at ACT. Other contenders are Art Carr, Drag Trans, TransAction, and Transmission Specialties back east.

I would be inclined to go with Anderson's brother, Brad, at TransAction, and use a Continental Converter and the Mike Hoy computer. I will do research on that combo tomorrow.

I have also heard nothing back from Morgan at AirMec on the sponsorship on the AC system.

Vortech has spent all their freebies for the year. Todd there is working on getting me something, if only some mockup materials, soI can get the belts and brackets laid out. I'll just move forward with no superchargers if need be, and not get stuck in the endless parts delays occurring on the Condor.

8/20/07

Met a charming young man at Bob's last Friday night, full of enthusiasm and knowledge. Turns out he is a car show announcer for the likes of Ford, and attends a lot of big shows. He has a hot Cadillac CTS-V, and delighted in exchanging knowledge with someone (me) with a wide range of car experience. Eric came by today, and we did a little brainstorming on the KK, particularly the exhaust. He suggested not covering up the gorgeous Mark Williams rear by placing mufflers back there. He quipped I should run turbos and eliminate my exhaust worries. It gave me pause, but I am still committed to the Vortech approach for several reasons. Eric then suggested I run the exhaust out the sides, between the cab and rear wheels, where my water tank on the left and the batteries on the right were intended to go. We raised the car back up and while poking under it I noticed that there are two large pockets of unused space right under the cab to the outside of each frame rail. The fuel tanks are inboard of the rails, under the cab. But there are two cavities, one below each side of the cab, about 10” deep and around 4' long, perhaps 12” wide, that would do just fine for some larger mufflers. The outlet would have to be through the front fenders, and by making a nearly 180-degree turn. The neat thing is that the pathway to those areas at each side is nearly wide open, requiring perhaps a slight bevel in the corner of the fuel tanks, or just a little trimming on the lower portion of the cab skirt. This represents a HUGE win in design. In addition, having the exhaust coming out the front fenders will be even MORE confusing to the casual observer, who will undoubtedly wonder what is under the hood. This appears all doable, and I'm going to move the exhaust as quickly as possible in this direction. I'll need to settle on some muffler, probably a 4” in and out, maybe 5”, and start some mocking up for that. I will also contact Borla and get Chris Kaufmann's opinion. Chris is working on a muffled system for the Funnycar, and I think they might just be interested in sponsoring this little project. I sent Chris an email a few minutes ago and am hopeful I'll hear from him.

I sent the following email to Rob Moore regarding the transfer case a moment ago:

I have been trying to get a color sample through you for 6 months. I have been asking that you return the case and wings to me for about a month. The project is at a standstill, and as you obviously cannot get someone to get you color samples, I need to get the case and wings done myself to continue the project.
Please get those three pieces (4 if you count the case as two) back to me immediately so I can get this done, get them back to you for final assembly, and get you paid for the whole thing.
A phone call would be nice, too.

It is staggering just how much non-movement is prevalent in this industry. Wow!

8/24/07

Finally spoke with Rob Moore, who apologized PROFUSELY. He said he had not even picked up the samples, would do so Monday, and send them off to me immediately. I'd certainly rather have him do the plating there and get this thing done than back and forth.

Gary looks poised to start building the fuel tanks. He and Brett have acquired some brakes, etc., and are anxious to build some stuff. I have been working Gary in construction, and it appears we have a break to allow him to do the tanks, etc.

I had wanted to roll the KK off the lift today to put up the Hemi, but no one is here, so that ain't gonna happen.

I sent an updated list of to-do items to Roy, and I'm expecting his quiet persistence will move us through some items and get this thing moving again.

 8/28/07

Just left yet another message for Rob regarding hopefully having shipped my samples. This is REALLY maddening.

I swapped places on the rack and put the KK on the floor in the back of the garage. Gary has been overwhelmed with stuff, so has not come back to start on any of the tanks, etc.

9/2/07

I reached Rob Moore finally on Friday, and he STILL had not gotten any sample. I demanded he send me back the case and the wings (not yet made), and I'd plate them and return them to him for assembly.

The weather here has been OVER 110 degrees for several days. Utterly killing. I have stayed in the house ALL day today (Sunday 9/2/07), and the AC is not keeping up with the need. My DWP bill was $903!!!

Gary still has not congealed all his shop startups with Brett. Brett DID deliver to me the drawings and a disc for the CV adapters. I will start searching on Tuesday (after the Labor Day Holiday) for a CNC machine shop to do these. I have some aluminum discs I got for the prototypes, and I'll start with those. I also bought a bolt crib with lots of flat head Allens, and they might work on these pieces. Otherwise, I'll be making a trip or two to Tampa Hardware or Allen Bolt.

9/8/07

Went to three machinists in the last two days, and I think the first one will do the deed. Cost: about $1000 to make the first 4 pieces in my aluminum as prototypes, then redo them as finished pieces in Chromoly 4340 steel. That material will run around $300 or so.

Randy has returned and I'll be dong some helping on HIS house projects, as he CANNOT do anything involving lifting. His overview of my projects has been dramatically helpful, and I hope I can put a few cents back in the barrel of value he has given me. He and I share an overcrowded garage situation, so anything we can do for each other will ultimately rub off on our own discipline with our messes.

Work has been almost zero (with much thanks to sister Jacki for her much-needed projects). I've been busy bidding when not working, and the money is WAAAYYY thin, so you get the picture here. The sale of one of the cars would dramatically ease the crunch.

Maintaining a positive outlook, there ARE some things upon which I have fairly clear decisions:

The radiator will be a Ron Davis 29 x 39 x 2 dual unit (2 units 19 x 29 stacked) with Spall fans

There is the possibility of using Wiggins swivel fittings to tilt out the radiator core with the front clip

The CV adapters are designed and ready for manufacture

The transfer case is NEARLY ready, including the mounting wings, to be shipped here for zinc plating, then to be returned to Rob Moore for final gear assembly

A local plating shop will make me some samples this week of the gold zinc chromate

We APPEAR to have found some power steering rack bushings. If not, they should be arriving from Scott's HotRods shortly.

Gary is much closer to starting welding on the water and fuel tanks

9/11/07

None of the above list has been touched, and Gary remains overwhelmed with his own agenda.

I did reach Adam, who is coming back to work tomorrow (his 21 st birthday), So I might get a little progress with Adam in the mix.

I saw Joe Montalto today here. He came to look at a Rodfather 50 Merc I found for a client of Joe's. I had Bruce put his car up on the rack, Joe took a ride, made notes, took pix, etc. If it goes through, he and I will make some dough. I don't know if any of that money could be spared for car stuff, as it is REAL tight work-wise.

I will hound Rob Moore again tomorrow on the transfer case.

I will have Adam take metal sample to Van Nuys Plating tomorrow for some gold sampling.

And I should make it over to Volume Machining and commission Richard there to build the CV adapters.

I have talked with two other shops, but Richard looks like the man here.

9/17/07

I chose H&R Machine, literally three blocks away. I have known the owner, Al, a long time (the partner, Pat Harrison the “H”, died 6 years ago), and he appeared ready to hop on it. However, as I did not return within two days, he figured I was getting cold feet. So now that he has all the pieces on hand, I may have to wait a week.

I'm STILL waiting on Rob Moore, and this is MAJORLY frustrating. I did get samples over to Van Nuys Plating, and for a mere $79 they will plate my six samples. Ouch!! Those should be ready sometime this week.

9/21/07
Got the 4 adapters from Al at H&R Machine. We did some trial fitting of the balancer adapter, and it was not sitting down on the face. Al noticed that the spec called for it to indicate on the larger portion of the balancer hole, not the crank bore diameter.

Good thing, as it would be impossible to mount the bolted-together pieces as one unit, as the crank bolt washer wouldn't fit if the concentricity sleeve went inside that bore.

The shoulder was too long, so we kept knocking it down until it looked like it should sit flat.

We had to tighten up the balancer bolts, and it still rocked slightly. Al then noticed there was a little tulip around that front bore on the balancer, so he put it on a flat stone with 320 grit paper and wiped it clean, paint included. If you look carefully you can see the approximately 1/8” deep recess just inside the bolt circle. That is where the centering shoulder sits.

There is also a problem with the bolt layout on the balancer: three of the six holes are about .388” and NOT threaded. Al is going to thread those holes with a 7/16” x 20 and we're hoping there will be enough meat around those threads to hold the bolts. The three threaded holes are 5/16 x 16, and so the extra three will be stouter bolts. Should be no big deal. Ultimately, I MAY have to have the whole assembly rebalanced as a unit.

The adapters sit fine now.
The CV joint will sit on its adapter, which will sit on the balancer. That CV will be covered by the rubber boot at the upper right. The same will be true on the flywheel flange. So really you will not see the CV or the axle connecting them to each motor, just a pair of rubber boots touching each other between the motors. As the adapter material is 6160 aluminum, Al felt they might just work fine without having to go to steel.

Here is a close up of the concentric recess around the outside of the adapters. This will keep the CV joint running true to the crank center. On the crank flange adapter, the center bore is dead on to the crank shoulder, so that will keep that concentric.


However, we discovered something wrong with this picture: the bolt bores are NOT countersunk, and they are a bit large (about. .390) for the crank bolts, which are smaller 11 mm x 1.50 bolts. The existing crank bolts, which are shouldered, must be replaced with countersink Allen units. Al at H&R is remachining these now.

I now have to go bolt hunting though my new stash and see if anything there works. Otherwise, it's off to Allen Bolt.
Got the revised zinc chromate samples (20, 40, and 65 seconds), and the 20-second dip time seems closest to what I have on the MW rear, in both the steel and aluminum. Even the shortest dip is more orange than the Mark Williams stuff. But I don't think that will be a horrible mismatch.

I need to decide if I want to get the hand plater kit for about $2K, or keep going to Van Nuys Plating. For now, it's a no-brainer as I don't have the $2K.

9/22/07

I will need to do some grinding and tumbling or whatever on the mounts, etc. before I have them dipped. And it might be a little early to do that. I still have axles to make, finish fitting of many components, etc. to do. But I am anxious to get a little something looking finished.

Gary is due to start welding the tanks, and those, too, can be plated once done.

I decided to mock up the 8' rocker cover “cover”. Once on, I noticed it really needed some angles. I had to remount the coils on the right side, and came up with some approximate mountings.
I'll need some 5mm x 1.00 coupling nuts to do this. Right now I used some 1/4 x 20 barely threaded on the coil pack studs.
After looking at it for a while, it seemed that the covers just weren't making it appear as one motor as yet. Mind you, we don't have headers sweeping alongside the motors, no blowers, etc, and the injection/manifolds weren't on.
I took a small piece of foam board and mocked up a little bed cover.
I obviously thought this looked good, so here is the REAL cover system.


I tossed the manifolds on to get more of an idea.


As shown this cover system would obviously hide the headers, etc., requiring the bed to raise to see anything. But waddya think?
I kinda like it. The bed to rocker cover piece actually can raise with the bed and lower back down to sit ON the rocker covers, so that is totally doable.


I think this scenario will REALLY screw peoples heads up when I pull into Bob's Big Boy! This REALLY has the look of one HUGE motor now. Cool!
The bed to rocker pieces could also be hinged at the bed rail, and just hinge up and out to reveal without lifting the bed, or perhaps could be attached with Dzus to the bed side.
This takes the Cadillac engine cover to a new level...

9/24/07

Had Randy over today and his preference was not to cover up all the engineering.

However, I have had yet another change (more than one), and I am moving to have those bed-to-coil cover panels actually be 9” x 101” aluminum radiators on both sides. This would provide about 1800 square inches of cooling area, about 3 times the size of a fairly large car radiator. So that appears to be perfect for the cooling needs (well, read on). This may also obviate the cooling reservoir, although some sort of gathering tank for the radiators' cool water will be needed to use for distribution to the three motors. I might put something between the 2nd and 3rd motors under the coupling area, even with the bottom of the crossmembers there.

And in another MAJOR change, it appears I will go with a 6 x 9 x 48 muffler in place of the water tank, and exit the exhaust above the running board just in front of the rear fender. This will eliminate a LOT of unhappy drone in the cab. The battery tray slated for the right side will now move to the front of the car, where I actually wanted it initially, tucked between the front frame rails directly behind the pivot bar for the front clip.

I CAN mount a water tank up there if I want, but with about 15 gallons, it might not be needed (again, read on). The challenge now is to find some manner of sucking or pushing air through these narrow but long radiators. Rob Anderson at Vortech/Vortron is an airflow specialist. He has some serious concerns about pressure loss, flow rates, etc.

I so hate these reality checks!

So after 45 minutes of tweak talk with Rob (graciously may I say), I am more schooled in the nuances of flow rates and cooling. The deal here is that a long, skinny core doesn't flow well. The short story means I need something more akin to a square shape, to present more area for coolant to flow THROUGH the system. I guess the analogy would be 10 water hoses lined up next to each other about 4' long, versus one hose about 50' long. MUCH more flow through the 10 openings. So while the total area of the skinny core is large, the flow rate is low, so I don't get enough heat exchanged per minute.

Rob suggests two radiators up front facing OUTWARDS (parallel to the tires), with fans on the outside (tire side) of the cores, and making a trapped duct from the grille to these. If I were able to have cores on the sides, top, bottom and rear, so much the better (though not practical). What I will now do is attempt to fab up side and top cores fixed to the front clip, install some Naca ducts in the hood (to let air out and act as a siphon when moving), and create a trapped duct system from the grille inward, including closing off the bottom.

All the above said, I still think I want to cover the sides of the engines and bed. I like the look. Such a cover would also provide more space for other goodies to be mounted to the bed under the covers.

Boy, this is challenging stuff!

10/5/07

I checked with some other manufacturers, and so far Scott at Wizard Cooling has been the only one to appear to take the project seriously. No word from Bill at Ron Davis, nor Dylan at CoolCraft. I have reinstalled my mockup plywood radiator up front. I can always use the rear radiators for trans, AC, and oil cooling as needed. And, they could be a slower flowing adjunct to the main cooling system as well.

I have not tacked (welded) the hood back on, so I have not been able to mock up parallel cores per Rob Anderson's suggestion. I will do some spot welding to make things tight, and start fabbing up a shroud system form the grille opening. I'll also make up a lower radiator (horizontal unit) between the frame rails.

I DID get the transfer case and wings back from Rob Moore, if in a somewhat disappointing state. Rob drilled the mounting tabs undersize, as well as the wings. So Randy and I re-drilled them to 7/16” to accept a grade 8 bolt 7/16” x 20 thread. Getting these holes drilled and centered was challenging. That done, the wings turned out to be about ¼” too wide on each side. We used my mill to trim off the edges in several passes, after trying the sanding disc. We also notched the top corners of the wings to clear a ¼” protrusion. With that done, I now see the welding bead on the mounting tabs requires the wings to be relieved at that point of contact, and ¼” wide x 2” long x 1/8” deep. The mill will be used for that.

Once that is done, I can transfer punch through the holes in the frame tabs and drill the wings. THEN we will have the transfer case in place, and I can re-measure to see if at that point it has the proper 3-degree tilt to match the crankshaft centerline.

10/15/07

The transfer case is mounted, although the backsides of the wing tabs are not yet welded. I did relieve the wings using the mill to accommodate those weld beads. Here's how it looks at this point:

I got some ½” x 20 x 1” Allen head flat head bolts for use on the crank adapters:

I got the crank bolts back, for about $200, and they fit fine. These are finished at 11mm x 1.50. Apparently no one makes this configuration in an Allen, so I had these bolts centerless ground and thread-rolled to proper size. Now, I can bolt the adapters up to both the cranks and balancers, mount the CV joints, and get my measurements for the short axles to connect them.

I also need to address the starter issue. I have a 2 HP Hi Torque mini-starter, but I need to play with it to get it to fit the LS-1 motor.

I also need to remind Danny at Fast Intentions about the headers. I went by his place last week, but he was busy and said it would be a week or two before he could come look. He will obviously have to come here to view the project.

11/10/07

I am certain that Danny will NOT be doing the headers. He expresses no follow up or intention, despite the company name.

I DID get Rich Manchen, former local welder and Bonneville racer and car builder to come over. He is interested, and will be available in 2 weeks. I asked him first about the rollbar, but we are not ready to do that yet. Montalto must do other things first. And I must in turn mount the steering before Joe can do the firewall, etc.

Manchen CAN start on the fuel tanks, do some other welding, and perhaps get a little momentum on the project.

Today, at the Mopar Fall Fling, I met a designer named Robert Neumann. He came by, we rolled the car out, taped on the doors, running board on the left, tailgate, and we both shot dozens of pix.

This is from on top of the race car trailer

Here's one from high up on a ladder.

I noticed that the rear fender does not have the same slope as the wider front fenders. That will need to be addressed. Robert also mentioned he thought the rear looked too narrow for the wide front. I wouldn't mind widening it a bit, but there are issues with that. I have emailed Bret Goethe at Mark Williams about placing 5” spacer blocks on the end of the rear end housing, and making longer axles.

In the meantime, I may try mocking up the fender on the left a little wider, and setting the tire out, just to see how it looks.

Here's my cut and paste widening job:

 

 

It adds a little mass to the rear. The next step will be to block the frame, slide the tire out about 5”, ditto for the fender, mockup some paper and spray it all gray, take another picture, and see how I feel about it.

Got the blower setup from Todd at Vortech, and after serious head scratching by Gary Collier and me, we got it this far. There remain several issues:

1-the blower pulley (not in the package) misses lining up with the front half of the crank pulley by about an inch
2-In order for the belt to miss the water pump neck (presuming clockwise rotation of the engine as viewed from the front and ditto for the blower trans driveshaft —the compressor appears to need to go counterclockwise), the included idler (not tensioner) pulley would need to be mounted to the passenger side of the three holes in the back of the bracket. The threads in those holes are larger than the sleeve supplied with that idler, so perhaps a larger bolt might do the trick
3-the blower outlet obviously needs to be rotated
4-the outlet needs a 90-degree something to get into the throttle body
5-the oil line inlet appears to be the brass nipple I see. This is obviously not in the down position, so I presume an oil drain is somewhere hidden under the unit
6-I have NO f---in idea where the tensioner system is to be mounted. I'm guessing on the driver's side of the motor. That rearmost motor (#1) will carry the alternator.

The middle motor (#2) will have the power steering pump.

The motor closest to the cab (#3) will have the AC compressor.

The blower appears to JUST miss the uplifting bed.

The stock crank pulley has two sets of ribs. The front set is the more numerous, and I presume that's what we intend to use.



Some answers, lots more questions.

12/28/07

I have updated the website's first pictures to show Robert Neumann's beautiful photographic renditions of the finished car. This is the first “final” version we have seen, and we are all blitheringly happy about the look. Randy and I agree now that I have hidden the motors TOO much in this version, so we will update these renditions to show more motor, along with blowers in place.

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