What controls are you using for the blinkers/stop lights?

 

Concupiscense.

 

Bent Motorsports usually fabs up a couple of trailer boxes with LED relays (they're not load-dependent) with their wiring harness. Otherwise, we're planning on running a SmartWire setup on this car, just to try that out. It should be clean--fewer wires, relays, fuse boxes, but moar flexibility and functionality. I hope.

 

We've got a few more pieces trickling in from the powder coater and elsewhere.

We modified a V8Roadster K member so the engine was pushed back quite a bit--how much I don't know--but it should help with the balance of the car. If you're in the San Diego area, definitely take your powder coating to San Diego Powder Coating in El Cajon. They lay it on THICK.

We're also playing with some hood vents. The boys at Singular Motorsports were kind enough to lend us a couple of their bits, and we tried them on the car. The final part has a nice trapezoidal shape, and should really usher out the hot air.

Last, hubs. Notice a difference?



V8Roadster custom K member. The engine mounts are custom, and move the engine back in the frame.





Keisler hub goodness.





The K member is put in place. Installation starts Tuesday!





Pre-placement of the interior.





Hood vents will be laser-cut aluminum and will mount from the bottom.

 

Those hood vents look pretty fragile. The tiny 1/8" piece to hold the entire section will be quite..bendy and vibrate like crazy.

 

In paper, I agree. You've seen the Singular Motorsports stuff, right?

Singular Motorsports

 

Even in aluminum it still looks fragile lol.
Definitely not a fan of the way they look either. They look like something you'd get out of autozone.


IMO the cat fish would look better with a more original look

 

Trust me, they'll look good. They're scuffed up in the pictures so that powder coat will adhere to them. Plus they install under the hood so you don't see the outside flange. I've got carbon planned for other areas of the car, so you should be getting your fill of carbon when it's done.

 

Stop being mean to cordy!

Would take the aluminum over the carbon any day. Kinda funny, I would say the carbon looks vatozoneish, the aluminum just looks custom fab. just my 0.02

 

 

They aren't for everyone, even the best products have that 1 person out of every 100 that hates it

What they are is a focused solution developed through testing and data specific to each chassis, resulting in performance head and shoulders above darn near every other vent option out there.

And when they are mounted they are rock solid

 

lol maybe they'll look better when they are powdercoatead

 

We designed some hood vents expressly for the Catfish that are a bit more trapezoidal, with vents that sit a bit lower than the standard vents. You'll see...

What's going on now are parts. Parts shipping from all over the place. Some of them you guys will "ooh" and "ahh" over, and some of them will definitely get a few "WTF?!"

One of the beautiful things about a build is to have an idea, form a general plan around that idea, and execute. You won't know if your idea is awesome or CRAP until the car is done. There's excitement, tension, frustration, all coming from a single build. I like that.

So far we've pulled the trigger on:

--RacePak SmartWire system. This will net the least weight and the most simplicity of any wiring system available.
--Keisler Hubs with ARP extended studs
--Ohlins suspension (still trying to decide the spring rates)
--Trakspeed triple bypass radiator
--V8R custom K member
--fully forged engine internals, and
--Wilwood custom Big Brake Kit
--CXRacing turbo with long tube top mount stainless header and IC kit.


I hear heads exploding all across the U.S.A....

The crazy thing is that this is the last of what I call the "first generation" frames. While it's built mainly for the street, the car will be the fastest Catfish yet. The next frames will be over-built a bit, mainly to accept the LFX and LSx engine packages.

And the big visual change will be a shift to a single rooll hoop over the dual hoops. Pictures next week.

 

I beat you to it Cord!

 

Dammit man!!!!

 

Perhaps it will be easiest to just buy an old camaro and swap over stuff?

 

Very likely. The in-house LFX build--which won't take place until the Fall--may not include any Miata parts.

V8Roadster bits will be used for the custom K member, rear subassembly, A arms, driveshaft and half shafts, the disc brake setup, and even the custom ECU tune on the car.

I'll probably go with Keisler hubs again, and the pedals will be Wilwood.

The engine and transmission is Camaro/Cadillac. E85 is a pretty cool thing, I'm finding out, and being able to tune the stock ECU is pretty interesting too. I'm new to all this "stuff", which makes it all the more fun.

 

This engine's been sitting around for a while. It's a 1999 with all forged internals. I'm not shooting for fantastic horsepower numbers, but getting close to 300 would be nice. It's all one big experiment, so rather than rely on the tens of thousands of hours of experience--that would make too much sense--we'll be trying out a few new items.





Top mount T3 header with FM Happy Meal





The header is schedule 10 stainless...thick wall. Otherwise I wouldn't have considered it. At. All. The T3 flange is clocked to send the exhaust down the center of the car. I may cut and clock it for the side exhaust. Or not.

 

Got a wild hair and decided that it might be nice to have some fresh tires for Laguna Seca. These are the largest diameter I've put on the car yet, but the fitment makes me think that the 275/35-17's would fit as well. Hmmm.





Maxxis 235/40-17's next to Toyo 245/35-17's

 

Bosch wide band O2 sensor, not sexy. $75 from 14 Point 7, adds lipstick.





Bosch wide band +++