How's the Celica going, Dave?

[David Leikvold]

Slowly! The V6 is out of the Camry and hanging in the engine bay of the Celica. It is a big motor but it fits well enough, albeit a few inches further forward that I would have preferred. Can't help that, I'm not interested in moving the steering rack or the LH lower control arm just to push the motor back a bit. There is still room for the turbo.
The interior is almost ready for a rollcage. The design will be a copy of a V8 Supercar cage, they work well even at the speeds the car is likely to do on the salt. I'll start the cage when the engine is properly mounted in the car. Nothing lines up of course, but I enjoy fabrication so I don't mind.
The car won't be ready for 2008, I can't spend the time or the money that would need. Once the car looks less like it should be at the tip and more like a salt car I'll post some photos.
I had always wanted a streamliner, or at the very least a lakester but didn't have any real chance of building one because I don't have anywhere to build it. A while back I read a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt who said "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are". So I bought the Toyotas because I knew they wouldn't mind being left out in the backyard. And with some perserverance, I'll still get to 200mph in a few years.

[weezilco]

Hey Dave, what model year Celica? RWD or FWD?

[Dr Goggles]

I had always wanted a streamliner, or at the very least a lakester but didn't have any real chance of building one because I don't have anywhere to build it. A while back I read a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt who said "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are". So I bought the Toyotas because I knew they wouldn't mind being left out in the backyard. And with some perserverance, I'll still get to 200mph in a few years.

are you talkin' to yourself Dave???

I was just about to say " you know what I reckon" ...at the same time I can here others saying " don't really wanna know but you're gonna F#5*&#n' tell us anyway"......when it comes to building a Lakester or a streamliner you've got to be a fool , brave , or part of a team because it's the kind of job that would break the back of most people on their own .I like the sound of what you're up to , further to our friend ( who is being chased around the mulberry bush by the Monkey) Weezilco's question what model is it again??, which V6 and which way is it pointing ???

There is a front wheel drive bellytank being built in the states at the moment

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/show ... p?t=196718

, it solves a few of the perennial problems in LSR of getting traction and yet keeping your C.O.G ahead of your C.O.P as well as the points they make about the orientation of the control gear , fuel and such.

C'mon let's have a blue about front wheel drive.

[weezilco]

C'mon let's have a blue about front wheel drive.

hehehehh... FWD has had some racing applications in the past. My last address before Australia was Indianapolis. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum had a copy of a Miller-FordFWD car from about 1922 on display when I was last there.



It apparently went well on the IMS hard pavement.

I do kinda have my concerns about how a FWD vehicle will go on salt. The armchair engineer in me thinks that the wind loading on a car will transfer weight to the rear wheels.

[David Leikvold]

Doc,
Yeah I probably was talking to myself but I always get insightful responses that way. No rants from Gordon D about it, maybe I've made a terrible mistake after all!
Brian,
The Celica is an '86 ST162, the first of the front wheel drives. The engine is a '93 model 3VZ-FE which is a cast iron 3 litre with 24 valves and quad cams. It still has the 4 spd auto trans (probably not ideal) and will remain front wheel drive, mostly because it's much easier that way. I figure this also gives me plenty of weight over the drive wheels and very little chance of power oversteer. But is front wheel drive any good for the salt? Ken Walkley had a V8 FWD streamliner here in 1995 that went hard so why not. Beside if the Celica isn't much of a salt car at least I've had a go and learned a few things.

[David Leikvold]

Doc,
I checked out the FWD belly tank. The driver must have mighty short legs, that thing's got even less leg room than your beasty. The wheelbase looks like it might be good at motorkhanas too. I wonder how stable it will be at speed.
I have a few days off this week so I might actually get some work done stripping useful parts off the Camry. Anybody want a '93 Camry shell with good glass, lights and panels? Or does anyone know of a wrecker in Brisbane who would take it?

[Dr Goggles]

Well?......made any sudden movements Dave

[David Leikvold]

No Doc, no sudden movements at this end. I'm genuinely embarrassed to admit that progress has been glacial at best. Here come the excuses. What with family commitments, work and business pressures and unhelpful weather I'm struggling to find more than half a day a week to play with the car. And essentially achieving nothing. The weather is the biggest issue. After months of drought it now rains just enough to keep the place green and the dirt under the car soft and damp. The mozzies at night make it impossible to work outside the car so I sit inside swatting moths and planning the rollcage while I clean up the last of the tar. Trouble is, as you said, when you get back to it after a while off you just rehash what you did the last time.
The guy at Gun Exhausts said to go to Custom Off-Road Components in the same street. They just did a chrome-moly cage for him and they make buggy tube frames. My search for steel tube has taught me a couple of things. There is nothing between black pipe (250mpa) and Racetech 350 so I'll be using a couple of lengths of 350 and the rest will be black pipe. With only 15 weeks until Speedweek 2008 I'm now starting to worry that it's only 67 weeks until 2009 and at half a day a week that's only about a month of full-on effort. I really must get out there more often. The neighbour behind is putting in a pool and needs to pull down the back fence so that'll force me to get rid of the mountain of excess Toyota junk bits so maybe that'll help.
I'm starting to think now that it might have been easier to build a small streamliner from scratch. Maybe that'll be my 2010 project after we build a proper garage under the house.

[Dr Goggles]

I've often thought ( but haven't yet done it) that a running sheet, sort of like a job sheet would be a handy thing to keep on the car. The last ten minutes while you're winding down after working on it , or even at those times when you have an idea at a time when you ain't working on it you've got something to record it on . Write down what you just did and why, write down random thoughts you have about problems you are trying to solve or about decisions you are trying to make...it can't hurt .

I could have built a car in the amount of time I have stood out there in the shed , by myself, staring at it ....small fractions of that time are filled by productive thought...which I don't record . Most of building the car is in fact grunt work , the difficult part is organising that grunt work...

If I wrote down the ideas I had and spent time thinking about them somewhere where I wasn't distracted by the visual of the car and then made decisions about what work I was going to do I could then stride out to the shed AND GET INTO IT..............

Last week I got tired of feeling like white trash and decided it was time to move my unregistered EH Panel van from the front lawn....I put it in the drive behind the gate , two hours later I had the motor and box out , started a clean up underneath and given it a general look over to decide how little I could get away with to get it roadworthy again .This week I've set up a molasses tank to de-rust some stuff and got most of the things done I needed to do in order to do the gear box swap it needs . In short, this kind of stuff is easy because you know what you have to do , it's grunt work.

With your race car work out what you HAVE to do in order to race it. Connect these jobs through the shortest possible route on your white board to the bit where it says DONE . There is nothing surer than the fact that you will be pulling it apart time and time again ...take note of things you'd LIKE to do and do them when they are practical to do. I was also thinking this morning that in hindsight we could have saved money by having a "wish-list" of quotes on pieces we needed.....

I'm genuinely embarrassed to admit that progress has been glacial at best.

your embarrassment would be dwarfed by mine if I had to accurately account for all the money we've spent , and justify it..



This is coming from someone who has spent four years in the mortal fear that i'd got involved in something that might break my heart , my bank , my spirit or all three simultaneously AND at the same time.

BTW , and you think you've got a yard full of ...stuff

[hawkwind racing]

I could have built a car in the amount of time I have stood out there in the shed , by myself, staring at it ....

Struth I thought I was the only silly bastard that did that






your embarrassment would be dwarfed by mine if I had to accurately account for all the money we've spent , and justify it..

Double that for me as i have 2 vehicles and only one person sharing the burden

cheers
Gary who is very close to finishing my new mr whippy





:

[David Leikvold]

Years ago when we were planning an extension on the house I used to stand out in the backyard just looking and thinking for so long and so often that the neighbours used to make jokes about it. That habit hasn't left me. Doc, your list idea is good, I will try it. I started tonight. What could I do tonight when I really should be working on the business? I went to Bunnings and bought the 2" holesaw and arbor. I won't be using it for weeks yet but at least I have it.
And Gary, what is the Mr Whippy?

[Dr Goggles]

And Gary, what is the Mr Whippy?

Monsieur Whippy V.1

[David Leikvold]

As in whippy yo' ass? But does it play Greensleeves? I'm reminded of the scene from Borat when the kids come running up to the window of his ice cream van and the bear roars at them!

[David Leikvold]

And today before I went to the dentist this morning ($400!) I got stuck into the battery tray with an angle grinder. Used one of those 1mm thick cut off wheels, they are the duck's guts, it cut through the steel like it was cardboard. Just a few bits left hanging by spot welds now, will finish them tonight. Tomorrow night I'll probably go back to scraping tar, there's not much left to do there. This weekend I'll concentrate on the engine mounts (now that I've said it I have to do it), I want to get rid of the gantry and put up a tarp so I can work in a little more comfort. And I have to remove all the crap lying at the back fence too.

[David Leikvold]

Well, another weekend is over and I have spent some of Saturday and most of today fiddling in the backyard. From any distance it looks like nothing has changed but I have put a lot of effort into the final position of the motor. I am so sick of trying to get a good fit. I'll just have to mount the bloody thing as best I can and move on. At least I'll be able to get at the rear spark plugs.
Last week I found a British site that had a guy putting "my" V6 in an MR2. He had a 5spd manual trans with an LSD and knocked up a custom rear engine mount. If I did that I could pull the motor back a couple of inches which would look better but probably make no difference to the weight balance of the car. I'll run the auto trans because I've already got it and I can get a manual later. Maybe. I also found that Jack Costella, of Nebulous Theorem fame has built yet another streamliner, this one a "motorcycle" with an '85 RZ350 Yamaha engine. It is simple and slick and went 189mph!
The late Carroll Smith once said that when you decide to race a road car the only thing you don't have to modify is the clutch pedal. Since starting the Celica I have discovered the awful truth of that. This week will see the front engine mount transverse bar made and installed. The gearbox mount is much closer than it was last week, it can't be finished until I finalise the angle of the motor. I also spent a lot of time cleaning up the junk in the backyard and pruning trees so I can get my trailer out from the corner of the yard and take some crap to the tip. Then I can put up a tarp and get a bit civilised.