Exhaust system

Purchased an exhaust system from a 2012 Golf R.

Paid $100 for everything in the photo, time to start chopping things up and beginning to fit things up.

Interior Design

Here are some reference shots from the internet that I'm using as reference as I work on my own interior design...

Trunk Space - Part 3

Lately, I managed to free up some money to break down and buy the rear suspension system from MiniTec in Royston, GA (http://www.superfastminis.com). I know I sound regretful, but I had some stickershock earlier on when looking at this item. Bottom line is, you're paying for the engineering that went into making this finish product bolt right in without any issues, and at this point in time in this project for me (almost 4 years and counting now)... it's worth every penny spent.

Once I received the subframe, I was able to quickly line it up to the body (pictured below) and bolt it in place...

Upon bolting it in, I was able to see some slight modifications that were going to need to be done to the wheel wells in order to allow for proper clearance to the shock once the full assembly was in place.

As you can see from the picture below, I took a nice 4lb. hammer and "releaved" the rear half of the wall behind the shock in order for it to clear the metal once installed. Not the prettiest of treatments I know, but once this is rubber-coated later, none of this should matter.

Once the sheetmetal was modified to properly fit the shocks, I was able to bore out the shockmount hole at the top of the tower area to fit the new bracket, thus allowing me to mount the shock at both ends without interference.

Within a few minutes, I was able to dry-fit the new hubs in place, insert the new discs and spacers, and fit those beautiful 13x7 wheels in place for the first time.

At the time of the image, I had the body as if it were a dolly, rolling around on its own back wheels... a very exciting accomplishment.

Not wanting to stop there, I decided to try to line-up the body to the front subframe.

Doing this allowed me to see that I need to do a few more modifications to the metal at the front to avoid interference with the alternator. However, I did manage to take this snapshot of what the car will look like once both frames are mounted up properly... sort of a "glimpse ahead".

Upholstery

So a while back I managed to pick up a pair of Recaro seats out of an 80s Porsche 911 for around $45. Needless to say, they were in pretty rough shape. Knowing that I didn't want a black interior, and knowing I would have to re-upholster anything that I bought anyway, this was an excellent find! thank you Craigslist!

Once I got the seats home, I checked them to the interior to make sure there weren't any surprises (these seats are nearly identical to the Miata-style seats. Nothing to note, so we should be good to go!

In September of 2010, I ended up taking an upholstery class through a local technical college. I wanted to just learn the basics in order to hopefully be able to construct some of the more simple panels once I start doing the interior. After taking the class, I fully realize the art and experience that is involved in doing automotive upholstery, and will be paying (hopefully not dearly) on my seats to be done when I get to that point. For the class however, I had to work on one of the seats, so here is a 2 minute summary and some photos documenting that process as I went through it for the seat bottom.

Step 1: Disassembly - Carefully take off the seats glides, and remove all of the hog-ties that you can see. Carefully remove the covering from the foam and framework with special care not to tear any of the material. The covering of course later will be used for patterning for the new material.

Below is a shot of just the foam insert for the bottom of the seat. You can see the deep seams that make this look like 3 pieces of foam. Its these seams that will later allow you to pull the material down nice and tight along the center section (where your butt goes) in order to really define the side bolsters. The diagonal light spot you see pictured is actually where the seat heater element was layed in. At this point in time, I'm not sure about finding a replacement for my worn out element.

Step 2: Patterning - Using a seam-ripper and whatever other means, carefully go through all of the seams, and remove the stitching. This will free up each of the individual pieces that make up the specific design for your seat. From there you'll be able to layout flat all of these pieces, and transfer the shapes to your new fabric and begin re-assembling them in reverse order. NOTE: old covering material will have stretched quite a bit over time, this is where the experience in using specific materials comes into play in estimating how to allow for that stretch when transferring your patterns!

Step 3: Restoration - It's at this time that you have everything disassembled you can take time to re-finish the framework, and whatever parts will be visible later to make sure you have a nice end product. I took the time to sandblast, and repaint my frames/springs to make sure that they'll last another 20 years without rotting out, after all you dont want to fall through the seat and hit the floor when your going 120mph, right?!?

Step 4: Construction - So you've transferred your patterns, cut out all of your shapes, now on to the sewing machine!

Pictured below you'll see the center seat area that I began with, you can build depth into your pieces by using foam inserted as needed. NOTE: not all sewing machines can handle passing leather/vinyl + foam through the feed dogs, so check first if your machine can handle it before even starting your project!

After completing the seat bottom, I attached the sides, and so on in order to be able to re-wrap the foam... Here pictured is the seat and bolster tops laid in place prior to stitching the sides/front to the top.

So for the project, I also used a low-cost vinyl that I found at a local fabric shop. No use in using a high-cost leather to learn on right? Although, in terms of color, this was what I was initially thinking of going with as I begin looking at the color palette for the interior design.

Pictured Below is the final product at the end of the class (total 16 hours over 8 weeks). Overall the class I feel was a success in that I wanted to learn the techniques. I feel that my seat cover was a failure, just because I think it looks like crap! hahaha

This project was what taught me a ton about the material stretch and proper tolerancing of the material as you cut your patterns and leave seam allowances. Thank you Aresa for all of your time through the class, I learned a whole lot, especially in terms of the respect for the trade of Upholstery, it truly truly IS an art to be appreciated.

Floor Panels - Tunnel Construction

Forgive me Father, its been nearly one year since my last posting...

In that year though, my wife and I had our first child, and for as amazing experience that has been in my life... nearly no construction has occurred on the car.

I HAVE been working on a bunch of initiatives in the meantime however(upholstery/interiors research/rear suspension), so I'll try to capture them in the coming days in order to update the blog. So now, back to work...

I purchased some more sheet metal a couple of months ago, and finally managed to spend some time working out what I needed in order to create a tunnel. Once welded in place, I'll only need a few internal fillers/stabilizers (some shown in the picture below) to knit up the floor pans, and move on to the trunk area to wrap up fabrication.

So I told myself that I would not cut out the old tunnel until I was holding my new replacement part in my hands in order to not mess up by removing too much material (how I got myself to this point in the first place when doing the floorpans!). Now that I have the tunnel ready to be fit in, I'm cutting out the old material, and then trimming off excess in order to have a nice tight fit prior to welding (shown below).

So with the hole in the floor now, I can begin inserting the new metal into place. I've left myself approx 1" on each side of the length of the part (shown in the overlap of the main cross member) for flanges to be bent so I can overlap the old metal and weld.

Next steps are to massage the cutouts at each end of the tunnel (going from a rounded tunnel to a trapezoid shape), get a tight fit, and tack the pieces in place before all of the seams are welded shut for a good seal.

Pedals

I've managed to pull together from Ebay again a set of Tilton Racing Pedels along with Tilton Cylinders in order to once again keep costs down. This set new from Tilton would run somewhere in the vacinity of $600, using Ebay, I managed to get the pedal assembly for $150 with cylinders from another user for $20.

One really nice thing about this system vs the old stock system is that this whole pedal assembly (including cylinders) fits within the car. This takes away the need for routing lines to the cylinders through the firewall, making the system much cleaner in the engine bay. This will require a little bit of modification on the dashboard sheet metal to fit the new componentry, and I'll try to post updated picks as I get to that portion.

Wheels and Tires

I've been looking for the right wheels and tires (a good deal) for about a year now. I managed to finally find a set of 13x7 Magnesium Superlights out of Florida (Thanks Rod). Now that I'm going to a 7" wide tire, I'm needing to get a fit-up in place in order to properly determine what width spacer I'm going to need to run for proper clearances. Below are some images of the wheels purchased.

Steering

What your looking at below here is the Driver's side front without the steering arm attached. On the bottom of the image, you can see the Steering Rack linkage that is due to be cleaned up/repainted/reassembled for use.

Here is a close-up of the rack linkage. You can see its withstood the test of time with the amount of rust on it. Upon disassembly, the balljoints seem to be in sound condition for re-use. I think with some TLC, some aesthetic cleanup, I think these parts will be roadworthy very soon.Here is a shot while I was cleaning up the rack and pinion for re-assembly. In the upper corner, you can see the very delicate brass gaskets that surround the bearing. I'm in process now of creating digital information to have new gaskets laser-cut locally as I dont think you can find these for purchase anymore.Here is a more detailed shot of a cleaned up ball-joint vs. not clean. You can see the distance in looks that this goes with just a little bit of Thinner and a Sandblaster. Add a fresh-coat a paint to protect it for the future, and Rock-n-Roll!Here's yet another detail showing the Steering Column Bearing. Although I think this bearing has seen better days, I think it will be fine just being cleaned up and a little more grease added. Once I can investigate a little more on sizing, etc.. I may try to find a new replacement if at all possible. Upon completion, you can see what a nice fresh coat of paint will do for ya! These parts look like I just bought them new. Online I can pick up new rubber Gaters to replace the old rubber boots, this rack should be good as new.

Floor Pans

Thanks to a great friend in my area, I managed to have brand new floor pans created in order to replace all of the old, tired metal in the bottom of my car.

Hopefully in the next days to couple weeks, I'll have an opporitunity to get these put in, then its on to the undercoating...

I've managed to attach the panels with self-tapping screws, this will allow me to have them held in place to ensure proper welding with the panels secured.

After Undercoating, we'll start talking about first fit-up with Engine to Body.

Happy New Year

Due to the house taking priority lately (small renovations, fixes) I've been pulled away from the car for quite some time. So I started off the year telling myself that I needed to hurry up and get a move on. I decided that in order for this to happen, I needed to just take a leap of faith and start getting some major things accomplished. Top of the list was getting the hood and front end separated from the main body of the vehicle. Because this car will have a flip-lid in the end, I took out the 'ole Sawzall and went to town cutting.

Here you can see some of the floor board in the back corner has been cut away. I recently purchased sheet material from a nearby steel yard, and enlisted some help locally in order to get some new floor pans fabricated. I'm hoping in the next few days/weeks to get these new pans installed. The addition of these new pans will surely help ensure that this body will be solid enough for the 400% power increase.

Pictured below is the hood/front end sitting on the floor next to the body of the car. I'll need to next fit these two pieces together with proper spacers, etc. Then have them welded into one piece vs. two that they are now. Later in the process, I can begin fitting up the brackets for the hinges, structural supports, flares, etc...