In stitches

 Been super busy the past few days researching some of the more significant components ive been eyeing. I've really been digging into a few areas and trying to get a better idea of why people have formed the opinions they have when it comes to certain things.

 The internet is a weird place in the car forum world, it consists of %.5 'doers' and %99.5 repeaters. Often time you'll see some offhand comment that's been incorrectly repeated and its turned into Internet forum gospel. Not too many people actually understand the what or the whys involved. There's a lot information missing when just asking the question  'what is better' its usually its a matter of perspective and has no one size fits all response.

 As always its better to understand things for yourself and do the research before making a decision. It takes a TON of time but in the end you are better for it.

Currently im busy hashing out some significant upgrades that were worth looking into before I got much farther along. Also made some pretty exciting orders recently that ill go over as the boxes arrive.

Meanwhile theres been some big progress on the chassis side of things. Art at Nitradyne Performance Fabrication has been getting pulled in a few different directions while finishing up some smaller and ongoing jobs. As an 86 fanatic himself hes as eager as I am to tear into it and make headway. This last couple days he finally got a couple uninterrupted stints behind the mask and ended up knocking out a large chunk of the stitch welding.

 The bay:

Its mostly done with the stitching but there's more to do after that to seal up the firewall holes and leave only the provisions nessessary for the new wiring and steering/brake set up. (more to come on those as plans solidify)


 As we go Art is simplifying everything by removing factory brackets as necessary.
This one is for the factory fuse block, a punch and spot weld drill bit work like magic..

then more stitching..

On to the interior...

Previous cage boxes will soon be removed..

Im also adding a custom seat mount that will be tied into the cage. In the event of a significant crash you want to be mounted inside the crash bubble itself. If the seat can move independently from the cage there is a strong likelyhood that the cage will do much more harm than good. The right way is to have all the of important stuff (i.e me) safely inside the structure while it does its work.  The factory 'hump' will remain as it adds torsional rigidity and weighs very little.

   Because we wont be using the factory seating provisions anymore im no longer tied to their location and can position the drivers seat farther back and lower.  This will help significantly in both lowering the center of gravity and by repositioning the weight nearer the center line of the front and rear wheels.

To do this correctly requires more fab work on some other driver controls but im excited to finally own a car I fit well in with my helmet on.


another shot of the floor pan

rear strut in the wheel well. Wheel wells will be tied together with the cage and the old cage pad in the foreground will be cut out and repaired.

Ive read that TRD n2 ae86 had near the rigidity of a dc5 type R chassis after stitch welding and gusset plates. I cant imagine how awesome this is going too feel. The 86 chassis is basically just a wet noodle. More stitch = Less chassis flex. Less chassis flex will allow the suspension to properly do its job. Yay for function.


Here you can see the rust spot I was most worried about on the drivers side strut tower. Art made short work of cutting it out in preparation for some new, sheet metal.

Also while at the shop I grabbed some better pictures of the underside of the chassis. You can see where the seam sealant started and the undercoating stopped. The sealant is more of a foamy texture as opposed to the sandy tar type stuff that got blasted away. This stuff take a pass with the wire wheel and a torch but comes off pretty cleanly. Removal of the remaining sealant and stitching on the bottom will be done once I get the car on a rotisserie, which I should have by this coming weekend.

 Rearend and the 'rolling suspension' is all coming off to make room to work once its on the rotisserie. Rearend will be handled in its own upcoming post once all the parts arrive.

Enough for now. More updates coming soon..