It’s funny, you never know how bad you are at “time estimation” until you take on a massive project like re-engineering a race/drift car… Naturally, I thought I’d have a good bit more manpower help on this but sometimes things just workout that way. It’s also taken far more money to get everything done than I would have EVER-expected and that part really hasn’t been fun!
Friends ask me about the car’s progress and they are surprised to hear that as good as the car was before, I’ve used so little of it for this new version, it basically a whole new car again. In fact if I think quite literal about it, the parts brought over from the “old red car” are only:
– The actual chassis (though a ton of upgrades were done to it including the interior sheet metal and roll cage)
– The steering column
– The pedal assembly
– Front cross-member (with a mod to fit the new dry-sump oil pan)
– Steering rack (again with a mod to fit the oil pan)
– Outside AIT Racing bodywork
– Engine block and crankshaft (though a lot of machining was done)…..
So that’s it, everything else has been either heavily modified or completely replaced all together…
How all of these new parts and new power-deliver strategies will work together… nobody really knows but man does “it looks good on paper”…lol With the chassis now painted, the car is in its final stages of assembly and I assure you, I am working as hard as I possible can to get this thing ready for testing as soon as possible. Unfortunately, my “Winter testing schedule” has been completely thrown out the window so going to the first actual event is going to be a bit sketchy as I project I’ll have time for little-more that a brief shake-down session before hand. That’s not the way I’d like to go into the 2015 season but sometimes things just don’t go a smoothly as you had originally hoped…
So please keep you collective fingers crossed for me that everything works together as nicely as planned and stay tuned for the final-pics of the finished-product. It’s going to look great and with any luck, it will perform as good as it looks…
Talk to you soon,
DV
