Day 2

Day 2 has come and gone and we made tons of progress on the car. Jerad mainly focused on getting the new seat in and I worked on getting the headers off and replacing the header gaskets. We also added a couple of steel bars underneath the new fuel cell to make the mounting stronger. Before it was wobbling a bit, and now its as good as welded on.

First – Jerad (with the help of Ethan) put the tip over valve on the fuel cell and finished the rest of the plumbing. The fuel system should be good to go now.

It was pretty much my first time turning wrenches on an engine, and I ended up with the usual mechanics badge of honor (skinned knuckles). Jerad had a freak accident with the grinder where a hot bit of steel landed on his gloves and set it on fire. He ended up with a bit of second degree burns on a knuckle and a nice sized hole in his glove.

Jerad fabricated some seat mounts from angle iron and bolted them to the car and the seat. We figured out the best place to position the seat was slightly off center to the right so my head and helmet have some room to move. He also used my angle grinder and ground the rest of the old carpet and glue off the floor. We vacuumed up the interior and then sprayed flat black Rustoleum all over the floor. It looks so much better now!

After I finally got all the headers off, Christian helped clean the old hi-temp RTV silicone off the headers and mounting adapters (whatever they are really called). The I put some new hi-temp RTV silicone on and put the adapters back on, torqued to 24 foot pounds per bolt.

I also drained some of the radiator fluid out of the car before removing the headers – and to my surprise there was antifreeze. Antifreeze is generally frowned upon at race tracks because if you spill it over the track it takes forever to clean up.

We also went to Checkers to get stuff we needed like the RTV silicone. While we were at Checkers, we saw a smoking deal for a 300 piece tool set with cart – after rebate and military discount, the whole thing came to 40 bucks. We also picked up some odds and ends like funnels and a filter wrench. We also found hood pins! We are going to put that on the car eventually.

It looks like Day 3 is going to be tomorrow!