Fuel System Bench Testing

Today my dad stopped by to drop off the new rear floor panel and to take the nose parts off to paint. We took a few minutes to assemble a rig to test out the new HPD Kit's in tank fuel pump and regulator.

Good thing we did. After a few minutes of head scratching to figure out how to easily and safely apply power to the pump, we got it working nicely. The pump ran and developed pressure (too much - but more on that later)...

After a brief pause to get everything tight and leak proof, we found that the pump was working, and that the bypass was questionable. It seemed to go into bypass mode at about 68-69psi. I could hear fuel cycling back into the tank, but the pressure was not setting at the correct 55psi.

So I took it all apart (several times) and took out the regulator from the housing. I reseated it and tried again. Same result - 69psi.
So e-mails off to HPD. The good thing is that the cell is not installed in the car yet, and I can figure this out over the next couple of days. This would really suck if I was at the track...

Pictured above is how I did the test. I used the HPD wiring harness to supply power. Plugged in the fuel pump connector, and jumped the red wire labeled "Fuel Pump" to the positive battery terminal. Then I connected the ground wire on the harness to battery ground and 'buzzz" the pump powered up and begin to do it's thing.

To test the pressure I made up a short hose with AN4 fittings on each end. I connected this to the HPD supplied inline filter assembly. In place of the fuel test port, I screwed in a Marshal 0-100psi pressure gauge. (This same exact gauge has been used on my father and Steve Oseth's cars and read 55psi, so I am fairly sure it is accurate).

If you have any thoughts on the excess pressure please send me an e-mail (smaisey@cwf.org) or post a comment here.

Thanks,
Sean

Rear Bodywork (Complete)

Right rear gearbox/engine lower cover complete and fill panel installed.

Left side panel.

Bench fitting the panels to the new floor... (Dad in the background)

Rear Gearbox/Engine Covers

Tonight I worked on trimming and fitting the "filler" panels to cover the missing area where the FC spec diffuser sloped up at the rear of the car. FF rules dictate that the floor must remain flat to the back of the rear tires. For now I made these panels flat and level with the floor all the way to the back of the bodywork. The new rear floor will actually slope upward behind the rear wheels, so I will need to trim the bottom of these new panels to fit once the floor is installed.

Pictured here is the left side panel with the fill panel installed. I deliberately used the existing holes in the bodywork to join the panels. That way I can experiment with different approaches later without having to redesign and build the whole lower panel.

Right side panel trimmed and installed. Later this evening I decided to paint these panels (the primered part) black to match the floor/undertray. If I am really happy with them later on I will do a more thurough job of sanding and filling the blemishes and paint them to match the rest of the bodywork.

The painted panels are drying as I write this so tomorrow I will post the (semi) finished products.

Sean

Body Work (Nose Completed)

Fiberglass work completed I used a little filler to match the surfaces (within reason). I figure this is probably a taped seam in race conditions any way, but I had some time to kill to try to make it look reasonable.

All sanded and primed the pieces are ready to go to the Maisey paint shop for finish work...

One of the bigger challenges was figuring out how to mount the small anteater nose. The flange on the pice was too short to match up to the holes already drilled in the nose. Since I want to experiment with using both the anteater setup and the more traditional lower nose and crushbox cover I needed to make up a couple of aluminum strips to adapt the new nose piece. About an hour of careful drilling and fitting later and this was the final result. I am pretty happy with it. Not quite show car quality, but good enough for something that will be very exposed to the racing elements.

Side view of the completed nose assembly. Looks pretty sexy if I do say so!

Next up on the agenda fitting the "filler" panels to the gearbox/engine covers.

Later,
Sean

More Fabrication

Right side view of teh front engine mount. Looking really nice.

Here is a picture I have waited for a couple of months to see. Chassis, engine, gearbox all bolted together on Eric's surface plate. Who needs Viagra? :)

Back to my bodywork here in Lanexa...

Sean

Fabrication In Process

Eric Langbein has been laboring away for just about a week now on the car. Tonight he sent along a few photos of the work in progress. Looking extremely good...

Give up? (This is the front of the motor). Shown is the aluminum machined plate that the front cross-member will mount to.

Top view of the front engine mounting bracket.

Crossmember in place. That tab in the foreground is for mounting a coil for the older FF/FC engines. It will go away and a new set of tabs will be welded in tomorrow to secure the front engine crossmember to the frame.

Body Work

Shown above is the nose with the extension in place and trimmed to a reasonable fit. Tonight I did a little more sanding and applied spot putty to fill in the cracks and pock marks. Tomorrow sanding and more finish work...

(Did I mention that I hate bodywork! The garage is a mess and so am I.)

Sean