Honey Badger's Completely Off-the-Rails Race Car Build and Track Adventure Thread

[honeybadger]

I think what I wrote got put in your part of the post? Lol Try dry ice for that square part in floor board!

I've give it a shot!

 

[honeybadger]

Made more progress this weekend.

The chassis is now fully, fully stripped. Only the rear quarter windows remain. Car parts currently spread across two houses, two garages, and a storage unit. Ha

I'm estimating dad and I will have about 100 hours into just the seam welding portion of this project. It's extremely tedious and quite difficult to be consistent as there are so many variables (multiple different thickness of materials, bends that stretch the material, contaminates likes sealer/primer, etc.). But we're getting there. Interior cabin is fully prepped and outside probably about 1/3 prepped. About halfway through welding the inside.

 

[shogun32]

kudos. Surely one can order a body-in-white from FP with all that done?
https://performanceparts.ford.com/download/PDFs/2016_MustangBIW_application.pdf

 

[honeybadger]

kudos. Surely one can order a body-in-white from FP with all that done?
https://performanceparts.ford.com/download/PDFs/2016_MustangBIW_application.pdf

That'll definitely be the way I go in the future if I need a new chassis. The amount of $$ that I am going to dump into this build over the next 12 months mean I need to stretch what I can and I wasn't willing to give up on Ruby Red as a color. Acid dipping/BIW would cost an extra 10K just in paint. I'm saving that money for a Bosch M5 ABS system

 

[mavisky]

kudos. Surely one can order a body-in-white from FP with all that done?
https://performanceparts.ford.com/download/PDFs/2016_MustangBIW_application.pdf

The one issue with that is the following:

Applications are only considered from credentialed race drivers or race teams.

Until Kevin gets even more serious about his on-track exploits, he may not have access to this program. Even then this is only an application to buy a body-in-white meaning they could easily look at the quality of any program anyone has and deem them not to be worthy of that level of collaboration with Ford Performance.

 

[NoXiDe]

The one issue with that is the following:

Applications are only considered from credentialed race drivers or race teams.

Until Kevin gets even more serious about his on-track exploits, he may not have access to this program. Even then this is only an application to buy a body-in-white meaning they could easily look at the quality of any program anyone has and deem them not to be worthy of that level of collaboration with Ford Performance.

This is one area that I'd love to see Ford Performance excel in. Many do not know this and I didn't until I joined a group that shared this secret with me but Mazda Motorsports has a store that you can get OEM parts at dealer costs for race teams and professional Mazda drivers. Not only that, they also allow HPDE drivers to take advantage of these awesome prices and the only thing that is required as we, HPDE, drivers do not have a race license is simply to demonstrate that the vehicle is participating in a track event with the Miata. Psst.... SCCA license qualifies too. You can bet I immediately ordered ARP (mazda studs), hubs, and loads of other gear to have as a backup for my ND2.

 

[shogun32]

The one issue with that is the following:
Applications are only considered from credentialed race drivers or race teams

Yeah I saw that but a print-out of 94 pages of this thread should be sufficient evidence OP is "track nuts" and deserving of consideration.

 

[honeybadger]

Video number 1 is live!

 

[honeybadger]

Made some progress these past couple of days. Interior is now entire seam welded as is the back exterior and driver-side wheel well. We just have the underside (which basically all prepped and ready for welding), the passenger side front wheel well, and the engine bay. Hoping to be mostly finished by the weekend - but will depend on how much time I lose taking the Miata to COTA this Friday.

Unfortunately we had an incident while seam welding the interior part of the wheel well. It turned out there was foam behind the panel we were welding and it caught fire and burned for a bit before we caught as the flames weren't visible (this is cavity between the inside/outside of the wheel well). Result was a fairly substantially damaged exterior paint on the wheel well. Booo.

Looks like I'll be repainting the entire car now - I'm thinking of going gray/white and wrapping in Ruby Red (or something close). But open to ideas.

 

[JAJ]

Paint is surprisingly heavy. If you're "open to ideas", the idea I have is to finish taking all the stuff off that's not off already, take it to a restorer that has a dip tank to strip all the paint, prime it with a rustproofing primer and wrap it.

 

[honeybadger]

Paint is surprisingly heavy. If you're "open to ideas", the idea I have is to finish taking all the stuff off that's not off already, take it to a restorer that has a dip tank to strip all the paint, prime it with a rustproofing primer and wrap it.

I looked into acid dipping back when I started the project and I had a hell of a time even trying to find a place that does it.

I like the lightweight idea, but am a bit worried about repairability - a single stage paint would allow me to re-spray stuff pretty easy.

 

[Muligan]

This is sorta like watching a great aerobatic routine - you never quite know where things will go next!!!!

This will undoubtedly be a great build when done. I'm sure you're aware of this build that I linked to a while back, but adding here in case it offers you any ideas or support in your current endeavor.

https://www.fordgtforum.com/forums/threads/gt350-track-car-build.34378/

 

[Demonic]

Did I miss what happened to that rear quarter window?

 

[honeybadger]

This is sorta like watching a great aerobatic routine - you never quite know where things will go next!!!!

This will undoubtedly be a great build when done. I'm sure you're aware of this build that I linked to a while back, but adding here in case it offers you any ideas or support in your current endeavor.

https://www.fordgtforum.com/forums/threads/gt350-track-car-build.34378/

I followed Fred's build closely. His was an inspiration for me and part of the reason I am going to standalone electronics

Did I miss what happened to that rear quarter window?

Part of the fire mentioned above

 

[oldbmwfan]

If you can acid dip before cage, that's the time to do it. If not, not that big a deal. But I'd prime and paint either way. Do a standard, bright white (Toyota has a color called "super white" that is a fleet color and cheap to buy, and durable). You can wrap on top of that or just do graphics, perfect backdrop color. My race car is going to body shop this week following some cage updates and body repairs (and S54 swap), so I've been thinking about this a lot.

I think a full paint job, especially a single-stage, only weighs ~8 lbs. Worth it for the durability and protection. Even if you wrap, you want a smooth surface to start from, and you want to be able to remove it later without hassle.