Akpilot's Roadster

[RCMike]

Nice work!

[peter]

Great work and what a speed in Restoration.
I like the engine work.

[Alvin]

I just showed this to my motorcycle friend and it flipped his lid!

[Akpilot]

I've been working on the frame, with all the flaking rust inside I thought I should try and dislodge some of it. I hung the frame from the bottom and top and used a vibratory air hammer to beat the frame hopefully dislodging the flaking rust. I ultimately want to coat the inside of the frame with either POR15 or a gas tank rust sealer, this is my first step. I was pretty surprised on the amount that came out.

Ak

[Akpilot]

Well I have made the call, I have lost the faith in the 1967 frame and decided that if I could source another frame that I would be better off in the long run. Turns out the 67 frame not only was plagued with bad rust issues but also in the previous accident it become slightly twisted and the drivers spring bucket was pretty beat up as well. So I took it to a frame shop for my options and they were confident that even without the frame specs that they could bend it back flat. Long story short I was able to get another frame and yep I'm having a bit of deja vue.... It's better to add a little time now then regret it later.

Ak

[Akpilot]

Finally just about to where I was with the 67 frame so now started working on the exhaust

Ak

[RCMike]

Electronic cutout? or... evil laugh here..lol

[Akpilot]

Electronic cutout? or... evil laugh here..lol

A Doug's Guillotine style electric dump,...... the electronic cutout will be with clutchless shifting .

Ak

[RCMike]

lol I helped a friend put two of those on an M3 a while ago.. sounded so sick.. This is going to be amazing..

[Akpilot]

Mounted the reverser this weekend

Akpilot

[Akpilot]

Installing the STI seats.

Question: Has anyone ever raised the body? What I'm thinking is keeping the floorboards at the frame level and raising the body 1/2" to 1". I want to do this mainly for the hood to turbo inlet clearance. I have decided keep the injectors in the OEM location and not do a modified manifold as that might induce some de-atomization of the fuel charge at low RPM levels. With lowering the engine 1" and raising the body 1" I'll have plenty of room for the intake. My concern is the horse hair, is this body too flimsy to raise without reinforcement? Thoughts? I've even thought of widening the body as mine right now would be pretty easy - only the windshield and the top are holding that back. Would be nice for extra cockpit room, widening the wheel wells for a semi-tubed look from the back. Yea I'll never finish right?

Ak

[pebbles]

A body lift at the attach points using urethane sleeves?
Or a "channel job" at the ends of the floorboards, using urethane sleeves on the "ends" of the body?
Once its all bolted together it should be plenty strong, as long as youre not jumping railroad crossings a few times a week.
IMHO i would keep the "flight deck" as tight to the chassis as possible.
Who needs horsehair when your spinning 12k.

[Akpilot]

Not sure Pebbles, I don't like the look right now with the body 1" above the frame, but I'm thinking with the fenders on, maybe larger wheels to fill in the fender well and lower springs it would look good or hard to tell. So as to how to get the body lift, not sure, right now the body is rock solid with the Mohawk backbone and I can't remove that until I get the floorboards all in. What was the original intent of the horse hair? I'm thinking the body would flex and hit the frame so some padding was in order. What I mean by flexing is the thin sheetmetal not where the body mounts are. Which leads into my original question does the floorboards, trunk ect. need the support of the frame where the horse hair is or can there be dead space there?

I do agree I would not do this if I did not need the room as I got the seats lower than the original seats. I'm not sure what the pink seats were out of - probably not OEM Roadster seats.

Ak

[RCMike]

My car has no horsehair.. It was holding moisture and causing scaling on the frame.. And I am not a puritanical slave to originality, so it went away, and was replaced with very thin rubber pads at the body mount points.. Not sure if that helped in any way, just thought I would throw it out there.

[Akpilot]

Mounted up the 68 steering, will only be using the dash portion as the collapsible tube will not be used. I'll be using a u-joint right after the slip joint so the shaft will exit lower on the firewall to another u-joint to clear the header.

Ak