1970 SRL311 Resto-mod - SR20DET (Lucy)

[beebo]

Today was a good day! I spent my day off wet sanding the primer on the front fenders. after cleaning it up, I sprayed them both with the Sora Blue. Aside from some major runnage that can get sanded out, It looks pretty okay. I'm definitely getting the hang of these shitty little Prevail sprayers. It is really satisfying to see the whole car painted the correct color.

Even though it is painted. The prevail sprayers made it impossible to get a consistent coat on any panel larger than a square foot. The whole car is splotchy with smooth sections, orange peel sections, rough sections, and heavy runs. In the near future, I will be wet-sanding the entire car and attempting a respray with a decent HVLP spray gun that I picked up. I'm confident I can get a good finish in the end. There are some sections of bodywork that I wish I could do better, but I really just need to get this car done and enjoy it.

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I have a good friend coming down from Dallas this weekend, and we're going to put the SR20 back in. It's really exciting to know that it is going in for good, and I can start installing all the radiator, intercooler, and plumbing.

Next on the list is Exhaust fabrication. I had started, but had some trouble with my MIG running stainless. I just purchased both 308L wire and a flux-cored 308L wire. Interested to try that out.

Cheers,
Wade

[beebo]

I know it's not related to the roadster, but last Wednesday, I decided not to work on the Roadster, and instead weld up an axleback for my "Daily" driver.

It's a 2000 BMW 540i Touring 4.4L V8 with a 6-speed manual swap. I cut out the OEM muffler and secondary resonator and replaced it with a Vibrant streetpower stainless straight through muffler. It sounds great, but it's just not quite as loud as I'd like. So I'm going to replace the primary resonator with a Vibrant stainless oval resonator. Anyways, Here's a youtube video:

[beebo]

So my friend came down from Dallas last weekend, and we got real drunk and put the engine in. I hope it's not too crooked ahah. It was a great time. The next day we went out to Circuit of the Americas to the SVRA raceday. It was another great time!

Everything is is just still kinda sitting in there. I had set aside all the hardware, and my wife made me clean up the garage several weeks ago. I cant find the damn nuts and bolts for everything. I have tomorrow off and would love to weld up the exhaust, but unfortunately it is my birthday, and I am obligated to partake in whatever my friends and family have planned for me. Maybe next Wednesday I'll get to it.

Here's some pictures. It is looking really great despite the horrible paint finish quality. All of the color combinations and proportions of everything is turning out how I want it to, and I'm coming up with great ideas on how to finish out the remaining bits in the engine bay, like the oil filter relocation, coolant overflow, BOV mounting and recirculation pumbing, intake, and all the PCV/oil separator tank designs. It is also nice to have that extra bit of garage space now that all this stuff is back in the car.

Ignore the BMW valve cover oil cap. That's just a spare wheel centercap that I set there for safe keeping.

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Cheers,
Wade

[Mattk]

Loving it! So jealous of your progress!

[RustyBucket]

Saw that Bimmer logo and thought ‘Oh, Waita minute here!!what ain’t right ‘bout this here foto??’

It looks great and it looks you were still sober enough to bucket together!
If folks gripe about tge paint, tell them to keep walking!

You did a damn good job!

[beebo]

Loving it! So jealous of your progress!

Thanks Matt! I checked out your thread and saw yah moved into your new house. Congrats! Looks like a nice garage space for roadster building.


Thanks Rusty! The paint really is bad in person. I'm going to wetsand it down a bit and shoot another coat on it with better equipment. But that is for another day. I could spend countless more hours on bodywork, but that just means I'll be putting off other stuff like building the exhaust, rebuilding the brake calipers, and finishing out all the engine plumbing. All of which I hope to have done before the end of the year.

[RustyBucket]

Wade,
It comes down to , do you want to drive it and enjoy it when you re young enough, or waste tooo many hours striving for perfection that in the end you are tooo old to drive or. Have made a garage Queen
I have to flip that coin

[RustyBucket]

Look pretty damn nice from here !!!

[beebo]

Wade,
It comes down to , do you want to drive it and enjoy it when you re young enough, or waste tooo many hours striving for perfection that in the end you are tooo old to drive or. Have made a garage Queen
I have to flip that coin

This will be an autocross/sunday driver car, so I'll be driving the bajeezus out of it. Far from a garage queen in any way. However, it needs too look good enough for me to be semi proud of being seen in it. I think i can get there with another 40-50 hours spent on the paint. Not much in the grand scheme of things. I know it looks alright in the pictures, but close up, it looks like a poorly done rattlecan job. With the amount of work thay I've put into it, I can't have something like that be the end result.

I need to take a break from bodywork and work on something fun

[RustyBucket]

3000grit wet sanding and polishing compound and call it ‘ADay’ then drive then smoke the wheels off it in the autocross Kissing cones as you blast by!!

Envious!
Covid slowed my progress, but a pending retirement should correct my ‘ lean Six Segma project slippage “

[Gregs672000]

I took a friend's completely orange pealed black car (I mean, it looked like it was painted with a drywall gun) and wet sanded and buffed it to a black mirror. I know it's a lot of work, but I'd encourage you given all that you have done, even if your goal is an autocross/Sunday driver. Be sure to check with the paint manufacturer regarding how much hardening time before its too hard to sand... it's changed over the years, and the time I waited on my own car was almost too long... really hard to buff out the scratches.

[beebo]

I've buffed out orange peel, amd finished out several non automotive projects to a very professional level. However, this is really really bad. It's not just the runs and orange peel, but stuff was painted with two different batches of paint, so there is a slight color mismatch between panels, and the fenders and doors have been removed so many times there are chips on the edges. I'm definitely not striving for a super high quality finish. I actually like stuff that is rough around the edges so that I don't have to be as careful with it. A wetsand to 600 and a better respray is not too much extra work, and then I'll just continue to finish out that coat. No big deal to me. My wife hates me spraying though haha. I'll have to wait till shes in a good mood and then have a plan in place for the aftermath.

[SOUPY]

Great job Wade! It looks like you are planning to bring exhaust out behind the drivers door? I've been thinking of trying that on my stroker. My thoughts would be to box out a pipe to go under the frame maybe 2 inch by 4 inch so as not to restrict exhaust flow. Have you found a muffler that would work? Anyone else tried this or have any ideas?

[beebo]

Thanks Soupy! That is exactly what I'm going to do. I guess I haven't really posted much on the exhaust, but the downpipe will exit out the engine bay and travel down the firewall inside the wheel-well. Then it will run inside that channel between the frame and the body. This channel is big enough to hide a 12" and a 24" glass pack with some notching of the body mount brackets of course. I've been thinking of even putting a high flow cat in the wheel well because I really don't want un-catalyzed exhaust coming out right where I'm sitting. I feel like a turbo, a cat, and 36" of glass pack mufflers should be pretty tame noise-wise. The exhaust is 2.5" diameter, and I the mufflers are 3.5" O.D. I've welded up the tips already, and it will be two 2.5" pipes coming out at about 45 degrees and then slant-cut. Then I'm going to make a little heat shield plate to go around the exhaust exit for the body. I haven't decided what I'm going to spend my off day tomorrow working on. It's either exhaust welding, brake caliper rebuilding, or knocking things off the honey-do list. We'll see!

[SOUPY]

I'm likin it! I haven't thought about glass pack style mufflers running inside the rocker box area. I was leaning more towards a flowmaster with both in and out on same end so the muffler would be behind drivers seat as much as possible. Don't forget how hot a cat might get in your placement of things! Good luck on the project and keep the post coming.