Steering!
The last of the fabrication in the steering crossover area. An extra pair of bars have been added - not just for rigidity, but the rule book stipulates that any such bars can be a maximum of 6" apart, so the extra pair just split the difference to ensure compliance (with some aesthetic sweeps built in, for the sake of fancy).
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The steering wheel (called a butterfly) is in. I forgot to throw it in with everything else to be anodised...hence why it's still gold...it's on the to do list.
The puke tank that sits behind the cage is also in (just visible in the photos above), will get some decent photos of that shortly. Then it's onto the wheelie bar. If I get time at the weekend I'll waffle in some detail about that, as it's not actually a wheelie bar in function...
I'm still wondering how on earth you're going to fit in there data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
In all honesty, it's quite comfortable - my elbows are a bit squeezed into my ribs, and my right foot dangles in the air a bit, but some pockets in the seat and a heel rest plate should sort that.
In the event of needing a quick exit, there's room to stand up to get out via the escape hatch (more crucial for the licensing escape test when you're blindfolded and have 8 or 10 seconds to get out from a fully belted-in position).
On a slightly related note, I might end up adding a poured seat to provide some more lumbar support (similar to an F1 style seat where foam is liquid poured in around the driver and sets with the aid of a mixing agent). We'll see how that goes though - I've always been a bit old school and slummed it with a tin seat data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
All I can say is I'm insanely jealous of you !!!
It's been a long journey, and there's still 5 months to go. It's alarming when I look back that it was 2014 when I started the build; other individuals have built cars from scratch in a matter of months (cash flow being king in those cases).
I think it'll be nice when it's finished, hopefully well presented (even in black primer), and well engineered data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7. The alternative was to buy a house, but I wasn't ready to grow up...
A quick update, the photos explain better what's going on really...
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Back on the floor, rolling - all the chemical blacking has been done, wheels and tyres back on, steering crossover done and the puke tank mounted in the rear tree. The best compliment you can give a re-engineered chassis is that it looks like a new build. I think we've achieved that - with just the wheelie bar (and a complicated brake handle, more on that soon) to do, it's time to get the body mounted and tinned. Job's a good'un.
"Does my bum look big with those tyres?"
One I forgot to upload at the weekend - it'll be a worse view still when the body's mounted, as you're looking through a letterbox with your post sat in the middle data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
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The firewall that'll be built into the body, will have what's called a doghouse to encase the back of the blower and injector - called that as it's pretty much an upside down dog house.
To explain the steering wheel, the centre mouted plate has some holes visible, one is for the air shifter button, I believe the other two had a function for other buttons in a previous life - namely as where a switch was located for a manual high speed lean out of the fuel system at the top end.
Ordinarily you feed these engines as much fuel as you can find, what you encounter though is the efficiency / output curves of the fuel pump and supercharger aren't the same. The supercharger tends to become less efficient at higher speeds, and with the fuel volume being based on engine speed, can only increase with engine rpm (to its dictated fuel flow limit in accordance with the rules). A high speed lean out takes fuel away from the engine to maintain or alter the fuel air mixture. These are normally pressure induced with a poppet valve - at a certain fuel pressure, it bypasses fuel back to the tank rather than through the barrel valve into the engine.
The advantage of a manual high speed is it allows the driver to do it whenever they like; normally after you've slammed it into high gear and the engine rpm drops, you might take fuel away to bring the engine rpm back up. This is over the course of about a second, roughly 4.0 seconds into a run, having changed gear at around the 3.0-3.5 second mark.
In the Nostalgia Funny Car rules, a 21.0 gallon pump is quite small, meaning you aren't producing enough fuel to actively be wanting to take any of it away on a run, unless you have a brand new blower with an inlet shoe that helps it stay on song at the top end. In this instance, it's just a regular race spec job, so every drop of glorious nitromethane goes through the engine data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7.
Back in the 70's when you were allowed to use innovation and different approaches, there were all manner of weird and wonderful ways to play with the fuel system on a run. Since you don't use the clutch pedal on a run, one very clever chap devised a rocker pedal that with some heel or toe action could either fatten up or lean the fuel system out at any point. Quite novel and it didn't really catch on, in that form at least. Years later when clutch and fuel timers in big show Top Fuel and Funny Car came in, the ability to control fuel volume at a set point in a run became a numbers game, predetermined via computer.
In other news, the tin work is back from anodising (I wish I'd remembered the steering wheel needed 'un-golding'!). A nice dark green, photos soon when it's back in the car and fettled a little more.
I was going to mention that but thought better of it as you had got it all together data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
It'll get thrown in an anodising bath as soon as possible data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 It's under the 500mm x 500mm size limit at least - that was the snag on all the other parts and why it took so long to get them done //static.avforums.com/styles/avf/smilies/facepalm.gif