Thanks bro All of this will come in due time, i will try to update it in the right order For current status check out Team Lovetap on Facebook! Im working on the first update right now Will do!! They are custom made by me but i have molds for them so i can make more //Mårten
Update 5/9 Update! Long time no see! I Think its time to try to get this project thread up to date, don't you think? Here we go! During this time (february) the chassi was at my Sponsor Madperformance and getting some work done to it, i had to keep my focus up and do all the thing i could without having the chassi in the garage. I started looking on some of the wiring and such! I collected all the sensors, boxes and wiring harnesses and started to look at all the functions i need/want in the car. Then i took the Wiring harness and started to sort it out in groups depending on sensor placement in the car to get a little head start when the chassi returns.. I also used the time to figure out all the wiring for all the lights and other electrical gear that I'm gonna use from the original system, might as well do this now than later While i had some more time on my hands I put some more effort in to looking for new sponsorships and different associates that could help me out with the build! The work i put in gave some results, and I'm happy to welcome Nuke Performance from Gothenburg as my new sponsor! Nuke Performance supports me by providing me with some of their fuel system products, Im gonna be running their swirl tank with this Double 044 mounting, Blowoff valve, Fuelpressure regulator and a new fuel rail for the Mercedes engine! Their product has some of the best finish in the business and I'm really proud to have them in my build! At the same time i managed to get in contact with MBSCA Shoppen who came onboard and helped me with a cracking deal on this CLK 63 AMG bodykit! Incredible fitment and really light Frp parts, I can really recommend this kit! Big Thanks for your support! I couldn't keep my self from making some visits at MadPerformance to check out the progress off the build! They started working on the Steering Angle kit first, the plan has changed a bit from the first plan when we were thinking about going with the S14 front subframe.. Now we are using the Clk original subframe to be able to compete in Europe, because there the regulations state that you have to use the original subframe both in the front and in the back! Better to do it the right way this time than to it further ahead when we are moving to the european series! The steering angle will be about 55 degrees parallel, about 20 degrees more than i ever had on the 190 While the car was at MadPerformance i also took the time to measure in the window sliders, i need to do this because no one is making plastic windows for this body. so i have to make a special order where i send them cut outs of the windows and they will make a custom set of windows from these cut outs During this period of time we were getting closer and closer to the carshow the build would be displayed at the first time, there for we wanted to release these renderings of what the end result was thought to look like A huge thanks to my Sponsor Seidoworks that made these renderings possible! I have to say we came pretty damn close to this! Dat ass though? Thats all for now, I'm gonna try to get the next update up soon! //Mårten Team Lovetap
Thanks man i know this was kind of a tease, but the next one you will get a more interesting update //Mårten
[Update 16/9 The days were turning in to years during february and march because of some delays with the rollcage and chassi, so i tried to find things to do without having the body in the garage… One thing i could do while not having the body, was the wing mount. I wanted to make something different and decided to make a try with a tube mount, and i have to say im pretty pleased with the result! But Finally the 21 of march it was time to pick up the chassi, and start prepping the car for the big carshow that we were going to unveil the build at. This carshow started the 3 of april so we only had 13 days to prep the car, so i took these days of from work and kind of accepted the fact that i wasn’t going to get any sleep during these 2 upcoming weeks.. Which isnt far from the truth To get the chassi back in the garage felt awesome and Madperformance has done an amazing work with the rollcage and suspension! It´s nice to know that the rollcage and suspension arms are built by a professional! But we didn’t have time to enjoy the moment for long, we had a lot of things to do in a very short time period. So we pushed the chassi in to the garage and started to adjust the ride height to get a estimated driveheight, this isn’t an easy task when you are stressed out.. But in the end we had a good ride height and we started working on welding the wheelhouses, making better cuts in the wheel arches, seat mounts, pedalbox mount and a hell of alot more! Im truly blessed to have these kind of friends that came down to the garage to help me out from the first day, I even had friends travel from my home town to help me out during the first and second weekend! Thats some real friends! So grateful to have you guys in my life! The one thing we knew was going to be the biggest challenge was to get 4 one off fender flares done in time.. We had to come up with a design, make molds and then mold the flares out of these molds. So we immideatly started working on getting the shape done of one of the fender flares, luckily we had the 3d designs to get a bit of a headstart. But the car ended up alot wider than we originaly thought it would be, so we had to find a way to build these extra wide fender flares without making them look wierd… We used a kind off plastic to get the first shape done, this involved alot of cutting, glueing and grinding. When the first fender flare started to take shape after about 2 days, it was time to even the surface out with body filler and make sure we didnt have a too uneven surface because this would then be transfered to the molds which would be bad for the end result.. this was even more time consuming.. here you see the process we went through on all 4 fender flares, the last pics of these shows when we took the molds of the plastic shaped flare. We put alot of time in to making the molds rigid so we wouldnt have problem making more flares from the same molds. While we were working on the flares the other guys focused on sanding the rollcage and body so our friend Texon could swing by and put his magic to work! We continued with out Minty theme and painted the Rollcage in the team color! I remembered feeling positive when i finally saw some real results in the middle of all the chaos! During these days i hardly got any sleep, i got around 3-4 hours of sleep during three days, but it still wasnt close to done. We still had 2 more molds to do before we could the the flares molded from these… To understand how tight the time table was, this photo was taken just 2 days before the carshow… After this night my body couldnt take it anymore and i collapsed in the garage, i couldnt stop shaking, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep and hardly could walk. Luckily my friends kept and eye out for me and had a friend swing by to help me get some food in my system, because i was living in the garage these 13 days i didnt have any food there. So my friend came by with some food and a pill to balance the water levels in my body again, after a couple of hours i started to feel better and got around 20 minutes of sleep and managed to pull off the last 2 days without sleeping before the car show^^.. The hard work continued and this is the car just one day before leaving for the car show, at this stage everything felt like running a marathon but i wasn’t going to give up now. Because if i would have done that the other 12 days of hard work would have been for nothing and i wasnt going to let that happen! After we had been forced to move the booked time for paint until the last night before going to the car show we were finally on the way to Texon to get the body painted! As you can see on the picture we still hadnt got the molds of the car when we arrived at the paint shop, we took these off just before rolling in to the paintbooth and at this time it was less than 25 hours before we had to leave for the show! About 4 hours later the car was back in the shop and we had already gotten a lot of the assembly done, My garage buddy Nicklas helped out to get the new windscreen mounted and that wouldnt had been done if it wasn’t for him! During the last night we worked our asses off to mold the finished flares that were going to be painted just a short while before leaving for the car show. While these were going through hardning we mounted the rest off the parts on the car, like seats, back window, wing mount, trunk and a whole lot more! When the flares were finally done we went directly to Texon to get them painted along with the hood and some other parts that were missed the night before! By this time there was only a couple of hours before we had to leave town.. I dont really know where to begin thanking all the people who helped out during these weeks, but i know one thing and that is a special thanks to my friend and mechanic Stefan Engström who took time of from his work during the last week to work day and night to get the car done! So incredibly thankful for all the help you guys did during this time, im speechless! With not a minute to spare we managed to get the car ready for loading and get on the road to the Bilsport Performance and Custom Show in Jönköping! What a miracle we have pulled off guys, its insane! From an gentleman Mercedes to a Drifting Mercedes! Such a great feeling to see this results after all these days of work! After the 2 hour drive with Bagdad (The Car transporter) we arrived in Jönköping and the car was rolled in to the show area, im so insanely proud of the fact that we managed to get the car this good looking with the time we had to work with! ;D 13 days (Including 24 hours of sleep) later we finally were at the show! The amount off physical and psycological terror we put our bodies through was all worth it when we in the end had reached our goal! It felt even better when we recieved a lot of positive reactions on the car and i felt good to see that i wasn’t the only one who liked the look of the car! Once again i want to thank all of my friends that were there for me when i needed it the most! You guys rock! Off course i want to thank all off my sponsors who made this build possible! You guys also rock! To be continued… /Mårten Stångberg Team Lovetap
Quality read fella and your one hard-core lad for putting all that time in before the show. But I can't help wanting more pics of the bloody car it's 100% perfect. I wouldnt change one thing onit. Have you managed to drive it in anger yet? How does feel? I'm starting to sound like a right fan boy best calm down.
Big thanks man always fun to hear stuff like this! Unfortunatly i have faced a numerous problem with parts not arriving and being delayed, there for we havent drifted it yet but we are finally making progress again and we are hoping to get a test before winter strikes I will add more pictures of the car during the next update /Mårten
for your efforts!! But don't do that again The perfect example of the statement "every race car is a show car"
After this night my body couldnt take it anymore and i collapsed in the garage, i couldnt stop shaking, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep and hardly could walk. Luckily my friends kept and eye out for me and had a friend swing by to help me get some food in my system, because i was living in the garage these 13 days i didnt have any food there. So my friend came by with some food and a pill to balance the water levels in my body again, after a couple of hours i started to feel better and got around 20 minutes of sleep and managed to pull off the last 2 days without sleeping before the car show^^.. mother of god, thats commitment!! bordering on insanity never has the light hearted premise of a car show been so close to the limits of human endeavor, 'survivor' type ordeal. the end result is a masterpiece, and I am sure all you need to do is look at it and the death defying build is worth it! I look forward to see this car drifting with the exact level of excitment as I reserve for (hopefully) seeing humans land on Mars
An update here would be nice, what your plan for 2016 Mårten and what have you done since the last update ?
