well phil came and collected the bodyshell today! so the car is back at driftworks ready for dynotorque to get blatting! just wanted to say thanks to phil and driftworks for choosing nickson motorsport to carry out the work, was a pleasure to be a part of the build and i cant wait to see the finished product out on track. i look forward to the updates on the build. cheers nick
Just got back to the workshop and the ae is back on its ramp , very very nice job !!! That's what I call a cage ))
The shells now back at home on Dynotorques ramps next door to Driftworks. It's about to have the rear arches cut out, and another world stretch of fabrication. In the mean time, here's some more pictures of Nicksons completed work. Moneyshot of Craigs calendars Here you can see the special work I asked Nick to do to protect my feet and lower legs in the event of a front corner impact. The idea of a wheel being pushed into the cabin and smashing me up wasn't particularly enticing Lot's of clearance in a side impact between the door and my seat. Doors trimmed to fit around the cage. We'll be fitting the Lexan windows soon. Thank gawd for pillared doors! GUSSETS! I'm going to look into having the interior, engine bay and floor media blasted before painting, as it's going to be a nightmare to prep by hand. Thanks again to Nickson Motorsport for the awesome work on the shell.
Happy days.. Even though its a mahoosive project, do u reckon its an overall more straightforward build than the 15, and a possibly more reliable end product with less things to go wrong??
It's a much more comprehensive build than the S15 in most ways. The shell prep has already hugely surpassed the work done to the S15. Simply because the S15 was a stronger more modern chassis before we started. The 86 would literally pull apart at the seams if we didn't go to the lengths we have so far, and we're still no where near finished with chassis prep. The engine setup is hopefully going to be very reliable, and the whole build is being done with the experience gained running cars for 10 years in competition, and knowing it's pretty much inevitable that you will end up having to do some emergency work while lying on the tarmac, or dirt in the rain. So we aim to have good clearance to work on any part we need to (where possible).
Lot's of fabrication going on at Dynotorque, so we should have a nice update later this week. In the mean time, check out what's just been delivered by Jenvey! LS Independent Throttle Body Kit with Prepreg Carbon Fibre Airboxes! Does it get any more delicious? Massive thanks to Jenvey for getting these over to us so quickly. Check out what they do at Fuel Injection Throttle Bodies and Induction Systems from Jenvey Dynamics - Jenvey Dynamics
This thing is a work of art, and there doesn't look like there was much of the car that hadn't been welded. How many hours in total was put into just the welds?
'Was'? It's still being welded daily. I absolutely dread to think how much time has gone into this chassis prep already, but I know it's more than 1 whole real of welding wire.
With the amount of disturbed metal (i.e. probably the whole car), are you going to be getting the shell dipped?
I've literally just been to find out about media blasting actually. I think I'm going to go for it, as I don't fancy hand prepping the interior and underside with all the work that's been done!
Fair point, it is far from finished i suppose. I do love to see a good build from the ground up though, really makes you appreciate the talent some people have for this kind of thing. And to get to tear it a new one at the end of it all must be immensely pleasing, if not frightening at the same time. I'm hoping to get down to Dynotorque in the next week or two, if Blair remembers to see Craig about getting my car in, so will make sure to have a good look over this whilst there!
The Driftworks R32 is almost ready for the British Drift Championship this weekend, so work has restarted next door on the 86. Today we're looking at the rear tubs, so here the rear axle is set to full bump (not to far from ride height). The tyres in the photo are 265, but we're building the inner tubs to clear 315 tyres (just in case) It should have mediocre lalalalalalalala
Looks awesome! Make sure you have some easy access to the gearbox linkage though. They have a tendency to jam randomly even with no rose joint play.
A 315 on a corolla that weighs next to nothing will just be fully retarded!!! Can't wait to see this go!
Just to be clear we're not planning on running 315's. More likely 265. But whilst doing fabrication like this I'm trying to anticipate any possibility to future proof the car. There's been a few jobs on previous builds that we've had to do twice because the first time around we though 'there's no way we're going to need that'
