In late 1999 we tossed out our old race car & started work on a new one that looks almost like the old one. The new one is 8 inches shorter (height) & 1 inch narrower than the old one. We bought a new motor that’s about twice the HP of any of our older ones. The new motor is an Hayabusa 1300cc (about 175-200HP) We won’t be running the new motor at first though, we want to test the car with a smaller - 750cc (about 70-75HP) motor first. We are somewhat behind on construction right now since the first race in May 6th. It looks like we will make the first race but with out the canopy, rear cowling or paint.
News of 4/9/01
James & I spent Saturday the morning working on the electrical system in our garage. In the afternoon we went over to James’s work (without the car) to try to remove the female mold from the template.
male mold template ready at the fiberglass
shop, doesn’t it look cool! - wait 'till you see the pictures below...
We spent 3-4 hours trying to pry the mold
and model apart.
We finally pry them apart but destroyed
the male model in the process, that’s ok it was going into the trash any
way.
Tonight we’ll try to remove the final pieces of the mold. We took the damaged male mold over to the dumpster with a forklift but decided to see just how tough it was. After 2 drops from about 10 feet. the plywood base came off but the mold was still going strong, just a lot of chips taken off.
I even tried to stand on the part but
it easily held me up. We dropped it one more time to see if it would crack
with out the plywood. Nope, just more chips. We tossed the the remains
into the dumpster.
Sunday, our partner Mark came up from San Diego. We welded in lots of brackets, did a lot more work on the electrical system and more work on the fire wall and steering system.
We started the engine a few months ago but it’s been sitting quiet since then. This coming weekend, we’ll be doing the last items before starting it again. We hope to drive it under it’s own power this Saturday afternoon.
Many of you haven’t been getting regular updates before this, If you have any questions please let me know, I love to chat about the car project. I have lots of older photos I can email to any one interested.
Next update should be Monday the 13th.