Moving, Building and Socializing. -Muscle pain and headache

There was mixed activities going on this weekend in the Salt Slush Racing garage and the main topic was not the Amazon, even if Magnus ensured a certain progress. No, this weekend moving was on the agenda.

 

Andreas, who's been a garage member since 2006 is leaving us and instead Karl-Johan and Magnus from the Salt Slush team takes his place.

 

Mario & Gitte Felker who had hired a place from Andreas took their Alfa home to Germany and hence we had the possibility to have another farewell party . I think it was the forth...

 

Also Ragnar got all his English stuff together and he's now a lucky owner of two well working (!) sporty vehicle with English heritage. Happy as can be after this success, he prepared the Lotus Exige for a track day that took place Sunday. Maybe we'll see him again on Monday in the garage...

Saturday lunch: This shouldn't take too much time. Drive out Mario's Alfa and move out some stuff and then we're good. Or not...

...two hours later.

 Carina's C20...

...and our Chevy Van...3 hours later.

It turned out that as well Petter had filled up Andreas place with stuff and he was happy to see his parts again. At least SOME of the parts. 

Sun was shining and suddenly there was a relaxing moment.  

Except for Magnus who's constantly makes sketches and models.

 From ideas to practical shape in matter of seconds. Rapid Prototyp Classic = Magnus in action.

 This is the leftovers from Ragnar's Mini Service, let's call it Service B (B as in Big service)

   

In most peoples mind a Lotus Exige 240 has certain limitations as a daily driver. Ragnar doesn't understand that at all. Especially not when he is happily prepare for a track day. My own Corvette C6 feels like an reasonable, comfortable commuter in comparison. 

Gods take part in our transformation process

God of Speed is not aligned with the God of Rain and Thunder. I know for sure because the later always makes it rain on our parade. God of Speed has however been merciful to most of us most of the time, so far...

What I mean?

In order to make the magic things happen a little bit work a lot of time and some hardware are normally needed.  Today, Magnus and I decided to arrange some hardware in order to let the magic in. The magic process of transforming paper and Kindergarten stuff to real steel, to a raw machine, to something speedy and beautiful.

The overall excellent Göteborgs Handelstål, a steel supplier in Gothenburg, was the target for our lunch tour this sunny dry spring day in Gothenburg.

Since a relaxing lunch at work is a bit overrated we decided to borrow Carinas C20 pick and hit the dry sunny road for an hectic hour of sheet metal transport.

But of course, as soon as we've loaded the sheet metal on the truck bed the rain started to pour down on our bare sheet metal. And as usually we were wet as dogs when we were heading back to work, in the sun...

Rain on our parade, Carina truck and the sheet metal

Long beds are sometimes wounderful.

 

 An aluminum example: Small wheel house is equal to less drag and more speed and hence Magnus and Anders are in the process of creating two of these.

Before: An early man 3D wheel house model ditrectly from Kindergarten

 After: The first installed all-aluminum TIG welded wheel house



 To be replaced with sheet metal within soon.

 

The EFR 7163 turbo and the Indy V6. Eyewitness report

Sometimes I get following question:

- I've heard rumors that the EFR turbos are used in the Indycar series, but is this really true?

 

The answer is: Yes, it's true. I've seen it with my own eyes. Both Chevrolet and Honda are using the dual BorgWarner EFR 7163 single scroll with aluminum bearing house for their respective 2,2L V6 DI Indy engines.

 

These engine are running on E85 fuel and revs up to 12000rpm and reach up to 700hp (320hp/l) during race.

 

I had last week the possibility to see an Indy exhibition where the engines were exposed and yes, they were equipped with EFR 7163.

 

The Chevrolet Indy engine specification

The Chevrolet Indy Engine. Rear view

The EFR 7163 turbo with aluminum bearing house and all the normal EFR bells and whistles...nice to look at as well as a performance enhancer sent from heaven.

Engine wrestling, papercrafts and weekend progress

When others slept tight in their Sunday morning beds....our all nighter...

...Ragnar went up early to wrestle with a supercharged engine ( Remark: he's a hardcore carguy who's only driving cars with supercharged engines and English heritage. Lotus Exige 240hp in the summer and this Mini contraption during the winter) 

 

Seem like we have a winner...Ragnar vs Workshop devil: 1-0

 

But how about the Salt Slush Racing team? Have we all gone a-sleep? Hell now...but we've all moved back mentally to Kindergarten. We bought a roll of, what in Swedish is referred to as "milk cartoon paper" and went in to paper craft.

Waste from the process.

To calm down Anders played the piano. A stress relief in absence of weld splatter and milling chips. We all have our ways... 

 Voila! We're sealing the deal, or rather, sealing the drivers compartment step by step.

Next step? Transforming the interior from paper to sheet metal. Right picture: Before and after in the same picture.

 

Bedplate, bearings and boost. The inside story.

We all know that mechanical things in general and combustion engine in particular can be beautiful. Our well maintained (?) Volvo 6 cylinder turbo engine is no exception. 

To study the aluminium block with the cast-in steel liners and its bedplate with the cast in nodular 4 bolt iron inserts is a pure joy. When the dim light in the workshop cast rays of lights over the steel crankshaft with a main bearing diameter of 65mm (2,55 inch) a carguy, with a crave for power and torque, feels just fine.

When torchlight flicker around in the crankcase and you get reminded of well positioned piston cooling jets, another wave of warm feelings flows through my soul.

Then I got nervous. Will the dry cam transmission belt be durable in racing? Can you trust experienced Volvo tuners that tells us that the cam belt transmission is reliable as a door stop? We'll find out in the end, but for now we're believers.

And again, I got nervous! Because I know that the old style cylinder head gasket in this Volvo N3T engine can't take the heat and pressure! What to do ?! Can this be solved?

All of the sudden I remember, I remember the Volvo part no. 8670214 and for my inner eye I could see a shining new Volvo N3T MLS head gasket. This gasket of you dreams is availalbe as a post production update from Volvo. Isn't that just great? 

At this point, I felt exhausted after an emotinal roller coaster, which only a rather small percentage of the people can understand.

To be continoued...

Loboto-ma-tic Less Brain No Pain

Loboto-ma-tic, Less Brain-No Pain could it be a way to enable sucessfull +200 mph runs.

No, we are not in to politics or what is the best way to set up the society, we are only searching for the key to speed.

Last week at work a long time colleague shoved me below "faked advertise" from Svenska Dagbladet June the 4th 1991. It was probably a teaser in an ongoing debate at that time. Probably as valid today as then.

An obedient citizen is maybe not the rigth driver to pass 200 mph, so based on that non of us has made the decision to use below offer  of Loboto-ma-tic.  

What a wonderful world.

Satisfied patient. even friend with tax man, paradise ?

Honestly what is a good citizen !

No Pain No gain makes more sense.

Hummmm

Times are a-changing...really?

We're all living in modern times aren't we? Everything has changed. Nothing's really like it's used to be in the good ol' days... internet has taken over totally. But once a upon a time people were bored as well as risk taking and were looking for excitement. They didn't really the have time to constantly bend their head down to look at a small polished screen in the search for useless information.

No, in those days of past glory, people were fully occupied with their life while they were modifying and hot rodding a 20-30 year old cheap-as-chips vehicle (or rather fragments of one) to make it go faster with a more modern engine, all in order to release stress, energy and frustration captured from whatever source. Wasn't so?

If you, in those early days of hot rodding, couldn't afford your undefined need for speed and had energy enough, you stared a speed shop, from which you tried to provide the best enablers for power. To help others to find what they were looking for.

Those were the days. I wish I could travel back in time and experience this period, with the make-it-your self-attitude...when...but hold on now...I recognize this story... 

...from somewhere and somehow I get the feeling that nothing has really changed
 

Here's our almost 45 year old soon to be Land Speed Racing Amazon, which we have bought as a piece of shit from some local, happy hillbillies. We've chopped the top made a frame and we're about to tune a more modern engine to its limit with the latest and greatest aftermarket technologies. No, it's not a 32' roadster with a Hemi engine...and we're not in the late fifties in the US of A. Instead it's a Volvo Amazon with a fantastic ready-to-boost Volvo all aluminum turbo inline 6 cylinder engine from a 10 year old vehicle.

 

Why this picture? What does it show? It's the Salt Slush Racing team members together with a certified fast-as-a-shark race driver (and Salt Slush Racing customer to a +1000hp capable 9180EFR turbo).I'm talking about Robert Antonsson, second from the left.

But how about the Speed Shop? Are there any real speed shops today managed by gearheads? 

Well we've understood that +200mhp t-shirt is expensive...as a consequence, we've started speed shop, which should be like the holy grail of turbocharging, from which knowledge and good stuff comes. Good stuff that helps people make their powerful dreams come truth.
 
But how about speed, boost and combustion engines? Is there a new generation of hot rodders and racers coming up? I mean after all the Model A, The 32's, the Camaro & Mustangs & Challengers as well as Supra and Beemer and Volvo fans will be buried... 

I think so...