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Pe-arce's Mk1 Ford Escort Beams Powered Race Car


pe-arce

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Got home from holiday today so called in to see how the cage is looking.. And it looks awesome. Real happy with it.

Then went and got myself an early Christmas present... I don't know how fast ill be but at least I'll be able to stop quickly.

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Today was a good day.

Picked up the escort with the cage finished. Man it looks so good. Just wana sit looking at it.

Nick you are the man! Thanks so much for doing an awesome job. I totally recommend R&D Motorsport for all your roll cage needs.

Here's what you'll see as I come up in your rear view mirror..

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Then when I go past you..

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And then when your trying to catch me..

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Also these views once the race is finished and you come to check out my sweet car.

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Im motivated as to get this finished so Ive been trying to go hard in the shed every night with a goal to try and achieve. This prevents me from sitting there looking at it and pondering about things instead of working.

Last night i got the watts link finished.

I removed it and moved it up so the top of it sits flush with where the new boot floor will be. Only about 5mm or so, no biggy. Then i had to weld some more 3mm plates on the chassis rails and another length of rhs between the plates to brace the bottom of the watts triangle back to.

This should prevent any unintentional scrapes or knocks from ripping off the watts link.

and gives me to solid bars in the boot for mounting the fuel tank onto.

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Tonight's effort..

Made some bulk bourbon to save trips back into the house.

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Quenched some thirst then got stuck in.

Welded up the tunnel I tacked up last night, then cut out a sheet of ally to rivet down for the boot floor. Not riveted yet cause it'll probably need to come in and out a few times while sorting the fuel system.

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Shot of the finished watts link.. Will have to change the diff mounts over from one side to the other though to give clearance for the exhaust to go under the diff and watts link arm on the left side.

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Then I got on with the new parcel tray.

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Been a shed hermit after tea the last few nights. Got the rest of the tunnel welded in.

Was gutted, had planned to tig the tunnel up cause if I'm sitting there driving I don't want a shitty looking mig weld distracting me so got out the new tig torch I got as cause I snapped the head off the old one and all the guts didn't fit in it due to being different thread sizes, gay.

Was pissed off about it and don't know when I'll be able to get the right bits so cranked the mig up and started fizzing it up anyway.

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Then i bunged the seat back in to find the most comfortable place to put the handbrake.

Had to take the lever off and drill a new hole to make it verticle instead of horizontal.

Then I chucked this mount together and stuck it in place. It was a bit awkward to make because the place it's sitting on the tunnel is tapering inward and down as well as the corner radius getting tighter toward the middle, but it's fit up pretty nicely.

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This pedalbox however good it is to look at is a perfect example of a design engineer never having to work on the things they design and making them a cockup.

3 of the holes to mount it are located underneath the cylinders and needs just about complete deconstruction of the whole unit to get at them.

So for people like me who like to build adjustment into everything because racecar it becomes a total pain in the ass.

Let alone trying to adjust its position while tangled in cage under the steering column in the drivers foot well with hoses attached at the racetrack.

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My work around it has been to mount it to its own plate which will then be bolted to the new floor panel with slots for the nuts to go through.

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This gives me about 60mm of rearward adjustment of the pedal box, combined with 40mm of forward adjustment of the seat, gives me 100mm of driver position fine tuning.

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I am very excite.

Airbox doesn't fit unfortunately but you win some, you lose some. Will sort that another day.

For now, while stationary.. Open trumpets.

It's all Glenn's stuff.. Manifold, 50mm throttles, 2 stage, ram tubes and 1000cc sards for outboard injection.

Real pleased with them, good shit.

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Then I went and bought some exhaust stuff. 3" tube with glass pack offset-centre muffler.

I will be chopping the floor and adding a tunnel to keep the exhaust above the chassis rail. This means I should be able to run a straight pipe under the diff into the muffler then out the back. We'll see when I get it under there, hopefully get it in with no turns.

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Been working on the exhaust tunnel.

The exhaust will come straight off the headers and straight under the diff and out through the muffler with no more than about 5deg of bend after the headers and then no bends at all till the end.

Cut some floor to see where the pipe would run.

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Took some measurements and marked out the tunnel.

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Bent it up and then hammer and dollied the shit out of it to round it up a bit cause it was looking gay.

Slotted and tacked into place. Check out my sweet gear knob.hah

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Made the new crossmember up and over tunnel.

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Grabbed a pic of the headers while they were out. Upside down.. My bad

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  • 2 weeks later...

Took to the front panel with a hole saw. Must have been asleep while I marked it out cause I made a balls up of it. Looks ok from a distance. Just don't measure the hole centres.

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Got a driveshaft made up. Had heard of everyone's trouble running 1 piece shafts behind the beams so spoke to the guys making the shaft about it and they reckoned that it was too short to go to 2 piece and assured me that this would be capable of running up well over 10k rpm safely.It has brand new yokes and massive u-joints.

Hopefully it doesn't cause me problems cause it cost a small fortune.

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Got the steering hooked up. The top u-joint was binding using a single shaft from steering rack to firewall due to excessive angle so had to put another joint in with a big ugly agricultural rose joint. Joys of living in a small town. Will get a chromoly rose joint when I get up to chch next.

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The last few weeks have been pretty shit.

Our dog 'Bear', affectionately known as 'Piggy', who was a massive part of our lives got hit by a car.

He came with us everywhere and lived in the house with us and watched TV on the couch with us and was just with us constantly like a child. So without him has been real shit. I keep having these oh no I've forgotten about piggy moments cause he was with me all the time.

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Losing the pig combined with thinking about whether to chuck in farming and move back to chch to go engineering again has left me with very little motivation for work on the car.

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The mrs went away for a work trip last night so I got out in the shed and started chipping away again.

Got the watts mounts cut off and swapped sides and fully welded and braced them.

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Then before the diff went back in I had to do one of the jobs I've been putting off for ages. Had a bunch of grinding underneath to do so got all covered up and climbed underneath to breath some metal for a while.

Got the bits cleaned up and sprayed some paint around .

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About 15 years ago I bought this for $100.

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Then the gbox crapped out so I pulled the engine and box out and got it repaired but when i put it back together I couldn't remember how the wiring was supposed to go so couldn't get it running.

Fast forward to yesterday. Dragged it out of the shed to see if I'm less of a muppet than I was back then.

Found a wiring diagram online and sorted the wires out. Chucked in a new battery and some gas and she fired up straight away.

Got some tape out to repair the seat. And removed the jungle gym off the front.

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Parked up next to my $50 3 wheeler.

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