Nikita, the Alpine `87 325is REVISED getting built for the track!

[kingston]

Gotcha...Kinda at the same place with Spec E30 right now. Just SOOO darn much money to do it, and I can get my kicks racing Chump Car in Lilo the Chump Car Racer. It's relatively cheap comparatively, and you get a LOT of track time!

So Nikita will definitely end up being a track car...but not sure if she'll be a SE30 car.

On a side note...Adam says you're doing his cage. I'd be interested in talking to you about the cost of you doing mine as well...

[IronFreak]

Yeah man totally! I have never done a cage in a car, that being said I built custom handrails for a long time as well as other items. I told Adam we'll "mess up" my car first so we can do it right in his hahaha. I don't think it'll be to hard, I just need to get a decent bender, I have all the other stuff I need. I think on mine I'm going to do a standard roll bar setup and have the guys at my work do the bending on it. I have bendtech software, so if I can start to create templates of the main hoops and what not I can either A. have my shop bend them for me, or B. buy a bender and do it myself. If you have decent math abilities you can make just about anything!

[kingston]

Sounds like you guys have several cages lined up now for other people. Might have to add me to the list!

[swolfe]

Interesting thread. I'm also starting a SE30 build, but I am doing things in a different order. First up is the underside of the car -- suspension and exhaust. Right now I'm just tearing the car apart, soon it will start going back together. Then I'll use it for DD/HDPE/autox this year, and strip/cage it next year. At least that's the plan!

[kingston]

Swolfe,

I have another car that is my temporary track car. As soon as I get the cage installed in the car, all the goodies will get installed on Nikita :)

I look forward to hearing about updates on your car!! You doing the SE30 exhaust? I planned on driving my car to events, so I was planning on keeping the stock exhaust...

[kingston]

I had a little time to wrench on my own cars today, and got a bit more done on Nikita...

Got all the wiring removed from the floor of the passenger side of the car.

No more power windows, power locks, power mirrors or speaker wires.

A little bit of the stuff I threw away today...

Fuel filler lock actuator, sunroof drain tubes, miscellaneous other electrical garbage.

What I'm sorting through currently...

I'm being very cautious with what I remove. I fired up the car today. She runs great, idles fine, all turn signals, headlights, brake lights, gauges, etc still work fine!!

More soon!

[IronFreak]

Looks like you had a nice clean car inside! I thought it was normal....until I saw Adams Euro and Zinno, man these things can get serious cancer. Mine was spotless, only rust on the whole car is front jacking locations and under the truck weather stripping.

[kingston]

IronFreak,

Yeah, I consider myself pretty lucky. There is a little on the passenger side floor pan, back by the rear bench, but it's been wire-brushed away & will be treated with an anti-corrosive primer. The whole car was really straight, clean and rust-free!

[kingston]

I finally bit the bullet and started cutting wires off of the harness. Prior to this, I'd just been unplugging things; I hadn't actually CUT anything.

Dropped this off the harness:

That's the wiring to each door for the power locks, power windows, power mirrors & speakers, and the switches for each.

There's still a bit more to cut out (OBC & Overhead Check Panel are both going away). After that, it's time to start re-wrapping the whole harness.

Also picked up a few things from my friend Ross Gredys over the weekend. Most of this stuff is going on Siobhan, my current DD/track car, but the tie rod ends & control arms with new ball joints are for Nikita :)

Ultimately, ALL this stuff will be on Nikita, but Siobhan will continue to be my track car for the rest of this year. I've started saving for the cage for Nikita, but that will happen much later this year. I won't track Nikita until she's got her cage in, since I've cut out the sunroof cartridge. Doing so weakens the whole structure, so no track until I have a cage, and have the sunroof skin welded back on!

More soon!

[kingston]

More updates coming this weekend! Minor ones, but still ones that I'm excited about!!

[kingston]

So, I've got some parts on order for Nikita, and the first of them arrived:

Crappy cell picture of the new Houndstooth door cards. Why Houndstooth door cards on a track car?

Because DTM, baby!

One of the cars that is inspiring this build :)

Also on order is a set of Treehouse racing CABS. Can't wait to start re-assembling the car, instead of taking it apart!

More soon!

[canakami]

That interior shot is the business. Very nice, sir.

[kingston]

That interior shot is the business. Very nice, sir.

Sadly, that's not my car! It's one of the old DTM E30 M3s; it's just the inspiration for my interior. So far, I have the Recaro Pole Positions, an Italvolanti Formel steering wheel, the manual window regulators, the houndstooth door cards, and the MASSIVE DTM gauge panel/ LOTS to do still!

[kingston]

Here's what I've yanked out of the car, wiring-wise, to date:

That's a lot of spaghetti! Very happy to be removing clutter from Nikita!

[LJ851]

I love removing wires.

Nice work.