My '75 2002 Sleeper

[goarmy]

2002

great job so far

[e30polak]

You sir have some serious skills! :bow:

This car will be epic when finished, keep up the hard work!!! :up:

[tinkwithanr]

damn looks a bit chewed up. but we've all seen what you can do and admire your ambition.

That there's a big 'ol project. You're doing a great job!

You sir are going to make one hell of a 2002. great work! im looking forward to seeing the final result!

Thanks guys. Glad you have faith in me, I'm gonna need it!




While I don't have any pics of the blasting progress (I just finished replacing the last of the stock parts on the sand blaster besides the pot itself, grrr), I figured I could at least share some of the recent parts purchases.

First I broke down and picked up some Blare Spot-Weld cutters. A bit late considering i already removed the nose panel, but I'm sure I'll need it for other parts here shortly. These are particularly slick in that they have a spring loaded centering pin that retracts as you drill. To start, you 'punch' the metal in the center of the spot weld, and then drill until your through the first layer of metal. Much better than the 0.25" drill bit I was using before lol.





Next up my e36 rear diff cover came in. I decided to use this because of the dual rear mounting ears compared to the single ear on the e30 diff. Also, this will let me swap in one of Rogue Engineering's fancy finned diff covers down the line (http://www.rogueengineering.com/rogue/DC/DC_E36.html).

Ignore my 1 minute bead blasting job, I just wanted to knock the grime off.



Should bolt right up with some slight modifiations.




Last but definitely not least was the start of my fuel system. For the past month I have been trying to decide what route to take with my fuel supply. I could keep the stock tank with an e30 318 fuel pump, but that would probably be well undersized for my final power goals. Which means I would have to replace it in the near future, not something I wanted to do. Then there is also the issue of how 'safe' the stock fuel tank is, along with the lack of internal baffling and a single pick up. This would lead me to need to use a surge tank setup, which only adds complexity to the fuel delivery system. This lead me to look into fuel cells, but most of the ones I came across were unsatisfactory. Pretty much all of them used foam for their internal baffling (if they had any at all), which degrades over time. It also doesn't stand up to e85 fuel very well at all, and since I'm planning to use that under boost, none of those tanks would work.

Then I came across the Aeromotive line of Stealth Fuel Cells. Initially I thought they were very overpriced, until I realized that they came with an internal prefilter, pump, and fuel sender all in one package. But by far the best aspect for me was that they use an internal baffling system to keep fuel around the pickup of the pump at all times. This was key for me, because I plan to drive the car very hard, so starvation is a big concern. The specs of my tank in particular are:

15 Gallons (20x18x10) - fits in the stock location for the most part (slight modification required
Internal A1000 Pump - rated for up to 1000hp in forced induction applications (or closer to 600hp in e85, which gives me enough room to work with)
GM 90 Ohm fuel sender - While not the 3-73 ohm range of the stock sender, it's close enough that I can make it work with some simple circuitry.


Shiny:


-10AN Outlet from the pump, that's a lotta fuel lol






Here you can see some of the baffling. The vertical tube on the left is the return line, it dumps back into the center of the tank which is also where the pickup for the pump is, separated by a small wall. If the fuel level gets low in the tank, the return will dump straight back into the baffle, keeping the remaining fuel by the pickup. The baffling also helps keep the pickup submerged during high side-loads (think long, high speed sweeping corners). You can see the pick up and the prefilter on the right side of the picture.




:woot:

[e30shmobberr]

You sir are going to make one hell of a 2002. great work! im looking forward to seeing the final result!

[ACHTUNG]

That there's a big 'ol project. You're doing a great job!