A team with no name goes racing.

Why not ZRT?  Zonda Racing Team.

Or just team Zonda.

Or Datzonda.

Or Gallant Mystical Shi...  oh, wait.  That one's taken.  

We specifically didn't want to tie our team name to a specific car or manufacturer, in case we change cars in the future.

Justin and I have been discussing a second vehicle that is very different from this one. All theoretical at this point and very hush-hush but the zonda nameplate would not fit.

We picked a team name based on a lower performance fuel, and we couldn't be happier with the niche we have put ourselves in. Just the other night we discussed TDI swapping a GC8.

Trust me, there are dumber ways to name the team.

At the last event we attended there was an early crash. An over-eager front runner made a sketchy pass around an amateur team who wasn't paying much attention to what was behind them.  Blame can be thrown one way or the other but the fact is a car was totaled and a driver was hospitalized with minor, non-life threatening injuries. We don't want this to happen to us. we discussed the situation among ourselves, eager to glean whatever lessons we can from it.

Driven has spotted the anti-intrusion bars fitted in the car that he believes greatly reduced the injuries suffered by the driver. I think he is right.

We will most likely be incorporating these into our cage.

The second car involved was a very green team, a lot like us, and they sort of drifted into the side of the passing car as if they didn't know they were there.

I have picked up a wide angle mirror and modified it's mountings to work with our cage. We have not come up with a side mirror solution yet, although I did see a 4th gen trans am with fender mount mirrors that might just fit the bill.

Watching some of the in car vids of the different racers I noticed many cars run a rear view camera. After looking into it I discovered that they really aren't that expensive for a basic no frills setup. So... no real reason not to.

Another week and the kidless amongst us did get some work done on the car.

Ian has gotten the radiator plumbing figured out. Despite our best efforts, it did require some firewall cutting, although a lot less than would have been nessesary if we used rhe stock honda peice.

The engine came out again, so we could prep it to receive the trans permanently.

The starter has arrived and we test fit it. Much to our surprise, it looks like it will work, but along with everything else on this beautiful disaster, it will require custom bolts.

The Excedy clutch is aligned and the rear main seal was replaced, might as well do that while we're here.

Excitement grew as we readied to marry the engine and trans, and then we realized we would need to custom make a spacer for the clutch slave cylinder.

If we were running an auto we wouldn't have this problem... but I'll have to take some measurements and bribe my lathe guy with some booze and we'll be off.

Some over-zealous impact wrenching on what turned out to be a left hand thread meant we would be forced to replace the tensioner while we were at it we swapped the pulley for a 6 rib to facilitate the new belt routing.

It took several trips to the parts store to get what we needed. We dealt with one minimum wage counter-jockey who seemed willing to help but was hampered by the computer system, and another who seemed genuinely upset that we asked him to put forth a minimum amount of effort.

In the end we both forgot to get a belt.

When Brandon originally obtained this motor he did a few things to it, including some minor porting of the lower intake manifold, removing the flapper In the upper, and swapping the upper around do it would work in a RWD configuration.

Ian got to work attaching the wiring harness and found that the reversed manifold interfered with the harness in a few places, grinding commenced.

While he was doing that I climbed into the car to fit the new mirror. Adjustments will have to be made to driver's preference once the seat is installed, but I'm shocked by how much of the passenger side is visable here.

That was about as far as we could get with what we had on hand. I took measurements for window nets and I'm still looking for a viable side view mirror solution.

The cat herding continues.
 

The last thing preventing the engine and transmission from finally being mated together was an adapter spacer for the clutch slave. Thursday night a lathe opened up at work and I got on the horn with Ian. "Bring me the parts right now!"

A quick rummage through the offcut bin produced this good sized chunk of aluminum.

With the parts in hand and a rough spec we were able to make a plan.

CNC lathes are... just better.

having the mating parts on hand allowed us to adjust the dimensions for a guaranteed fit.

Thanks to a damn good machinist (not me... I don't do lathe work) we had a ready to deliver part in just a couple hours.

I wanted to mount it up on my mill and do the drilling, tapping and counterboring but Ian wasn't 100% on the final orientations, so he plans to finish the part on a drill press. but that should be ready to go.

We're looking at something like 65 days until the next event at the ridge. The checklist off the top of my head is as follows:
 

Car:

Engine and trans mating
Final engine mounting.
Run the fuel system.

Run the wiring.

cooling fan.

weld firewall.

install hood pins and brackets.

finish cage.

install nets.

Harness install.

Install fire supression.

windshield install.

bend up and install front bumper.

build a splitter/ air dam.

headlight and rain lights.

paint car?

Buy spec tires and maybe new wheels.

at least three of the drivers need gear.

I need a few more things for pits.

It's a lot to do in a short amount of time. Stay tuned for the low key drama.

Change of plans. Rather than the Ranger parts we have decided to go with an LS slave cylinder. Why? I don't know, that's above my pay grade. but that means a new adapter will need to be machined. A bit more planning went into V2. Rather than a napkin with some scribbled dimensions we took careful measurements and even printed a prototype for test fitting.

Unfortunatly I wasn't able to find any scrap so I had to buy a few slugs to make this work. Since I was buying I opted to make 2. Why build one when you can have two for twice the price? I figure anything that isn't an off-the-shelf part should have a spare.

Tale as old as time, the engineers and the machinists butted heads. the full tapered edges looked great but presented difficulties with workholding. Since nothing actually interfaced with the edges we called an audible and redesigned it.

The lathe did the heavy lifting.

the flat sides allowed for both sides to be properly turned and enabled me to hold the part with some custom soft-jaws.

and hour of programming and 10 minutes of spindle time later we had parts. Well, parts of parts. The bottom was tougher as there wasn't any way to hold the top, as there was a taper. I used the existing holes to bolt it to a plate and mounted that into a standard vise.

fun and exciting...

This little part has been keeping us from marrying the engine and trans and hopfuly now we can make some progress.