The Lawn Dart

[Deceus]

It's funny. This build is such a full, real build, and nobody comments on it. I think we're all just sitting in amazement.

i am. this is way beyond my skills so i can't really contribute, just watch and learn.

Same. This is definitely one of if not the most "build" builds ever to grace this section, and it's been a trip seeing what you've had to put up with, but respect for your perserverance :thumbup:

The trick is to invest heavily into something that has little to no resell value. That way your only choices are to see it through or set it on fire haha. I'm REALLY looking forward to racing this thing but that's probably not happening until next year. May try to catch a refrigerator bowl if I put enough miles on everything and find a decent place to do the roll bar quickly.

Regardless I'm finding it really hard to not lock myself in the garage to knock everything out. Work has been pretty demanding the last few weeks and bike park season is rapidly running out so I'm trying to stay away from that idea. Already found a close shop willing to pick it up for the alignment and exhaust.

[Deceus]

She's alive boys and already scaring children. It revs so fast, I love it.

[ryangreen1]

It's funny. This build is such a full, real build, and nobody comments on it. I think we're all just sitting in amazement.

Same with me, I check in once every week or two and have nothing to add other than, wow that's awesome. Those gauges look amazing, its like 1970 met the digital age.

Also I come here for the dank memes and gifs.

[ScottyB]

sounds super raw and badass. congrats man! do a healthy burnout to quell any rage from the difficulties along the way

[Deceus]

sounds super raw and badass.  congrats man!  do a healthy burnout to quell any rage from the difficulties along the way

Can't be doing that for another 500 miles or so.

[Jeff]

Looking good Cornfed. Am I still wiring it up or have you got it covered now?

[Deceus]

Looking good Cornfed.  Am I still wiring it up or have you got it covered now?

I got it covered ... I think. Was getting everything in place for you guys and figured the only thing left was to just add terminals and crimp. I'd still like to swing by whenever it's actually driving.

[Deceus]

It's super optimistic and not likely but I ordered the race car seat and a front sway bar on the off chance this week goes pretty smoothly and I decide to bring it to the Autocross on Sunday. Definitely getting a trailer if that's the case to play it safe.

It's still at the shop at the moment, they were having trouble bleeding the brakes and after a bit of digging I'm positive it's the loose tie rods allowing the rotors to push the brake calipers in that's causing the issues. Still hoping to get it back today. Dude on the phone told me I was looking at 8-10 hours of shop labor so I'm definitely kinda kicking myself for not knocking it out myself. All they had to do was get it on lift, take the tires and shocks off, slide the torsion bar back, make sure the strut bars were tight but not binding and then torque everything. Everything being the tie rods, idler arm, pitman arm and lower control arm pivot once it was back on solid ground. Not really knocking them since they don't see this shit everyday but damn.

Once I get it back I really just need to throw on the rearview mirror, the driver seatbelt, wire up the brake lights and the GPS speedometer sending unit, and slap on some mufflers to make it road worthy.

[Goodspeed]

...would be proud.  Congrats!

[Deceus]

Here's the final solution to the steering column problem I had a while back:





Spent more than I was hoping to originally but it was still half the cost of the bolt-on replacement. Saved me a ton of work too.

The shop isolated the issue with the brakes to the front driver side caliper. I think mounting them to the rear caused the bleeder screw to end up in a place that's less than useful so there's still air trapped in there. Probably just going to order the damn brake kit I've been eyeballing since the very start of this build. Going to wait til it's home and measure for the brake lines and next day air that shit.

[Deceus]

So the trigger is pulled. Operation race car by Sunday is a go. The shop was definitely right about the bleeder screw being in the wrong place. Not sure how I ended up with the 2 of the same caliper since it was ordered like 2 1/2 years ago at this point but there's no way to properly bleed my driver side caliper. I looked at the major car parts stores to see if I could get a replacement but (surprise) no body had anything in stock. So yeah it was time to finally send it on the brake kit. My only worry was the brake lines since I had no idea how they attached to the caliper. After some digging I found it's just a -3AN line, which will work with my bulkhead fittings perfectly, and a 1/8 NPT adapter. I ordered 2 different size hoses for each side just to be extra safe.

The kit is going to drop 35 pounds off my front end, move me up to a 4 piston setup from the old single piston and best of all the brake pads just slide out of the back of the caliper in these things. Decided to hold off on the order until I gave everything the once over last night to figure out everything I needed.



Was planning on hooking up the brake lights last night because I'm not trying to get rear ended on my first shakedown run. I forgot this thing doesn't actually have turn signals and the rear circuit is all one thing. So basically I can't get brake lights without a turn signals. Fear not: the company that made my wiring kit also makes a pretty basic turn signal switch. Just have to hook up the 4 corners, the brake switch and the power feed from the fuse box. Super simple:



The next thing I was worried about was the radiator fan. No idea where the relay kit went for that thing and I wouldn't know what it looked like even if I did come across it. Ron Francis saving the day again, they have a kit that hooks right up to the Express panel I have in my car. Just have to hook up the circuit to the battery junction, wire it into the ignition circuit and ground the sensor wire to make it run whenever the engine is on. I will eventually hook up the sensor they provide but it's made to go into a cylinder block. I don't have the tools to make that happen and don't feel sourcing a reducer to make it work.

Hopefully I set the shifter up right this time. If anything fucks this operation up, it's going to be this damn cable. It just wasn't going into park and since it was between park and reverse at the start it was basically 50/50 if it would double shift or not shift at all. It's a MAJOR pain in the ass to adjust this so hopefully it's right this time. I still don't like how close it is to my exhaust but I can't do anything about it other than the sleeve that's already on it.

Overall the first night was a success. Didn't manage to get a lot done but did manage to get a lot figured out. Wish me luck ...

[Jake]

Sounds like you're almost there! Can never go wrong with "more brakes" even if the upfront cost hurt a bit.

[Deceus]

Yesterday went pretty well. The shifter wasn't adjusted right still but that wasn't a surprise to me. It was such a pain getting it apart the last time I didn't really take my time when setting it back up. Got it right this time though. Just backed everything off, made damn sure the selector lever and shifter were in park, made sure there wasn't any play in the level and then put everything back together. I'm still not sure it's going into 3rd but everything else is good to go. Will have to wait and see if I have to go back in.

Gave it a quick launch out of the garage once or twice. It's still pretty sketchy having to rely on the hand brake but at least it's nice and firm (lol). Gave the steering a quick workout and everything felt good there. The only other thing on the agenda was getting the front sway bar on but it didn't get to the house until around 7. The weight has to be on the front suspension to hook it up right so that means I have to bust out the ramps. Not a great idea with lousy brakes so that will have to happen as well today.

Got the crappy stock seatbelts in the car. They'll do fine for Autocross but I'm going to make it a priority to get a roll bar in here ASAP. The Corbeau seat I ordered should be in on Saturday so I'll have that in time for the race as well. Hopefully I won't have to race with my steering wheel between my legs now. Had to remake one of the ignition wires because I didn't have a 3/8" terminal for 14-16 gauge wire so I used one of the bigger gauge terminals and the wire was slipping out today.

Going to start with the essentials for Sunday first. Going to tear into the brake kit, then wire up the radiator fan, then see if I can't get the exhaust on, then do the sway bar, then do the brake lights. It's going to be a full day so hopefully my stuff gets here as early as it did last time.

[Deceus]

So the brakes took all day and they're still soft. A lot better but still not driveable. I think it's time to pull the master cylinder and start there. There's definitely no air in the lines anymore. The fact that the handbrake works beautifully kind of isolates this thing as the issue. I believe the plugs on hte side I wasn't using were letting air in while I was bench bleeding it. My pushrod could probably also use a little adjustment since I'm not getting as much travel out of my pedal as I should.



I'll be back at it again bright and early tomorrow morning. I'm a bit behind where I wanted to be but still on track to be driving it by the end of tomorrow.

[*insertusernamehere*]

YEEEESSSSS CHRIISSSS I can't wait to see this thing moving! Congrats on the progress, man! I know you're really excited!

[davej]

Good Lord I think your new rotors are bigger than the wheels on either of the bimmers.

You got this man!

[Senor_Taylor]

How much work from your actual job have you avoided to get this done?

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[Deceus]

How much work from your actual job have you avoided to get this done?

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Quite a bit on Thursday but I have today off.

Anyways got the master cylinder bleed and brakes seem good finally. Got the mufflers/exhaust thrown and it sounds good. Decided sway bar was next and I 150% regret that decision. It was a god damn nightmare. I'm not even going to list all the shit that went down. I just hope I next have to touch the fucking thing ever again.



Of course it's close to 90 degrees in the third week of September the day I decide to do a shit ton of work on the pavement. But it doesn't matter, I got everything but a bit of wiring done. I decide to hop in, back it off the ramps, take it for a spin and then take a long break. The only problem is none of that happened because now it won't start. No idea how the fuck putting on sway bar ended up with ignition issues.

The starter won't disengage for some reason. All signs point to something electrical and even worse: I checked the positive battery wire on the starter and it is indeed loose. I have no idea how the hell I'm going to tighten it but I'm taking a break from this thing until it cools off outside and I cool off internally.

[Deceus]

So obviously Operation race car was a failure. It wasn't a total failure since I managed to get the brake kit, sway bar, exhaust and wiring all done. Just had some serious issues with the starter. Went 4 for 4 on getting it to fire up, getting to drive it for a minute or 2, parking it and then having to fight to get it to start again. First time was a loose battery cable at the starter, second time was the starter not being seated all the way, third time was a bad ground on the negative battery wire, the fourth time ... well I don't yet but I'm out of ideas. I'm thinking I'll need to run the negative cable up to the starter and ground it on the starter bolt like you're supposed to.

Even more frustrating is the damn brake pedal. I 150% regret going with power brakes. They weren't really needed and I only went with em because they came on the donor car. I'm only sticking with them now because the hard brakelines are already made up and are depending on the master cylinder being where it's currently at. I also dropped like $150 on the damn booster because I had to eat the $75 core charge when I left it in the car when it was taken away. I've been talking with a few people and they though it was a bad check valve or just not enough vacuum. Went to check the valve and it snapped in half. Bought a vacuum gauge just to be sure when I went to replace that. I'm getting a good amount of vacuum and with the new valve in place I'm still getting the same issue. The brake pedal is hard as a rock with the engine off but goes soft the moment the engine fires up. It also causes my engine to nearly stall when I stand on it at idle. I may just bite the bullet and try to ditch the booster if this keeps up. Might run into issues with the bore size I choose because it kind of relies on having the extra pressure coming from the power setup.

The good news is that I've already severely pissed off one neighbor. I've actually had quite a few stop by and chat with me about the car, share stories and wish me luck with the build. This couple isn't having it. First time was one of the first runs I did. It didn't have exhaust at the time but I just wanted to check out the front end work I paid $650 for. So I went down the road and swerved a bit and tried getting a feel for the brakes and shifter at the same time. My neighborhood is just one small road leading to 3 deadends so it's the perfect place to do this kind of stuff. I see this guy flagging me down when I pulled into the driveway. "What the hell are you doing?!" he asks. I just told him I simply had to test the brakes because I wasn't sure they worked yet. He threw up his arms and walked away. I was a little understanding of this because without knowing anything it looked pretty bad. Then today happened, this time the wife. She came out and told me to slow down. I tried explaining to here I definitely wasn't speeding. "But it's LOUD" she says. I told her I know it's loud but it has an exhaust now, I NEED to test somewhere safe and it has no brakes so I can't take it anywhere else. I was still in the understanding phase here. I pretty much left it in first so I'm sure it certainly sounded like I was speeding. Then she went and made it personal: "This is a nice community. If you want your car you can take it somewhere else..."



I kinda scoffed, plainly told her no and walked into the garage. Heaven help this lady if she thinks she can try to impose her will on me. Fortunately the deputy sheriff 2 houses down is a HUGE Dodge fan. He drives a jacked up 2500 with some serious work done to it and his wife's daily is a Scat Pack Challenger. He's been over before and even offered to lend a hand when it comes time to start patching body panels so I'm not worried about having the cops called.

[Senor_Taylor]

Sorry about the neighbors, man. Good thing you can't hear them complaining over all of that America pouring out the exhaust.