HM2017 Build

[Jeff K]

More pictures.

[Redstang69]

Jeff, glad to see you're making progress. Yes it's been pretty quiet on here. I haven't had much motivation to do much, mainly because I'm at the body work phase and hate the thoughts of starting it and the mess.
I don't know if I'd recommend putting the body together and driving it or finishing the body work. Driving it is great, however once it drive it, that's prob what you'll want to do and not want to do body work haha.
Have you fit body panels yet? Wait until you get to the trunk lid, probably will take a good bit of work to get molded in.

[Jeff K]

Ben, yes all the panels have been fitted.

[Jeff K]

Temporary assembly of the car is pretty much done.  I still need to install the front frame extensions and related pieces but need to modify them a little first.  I'm happy with the way the car turned out.  I have my first DMV appointment for registration this Wednesday.

[Redstang69]

Panels and gaps turned out really nice Jeff.

[Jeff K]

Finding an air cleaner that fit was difficult.  Between the engine sitting high in the engine compartment and my intake manifold being somewhat tall, there wasn't much room.  Plus I wanted as much filter area as possible.  I see pictures of big engines with small round air cleaners and I know they're losing HP.  I ended up buying a 15" long oval air cleaner.  I had to modify its base so it would sit as low as possible on the throttle body.  I also had to lengthen the cutout in the hood for clearance.  I had earlier modified the hood scoop to increase the height of the front opening and profile.  Turned out I needed every millimeter of the added room.

[Jeff K]

Here's some pictures of the hood scoop modification I had earlier made.

[Redstang69]

That definitely is tight. To me it seemed like wanting black really limited my selection.

[Kamal]

Looks great Jeff! And I'm glad to hear your DMV registration is coming along. 

Even though I have few miles on my car still, I have managed to remember to tell everyone to watch their leg as they step out of the car!

I plan to get the Shell Valley heat shields, as they come in Ceramic and will match my header finish.

https://www.shellvalley.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=140/mode=prod/prd140.htm

[Jeff K]

Installed the aluminum panels in the radiator opening recently.  There weren't any instructions so I looked how others had done their cars and did something similar.  I don't plan on installing an oil cooler, at least for now.

I also installed panels to close the gap in the rear wheel well between the body and cockpit tub.  Again I looked at what others had done and came up with what I thought would work.  I'll seal the edges with seam sealer when I install the panels for the last time.

While I was at it, I added aluminum extension panels to the back of the rear wheel wells also.  I think it gives it a more finished look.

Still trying to dial in the EFI.  It's been a challenge.  I think there's a sensor or something that's not right.  I'll keep working on it.

[Bob Worley]

I like the rear fender panels.  I need to do the same soon.

[Redstang69]

Looks like you did your front panels similar to mine. Pretty straight forward. I added some bulb seal at the top to help seal it off a little.

[Jeff K]

Here's an update of what's been going on with my car lately.

Finally got my car registered.  Took about 4 months.  California DMV makes you jump through a lot of hoops to register specialty cars.

I still haven't resolved my issue with the EFI.  After a lot of troubleshooting and no success I've decided to switch to a Holley HP EFI based system.  I'll need to replace the ECU, distributer, wiring harness and O2 sensor but I can use the rest of the Edelbrock system components.  The HP ECU is more capable and most importantly I'll have dedicated support for the Holley system which I didn't have for the Edelbrock system.  I really wish I could have figure out the problem.  I should get the engine running with the new system next week.

Installed rear wheel well closeouts I made out of aluminum.  I'll seal them with seal sealer once I install them for the last time.  The forum shows lots of ways to closeout these gaps but this method made sense to me.

I made some covers for the tail lights in the trunk.  I got the pattern from the ERA website.  I haven't polished the inside so they aren't increasing the brightness but they do add protection inside the trunk.

When Kamal (HM-2040) wrote about his need to replace his supplied steering rack with a quick-ratio rack, I was worried I would need to do the same thing.  But I actually have the opposite reaction.  My rack is 4.1 turns lock to lock and I like the feel when driving even windy roads and its relative easy to turn the steering wheel at slow speeds.  No change required for me.

I used Bob Worley's method to tighten up the bottom seat cushions.  Worked great.  Thanks for the tip Bob.

This winter I plan on removing the IRS and having it rebuilt.  Besides excessive gear whine, there's a clunking noise coming from the differential or passenger half-shaft.  It makes me nervous.

That's about it for now.

[Redstang69]

Nice update Jeff. California sounds rough for registration, I think it took Kamal a while too.
I really like the wheel well close outs. Did you have to use a dolly or some type of metal working tool to get the nice roll that it has?

[Jeff K]

Ben, no special tools for the metal work. Just some 2x4's, a hammer, my workbench and a vise.

I'm pleased to report that I got my engine running with the new Holley EFI system installed and it solved my problem. After some tuning, it's running great. All it took was more money.

I decided to go ahead and remove the differential and have it rebuilt.  I was becoming increasingly worried it might fail.  It wasn't as difficult to remove as I thought it might be.  The shop will let me know next week the extent of the damage but they believe there's definitely something wrong inside and will probably need new gears.  The half shafts have seen better days as well.  Considering the money Hurricane charged for the IRS option, you'd think they would have put in a rebuilt differential.  I've been looking for replacement half shafts but can't find any the same length. I'm thinking they might be custom units since they're 3" shorter than the Thunderbird half shafts the differential came from. I'm wondering if anyone out there know about replacement units or if mine can be rebuilt? I'm at a loss right now. Thanks.