Mike B's RF93 conversion

[RussMcB]

Hey, that looks Photoshopped!

[oh2winindy]

Russ,

Your photoshop skills amaze me You should be in the graphic design business

And Mike... congrats on the new ride!!!

[Mike B]

...it's done. Tomorrow will be spent cleaning the garage and packing the trailer for what I hope to be an early departure for Atlanta. If things go as planned, we should be there in plenty of time to get set up and make some final adjustments. See everyone there!

[Mike B]

Here's a quick update while taking a break from sanding my new engine cover:
The '07 engine is installed, wired, plumbed, and ready to go.
Craig (my crew chief) did 98% of the fabrication and also made a killer set of headers (see the pics.) He was disappointed because one of the primaries was 1/8" too long. We're light years ahead of the "off-the-shelf" set we had on the '99 engine, which had primaries lengths that were several inches different from one another. The guy that does all my powdercoating ceramic-coated them for me for a whopping $100. That's been one of the few good deals on this project.

The other big project has been a new engine cover. I don't have any pics yet because I want to have it painted first. I'll try to post some before we depart for the Sprints.

I also have a new set of front wings in development. I'm hoping that the prototypes will be ready in time for the Sprints. If they work out, you'll be hearing more about them.

We've also tackled some little projects like reworking the shifter (still needs work), installing the front shim camber adjusters, building a new air box (which has since been chopped up to fit under the new engine cover), and repairs to the diffuser.

Tomorrow will be final assembly, scale, align, and start packing. Back to the garage!

[Messenger Racing]

In the imortal words of Nascar - let's go racin' boys!

Sweet looking pics

Have fun

JM

[carnut169]

Looking good Mikey! Now go kick some butt at the Sprints!

[lowside67]

A conversion sure looks like a scary concept as an outsider with no fabrication skills!

[Mike B]

That's where people like Jay Novak and Mike Devins come in...

[Nicholas Belling]

or for that matter any other components of your engine.. looks like the top end was done based on coloring.. unless you painted it..

[Mike B]

The only thing that I had ceramic coated were the headers and exhaust pipe. The engine is completely untouched.

[formulasuper]

A conversion sure looks like a scary concept as an outsider with no fabrication skills!

Don't worry, by the time you get one finished you'll have plenty of fabrication experience.

[Nicholas Belling]

Your car looks amazing...

Keep us posted on your first big outing.

[cparsons]

the headers look great. I too went totally custom instead of store-bought but mine don't look nearly as good as yours, and exit to the right so the clutch will stay warm. Is that stainless?

[Mike B]

Nope, mild steel with ceramic coating. The silver coating gets polished by the powder coater to look shiny. It really makes the pipes look good and hides any welding flaws.

[Mike Devins]

That's where people like Jay Novak and Mike Devins come in...

Mike, thanks for the compliment but wait until you see the p o s engine cover that I am going to bring to the Sprints to put on Coop's Nova conversion. We had done a styling foam a while back and had pulled a splash off of it to check clearances before we started to finish the buck. This morning I pulled it out of the scrap pile and put a half a gallon of feather fill on it. Any body have any suggestions for any thing that will hide surface flaws better than flat black. I was thinking maybe carpeting would work but would be a bit draggy.

I don't want to hijack this thread so I won't post a picture here.

Good luck Mike and see you at the Sprints.

[Mike B]

Any body have any suggestions for any thing that will hide surface flaws better than flat black.

That's the only reason my car is white! If I ever want to go with a darker color, I need to do a lot of sanding & filling.

Hope to see everyone Friday!

[Mike B]

As promised, here are some pics of the new engine cover. It may look familiar to some DSR guys.... Thanks to Dave Knaack for enabling this project! Next up, prototype front wings that should get fitted tomorrow. Hopefully I'll post pics from the track.

[RobLav]

Looks good Mike. Where's that nose and wing?

Good luck this weekend.

[RussMcB]

Looks great, Mike. I hope you have a fantastic time at the Sprints. I'm looking forward to hearing about it.

Whenever I see pics of your rear sub frame, I'm still impressed with the clever attachment method. Sharp.

Go, Champ! (Did I just coin a new nickname? :-)

[carnut169]

Huge improvement! Have you sealed the inlets on the cover to the airbox?

[Mike B]

Looks good Mike. Where's that nose and wing?

The new nose & wings will be meeting me at the track today. I haven't even seen them yet but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Huge improvement! Have you sealed the inlets on the cover to the airbox?

There will be no photos of my airbox. I had a decent one fabricated before I made the airbox. It subesequently had to be hacked up so much that it's just an air filter holder now. A new one is the first thing on the post-Sprints project list.

Go, Champ! (Did I just coin a new nickname? :-)

Oddly enough, that's not the direction most people go with my nicknames . I'm thinking I'll need to earn that one!


Off to the races!

[Brands]

looks really good Mike, good luck!
Ben

[Mike B]

Interestingly, the last time I updated this thread was almost exactly one year ago and that update was for new front wings.

This update is similar but this year I adapted an RF98 nose and moustache wings to my RF93. Thanks to Sean O. and Rob Laverty for their damaged bits and pieces. They turned out fairly good. Well, good enough at 100 mph.

The other visible update is the more tunnel-like diffuser. I tied the wing endplates in to support the outside of the diffuser. I'm concerned about any hit to the diffuser causing damage to the entire wing assembly so I made the end plates such that they should break just below the lower element. Hope I don't need to test it.

With that, we're now ready for the June Sprints. See everyone there!

[Wright D]

Nice work Mike!

[RussMcB]

Great updates, Mike. If you factor in the average age of your model updates, you've got about a RF97-RF98 now. :-).

One benefit I noticed after connecting the rear wing endplates to the diffuser - Everything is a lot more sturdy back there. Hopefully, with the wing and diffuser moving around less, they'll both work better.

To avoid the risk of damaging things back there, you just need to do two things: 1) Don't go off track backwards, and 2) drive fast and keep a gap between you and the car behind. :-).

I hope you have a great time at the Sprints (hat trick: reliable car, fast lap times and a fun socializing).

Go conversions!