STRATEGY BEHIND ALL THIS

We (FASTMOM & I) wanted to move to the country for along time for the more active life style, see wildlife and just generally more peaceful. In order to do this the dollars had to work just right, needed to find the "just right" fixer upper and still be livable, with some sort of shop, either ready to go or something I could make into a shop. This property fit our goals. We've always been environmentally conscious so with the wood burning boiler being a renewable energy heating source was a real scoop for us. We have LP also but that will be our backup.  Purchasing a used outdoor boiler with enough capacity to heat our house, FASTMOM'S garage and the shop meant we had to get a good chain saw, log splitter, and a source for logs. Now that we're in (we moved in January this year when it was like 15 to 20 below!) the goal is to get the shop built out enough to get heat in it before the deep cold sets in. It's going to be close, I'm working on it all the time and the temp is starting to cool off pretty good. The pic is our boiler this past winter, heating just the house. I'll post more pics about the shop buildout and house improvements.

Since my last post we closed on our property 2 1/2 acres including a good sized pond covering about 1/3 of the property. A few out buildings and a 1200 sqft shop with heat in the floor. It's never been used as anything and the in floor heat has never been utilized. I'm in the process of doing a buildout to finish the interior and make use of the in floor heat. Three reasons for purchasing this was the shop potential, the property setting and the price. The house and shop are setup for an outdoor wood burning boiler so we purchased a used one. Being in the country we have a propane tank we use as a backup if needed. The whole strategy behind this move I'll cover in another post. Since I'm retired time is my best friend to finish all this at a very resonable cost. Here are some pics to see what we have and what I'm doing. The end goal with the shop is to have a fully self supporting Formula Racing operation.

Been a while

Refreshing my memory about login, posting etc. A lot has change since I last posted. We're in the middle of moving, staying at relatives until a new home is purchased. We have an offer in on a property with a nice size shop, separate garage and a nice home all on 2 1/2 acres. More later.

MIND WAIT

Ok, so now the proposal is finished. Did all the home work, came up with what we thought were some very clever ideas.  Got it all put down on paper so the concept has some words and meaning behind it. All the actions we could take are not so overwhelming that it looks impossible. It will take an increndible amount of work for it to perform properly so the outcome is correct, but it is all possible. At that point delegence of perception and execution with keeping your eye on the ball is critical. So it's been handed in so now it's wait. Mind wait - it works the BRAIN ASSET hard.

HAMMERFORMING A COUPLE OF PARTS

I’m hammerforming this part to go around the roll bar at so I have a spot to tig weld the body support bar. I will make two, one for each side. They will be held on with the engine mount bolts that are vertically throught the bulk head and go into the aluminum plate that actually bolts to the valve cover. The engine in this chassis is partially stressed, meaning the engine block itself carries some of the load stresses induced into the chassis during competition

To soften or anneal the aluminum (it's a T6 hardness so it's tough) so I can work with it I put a layer of acetylene soot on it. This is .065 6061 aluminum.

Now heat the aluminum very carefully, just enough to remove the soot. This will take it to about 750 -800 deg! The aluminum is very close to melting so be carefull.

Soot is gone the aluminum sagged because it was so close to meltdown!

Now it's relatively easy to shap around the wood block I made for the final shape. The block is exactly the proper dimensions as the area of the rool bar.

Here it's easier to see the shape I made relative to the roll bar. The form has to be exactly the same dimensions, since the aluminum will wrap around it.

Final shape, this will fit exactly.

another view, easier to see.

 

Hammerformed the aluminum using the hard wood tool I made. The wood is a hard maple.

 

 

CHASSIS TUBE ADDITION & SCCA IDEA

I"ve gotten a couple of emails recently that are very good. The first was from the SCCA technical director confirming that our car has been homologated properly and that the idea of adding a bar to the chassis is within the rules! The other I just got is from the President of the SCCA stating that the idea I sent to him is good and that it has his backing! I would expalin more here but it's way to premature to put names to what I have in mind, but so far so good. Remember this stuff is all behind the scenes manuvering and is time consuming but very necessary. It called "doing what it takes to get it right" . There is pictures of the proposed chassis bar addition on our FB page here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fastdad/132790816771142?ref=hl

QUESTION

So would anybody be interested in the rules SCCA (Sports Car Club of America www.scca.com/ ) has for our Formula Continental car? Rules can be boring to read thru but it is a very import detail to learn no matter what type of competition one is involved with. If your interested go here http://fastdad.net/ and drop an email and let me know, maybe join FASTDAD's club to keep updated on whats happening.