914 GT 3.6 Ferrari Build, - Mechanicals coming along, electronics soon! Options

[Retroracer]

Chris - something to think about: will you still be able to get a socket/spanner on the inner axle pivot bolt with the engine/headers in place? Might a well placed slot in the console "beard" side braces be prudent?

Trying to think ahead here.... and, stunning work thus far!

- Tony

[Krieger]

That is the perfect Ferrari to 914 engine mount! It seems so obvious now!

[tygaboy]

Chris - something to think about: will you still be able to get a socket/spanner on the inner axle pivot bolt with the engine/headers in place? Might a well placed slot in the console "beard" side braces be prudent?

Trying to think ahead here.... and, stunning work thus far!

- Tony

@Retroracer - Tony - yes, the design allows for a wrench to be able to get at the pivot shaft fastener. It'll be clear once I get to boxing in the console. That said, I'm OK sacrificing (some) service access, but only as a last resort.

[tygaboy]

Action photo! The cradle's lower bars hang below the chassis so to minimize chance of the fastener snagging, I opted to run a flat head allen - and that requires a 90 degree counter sink. A bit of time spent locating and leveling in both directions and some "mill as a drill press" and we're all set.

[tygaboy]

Countersink, meet fastener. Fastener, Countersink. I predict you won't become simply friends, I know you'll become very close... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/av-943.gif)

[tygaboy]

Next was to cut the bars to length and weld in the threaded bungs. Martin broke out his NHRA rule book experience and mentioned that whenever there was a plug weld, you had to leave a bit of the inner material visible through the outer material and weld so the tech inspector could validate things met the requirements and safety specs. Like you weren't trying to sneak in thinner wall than is required, etc.

The good news is that I can now officially pass tech and drag race this thing! Street Outlaws/No Prep Kings, here I come! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/shades.gif)

[tygaboy]

Martin did a super cool job fuse-welding the bungs to the tubes.

[tygaboy]

Major milestone for the cradle: all final welding is complete!
The fire wall tabs are also fit and ready to go. The plan is that tomorrow sees them welded in place.
With that done, I'll be able to complete the design and CAD work to make the suspension console pick up mounts.
So.
Close.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif)

[BillC]

Very cool!

[Tferrer]

Just catching up with this thread. AMAZING work, Chris. Utterly amazing...

[Cairo94507]

Wow- Martin's welds are works of art. The whole cradle is amazing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[tygaboy]

OK, let's see just how far away I can take this from 914 content. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol-2.gif)
WARNING: Potentially boring content alert!!

Whenever making mounts that locate other items using a bolt, it's obvious you want to align all the holes as accurately as possible. In production situations with their plus/minus and variation, alignment is generally accomodated with slots and/or holes with a bit more 'slop' than you'd think was needed. Look at the 914 engine bar's outside mount - there's the vertical bolt and its slop to the hole in the bar, then the bolt's slop to the U-shaped plate that sits on the chassis' mounting plate and the slop between the two bolts to the U-shaped plate and to the chassis mount plate... In all, LOTS of room to move things around so everything can be assembled.

Jokes about how I do things over and over aside (!), I don't have to think about "production" so I get to (have to? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) ) work with tighter tolerances. In the case of the cradle mounts, I do have clearance between the bolts and everything through which they'll pass. But how to control the available fastener clearance? I don't want to risk the slop all ending up to one side, making things tight on the other side. That'd make assembly lots less fun.

So, to manage that, here's a fabrication best practice: slice up an aluminum can and wrap the fastener and anything it passes through to ensure the fastener is centered in everything! Now you know you've removed any "slop bias" and things will be nicely aligned, come assembly time.

Is this sort of prep tedious and time consuming? Yes, it is. Especially that 1/8" strip for the tab! But also a worthwhile. Particularly if you're a bit OCD, like me.

[cooler]

beautiful fabrication work! Are you going to add any triangulation members or rely completely on moment transferring connections?

[tygaboy]

beautiful fabrication work! Are you going to add any triangulation members or rely completely on moment transferring connections?

The engine mounts and related bracing have yet to be added. Once that's all in place, we'll see what's what and if it appears it'll need anything more.

[roundtwo]

Martin did a super cool job fuse-welding the bungs to the tubes.

Slick (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beer3.gif)

[horizontally-opposed]

Look at the 914 engine bar's outside mount - there's the vertical bolt and its slop to the hole in the bar, then the bolt's slop to the U-shaped plate that sits on the chassis' mounting plate and the slop between the two bolts to the U-shaped plate and to the chassis mount plate... In all, LOTS of room to move things around so everything can be assembled.

Question warning, as you might get mad at me for asking it now (maybe it was discussed earlier and I missed it), but: What's the plan for NVH isolation? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/poke.gif)

I remember Richard Parr telling me about a customer who had a rough go trying to get his engine running right until they figured out the problem was driven by vibrations from the engine being hard-mounted to the chassis.

(And no, I didn't think about this until you reminded me of the design of the 914 engine mounts…which include the transmission mounts…which got me to thinking about the cool solid engine/trans mounts Parr was talking about.)

[tygaboy]

Look at the 914 engine bar's outside mount - there's the vertical bolt and its slop to the hole in the bar, then the bolt's slop to the U-shaped plate that sits on the chassis' mounting plate and the slop between the two bolts to the U-shaped plate and to the chassis mount plate... In all, LOTS of room to move things around so everything can be assembled.

Question warning, as you might get mad at me for asking it now (maybe it was discussed earlier and I missed it), but: What's the plan for NVH isolation? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/poke.gif)

I remember Richard Parr telling me about a customer who had a rough go trying to get his engine running right until they figured out the problem was driven by vibrations from the engine being hard-mounted to the chassis.

(And no, I didn't think about this until you reminded me of the design of the 914 engine mounts…which include the transmission mounts…which got me to thinking about the cool solid engine/trans mounts Parr was talking about.)

@horizontally-opposed Pete - Yes, the cradle will be hard-mounted to the chassis but the factory Ferrari rubber mounts are being retained at the trans hanger and both sides' engine mounts. So isolation-wise, it's identical to how it was mounted in the 360.

[tygaboy]

OK, I'm a slacker. I had designs on doing a big(ger) deal YouTube channel for this build but that's just not in the cards. So, I'll just start and keep posting the vids I've done. Note these are essentially raw footage so no complaining! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/poke.gif)

For a while, these'll take you back to previously completed work but maybe you'll enjoy seeing some add'l details on what's gone into this build.

Here's "Day 1":


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ONAEuWHrIc

[KELTY360]

Particularly if you're a bit OCD, like me.

A bit OCD.....?

Sorry, couldn't let that pass unnoticed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif)

[tygaboy]

More about how the sausage is made:
Getting ready to final weld the fire wall tabs. To make it simple to get everything centered, I took a piece of scrap and made up a "centering plate". The center is marked in Sharpie / pointed out with the arrow. This will align with a center mark on the fire wall and set the left/right location.

What about up/down, you ask? The fire wall tabs were designed with with a notch that fits the lip on the lower edge of where the fire wall meets the floor. Those locations were determined by eyeballing where I wanted the bottom of the drive train to end up in relation to that lip.