Converting RHD SLC to LHD

Little update. All AC wiring is done, fan motor functions as it should. Center console is nearly finished, just have to locate holes for the AC controls.

Body fitment continues to plague me. Can anyone with a proper fit body provide me with these dimensions? These are frame to spider, in mm.

As you can see from the last few pictures my front wheel gaps are way off, the front clam is too far aft, the rear clam shows the same. The whole structure needs to go forward. However to push the spider forward means the very front of the spider will hang over the chassis near the steering column about 1in, is this normal?

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Yes, that’s a pretty normal gap.. set the main body to the chassis and slide it backward as much as possible.
 

Kyle

Supporter
Well the car drives! It’s in such a rough stage but I was dying to drive it. Turn radius is horrible. Throttle is incredibly sensitive and 1st is virtually useless. I have some tuning issues, definitely wants to die when hot and rolling to a stop. My brake pressure switch seems to have a leak which shorted out my brake fuse. So had to jump the leads in the middle of the neighborhood. It definitely creaks and moans, I’ll have to lube up all the suspension components. My front lift also stopped working very well so I need to investigate that.

I also created a lift system for the spider so I can work on it solo, should speed my progress along.
 
Congratulations Kyle. It is such a rush driving her for the first time. I was giddy for weeks after my first drive.

I have two Holley Sniper systems and I was able to tune both of them myself. I am nearing the conclusion that my Holley Terminator on the SLC will require professional tuning. My idle surges and it dies when coming down to idle from higher RPM when not under a load. I’m still messing with it but will probably take it to a pro for proper tuning.
 

Kyle

Supporter
Congratulations Kyle. It is such a rush driving her for the first time. I was giddy for weeks after my first drive.

I have two Holley Sniper systems and I was able to tune both of them myself. I am nearing the conclusion that my Holley Terminator on the SLC will require professional tuning. My idle surges and it dies when coming down to idle from higher RPM when not under a load. I’m still messing with it but will probably take it to a pro for proper tuning.

Thanks Kurt, I’m going to do a datalog and see what it’s doing. From what I’m reading it’s more than likely a lean condition at that speed when coming to idle. So I’ll do a live look while driving and see what I can do.

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Good job Kyle!!, can't wait to fire mine up. 1st gear on the Graziano is also useless, that is why I did the drop gear set . I don't know if there is such a thing for your transmission
 
I have not seen a drop gear setup for the G96 but Albins makes a replacement ring gear in a 3.00 ratio that looks very appealing. Below is a chart I put together of the stock ratio and the 3.00 setup.

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Theoretical top speed goes from 190 at 7,000 RPM to 220!

On my test drive I also found first to be best for parking lots, city streets, or pulling UP my steep driveway and not much else. My motor has plenty of low end torque to take off in second, even third if I feather the clutch just right.
 
p.s. Your SLC is amongst good company I see. Are the Porsche and Camaro your dailys? So much easier to have nice cars when you do not have to deal with snow!
 

Kyle

Supporter
p.s. Your SLC is amongst good company I see. Are the Porsche and Camaro your dailys? So much easier to have nice cars when you do not have to deal with snow!
The Porsche is my girlfriends! The Camaro is just a family friends. My daily is a newish Ford Ranger, needed a truck for remodeling.

Was able to raise the body today. This should speed the build up quite a bit I hope. Still delayed because I’ll be waiting on the lotus tailight. Otherwise I think I now have everything to complete the build.

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Kyle

Supporter
Does anyone have issues with the olds Column having some slack between these two points? There is a D shaped rod that slides into the column that just doesn’t quite have the tolerances it should to not have any play in it. The rest of the joints once tightened seem fine.

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Kyle

Supporter
Progress has slowed, lots of little things to complete that just seem to take lots of time. Still working on getting all components finished so that I can move to final body work.

Stole this idea from someone, can’t remember who. 1/4-20 rod with fasteners on the end and felt pads. These keep the dash really tight and I can unscrew if I need to. I’ll more than likely use velcro on the leading edge like fran suggested.

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I had forgotten about the windshield wiper motor, hole is drilled and the few washers in the previous photo will space it out enough for the shaft to not be poking out as much. 3 wires fast low and park. I took off the GM column wiper arm and I’ll just use a simple turn knob wiper control. Works flawlessly.
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The two autoloc motor controllers are mounted and partially wired. It is wired to a remote controller, the black one in the foreground, also autoloc. This setup works well and is super easy to wire. Since I am using the door actuators as locks this will be to constant power.

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I used Scott’s mod for the door actuators, very solid. My welds on the end nuts aren’t pretty but I can guarantee they’ll never break off! Next is to cut the holes in the doors and mount them.
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I created way more work for myself by welding these brackets on for the harness mounts. Totally forgot I could just wrap around the bar. I’ll be grinding these off and going with the wrap method. It will be a much cleaner install that way.

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My lower harness mounts are ugly, but they’ll be under the seat so you’ll never see them. 1/8in steel with 1/2 bolts with larger fender washers.


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Progress on the seats have stalled, so much work. I finally cut out the holes for the harness. I will have to add in filler on the bottom cut out since the seat was made from two halves. These will need a lot of refinement before I can carbon skin them.

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Top hole mounts on the headlights are an issue, I’ll have to make some fiberglass brackets to hold those. I’ve been procrastinating on this.

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Center duct is in, again needs some refinement, I try to do most of my fiberglass work at one time if I can. It extends all the way back past the cockpit and is completely fiberglass so no chance of water intrusion. It will be painted black inside. Should have done that first.
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Joel K

Supporter
Nice progress Kyle. I feel your pain on the seats. So much time invested and I still have a lot of work to do as well. Looking forward to see you do the Carbon skinning on them. I may follow your proces.
 

Steven Lobel

Supporter
Nice progress Kyle. I feel your pain on the seats. So much time invested and I still have a lot of work to do as well. Looking forward to see you do the Carbon skinning on them. I may follow your proces.

On my GT-R, one of the first things I could do was bolt my seats in. Then moved them for better seating position/removed sliders for more headroom.
Probably 10-20 hours messing around with stock seats. Then I sat in them. They are horrible. Painful. Tossed them for some Momo Starts. A little bigger than the Tillets, but $500.
 

Kyle

Supporter
Nice progress Kyle. I feel your pain on the seats. So much time invested and I still have a lot of work to do as well. Looking forward to see you do the Carbon skinning on them. I may follow your proces.
I have a big vacuum pump that we use for liposuction, probably going to try my hand at vacuum forming the center consoles and side skirts and then last vacuum the carbon on the seats. I don’t expect it to go well the first time!

On my GT-R, one of the first things I could do was bolt my seats in. Then moved them for better seating position/removed sliders for more headroom.
Probably 10-20 hours messing around with stock seats. Then I sat in them. They are horrible. Painful. Tossed them for some Momo Starts. A little bigger than the Tillets, but $500.

they are quite hard! I may try my hand at crafting a padded seat cushion. Or at least make a fiberglass cushion plate that I can take to an upholstery shop and let them cover.
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
Here's my seat belt mounts, They are 1/8" 4140. Tig welded on all four sides, The flat floor mount is attached with two 3/8 grade 8 cap screws with large diameter thick washers and nylocks underneath. The through-bolt is 7/16 inch grade 8 with nylock nuts. As you can see they secure the belt tab in double shear and the lever length is held to the minimum to reduce the mechanical lever forces applied to the vertical tabs (centerline of through-bolt to the length of tab to base).

You can duplicate this to some extent by using two 90 degree mounts back to back with a through bolt containing the seatbelt tab in the middle. I am afraid your single mount bolt will rotate under load and twist and flatten the seatbelt tab. This in turn will be more prone to tear the belt material in the tab.

Good choice on the wrap-around belt mounting method on the top belts and I really like your duct in the top of the center section.

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Kyle

Supporter
Been awhile since an update. I’ve been gearing up to try and get a few more things done before shipping to Allan. I elected to go with the lotus taillights, finished up the wiring today. Also getting started on skinning the center console with carbon later. A few last little things I want to get done so Allan isn’t wasting time with petty stuff and then hopefully off to him by end of the week.


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Kyle

Supporter
Well, just a few days until 1 year mark with the car. Hoping to have it back from allen here in awhile. In the mean time I’ve been practicing my tig welds. Really rough but slowly getting the hang of it. Having a better machine makes for improvement.
Plans are to redo my exhaust, eventually I want to twin turbo the car.

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Kyle

Supporter
So there are a couple of items I didn’t send to Allen, one being the side skirts. I wanted to try my hand at carbon forge, essentially cut up 1in carbon pieces. Here’s the process, basically clear epoxy over the unsplit skirt. Lay your carbon, it will be very messy and not flat. It might even “hair up” on you. Just get the best coverage you can at first. Then lay up your peel ply, then felt, then put it in a bag. My bag is just 2mil poly from home depot sealed with aluminum tape. The key is my suction, it’s a spare liposuction machine I have. They are incredibly powerful. I’ll let this run for the next 5 hours or so and see how it looks.

I’m fully expecting for there to be some bare spots I need to put more carbon on. And it will need to be sanded and epoxied again many times before finally clear coating.


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Kyle

Supporter
These are the results after tearing the peel ply. Very rough but that’s expected, especially when you lay the pieces down in uneven layers. I expect to do this about 3-4 more times. I think the key for the second round will be putting more epoxy over the carbon pieces after laying them down. Here are a few pics in various stages, right after pulling peel ply, sanding and after sanding.


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