Kurt H (hoffkm) SL-C build thread

Looking good! Since we have the same transaxle, what did you paint it with? I used a run of the mill engine rattle can paint and it’s already starting to flake off.

You’re also inspiring me to polish the rest of my frame.

Kyle,

Cleanliness is the key to any paint job, be it a rattle can or a professional automotive job. I first cleaned my entire transmission case with degreaser, then I media blasted it, then I used wax and grease remover for a final cleaning before spraying it with VHT engine paint (VHT is one of the best brands I have found so far) in a rattle can. No issues so far. I have used a similar method on numerous engines in the past with no issues either.
 
Kurt, your car is coming together so well. The red looks great on the cross brace and rear supports. Black and red combo always looks good.

I see the polish suspension in the prior post, looks very good. Just curious, is Shark Hide more or less clear lacquer?

Joel,

Thank you, I agree black and red is a good combo. Still debating on black or white stripes for the car, the red is a definite now.

Sharkhyde is widely used on aluminum boats (such as aluminum pontoons) and over the road long haul trucks (wheels, fuel tanks, etc.). It is a three step process of a cleaner for dirty aluminum (I am not using the cleaner since all my aluminum is clean and new), a polish (it is very similar to a 3M or Mothers aluminum polish), and then a protectant (the protectant is a liquid that you wipe on in one wipe and it drys on the surface). It is supposed to last three to five years on boats and up to eight years on cars. To re-treat you simply wipe on a new coat over the old.

My process is as follows:

I first polish each piece in two stages on my bench mount buffing wheel using white and then red rogue on the cotton wheels. My buffer is older than me. My late grandfather used it to polish the brass on his harnesses from his pulling ponies and show horses long before I was born. After polishing I use the Sharkhyde polish on a blue foam pad on my two speed rotary buffer. I then remove all the polishing residue with acetone (as per the instructions) and apply the Sharkhyde protectant.

Here are a couple of relatively close up pictures of the results.

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You can see my somewhat blurry reflection in this piece. There are a few machining marks showing in this part (and others). I had considered sanding them out but decided to not spend that kind of time on this portion of the project.
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Obviously, I cannot buff my chassis on my bench mounted buffing wheel so it only received the Sharkhyde polish and protectant treatment steps.
 
Next on the agenda is finishing the AC plumbing, taking the suspension apart, polishing everything, applying Sharkhyde protectant, doing an alignment, temporarily wiring in some switches in the dash, and then GO KART TEST!!

It was two years ago this coming November 26th that my wife and I made a trip up to see Fran and tour RCR. My goal is to go kart test on that same date this year.
Strong work Kurt, you always seem to use your time wisely and make lots of progress FAST. Very impressive.
I have spent lots of time inside the footboxes, mostly insulation and carpeting now, hate being in there!!!
 
Just need to temporarily wire in a few of my dashboard switches, bolt in my seats, and adjust the throw of the clutch pedal and I will be ready to go cart this week (I took the week off for work for this momentous occasion, also, my daughter is home from college starting this week for two months).

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Mother nature had other plans today in northwest Ohio:

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We got a little over two inches of snow today, thankfully it is supposed to melt tomorrow and clear up and get a little warmer again later this week. It may be a cold drive but I should have the car on the road this week. I'll take some video, I 3D printed a holder for my cell phone to take use to take some driving video.
 
Bad ass Kurt, good luck! I think I went low tech and taped my GoPro to the dash for my inaugural run. Nothing beats that feeling of moving the car under its own power for the first time!
 

Steven Lobel

Supporter
Just need to temporarily wire in a few of my dashboard switches, bolt in my seats, and adjust the throw of the clutch pedal and I will be ready to go cart this week (I took the week off for work for this momentous occasion, also, my daughter is home from college starting this week for two months).

View attachment 111597

Mother nature had other plans today in northwest Ohio:

View attachment 111602

We got a little over two inches of snow today, thankfully it is supposed to melt tomorrow and clear up and get a little warmer again later this week. It may be a cold drive but I should have the car on the road this week. I'll take some video, I 3D printed a holder for my cell phone to take use to take some driving video.

Put on a coat, gloves, hat. Snow chains and let her rip.
 
Well it is not a first go-kart session but my SL-C moved under her own power today (all be it only a few feet back and forth in my shop).

I finished up polishing the other day, mounted my seats, and did some temporary wiring of the ECU, fuel, and start switches. Today I went to adjust the clutch and even at full pedal travel it would not disengage. I thought the worst and that is that the clutch arm had fallen off and I would have to pull the transaxle. I pulled the slave cylinder and the arm was in place, phew! I cycled the pedal and the slave did not move. I bled it again using my power bleeder with it up in the air to put the bleeder at the highest point and I got some more air out of it. Tested it outside the transaxle and it worked, too well..... I blew the piston right out of the master cylinder because I pressed the pedal too far. It is only held in by a simple one way press in castled washer. Re-assembled the master cylinder, cleaned up my mess, bled it again, adjusted and all is well.

The snow from earlier this week is gone but the reason for that is that it has been raining the past two days. I am hoping to get the SL-C on the road in my neighborhood Friday afternoon if the weather turns out as they are forecasting.

I let it idle earlier today to get her up to temp and everything balanced out at 200 degrees with only one fan running. Radiator was hot to the touch on the hot side and only slightly warm on the return side. I would say my fan shroud and the stock RCR supplied fans are working well, at least at idle. We will see once it is warmer outside and the AC is running with the car at speed.

I thought my exhaust was too quiet, my daughter could here it in the house as I was playing out in my shop (which is about 100 yards behind the house). My camera was setting on my workbench for the video below and even at idle the motor was shaking the camera. She is running rich and I need to drive it to give the Holley time to self learn the needed adjustments to the fuel table. It has already pulled as much as 47% from the fuel table at idle. I may start with a whole new fuel table that I put together custom instead of the one from the wizard. It is also coming down from idle a little slow and undershoots the idle then recovers. Definitely have some tuning to do and I may call in a professional. I'll give it a crack first but I am by no means an EFI expert.

 

Neil

Supporter
It's a great feeling when you finally hear your project come to life, isn't it? Congratulations, Kurt.
The blurring and waviness in that video is due to the exhaust's sound pressure changing the focal length of the camera lens. It is loud..
I experienced the same effect in my "first fire-up" video.
 
is it me? or is the seating position damned near lying down?

Pierre,

Yes, I had to recline the seats a lot with custom brackets. I am 6’ 2” and tall in the torso.

It’s a good thing I made my pedals adjustable because now that I have my clutch adjusted I need the pedals closer to me.
 
Today was go-kart time! My adrenaline is still pumping from the experience. All I can say is I made the right decision to build this thing. It is going to be more fun than I can handle! Below is a video of my first trip out. The quality is poor, it is just my phone mounted to the "dash" of the car with a bar clamp.


Initial driving observations:
1) It is very un-nerving not being able to see behind you AT ALL. I will not be driving on the road again until I have her street legal with mirrors and my rear view camera system.
2) I never realized how much loose gravel was on the road leading into our sub-division. With the open front tires it is all inside the cockpit of the SL-C now. I should have had on safety glasses because the gravel hit me in the face a few times.
3) My lift pump is LOUD. You can really hear it in the video. It is an Earls/Holley vane pump. I may start looking for something quieter to replace it with. It should be less noticeable with the body one.
4) Sitting this low to the ground is a whole new experience and will take a lot of getting used to.
5) Even without the body on it this things turns heads on the road (or everyone I met on the road thought I was nuts, one or the other)
6) I did manage to pull it thru all six gears a little aggressively on a trip after the video I took. I have never driven anything with near the acceleration or handling that the SL-C has. I cannot imagine this car with 750 plus horsepower. You would need to be on par with F1 drivers to handle this thing at that power level. 475ish HP and 430ish ft lbs of torque will be plenty for me to have fun.
7) The Porsche transaxle and stock shifter shifts completely effortlessly. It took no time at all and I was not evening thinking about my shifts, they just happened.
8) As others have commented, the ride is quite smooth, all things considered.
9) I have my ride height set at about 4 1/4" in front and 4 3/4" in the rear currently and if I hit my driveway at the wrong angle it scrapes. I will definitely need the Stanceparts lift system. It is installed but not working currently, I have a faulty air valve.
10) I appear to have a pinhole leak in my radiator, big bummer!! Not looking forward to pulling that to fix it!
11) Either my radiator cap or overflow tank are leaking when the car cools down. I am getting some coolant running down the side of the tank as it cools down. It is from the pressure side of the Moroso tank, not the overflow catch can side. Another bummer if it turns out to be the tank!
12) The Holley Terminator X really needs to be tuned by someone who knows what they are doing. I have an idle surge that I can minimize but not eliminate. Anyone on here good with the Holley Terminator X system? Once off idle it runs good.
13) Engine temps maintained right at 195 when idling or driving with only one fan running and the oil cooler fan had not kicked it yet.
14) I cannot wait to finish her and get her on the road now. I am definetely going with the plan similar to Rumbles and get it on the road without paint and interior work to fine tune things (and to enjoy it this summer) then finish it out after that.

Below is another video of a short walk around of the chassis after I came in from my go-kart testing. In the end I am happy with my exhaust note, I guess it is loud enough.

 
When you came around the corner and the police car was there, I thought this was going to end bad. Good thing it didn't!

Dan,

We have three officers who live in our neighborhood as well as the retired police chief. I was living life on the edge with my test drive thru the neighborhood for sure.
 
I have a couple of police officers in my neighborhood, I will be so happy when I am at the go cart stage I won't care at all about getting in trouble doing the drive test for a few blocks. Can't come soon enough. Glad all was well Kurt.
 
Hector,

You may get a chance to catch up with me, I drew a vacuum down on my AC system last night to leak test prior to charging (I want to make sure I have no leaks before final body fitment). It pulled good vacuum but after about an hour it bled off. I must have a leak :-(. Tonight I pressurized it with 50 psi of inert gas and listened for leaks at all the connections. I heard one at the high side quick connect so I removed both connections and will let that sit overnight or so and see if it bleeds off. Hopefully my problem is limited to the charging gauge set connections, if not, thus could take a while. I hate leaks!
 
The UV dye is your friend. You only have to get in about a half can of freon in the system to get enough cycling to find the leak with dye and a UV light. I knew I had a leak and didn't want to charge so I spent days chasing it with soapy water. Once I gave up and put some freon in, I found it under an hour, and it took way less freon than I thought.
 
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