Kurt H (hoffkm) SL-C build thread

[Neil]

Josh has my tune dialed in just about perfect so I felt safe driving the car a further distance and I took her to the Cars and Coffee of the Upstate this morning. It is a large, monthly car show here in Greenville in the parking lot of the Michelin Headquarters. As I drove into the show early this morning it was a mass migration of people following me in until I got parked. Just as everyone says, questions, questions, questions. Luckily Ian Henderson was there to give me a break in talking about the car.

Good news is this was my first drive out on the highway. Car is very smooth at 70 MPH (still not pushing it). I have about 75 miles on it testing now and so far nothing has fallen off. I call that a win!

Josh sent me a new tune that I downloaded this morning and tested on the way to the show. I was getting onto I85 and the road was a little damp. I thought I would be OK to do a WOT pull and a data log in second getting on the highway up to redline. I no longer than get onto the throttle and she tried to swap ends on me. Luckily my reaction times are still pretty good after my stroke and the only one scared was probably everyone else around me on the highway. The SL-C handled it well and reacted exactly as I expected and recovered. It felt like I was completely 90 degrees sideways. Nitto NT05's are not wet weather tires and I knew that from experience. Live and learn.

Some pictures at a rare moment that no one was circling the car.

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It is dirty, it is raw, but no one seems to care. I was surprised to find about 3 or 4 people who actually knew what it was or had at least heard of the SL-C before.

We always get three questions-
"What is it?"
"How fast will it go?"
"How much did it cost?"

 

[Kurt Hoffman]

Leaving Cars and Coffee at Bridgeway Station yesterday, I love this picture.

I am enjoying the car too much, it is going to be difficult to take it apart and finish it once we FINALLY get into our house (mid summer on that hopefully)!

 

[Kurt Hoffman]

The bad news: ran into a snag while driving the SLC a while back. I was out for a drive around town, enjoying the car and the coolant temps started climbing. I was downtown in traffic so made a quick turn off to get out of that area. I managed to pull into a parking lot near my workplace, temp was around 250+ and I shut her down. Found a broken plastic heater line fitting. One of the heater line tees in my crossover loop broke and she dumped out almost all her coolant. Had to empty out my trailer that was being used for storage at the time and brought her back to the storage unit. She is out of commission until the house is done and my shop is arranged.

The good news: we received the keys to our home last week and I have been moving in the past week. The SL-C is in the garage but unfortunately the garage is currently filled with the hundreds of boxes from our four storage units. It will be a long time before we get them all sorted since I am once again traveling every other week out of town for work. I need to get some more miles on the car to do some more testing (I have already replaced all the plastic fittings in the coolant circuit, even though they were automotive grade I no longer trust any of them) before taking it apart for finishing (paint, interior, upgrades, etc.).

Photos were taken before about seven more of the 12 trips I have made with my 25 ft enclosed trailer taking boxes, etc. from our four storage units. The garage is FULL now. Once the boxes are all sorted out it will be time to put up my new car lift and arrange all my tools.

Hopefully there will be some updates with progress on the car this coming winter. It is just good to be finally in our new home, we are loving it so far.

 

[Ken Roberts]

Congrats on taking possession of the new place Kurt.

A good source for custom sized tees in aluminum.....jagsthatrun.com. I use them on my car.

 

[Mark]

Why did you got big door and small door? Are you going to frame out there small door as a room? I love a good shop build

 

[Kurt Hoffman]

Why did you got big door and small door? Are you going to frame out there small door as a room? I love a good shop build

The front is a 16' wide x 10' tall door in the center flanked by a 9' wide x 8' tall door on both sides. I just liked the look from the front. The shop will be left one, large, 42' wide x 48' deep area except for the paint booth that will be built in the back corner.

 

[Mark]

You are right I like that look from the front. Couldn’t tell in the other pic there was a 3rd door.

 

[Kurt Hoffman]

Garage is still not sorted but I did force myself to take some time to get the car back on the road. Everything is OK and back operational. Changed the oil (no metal or surprises in the oil) and got the coolant system completely bled. Changed the spark plugs while I was at it. I was still running the old plug wires from the donor engine and some of them pulled apart when I removed them. Replaced all them as well. In the end, I found the root cause of the blown heater hose. I recently installed a remote battery disconnect. This allows me to disconnect the battery without opening the rear clam. In the process of my installation I bumped and tripped the circuit breaker for the radiator fans. While driving the car in downtown traffic with no fans it got warmer than normal and popped the heater hose fitting.

75 degrees out today (nice cool fall day in South Carolina) and I took the SLC out around town, about 30 mile drive. Temps never got over 190, usually stayed around 183 to 185. Problem solved (it would appear).

I am enjoying the car more and more every time I drive it. I recently managed to get some extra adjustment in the steering column by removing the bumper in the column and the extra notch of up adjustment allows me to be more comfortable (in addition to the 55 lbs I have recently lost after gain extra weight after my stroke for some reason). Looking forward to taking a trip up to the Tail of the Dragon sometime before I take the car apart to finish it.