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  #11  
Old 12-21-2010, 08:37 PM
ShawnMarsh ShawnMarsh is offline
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I agree with everything that has been said, looks incredible! I do have a question though. Why did you put vent holes in the floor? I'm not quite sure I understand the point, I've never put holes in when installing floors, but I'm sure you have a reason.
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  #12  
Old 12-21-2010, 10:39 PM
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Ove: I did think about using a skate wheel for bottom roll. While it would result in less deformation, I don't think you'd a get the same definition/look for the diamonds. With this roll set you get an almost 3D effect. A tiny bit of deformation but it's not really visible.

Shawn: I didn't describe very well where the ventilation holes are. They are in what's best described as the transmission tunnel. So not in the floor. Normally the bottom of the transmission tunnel is not covered. I wanted the belly pan to cover the complete underside of the passenger compartment. So I put ventilation holes under where the exhaust pipes and mufflers are routed. There's aluminum covering the inside of the transmission tunnel so it's enclosed except for the front, back and ventilation holes.
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Last edited by heinke; 12-25-2010 at 11:07 PM. Reason: mispelled word
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  #13  
Old 12-26-2010, 11:46 AM
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Default Finishing firewall

What I’ve shown of the firewall so far has been the easy part. Remaining is the portion forming the inside top corners of the foot boxes. These are difficult because they are very visible (so looks count) and are composed of several angles. Most of the firewall I’ve shown so far will only be seen by those that look deep into the engine compartment as the engine, headers and supercharger effectively blocks the view.
I started these remaining areas by first making cardboard templates. I used single ply cardboard but probably should have used double ply as it better simulates the rigidity of the aluminum sheet.






Here’s the passenger side space I’m trying to fill with the templates in place. While the templates in the picture looked good, I made the mistake of cutting out both pieces at once and one of them had to be scrapped. I should have cut and bent the front panel first and then made the second template. It’s what I had to do in the end to get a tight fit down the angled joint and against the middle of the firewall. With both pieces in place, it finished off nice. The aluminum tank is for supercharger inter-cooler coolant storage.





The driver side was more difficult. It had to be made in 3 pieces because of the mount for brake fluid reservoirs. I did end up with a couple of pieces of scrap before getting the pieces formed correctly.











With all pieces in place, the firewall flows nicely around the back of the engine compartment. I was a little bit apprehensive at first about using the anodize aluminum but after seeing it on the firewall, it gives a very professional look. The next step is continuing to sheet forward from the firewall to enclose the sides of the engine compartment.


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  #14  
Old 12-26-2010, 11:49 AM
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Kerry Pinkerton Kerry Pinkerton is offline
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Nice work Joel. Are those screws or rivets I see?
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  #15  
Old 12-26-2010, 01:47 PM
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They're stainless steel blind rivets.
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  #16  
Old 12-27-2010, 04:53 AM
2fast4u 2fast4u is offline
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Looking very good!
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  #17  
Old 01-05-2011, 03:45 PM
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Default Fastener change

After Kerry asked about what fasteners were used on the firewall, it made me re-think (and re-do) some of them. For the most visible fasteners, I decided to use 10-24 stainless steel button head screws. I polished up the button heads on a buffer to make them shine before installing the screws.



This meant drilling out the stainless blind rivets and tapping in threads where screws attached directly to chassis. As a hint, use a drill made from cobalt when drilling out stainless rivets. Still a pain but works better than carbon steel or titanium coated drills. Using blind rivets is much faster but the button heads sure do dress things up better

I left the rivets in place across the top of these panels. The body has a lip around the engine compartment that covers those fasteners from view.
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  #18  
Old 01-08-2011, 12:45 PM
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Default Interior insulation

I’d like to take you inside the C5 GTO for interior construction. The original GTO’s had aluminum sheet interior with almost no insulation and were usually painted with grayish hammer tone paint. That’s a fine choice for what was essentially a race car. Here’s a picture of an original GTOs interior minus the transmission tunnel.





The main criticisms from a driver comfort perspective were that GTOs were loud and hot. In other words, the V12 whine and road noise were clearly audible when driving and the exterior “fresh” air venting was mandatory. I on the other hand am looking for greater driver/passenger comfort without necessarily sacrificing the high performance nature of the car. I also want more styling in the interior than plain sheet but want to retain a “metallic” look.


The design choice I ended up with is double sheeted aluminum sandwiching insulation in between. The largest chassis tubes are 1.5 inches diameter so this gives me 1.5 inches of space for insulation. I anticipate the two hottest areas will be the firewall that’s exposed to engine headers and transmission tunnel where exhaust is routed and mufflers are located. My first line of heat protection is an all stainless steel exhaust system.
Earlier in this post are pictures of the belly pan. This forms the outer skin for the floor boards. Here’s a top view with some insulation in place.








I decided to use rigid urethane foam sheet for the insulation. It’s easy to get (bought mine at Home Depot), comes in various thicknesses, is relatively inexpensive, easy to cut and install. My first concern was if high heat would somehow adversely affect this material. To test, I held an industrial heat gun at about 1 inch from the bare foam (not the foil covered) turned on high for over 10 minutes and there was no appreciable damage apparent. There was a little bit of melting but not much. My main concern was whether it would catch fire and it didn’t so I figured it was safe for this application.





Here’s one of the high heat areas. Given the engine location, there’s only about 3 inches clearance between engine headers and this panel. The gas pedal and thus driver’s right foot will be on the opposite side of this panel. I’m hoping 1.5 inches of insulation will suffice to keep the heat at bay and my foot from cooking.


If anyone knows from experience that using this type insulation has any issues, please speak up. While it sounds good to me in theory, I’ve never actually seen it used in automobiles before.
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  #19  
Old 01-10-2011, 11:31 PM
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Default Interior sheet metal

In the foot box area, I used a couple of different thickness of 3003 sheet. For the floorboard .063 is used. .040 is used for the side panels. To add strength to the floorboard, it received ½” wide square beads over most of the surface.



The seat mounts go through the floor boards and are bolted to chassis tubes. Given that the bottom side is covered with a belly pan (and I didn’t want any holes in it), I had to put access holes in the floorboards to tighten the front bolts. These are filled with round snap in plugs from the hardware store.

Here's the foot boxes with the poly peeled off.







I wanted the “metallic” look in the interior. Well, it certainly has a metallic look.

I decided to do diamond tuck on the lower panels to give them some texture. I still need to decide what to do for upper and door panels but I doubt it will be diamond tuck. I'm thinking something more than plain sheet but not as busy as the diamonds. I'm thinking the upper and door panels are what most people will see so that's why I'm taking some time to think it through.

My plan is to do the interior behind the front seats like a hatchback. In other words, there will be no separator panel between passenger compartment and trunk. This gives me quite a bit of sheet surface area to emboss. I do plan to emboss the Ferrari stallion (probably somewhere around a 12 inch version or so) somewhere in that sheet metal.

Any and all ideas on what might look good are welcome.
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  #20  
Old 01-11-2011, 02:45 AM
Peter Miles Peter Miles is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by heinke View Post
The design choice I ended up with is double sheeted aluminum sandwiching insulation in between. The largest chassis tubes are 1.5 inches diameter so this gives me 1.5 inches of space for insulation. I anticipate the two hottest areas will be the firewall that’s exposed to engine headers and transmission tunnel where exhaust is routed and mufflers are located. My first line of heat protection is an all stainless steel exhaust system.


I decided to use rigid urethane foam sheet for the insulation. It’s easy to get (bought mine at Home Depot), comes in various thicknesses, is relatively inexpensive, easy to cut and install. My first concern was if high heat would somehow adversely affect this material. To test, I held an industrial heat gun at about 1 inch from the bare foam (not the foil covered) turned on high for over 10 minutes and there was no appreciable damage apparent. There was a little bit of melting but not much. My main concern was whether it would catch fire and it didn’t so I figured it was safe for this application.

If anyone knows from experience that using this type insulation has any issues, please speak up. While it sounds good to me in theory, I’ve never actually seen it used in automobiles before.
I posted a response yesterday, but it apparently did not stick. I'll try again.

Joel, I would suggest doing a little more research on insulation. Do a Google search on Aircraft Firewall Insulation. There are a number of good hits on the first page.

One that I've read a number of positive reviews of is the Koolmat.
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalo...es/koolmat.php
I have zero personal experience with this however.

Aircraft Spruce in general handles a number of different insulation products:
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/ap/insulation.html

Here is a link to a MSDS sheet for urethane foam (flexible, not rigid):
http://www.auralex.com/testdata/test/foammsds.pdf

Some snippets from that document:
Quote:
SECTION 3 -- PHYSICAL & CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS
...
IGNITION POINT: 600 - 650 degrees F

AUTOIGNITION POINT: 750 - 800 degrees F
Quote:
SECTION 4 -- FIRE & EXPLOSION HAZARD DATA
OSHA CLASSIFICATION: Combustible solid
NFPA SPRINKLER CLASSIFICATION: Upholstery with plastic foams. Extra hazard.
EXTINGUISHING MEDIA: Water spray, carbon dioxide, dry powder
FIRE FIGHTING PROTECTION: Use NIOSH-approved self-contained breathing apparatus &
protective clothing including boots.
UNUSUAL FIRE HAZARDS: Once ignited, can produce rapid flame spread, intense heat,

dense smoke and toxic gases. Can turn into burning liquid which can drip and flow.
Quote:
SECTION 5 -- PHYSICAL HAZARDS
...
CONDITIONS TO AVOID: Strong acids and alkalis will deteriorate foam properties.
INCOMPATIBILITY: Unknown
HAZARDOUS DECOMPOSITION PRODUCTS: Combustion, hot wire cutting, heat sealing, hot
stamping & flame laminating operations of foam may produce carbon monoxide, oxides of

nitrogen and traces of isocyanates & hydrogen cyanide.
I glanced at several MSDS sheets for rigid urethane foam, their characteristics varied significantly across various products, so don't assume that the above would apply to the product that you are considering. I would search for an MSDS sheet for that specific product or contact the manufacturer, however.

I would be concerned about possible outgassing of cyanide, etc. at temperatures well below the combustion point.

I'm also not sure how well this holds up to extended periods of vibration, moisture intrusion, etc.
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