toedrag

Signal Dynamics has three different flavors of the turn signal module. Go here: http://www.signaldynamics.com/instructions/ and scroll down to "Turn Signal & Conversion & System Modules" The 01501 (aka Turn Signal Module) is just the turn signal module, no interaction with the brake pedal or running lights. The 01007 (aka Penta-Star module) adds the brake pedal input feature The 01017 (aka Penta-Star XP module) adds the low beam input (& brake pedal input). Feature matrix here:

I picked up a hydraulic switch from Ron Francis wiring, model SW-32, which activates between 20-50 psi. I did a quick air pressure test on it when I received it, and it did short the contacts at 20 psi. I figure 20-50 psi should be adequate for light braking, and I'll find out how long it lasts....or maybe I'll just add "replace brake switch" to my annual maintenance list?

I was thinking it's more about the delta between 4 corners, not so much the absolute value at a given pedal position. To get a consistent pedal position for testing purposes, a temporary stop behind the brake pedal could be used. Or, I guess alternatively, maybe use more than one gauge and just clamp the pedal in position?

Not sure if there is a rear big brake kit for Miata's, and if there is, is it easier/cheaper to go that route vs the new pedal setup you're considering? Just spit-balling...

I remember that thread...I feel like there is something else going on, but not sure what. When I have brake fluid in my car, after a test drive or two, ensuring that the brakes are more or less working, I plan to put a pressure gauge on each corner, one at a time, to see what's happening. In theory, the pressure should be the same at all 4 corners with the bias valve opened up all the way, but I have a feeling it won't be. In either case, the answer is interesting...if there is a significant pressure difference front to rear, it suggests a pressure restriction somewhere...maybe the bias knob itself? Could try re-testing at upstream locations (bias knob & MC) to see where the restriction is? If the pressure is the same front to rear, then maybe it's just a matter of using either a softer compound up front and more aggressive in the rear, or maybe using a larger rear caliper, or smaller front caliper? Of course, I could be way off-base here because I know very little about designing braking systems

Is it an issue of front & rear brake balance? Or, can you elaborate on the problem(s) you're trying to solve?

At some point after I finish my build, I'll give this a go. Sub'd for future updates. Although, my tires are R888, which are 100 wear I think.

Been working on the terminating wires at the fuse panels. Here's what I'm using: Bussmann fuse panels, Metri-Pack 280 sealed tangless female terminals, cable seals, wire stripper, crimper, and Metri-Pack 280 terminal removal tool. http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28266&g2_serialNumber=2 I was stalled for a few days earlier in the week because I originally ordered the wrong terminals, which were unsealed and had a tang. Once I tried installing the first terminal, it was clear something was wrong; I found my way to the the Bussmann fuse panel datasheet where I saw the detail I had missed. They call for *tangless* terminals. I ordered the correct terminals and received them today. The differences in the terminals I bought can be seen below: http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28264&g2_serialNumber=2 If anyone wants more detail on this, such as part numbers, I'll be happy to share them.

Here you go. Sorry about the tilted camera. http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28260&g2_serialNumber=2

I've seen that before; it's definitely an option. Also cut flush. I can take a picture of it if you like.

I received my replacement pushrods, aka swage tubes, aka adjuster rods for the front & rear, and I was elated that the ride height is 6 1/4" in the front & 6 3/8" in the rear with plenty of thread engagement for future adjustments. That's also with zero preload on all springs. After the swap, there was only one phrase that came to my mind: -- Made good progress on the rear fenders, and I found fitting the rear fenders to be frustrating & incredibly time consuming. Re-shaping each fender's arc took 2-4 hours per fender. Then, as you can see in the following pictures, on each end of the fender, the arc straightens out towards the bottom. It was challenging to try to maintain symmetry of the point where it straightens out vs where the fender would eventually be trimmed flush. Plus, the attachment points to the car aren't quite coplanar, which means the fender twists as it's clamped down. The twisting action changes the gap to the tire. You can hopefully now imagine how much adjusting & reclamping was required; it felt like an insane amount to me. Re-shaping the arc on the outer lip: http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28250&g2_serialNumber=3 Fitted to the body with 4 clecos: http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28252&g2_serialNumber=2 Trimmed flush with the bottom. Trimming was straightforward with a level, coping saw, oscillating multi-tool, and palm sander: http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28254&g2_serialNumber=2 Front view: http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28256&g2_serialNumber=2 I'll probably round off each inward facing corner, but I decided to first get both fenders attached and then decide on the radius for the corner...still have the passenger side to trim flush. [EDIT]: I also have a little fine trimming to do on the rear bodywork where it comes up the side of the car and exits in front of the fender. You can see it sticking out in the picture immediately above where the clamp is [/EDIT] After that, I'll do a little electrical work before gathering some courage to start working on the windshield template & hard top.

Did some rough wiring for the alternator. It's a multi-wire alternator with the following functions: Excite, Sense, Alarm, and Battery. The harness from Current Performance Wiring contained the Excite wire, but unlike all the other wires in their harness, the Excite wire had no wrap or split loom once it exited the main harness. It was literally just a brown wire dangling in free space - it was quite odd, really. I guess I don't know if it was Current Performance Wiring or Brunton that left the wire this way. I decided to reroute the Excite wire since the other three alternator wires were taking a different path through the car. This meant I had to find where the Excite wire went in the harness. Initially, I thought that it came from the ECU after I checked some generic E38 pinouts and found the Charge control pin. However, that pin wasn't terminated on the ECU connector on my harness, which really confused me. To confuse me further, I got out my handy dandy toner/tracer tool mentioned previously to find where the Excite wire went. Surprisingly, about 1 foot inward from the point where it exited the harness, my toner lost the signal completely. After replacing the batteries, checking my connections, I decided to open up the harness to investigate. What I found is that the brown Excite wire is tee'd off a pink wire that ends up at the 7-pin coil pack connector on the driver's side, which turns out to be Ignition voltage for the coil packs. When I checked continuity between the Excite wire and that pin on the connector, which I assumed would be a dead short, it was ~480 ohms. So, it would seem that the Excite wire in this harness is simply Ignition voltage with a 470-ohm current limiting resistor. The 470 ohm resistor is why my toner lost the signal; it simply couldn't handle that much attenuation. I gave the Excite wire a little u-turn in the harness so that it could flow back to the opposite side of the car and join up with my main wire bus that runs along the passenger side lower frame rail. In the picture below, you can sort of make out the profile of the resistor under the giant heat shrink tube. I think I'm all done with engine harness modifications, thankfully. http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28248&g2_serialNumber=4

Thx. I found the one from Brunton, and it seems to match what my car is doing. For those unaware, the different tables below represent different holes/mounting points on the rockers, which translates to different motion ratios between the wheels & dampers. In each table, the left column represents how much the wheel is moving up (as in, the first inch, second inch, etc.) and the right column represents the change in the damper stroke: http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28244&g2_serialNumber=1

I suppose I also glossed over a fairly important detail with the pushrods & heims on my car. Because the rear needed to come up 1.5", that simply couldn't be done by just turning the pushrod to extend the heims. Well, you could, but it would leave the heim with only about 1/2" or less of thread engagement in the rod, and that's not quite enough thread engagment, imo. For the fronts, the heims were already threaded in all the way, which meant I couldn't lower the front the additional 1/2" that I wanted. To correct this, I'm replacing the rear 8" rods with 9" ones and replacing the front 19" rods with 18" ones. These should get the ride height where it needs to be and still allow plenty of heim thread engagement & adjustability when it comes time for corner balancing. --- As an aside, I'm using 6" for ride height because of the following: The lowest part of the car is the bellhousing, which protrudes 2.5" below the bottom frame rails. Then, if I stick to the 1/3 rule for the damper compression (at a total stroke of 4.75"), that means at rest, the damper has another 3.25" of compression before it bottoms out. I reason that I need as much ground clearance as is remaining in the damper compression stroke, which means 3.25" to the bellhousing. Add 2.5" to that, and I end up at 5.75" from the ground to the frame rails. I rounded up to 6". [EDIT]: It's now occurring to me that I didn't take into consideration the motion ratio with my little ride height formula above. I had been assuming that 1" of wheel travel = 1" of damper travel, and that may or may not be correct. Brunton has the motion ratios listed in a doc somewhere, I just need to go find & study them. [end EDIT]

Thank you for this. Yes, that's what I was trying to say, but with 1000 or more words...the only difference between what you're saying is that I will end up with a 33/67 ratio instead of 50/50. My dampers (front & rear) have 4 3/4" of travel, and with zero preload, they end up around 3 1/4", which is right around 68%. If I were to get more travel to end up closer to 50%, I'd either need to use softer springs or I'd have to lower the spring perch such that it loses contact with the spring at full droop, which would lead to a frightening 'clang clang' sound on the street as the spring & perch lost and then resumed contact. I suppose I could find some large diameter washers to use as a shim, or if the gap was big enough, use something called a 'helper spring'. I'll stick to this 1/3 to 2/3 ratio and see what happens.

Right, I'll wait on corner balancing w/ballast weight until later, once the car is all put together. The interesting thing (and I'm a neophyte w/corner balancing btw) is that ride height seems to be the parameter of interest during corner balancing, which means preload won't be a consideration, unless one adjusts ride height via preload. Good idea on the slots to accommodate changes!

I had been working on fitting the rear fenders for the last couple of days. It's funny how something so seemingly simple like fender installation can uncover new dependencies: The outer lip of both fenders was a pretty rough circle, and the width of the lip varied up to 1/2" all the way around. To fix it, I traced the profile of the fender onto the lip and gradually re-shaped it. It took a while to complete both fenders. I think I spent maybe 4-5 hours on each one. [statement of the obvious]: It's hard to get a perfect circle by hand . It's now infinitely better than it was originally, and I'm happy with it. I'll do pictures once they are on the car. I don't have any 'befores' though... When I tried to place the fender onto the car, it dawned on me that because the rear fender will be attached to the body of the car, it meant that the car needed to be, more or less, at its final ride height since I wouldn't want to set the fender, then increase the ride height and screw up the nice gap I had worked so hard to obtain. Such began my odyssey into trying to set the ride height on this car. Keep in mind that this M-Spec version of the Stalker differs from previous Stalkers & many other se7evn variants in that the M-Spec has double-wishbone control arms with pushrod/rocker actuated inboard single adjustable coilovers on all 4 corners, which is a lot of fun to say, by the way. The car currently sits with the front roughly 0.5" too high, and the rear roughly 1.5" too low. After a quick call to Brunton, the guidance was to just add 3/4" of spring preload to the rears and that would raise it up enough. Not having any idea what spring preload was or why a person would want more or less of it, I set about to educate myself, and I think I understand it now. Feel free to correct me if any of the following sounds off: 'Spring preload' is a fancy way of saying, "raise the lower spring perch until the spring is compressed X number of mm or inches." The main purpose of preloading a spring is to change the starting/statically loaded position of the damper stroke. Preloading a spring also has an interesting affect, therefore, on ride height. For some suspension systems where there is no separate ride height adjustment, changing spring preload is the only way to change the ride height, which is I think where some people get the slightly misguided idea that [the purpose of preload is to change the ride height]. I personally think that's an oversimplification, but since it's also application-specific, it's hard to blame people for coming to that conclusion if that was their experience. I found an Internet Rule of Thumb (be warned) for a street car that states when then car is statically loaded (resting on its wheels on a perfectly level surface), the damper should be compressed approximately 1/3 it's total stroke. For example, if you have a damper with 3" of total stroke, when the springs & damper take the weight of the car, you should still see 2" of the damper stem. Going further, if you had soft springs that allowed the car to compress the damper such that you could only see 1" of damper stem, then you could use some spring preload so that the damper isn't compressed as far. In contrast, if you could see 2.5" of damper stem, you could reduce spring preload so that more of the damper is compressed. The good news is that at my car's current state of being, it does compress the front & rear dampers to ~1/3 it stroke with basically zero preload. If I adjust preload any further, it'll be because extra weight added to the car during the remainder of assembly caused the dampers to be compressed more than 1/3 their stroke. Outside of that, I have no interest in using spring preload to adjust the ride height. So, I find myself, once again, deviating from the Stalker playbook. My logic is that with the pushrod suspension, it's the total length of the pushrod + heim joints that dictate the ride height (or so I think). That's what I'll be messing with to lower the car in the front & raise it in the rear. After remembering how trigonometry worked, I've determined that I need to reduce the front pushrods by 1" and increase the rear pushrods by 1", and using the heims to fine tune things. This should allow me to get to the 6" ride height I'm after and allows zero spring preload. So, new pushrods are now on order (at a pleasant ~$10 ea), so it'll be back to wiring for a few days while waiting for the new pushrods to come in.

Sure thing. Got 'em from Summit, SUM-890145 is the switch, and PCO-5756PT is the pigtail for it. The actual p/n stamped on the switch is XF32-9341-AA, and it looks like you can find them a little cheaper on ebay using that p/n. It's a 3-wire connection, Common, N.O., and N.C. On the pigtail, the Common & NO terminals are 12 gauge wires, but the NC terminal is 14 gauge for whatever reason. I chose to wire it such that the inertia switch is in series with the coil side of the fuel pump relay vs putting it in series with the pump directly. I have the Common terminal connected to the control wire from the ECU (12V = On), the NC terminal connected to the coil side of a relay, and the NO terminal feeds a indicator light on the dash.

Like any vice, it started innocently enough...ya know, getting toenails painted with my 4 yr old. Harmless, right? We started micro-painting faces & little landscapes on our toes after that (kind of like those artists who paint the heads of pins) - we tried people, animals, etc...This made for a much more realistic, "This little piggy" game. Again, harmless, right? I started exploring other stories/plays using these new toe characters in my private time. Eventually, I started making up complex plot lines & characters. Sadly, I began to realize over time that always having bald characters was stifling my creativity. Naturally, the solution was to find miniature wigs to fit my toes. The sky was now the limit with what I could do. Now, things get a little weird.... As a gag, I made a video of one of my plays and temporarily posted it to youtube. It went viral, much to my surprise, but hey, the interwebs have some weirdo's I guess... Anywhoo, and after a fair amount of back and forth with an individual known only as "BigToeny", I'm now contractually obligated to produce videos exclusively for [him/her?] BigToeny happens to prefer all-female toe-centric theatrics, so I suppose that, technically, you could consider that my "toes are in drag" on occasion for that. :jester: . . . . . . . . . Or, maybe the reflection you're seeing in pic 265 is from the shiny insole of the sandal

Continuing from the previous post, starting work on the side aluminum panels for the top of the rear bodywork: First, I had to determine where the back edge of the panel would end up. I arbitrarily chose 5/16" inwards from the edge of the flat steel back there. Next, I had make a u-shaped channel for the roll bar supports. I measured from the door edge to both sides of the roll bar support. For the curve of the roll bar support, I used some spare 12-gauge solid wire as a form and transferred it to the side panel. http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28220&g2_serialNumber=3 Next, I had to notch the outside to fit around a little fiberglass lip on the side of the rear bodywork. No picture, sorry. Some light filing was required to get the proper fit and to get the back edge to line up with my 5/16" reference line. After it was in the right place, I grabbed some thick-ish paper to use as a shim between the door & side panel, shooting for a finished gap around 1/32ths. Once that was done, I opened the door and clamped the side piece to the fiberglass & frame. Next, I scribed a line onto the underside of the panel (used painter's tape so that the pencil mark would appear), following the profile of the rear bodywork. Then, I removed the panel and cut it with the jigsaw. This got the initial shape I needed onto the panel. Once verifying that the shape matched properly, I used a compass and set it to a width equal to the difference between the edge of the door and edge of the rough-cut of the side panel, which was ~1/4". Then, I used the compass to scribe another line onto the panel and cut it again, ensuring to cut it slightly larger than I needed. After that, I got out the belt sander to make final adjustments. Lather, rinse, repeat for the other side. http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28222&g2_serialNumber=4 To now drill the side pieces, I transferred the marks I made earlier where the frame tube travels under the fiberglass and continued that line around the panel. There are two holes on each side which don't go into the tube. I'll probably epoxy some scrap squares of aluminum to the underside of the fiberglass to give the screws something to bite into. Phew....now the majority of the rear bodywork is attached to the frame....But, I wasn't done yet. -- To keep the door closed, the Shopping list calls for two pop-up latches that rotate to release the door, to be installed at each rear corner of the door. I had another idea of using a single keyed lock and two magnetic catches. Why use a key lock? I don't know, seemed like a good idea since my car will see public streets. I had originally purchased a generic weatherproof cam lock from McMaster, but turned out I couldn't use it. I needed to be able to use the key as a handle to actually pull up to open the door since the door has no other pull/handle. The cam lock I bought from McMaster allowed the key to slide out no matter what position the key was in. So, I found my way to the local big box hardware store and browsed their cam locks in the mailbox accessory section. Turns out, what I needed was, in fact, called a Mailbox cam lock. This type of lock retains the key unless the lock has been engaged. I suppose what I had originally purchased might be classified as a "cabinet" or "drawer" cam lock since those applications always have a separate pull. In order for the cam bar to make contact under the 3/4" frame tube, I needed to locate the lock about 1/4" rearward which required notching the fiberglass. I also had to slightly adjust the angles of the bend of the cam bar. To keep the corners quiet, I grabbed some magnetic catches in the cabinet section of the hw store. I used JB Weld to attach the strike plates to the underside of the door and used some spare aluminum panel right angle pieces to mount the magnets. (The one on the left was slightly skewed when I snapped the picture) http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28232&g2_serialNumber=3 All finished http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28234&g2_serialNumber=3 Next up will be to install the rear fenders so that I can call the rear body work done.

Wiring has been going well, or so I think. I keep waiting for the "oh &$%!" moment that forces me to re-do a bunch of it, but knock on wood that it hasn't happened yet. The way I'm doing things is to run all the individual wires along some common paths, seeing where the natural groupings occur, and once that's done, I'll bundle them and put them in some split loom tubing. I'm debating on testing as much of it as I can before housing it inside the split loom. The wiring for the front half of the car follows the frame along the passenger side, then around the front frame tubes. The wiring for the rear of the car goes down the tunnel and then splits left & right. I thought briefly about doing multiple wire colors, but in the end, decided not to. http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28197&g2_serialNumber=3 http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28210&g2_serialNumber=3 I'm taking a brief pause from wiring to finally work on the rear body. It took a while to talk myself into this because doing the rear fiberglass body requires that the 3-piece aluminum cover panels are also done simultaneously. I had been kind of dreading working on the 3-piece aluminum covers on the rear because I haven't found any instructions, either in text or build video form. Happy to say that those aluminum panels are now done, and I'm quite tickled with how they turned out. What is so tricky about this, to me, was getting the profile correct on the outer pieces where the fiberglass turns the corner, and ensuring that the edges of the two outer pieces & center hinged door are perfectly aligned. I started by marking the center of the 3/4" circular frame tube which is just under the fiberglass lip. I marked the center by measuring from the fiberglass lip to the edge of the tube, then added 3/8" (3/4 divided by 2). The hashed line represents the 3/4" tube. Then, I took a couple of scrap 1/4" shims & taped them together, offset by about 2". This allowed the outer shim to ride the contour of the fiberglass body. Then, the inner shim rested on the horizontal edge of the fiberglass and I put my pencil against that inner shim. That allowed me to generate the smooth line you can see in this picturehttp://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28216&g2_serialNumber=3. Once I did the other side in the same way, I used a straight edge to connect the two, and this told me where the front edge of the center door needed to be. Moving over to the piano hinge, I centered the piano hinge on the door, marked it and cut the hinge to size. I wanted the piano hinge to be as invisible as possible, but still needed to open fully. And, the center door obviously needs to be flush with the 2 outer pieces. Here's how I did it: Lay the door (not yet trimmed to size) on top of the opening, one end laying on the frame and the other end laying on the fiberglass lip Center the door left to right in the opening. For me, this was 2 3/8" inward from each roll bar diagonal support. (refer to picture above) Position the piano hinge the under door & against the frame. Clamp the hinge to the door. Clamp the hinge to the frame. Remove the clamp holding the hinge to the door, then remove the door. This should leave just the hinge clamped to the frame. Mark & drill the frame and cleco the hinge in place. Next, the door needs to be again centered in the opening and positioned so that it can open fully. Here's how I did it. This part required some trial & error, i.e. re-clamping & adjusting Figure out which edge you want facing outward (toward the rear of the car). If you want the factory machined edge facing outward as I did, flip the door over so that it's front and rear edges are reversed. Left & right edges should be unchanged. Lay the door in the "open" position, i.e. vertically, resting against the roll bar. Rotate the free part of the hinge into place against the door and clamp the hinge to the door. Close the door Check that the closed door is still centered between the roll bar supports. If not rotate the door open and re-clamp. Don't be tempted to drill & cleco yet if your door is still flipped over. Once the door (flipped) is centered & clamped to the hinge, you can now mark the door for trimming. I used a straightedge to join the two lines from an earlier step: http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28218&g2_serialNumber=3 Now that the door is trimmed to size, flip it back over so that the cut edge faces the hinge. Repeat the previous steps of putting the door in the "open" position, then clamping to the hinge, then closing to check if it's centered. Once it is, mark, drill, and cleco the hinge to the door. Now, comes the hard part....the side pieces. Continuing on next post....

Revisiting this one since I'm starting to run wires now...I feel the need to try to put some numbers to it, with the full understanding that my numbers are likely very wrong. Read on to be misinformed The frame tubes are 16 gauge steel, which is .06" thick. Most of the tubes are 1.25" square, so that makes the cross sectional area 0.075 sq in per face of the square. If I take the generally applied idea that steel is 20% conductive as copper, maybe I can say the equivalent surface area is 0.075 * 20% = 0.015 sq in, which is smaller than 6 gauge copper wire & larger than 8 gauge copper wire. But, if the ground currents flow on more than one face of the frame tube (my physics on this is quite rusty), then obviously the cross sectional area increases. If, at best, it's 4x, then steel would have an equivalent cross sectional area of 0.015 * 4 = 0.06 sq in (ironically), which is close to 1 gauge copper. I suppose this means that 16 gauge 1.25" steel square tube is [approximately?] electrically equivalent to copper somewhere between 8 & 1 gauge. Sooooo, maybe for ground wires smaller than 8 gauge copper, it's preferable to use the chassis for ground instead of a wire. For anything larger than 1 gauge, it's probably better to run a ground wire. In between, it's anyone's guess. Obviously, there are complexities here that I'm not smart enough to comprehend. However, to me, the notion that the 1.25" frame is equivalent to, at least, 8 gauge copper passes my "smell test". For 1" square tube, the smallest equivalent also seems to be 8 gauge. For 3/4" square tube, the smallest equivalent seems to be ~10 gauge. On a related note, earlier I mentioned that I would like use the block as the ground distribution point. I now find myself wondering what, if any, long term impacts there are of putting sustained current (50A) through the block? When that number (50A of ground current) finally dawned on me, I started having second thoughts about using the block for ground distribution. For the smaller ground wires in my system (for 20 & 14 gauge circuits), looks like I'll use the chassis as the ground connection, unless there is a compelling reason not to on a specific circuit. What I'll also do once the electrical system is up & running is to try measuring the drop from the various chassis ground points back to the battery. Sorry to meander all about in this post, but I'm stuck inside the house with 3 sick ppl...going a bit :willy_nilly: and I needed something else to occupy my brain today.

Horn is now installed, circled in yellowhttp://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28191&g2_serialNumber=3: I finally found a suitable location for the inertia switch that meets the following criteria: Mounted to the frame Oriented as upright as possible Accessible to the driver while seated Out of the way of knees & feet No wiring visible to the occupants Circled in green: http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28189&g2_serialNumber=4

Thx for your kind words! --- Regarding wheels, I have been going back and forth on the hubcentric wheel & spacer topic. After receiving my lug nuts and attempting a front wheel install w/o any centering rings (bleh), I decided to buy front & rear centering rings and new rear wheel spacers that are hubcentric. I've used plastic-type centering rings on a previous 4k lb car on the track, and since they held up fine on that car, I'm not worried about them melting on this one. For those unfamiliar to what I'm referring, the situation on my Stalker is this: Fronts: The front hub has a center bore of 67.1mm, but the center bore of the wheel is 73.1mm. That's 6mm of slop that I'd have to center using the 5 lug nuts...or buy the proper centering rings. I didn't enjoy the act of using the lug nuts to center the wheel, so I bought some plastic centering rings with ID 67.1 & OD 73.1. Rear The rear hub has a center bore of 70.3mm (yes, it's bigger than the fronts). The rears also require a 1.5" (38mm) spacer. The original spacer I bought has a center bore of 74mm and also has no lip for the wheel; it's totally flat on the face. Meaning, that's 7mm of slop between the hub & wheel, and another amount of slop between the spacer & wheel. I opted to buy another set of rear spacers that have a center bore of 70.3mm so they'll fit snugly on the hub, and they have a lip on the wheel side where I'll use another set of centering rings that have an ID of 70.3mm and OD of 73.1mm. Both seats (Momo Supercup) are now installed. The driver's side has plenty room since the space is 19.5" wide; the passenger side has very little clearance on either side since the space only 19" wide, but the seat does fit. I guess the larger dimensions of the XL allow the seat to be more forward than other versions. I'm 6' with a 32" inseam. My seating position allows for about 120 deg bend in the legs at the knee with feet barely touching the pedals, which then leaves about 3" between the back of the seat and the panel behind it. I might be able use it as a small storage space; I thought about using it for the battery, but decided against that. Both seats are on Sabelt universal sliders and also use the previously mentioned modified Planted Technology sidemount brackets. Having the seats installed now lets me make progress in other areas, which is welcomed progress. Also now apparent is that the seats' harness holes & my shoulders are too high above the stock harness mounting point. Meaning, another addition to the welding list: two horizontal harness bars behind the seats' harness holes: http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28174&g2_serialNumber=2 http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28183&g2_serialNumber=3 I cut the steering shaft to its final size and had my welder attach the quick release hub adapter to the shaft. It's welded all way around, and he added two rosette welds on opposite sides of the assembly instead of pinning it. The way he made the rosette weld was to drill through the adapter wall and then partially drilled the wall of the shaft to only slightly dimple it. Then, he gradually filled in the dimple & hole. Only the force of Thor's hammer will unseat the adapter from the shaft. The remainder of the steering shaft assembly is called out in this earlier post on this thread http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28185&g2_serialNumber=3 http://www471.pair.com/stalkerv/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28187&g2_serialNumber=3

It's interesting that it'll be so close to COTA (~1.5 hr).