Glen Strightiff/Chris Wilson C3 build

[baja-chris]

We tested it at plaster city Saturday night. Works well right out of the box. Some tuning needed on the front shocks, a few leaks to fix, details to address.
Added the cage gussets, nets, working on tin. Time is running short...

[Travisfab]

Motor sounds heavenly!

[cs_drums]

Any videos from testing?

[baja-chris]

We finished up all the safety related items like roof skin. The plaster city test showed oil temp getting hot and tranny stayed cold so we replumbed one of the two Fluidyne Enduro coolers to make one for oil and the other for tranny instead of both for tranny. Made the patches for the grill where we widened the headlamp openings. Loaded it up and took it to NORRA to display at tech. The next day I took to San Felipe to put some test miles on it. Wanted to see if the oil temp was under control now and just get some more seat time in it. It worked great and oil would get hot but stopped climbing and would cool quickly when not at max rpm. Truck felt good and was able to bounce it off the rev limiter in top gear on the lakebed. Worked well in on the giant whoops of the San Felipe power line road. Some friends had broken their car on the first stage of NORRA so I offered to let them run this bronco to finish the event. Truck needed more test miles and this seemed like a good way to get some good hard miles on it. It was fast in the two stages it ran and would of lined up 3rd off the line in Loreto had it made it that far. On the stage from LA Bay to Vizcaino the only vintage entries that were faster were Walker Evans and Bob Gordon and only a few of the big 4-seaters were faster. But on the highway to San Ignacio the engine missed then stopped. Turned out the new Ford crate 427w ate it's timing gear. Ford says it's a billet steel cam (hyd roller) and to use a steel gear on the distributor. The distributor gear is chewed up a bit but the cam gear is worn away, gone. Ford is paying to ship it back under warrantee. I just received the shipping cradle from them and now need to pull the engine and ship it back, freight pre-paid by Ford. Probably won't get to it until after the Baja 500. Anyway, the bronco is fast and it sounds to me like Ford got a bad batch of cams with bad heat treating. Will let you know how it goes. New race target is the Baja 1000. By then, it should have some paint and not look like a rat rod.

[Rmc]

Good to hear u stretched her legs, sucks it broke but thank God for warranty's. hopefully the next one is solid. Hope to see vid next time. Awesome job getting it finished and starting the testing though. Keep up the posts can't wait to see it in action.

[yikes]

Bronco is looking awesome Chris. It was great getting an up close view at Norra. The short wheelbase must make it very agile in tight sections. Did you run in 4wd?

[Broncodawg]

Aha, wondered why we saw your bronco racing south. Bummer about the motor. The rat rod look is too cool with the frankenstein fender stitches.....haha!

[SteveG]

Turned out the new Ford crate 427w ate it's timing gear. Ford says it's a billet steel cam (hyd roller) and to use a steel gear on the distributor. The distributor gear is chewed up a bit but the cam gear is worn away, gone....

Oh man, distributor drive gear issues... don't get me started! What a disappointment! It sounds like it was working well until then.

How long does it take to R&R the engine?

[Rmc]

Update?

[ESHALLBETTER]

x2

[baja-chris]

Drivetrain is out and working on cosmetics, painting firewall, under and inside tub, finish painting cage etc.
Have a guy to do body work and paint. Will finish up the chassis/tub paint before we put the drivetrain back in.

We now have a fully funded 4 race commitment for the next 4 SCORE races. The 1000 this year and the 250, 500, 1000 for 2014.

[baja-chris]

Quick update:
Ordered Stage-8 X-lock spindle nuts for the D44 ttb front end. Looks to be far superior to OEM setup.

For a jack, I bought a Hummer H1 3.5 ton scissor jack from ebay. Will weld a lug nut to the input so we can spin it up and down with the same impact that does the lug nuts.
Will put a bigger base on it and fab some bracketry onto the suspension so the jack registers and can't slip off on uneven terrain.
Plan to put a CO2 tank on board and use air impact instead of electric. This will also give us air for tires, cut off tool, etc.
Of course will also have a manual setup so we can change tires if the air system fails.

[baja-chris]

BTW, for the rear spindle nut, we tack welded a key to the end of the spindle. Will never come off accidentally and will use on board cut off tool to remove in the field if needed. Crude but effective.

[SteveG]

I've never seen an H1 jack... I'll have to look into that.

[retroblazer]

I had missed results with the stage 8 locking crap on my d44. I went back to stock because the locking stuff interfered with the spring that keeps tension on the drive slug. It may work ok with locking hubs though.

[philofab]

I had missed results with the stage 8 locking crap on my d44. I went back to stock because the locking stuff interfered with the spring that keeps tension on the drive slug. It may work ok with locking hubs though.

I had the same issue... I had to go to manual hubs which I have had more problems with than the auto!

[retroblazer]

Mixed results. Yeah it missed. English is my second language.

[300]

The slug spring has to go with the Stage 8 locking nuts. We did our own setup and then realized that Solid already makes the same thing.

Be sure to train your entire crew on how those Stage 8 nuts work before they twist a giant groove in the spindle trying to loosen them!

[baja-chris]

The engine is back in the race bronco now. While the drive train was out, we put bed liner on the tub inside and out and painted all the cage work (pulled fuel cell etc.) We still need to fabricate rear fenders and finish up the door inserts before we turn it over to the body/paint pros. Started fabrication of the wing (end plates and spars built so far). Need another weekend to get it running again.

[baja-chris]

Got it running and driving again. Added a second backup ignition system and a second back up fuel system with it's own pickup in the cell. The hood is now ready for some fiberglass. It gets glass from the back side, then the aluminium panels are removed and the top filled and sanded. You can see where we widened the two sides, extended the length 2" to match the fender stretch, and we also moved the air cleaner bulge back 7" and to the left another 3/4" (now 1.5" total offset) to match the stock engine location for the 91 bronco that this really is. We are leaving the back of the dome open and will seal the air cleaner to the underside of the hood so the only air intake will be the back side of this dome. Should serve as a cold air intake and keep the filter from getting direct hits of silt. For headlight bezels, we ordered some chrome plastic reproductions of a 60's era Peterbuilt.