ITB Ascona is finally progressing

[bello]

Hello Bob- Haven't heard from you re your possible trip to Sebring...I plan to be there Thursday afternoon thru Sunday. Racing with HSR, the Vintage Racing crowd. Yes, I am older than dirt... Anyway, the car is practically ready, after a PITA project of relocating the oil cooler from in front of the radiator to the right headlight. Also this is the first time out with the oddball Getrag transmission with the real close ratios. Hope you can come out to play! Ernie

[MantAscona]

Well, the exhaust is finally pretty much finished. I built an enclosure to cover the header area where it passes through the firewall and into the passengers compartment. I still need to do some finish work on the flange where it will be welded to the floor and make a cover for the access opening, but otherwise it's done. The access opening is so I can install a total seal band clamp on the pipe joint. I use these instead of standard U bolt clamps because they do not crimp or deform the pipe so they allow easy disassembly of the joint later on. I welded a short section of 4" ID pipe to the rear of the box enclosure to act as a reciever for the 4" OD pipe that houses the muffler. After a bit of thought, I concluded that the simplest and most effective way of enclosing the entire exhaust system would be to build an inner exhaust system inside of a larger mock exhaust system. A pipe inside of a pipe basically.

Duane

[MantAscona]

I welded a tab onto the cage to accept a 4" pipe clamp. This will locate and secure the system front to rear and left to right inside of the car. It won't actually be tightened enough to crimp the pipe. The system then makes a 90 degree bend toward the right side of the car where it exits through the lower part of the rear door.

Duane

[MantAscona]

The whole thing terminates through the door and rear flare. I made several rings like the one you see at the tip. These were welded inside of the 4" pipe to locate the 2.5" pipe centrally in the opening. This will eliminate any movement or rattling of the inner system against the outer system. They serve a second purpose as well. There is an opening in the firewall for the header to pass through which will also allow air to enter the box enclosure. The air will then flow through the box, out of the rear of the box and into the 4" pipe. It will pass through the ring of smaller holes in each of these bulkheads and exit out of the tip through the smaller holes. In effect, this will be a forced air cooled exhaust system. An aluminum finish plate will be attached to the flare to protect the paint finish and to give it a completed look.

Duane

[MantAscona]

Basically, the entire system can be installed as a single cartridge from the joint inside of the box rearward. The joint in the box is the only servicable joint in the entire system as all of the other joints, inner and outer pipe, are welded. I also installed a flex joint inside of the box at the end of the collector. This will accomodate any movement from the engine and allow the rest of the system to be rigidly mounted. I will include photos of the flex joint a bit later after I disassemble everything so I can snap a picture. I'll also include some photos of where I patched the floor back up after determining that I had initially cut too much out.

Duane

[namba209]

Duane, just a suggestion to assist in evacuating the air around your exhaust. If you were to cut a piece of 4" pipe at a 45 degree angle, and put it on the end of your exhaust, pointy end to the front, it will create a siphon effect and help extract the exhaust and boundary layer air around the inner exhaust pipe. I used a similar setup on my model racing boats to act as a bilge pump to remove water from inside the boats. Worked great.

[RallyBob]

Looking good Duane. I can see you're putting a lot of thought into 'T2'.

Regarding Ron's suggestion...it really works!

[MantAscona]

I'm trying to be a little bit innovative and still satisfy the rules requirements. I'm fairly happy with how the exhaust has turned out so far. I have to come up with a way to mount the passengers seat above it though. I'll see what I can do about a turnout on the end of the exhaust tip, but it will be difficult as I didn't leave very much room to play with in that area.

Duane

[MantAscona]

Here is a photo of the flex joint that I added to the header. You can also see the patch panel that I made for the floor to fill in the hole that I originally cut too large. I feel better having the floor tied back into the tunnel. The hole in the firewall is reasonable in size now. I also welded the ring to the exhaust tip tonight and made the cover for the access hole in the header box. I used nutserts to provide threads for the cover to be fastened by.

Duane

[jeff denton]

Nice setup. Your rules are very liberal compared to what I had to work with in accomplishing a similar system. Luckily I didn't have to figure in a passenger seat though!

[RallyBob]

Okay, 5 months have passed since your last update Duane. We need more pics!

Bob

[MantAscona]

Okay, I can't take the peer pressure anymore.

The car is still at the body shop and progress has stalled, but I have a few photos of it as it sits. The second color still needs to be sprayed to complete the look I'm after, but I'm surely not going to rush the guy when he has agreed to paint the car for free.

I've been working on the front suspension off and on and in between all of the busy things that summer brings. I have also been bead blasting and painting parts to have them ready for when the chassis returns. Tires are mounted up and I've done a bit of work on getting the motor ready.

I really can't believe summer is pretty much over already. I don't know where the time goes.

Duane

[MantAscona]

Here's one more.

You can see that I had him shoot the rear parcel shelf and A pillar cage tubes flat black to reduce glare from the shiny silver paint. The cage has slightly less gloss to it than the rest of the car and this was done for the same reason.

The car actually came out nicer than I wanted it to. I wanted it to look respectable to represent his business, but I don't want it too nice to the point where I'm afraid to wreck it. After all, it is a hillclimb car and chances are good that it will be parked in the woods at some point.

Duane

[Brinki]

hoho..i´m very impressed. you all did a great job!! although you´re so far away from the motherland of ascona, manta, kadett etc...we have even great problems to fix our cars, but we´re HERE!!

(i hope my bad english let you understand my message )

[OpelNewb]

I am pretty "green" to the racing stuff in these cars but I am not sure of one thing. Why does the exhaust run through the inside of the car? Was it in danger of dragging alot? Or just too complicated to make all tubes equal length and still fit it in? Anyway it's a awesome looking ride. I am sure it will be the cream of the crop when you get it racing.

[RallyBob]

Originally Posted by OpelNewb I am pretty "green" to the racing stuff in these cars but I am not sure of one thing. Why does the exhaust run through the inside of the car? Was it in danger of dragging alot? Or just too complicated to make all tubes equal length and still fit it in? Anyway it's a awesome looking ride. I am sure it will be the cream of the crop when you get it racing.

Well, Duane simply used what he had available to him. I sold him the car, and along with the car, I sent a bunch of parts I had from other cars. One of those parts was a header/exhaust I built years ago for my (stillborn) Manta hillclimb car, and that car was low enough to the ground that I had to run the header and exhaust inside the car (but in my case I cut out the floor and raised that section to match the exhaust). Duane simply made an exhaust within an exhaust to accomplish the same thing I did.

Bob

[MantAscona]

Time for an update.

First, to answer OpelNewb's question, the exhaust modification was done for two reasons, I wanted additional ground clearance and as Bob mentioned I used what I had.

I received the car back from the painter the day before my OctOpelfest meet. It was nice to have the car there for everyone to see. The body came out great, in fact too great for what I was expecting. I told the painter not to make it too nice as it may get balled up at some point. He actually painted it once and sanded it back down to paint it again as he wasn't happy with the first results. The previously posted photos were of the first paint job which I thought was too nice. So, here it is the day I picked it up.

Duane

[MantAscona]

Everyone jumped right in and began assembly work during the meet. The front suspension was assembled and installed in the car as well as the rear suspension, fuel cell, drivers seat and steering column. By the end of the meet the car was sitting on its wheels and I have to say, I like the way the car sits.

Here are a few shots from the meet.

Duane

[MantAscona]

During the meet, Bob and Gregg had discussed the option of loaning an engine to help get this project on the track sooner than what my budget would allow. I'm currently trying to build a motor for my Manta and building a second one for the hill car would be more than I could swing at the moment.

While under the influence of massive quantities of alcohol, Bob and Gregg asked me if I would be interested in borrowing the engine that Bob built for the GT-4 Manta and ended up going in Greggs 4 door Ascona instead. I didn't hesitate and made arrangements to pick it up the following weekend.

The following Sunday, Evan, Rick and myself piled in the Titan and left at 4am. We drove to the Boston area and picked up the car and then trailered it to Bobs shop in Connecticut. We removed the engine and trans from the car and left the chassis with Bob. We then drove home to PA with our loaner drive line arriving at 11:20pm. In all, it was almost 800 miles and 15 hours of driving time all in one day, but the results will be an enormous help in getting this car on the hill this season.

Here are a couple of pics of the engine.

Duane