The day finally arrived to have the GTM inspected.  After being anxious and nervous it was all for nothing – the inspection took 5 minutes and all the inspector wanted to see was the serial # on the frame, and that it matched my title app serial, etc. Thanks to Josh for hauling the GTM. Here are a few pics in actual day light for the first time since completion.

Weather permitting, driving will commence once the diffuser is reinstalled (just have to rivet the bottom back in place).

Got the new steering wheel today so I installed that.  The outer portion of the quick disconnect bolts to the back of the steering wheel, horn is connected to the quick disconnect wiring and pushed/inserted into the quick disconnect piece. I had some troubles getting the quick disconnect to work at first – I could not lock the wheel into place. I realized that one of the bolts that holds the steering wheel onto the disconnect piece was rubbing on the inside of the main disconnect hub so I had to grind that down a bit with a file.  Now it locks/unlocks as it should.

This setup is very nice. The steering wheel can be removed or connected in seconds, and getting in and out of the car is much, much easier. This steering wheel allows for a great view of the gauges, as it follows the curvature of the dash nearly perfectly.

As I await for my inspection date to arrive I decided to upgrade the steering wheel with a quick release hub from NRG. I am using their SRK-400B ‘thin’ model. The quick release unit consists of two pieces – one bolts to the FFR supplied steering column hub, and the other bolts to the back of the steering wheel. Horn functionality is retained without having to disconnect anything when removing the steering wheel. I installed the column-side portion of the quick release tonight, and will install the new steering wheel when that arrives later this week. Pretty self-explanatory stuff. Not having the steering wheel in the way makes getting in and out much easier.

With the gluing of the exhaust mesh pieces into place I have officially completed the GTM Assembly Manual.  I removed the diffuser to get to the underside of the mesh easier.  Hopefully the weatherstripping trim pieces will hold up to the exhaust temperatures, but if not I will either roll the mesh back (like the manual has you do), or come up with something else to use.

After gluing the mesh in place I secured the intake tubing to the frame. Josh found some cool swivel zip tie mounts that take 2 zip ties and have a swivel in the middle for flexible mounting. The bottom zip tie goes around the frame the tubing passes over, and the top zip tie goes around the tubing, effectively cinching it down to the frame without the need of any hangers or mounts.

Finally, I cleaned up the hosing that connects each fuel tank vent to the air filter. I lengthened the fuel hose and secured it to the top frame member of the chassis running  behind the rear window, and then secured the filter to the frame. Lastly, another fuel hose was attached to the fuel filter ‘out flow’ port and ran to the back of the car for disposing of fumes away from the cabin.

Finally got around to mounting the exhaust last night. Josh fabbed up an exhaust mount to replace the Kooks ugly (to me) mounts that wrap around the nice polished mufflers. The Kooks mounts mount to the trans (you make the brackets) to avoid flexing the exhaust against the stationary frame. Josh’s mount does mount to the frame, but it uses a rubber ‘bumper’ so that it can flex under revs, etc.  Works very nicely as I can see the exhaust moving with the motor as it idles, etc. The mount is out of the way and not very conspicuous.

With the exhaust mounted the rear mesh was set in place (with the cutouts made for the tips, previously). The mesh was slipped over the exhaust before it was mounted. After some fine tuning of the cutouts weatherstripping was applied around the cut edges. This creates a nice finished look. I will have to remove the diffuser to glue/silicone the mesh in place.

With the exhaust on I set to tuning again. The motor still dies after revs out of idle with the exhaust – I was hoping it would magically fix itself with the exhaust in place. Today I was blessed with an easy tuning session, however. I added 5g/sec of air across the entire base airflow table and it started up and idled great and took some flogging of the throttle without any problems. Revs, drops to idle flawlessly. It would seem that the garage tuning is done for now. Once I get the car inspected (the 20th!) I will be able to get it on the road and see what needs to be done (if anything) in regards to driveability.

With the remaining mesh pieces now powder coated I can finish things up. Tonight I secured the intake duct mesh pieces. I used some hose clamps to secure the ‘tabs’ on the mesh pieces to the duct funnels.

Tonight I finished attaching the diffuser to the frame. I slid the jack in under the diffuser and jacked the bottom of the diffuser up against the frame so I could drill a few holes and rivet it into place. The diffuser I have was quite a bit off in its design so the bottom of the diffuser does not sit flush to the frame. Not a big deal though, as I used the jack to push the end of it against the frame and sunk a handful of heavy duty 3/4″ long rivets into it to hold it into place. I pulled on it pretty hard to ensure it would hold up.

With the diffuser in place I installed the pedal box cover. This piece is not mentioned in the manual at all – it was just buried in within the aluminum parts. I don’t believe it was labeled in the parts list, either. This piece is meant to prevent water/air from getting into the driver footbox, but rather than silicone it in place I placed some double-sided tape under the panel edges to ’seal’ it in case I ever need to remove it in the future.

Spent the day working on trying to get the car to start and idle. Success! I can now start in neutral or in gear and idle all day long. Throttle recovery is better in gear than in neutral, so the car is now drivable it seems. Really hard throttle fluctuations have to be controlled on descent with some throttle blips to prevent stalling. That will get tuned out with time as I learn more about the throttle follower/cracker tables.

I am awaiting a new rivnut mandrel to mount the exhaust mount Josh made. Once that is here the exhaust will be mounted and I will refocus on tuning. I am confident that adding the rest of the exhaust will help the engine run much smoother as well.

I finally received the 3/16″ black rivets I needed to mount the louvers onto the diffuser this week.  Mounting the louver assembly is a straight-forward task. With the louvers in place I hammered (with a rubber mallet) the strakes onto the louvers and got them into place. With the strakes drilled and riveted I was ready to mount the diffuser on the car.

Since I had previously prepped the body for the diffuser install it didn’t take long to bolt it up. The only thing I have to do yet is jack up the car and rivet the underside of the diffuser to the frame of the car. That will not take long at all. The diffuser really completes the back end of the car and shows you how low the vehicle really sits.

In other news, I am still working on the tuning side of things.  I know I could pay a pro and have it done today, but I’m trying to learn how the computer works and if I can get it close on my own I will be happy! A week ago the car would not start with the 96mm tb, and it would not idle with it. I could only run it with my foot on the throttle (then it would die). Now I can start it and it will idle for 5-10 seconds before dying, and I can start it and coax it to idle indefinitely by bringing the RPMs down to idle manually then letting off. Rapid throttle fluctuations are the target of my tuning focus right now, as a hard rev in neutral (ie: 4000rpm+) will cause the car to stall when the RPMs try to come down to idle (overshoots the idle and dies).

I haven’t posted in a few days, but I’ve been keeping busy with small tasks here and there:

- wired up the rear view mirror
- fine tuned the intake tubing positions so that they are ready for mounting when I get the intake duct mesh silicone’d in
- formed the exhaust and intake duct mesh pieces; dropped them off for powder coat
- picked up louvers from powder coating, will install on diffuser soon
- prepped diffuser by drilling more rivnut/bolt attachment points to the body to make it sturdier
- Josh finished the exhaust mount, waiting on a new mandrel to install bigger rivnuts to mount it and complete the exhaust
- making progress on getting the motor running properly: installed a Nick Williams 96mm tb, and am currently working on tuning it with HP Tuners. Motor runs if I stay on the throttle at 1000rpm or higher, but it dies if I let off.

At this point the interior is complete, and all that remains is buttoning up the exhaust and intake, creating a heat barrier between the two, installing the exhaust and intake mesh, and installing the louvers and diffuser.  I also need to get the motor to idle, too.