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.

The GTM actually looks like a complete car! Had the glass guy come by and install the windshield and rear view mirror. Looks great! I just have to wire up the mirror and the interior will be complete. Afterwards I mounted the wiper blade and tested that out and got it to park where I wanted.