Budget Racing Shop

[hold_fast]

My personal experience in construction is to use the chairs. Yes, the pull it up as you go method is OK, but as you get going with the pour I always worry about the reinforcement ending up in the bottom of the slab without support. What size bar is that? #4?

If for some reason you miss pulling up a few spots, then you've wasted your money and time on putting the rebar in and it does nothing for the concrete strength. This is also a PITA with WWF.

 

[Chadddada]

Eh, I stopped off and got some 2 1/4" chairs. The concrete is going to be 5" for the most part, 8-9" around the lift. For most of the slab this should get it near the middle. Can probably still pull it up a bit in spots if need be. I bet the wide base on the chairs will help slow it from sinking in some as well.

 

[dmw16]

What are you running in AER? I just finished getting my club race license thru BMWCCA and will be starting in AER next season with an M50 swapped BMW 325 (E30). Perhaps we've already crossed paths as I live in Maryland as well.

 

[savethatclassic]

Subscribed, looking good. I too will be building a race car slotted to begin 2016, 1973 Datsun 510 with a SR20DET (S15) swap.

 

[Chadddada]

What are you running in AER? I just finished getting my club race license thru BMWCCA and will be starting in AER next season with an M50 swapped BMW 325 (E30).

Most of my teammates have done some driving in both seasons. I think season 1 they were driving 1 of the the AER sponsored cars for a few races. The last race down at VIR I went down with the team as well and we took down a Benz 190E with a cosworth. We were trying to do summit and Ohio also but the car wasn't running right. Right now the teammate that owns it is getting a MS installed. AER is a lot of fun. Pretty clean racing, pretty fast. Skill wise it's a bit higher on average than some of the other budget racing series. But of course there are some amazing drivers in all the 3 series on the east coast.

Perhaps we've already crossed paths as I live in Maryland as well.

If you have met Speedycop, Dave, John (and the rest of the gang of outlaws) maybe! The teams been doing lemons for a while and now AER. Hopefully we will be doing a chump race in 2016 also.

Couple of nice shots the photographer got of me in the car and some pit lane shots. I went super deep on the 1 shot and was just playing around at the end of my stint sliding around... Got some pretty good light under the rt 2 tires

 

[Chadddada]

So couple of updates:

1)Got the rebar chairs in to make sure the rebar doesn't fall to the bottom of the pour.

2)Pipe laid between the house and the garage.

3)If you have ever wondered how much water the vapor barrier is keeping away from your slab, here's and idea. Lot of water coming up and out of the ground after some heavy rains.

4)The trench inspection won't be done in time to close it in before the pour Monday. I added some metal to hold the stone I still need to shovel back in before the pour.

5)Beer

6)Some how the haunches/dips we put in for the extra cement under the lift are a bit different size. No way related to update 5... Oh well, 36"x 36" should give me enough room to play around with.

7)Lift - While I am supposed to have a 12' ceiling I think its going to end up a little more like 11'8" - 11'10" because of the cement thickness. 1 Lift I am looking at can be set to 11'9" http://www.liftsplusdepot.com/#!product/prd4/3099618641/triton-pro-10k-certified-dual-symetric

And the other is like 12'.8" or so http://www.liftsplusdepot.com/#!product/prd4/3100253531/bendpak-xpr-10-lp-low-pro-arms,-dual-width

I am thinking I may need to grind an inch out of the cement for the lift to sit in... Going to have to see Monday after the pour where it ends up. Given the 2 choices, add extra bracing to the rafters 2" up more and notch them or take a couple of inches out of the concrete, what would be the better choice?

There is the option of doing something like this I guess: http://www.liftsplusdepot.com/#!pro...dpak-xpr-9lp-low-profile-arms,-dual-width,-9k

What are peoples thoughts on the 9LP? Is it as safe as the triton or 10-lp; does the top bar give any structural strength or is it just to get the cables out of the way?

 

[roscoe2000]

Schedule wise, you are doing good. Most construction takes longer than one expects plus the weather gods have blessed you as compared to recent years.

 

[Chadddada]

Andddd we have cement! There are a couple of imperfections (little 1'x1' humps, slight depression possibly on those 2 lines you can see in pic 1). I can't tell if its psychosomatic because I can see the color change there or if there is really a dip. I am going to try to walk around tonight and just test w/ the foot feel vs looking.

The crew pouring it for me added zip strips for expansion joints just under the surface. I had told their boss over the phone, who wasn't there, that I wanted to talk to them about the expansion joints before they did them. He said just talk to the mgr on site. I figured they were going to cut them with the concrete saw like I have done in the past. I went out to see that stuff and had them pull them out. The expansion joints would have ran right under the lift plates. :/

 

[Chadddada]

So I have been practicing with my airbrush a bit because I would love to be able to do some crazy paint some day. Air brushing is defiantly a challenging skill to pick up, IMO, even for the artistically inclined as I consider myself to be. I have a couple of brushes right now. A Krome Renegade and a Sotar 20/20 still in wrapped up. With the SA2015 helmets coming out soon I figured it was a great time to attempt some air brushing on my SA2010. The results:

It's kinda like a 24 hours of Lemons paint job... looks great @ 10' Got some finger prints in the clear, tested some different stuff on the front and back. I took some inspiration from the BMW Art car. Overall I am OK with it but I will probably try to go over this again with another theme and some different techniques semi-soon.

 

[fubar62172]

what company made the garage? How is it to insulate? What did it run?
Thanks for any info

 

[racecar]

Yes, what kind of insulation? And are goin to have a storage loft?

 

[Chadddada]

what company made the garage? How is it to insulate? What did it run?
Thanks for any info

Got the building from http://www.polebarn.com/ My configuration is ~ 13K.

Not sure about the insulation so far as I haven't done that. The poles are 8' on center. When I do insulate it I will probably just be using rigid foam board and seal around that with spray foam.

 

[Chadddada]

Yes, what kind of insulation? And are goin to have a storage loft?

I figure I will be adding a 8'x24' loft near the man door. I can stash some car parts up there and other seasonal things from the house.

 

[Chadddada]

Most of the work that needs to be completed now is just my heavy up and the garage wiring. The trench inspection went well and I was able to fill the trench back in. Before I did that my electrician ran the conduit between the house and garage. I ran some conduit out to the garage and pulled 3 cat 5s through it. Just to try and clean up some of the mud I tossed down some grass seed/seed cover. To my surprise it actually took off.

I also got a demolition saw from my dad. It needs a rebuild but that will be a run project

 

[Chadddada]

Well, I decided to take back most of the costco lights I had bought (took back 12 of the 16). I figure I will keep the remaining 4 for bench lights. Those are great little lights for sure and put out some decent LM (3700). I ended up coming across a post over in lighting that I liked a lot.

Ended up ordering 16 of these: MaxLite LSS2XT8USE4803 - 2-Lamp T8 LED Ready Linear Utility Strip http://www.beeslighting.com/product-p/lss2xt8use4803.htm

Ended up getting the 2250LM, 5K Tubes: 9.5W - 2250 Lumens - 4ft DLC LED T8 Tube - 5000K - James T818W1200BIXXDF50F1 http://www.beeslighting.com/product-p/t818w1200bixxdf50f1.htm

That should be ~ 75,000 LM once they are all up and going. I am hoping they are as bright down at the floor when they are mounted flush 12' up on the ceiling. The blubs are shipped but the fixtures won't be shipping until the end of the month. I am hoping to just use the 4 costco lights to get through inspection and then swap in the other lights after final.... lets go build! I need more progress on the electrical.

 

[Chadddada]

Finally some progress! We have had the electrical permit since 12/9 and got all of the initial work done on the permit yesterday.

-Replace (hung) main service cable between the corner of the house and the meter. The original cable only supported 100amps, the new 1 will support 200.
-Replace house panel with 200 amp + 100 amp breaker for sub panel.
-Trenched 100' and laid in a pipe for the power and another for a few cat 5s.
-Pull all cables between buildings.
-Sub panel in, main house panel in, all wired.
-Garage wired for 3 interior lights, 2 exterior lights, plugs staggered and spread over multiple breakers.

Tomorrow.. big day. Have the inspector back out. Going for at least the rough in (which we did a bit more than that and hopefully don't have to take anything apart. But going for the FINAL! Wish me luck so I can get onto phase 2 of this project which actually involves using it and not paying money out to people... at least for the building itself

EDIT: Oh, pics or it didn't happen.

 

[Chadddada]

through final inspection! We have a garage on our hands!

 

[Chadddada]

Lift progress:
Deposit has been put down on the lift and it should be ordered today! I was going to go with a Launch Tech 10K but even with the adjustment in the column it was still 2" too high. My 12" ceilings ended up at 11'8" after some extra leveling/base/cement inside. Oh well, such is life.

So I ended up going with the Bendpak 9D http://www.bendpak.com/car-lifts/two-post-lifts/xpr-9d.aspx I wanted to try and get the cables off the floor and get a little more stability out of the top bar but I guess that's not happening. The lift company has some epoxy that is supposed to bring the PSI for the mounting bolts on the base up to 20K PSI; Has anyone used this and does it really work? Trying to decide if I want it. It's only $50 more but will it actually help?

I picked up some 12-2 MC wire and the 220 breaker last night also for the lift wiring. I am going to kill the power to the shop at both ends and attempt to wire in a breaker for the first time. Any tips?! There is a 220 breaker in there now wired up for the air compressor so I intend to just follow that.


Loft:

I picked up some lumber last night to start building out my loft for storage. I am going to build a 8'x24' loft ~ 8' up. I got 4"x6"x8' boarding that I will use for the outer support of the floor and these will be across from the matching 4"x6" on the outside wall area. I am using 2"x8"s for the floor frame at least and possibly all of the floor on 16" centers. I may have a few heavy things up there (car parts) but not sure how beefy I will have to go. Would 2"x8" or 2"x6" ers, on 16" centers, be better do you think? I will have a wood deck on top of the floor.

 

[kts]

through final inspection! We have a garage on our hands!

woo hoo! congrats!

 

[Chadddada]

Been a while since I have updated the thread. Pretty much as soon as I finished off the lights and got the lift in I started moving things in and working. That coupled with an amphibious race car helicopter for Lemons has sapped all of my time.

Helicopter race car:
Just google speedycop 24 hours of lemons to see some of the teams builds and amphibious race car helicopter to see the latest build. Here's some of the info/vids on it. This was built in my buddies garage south of me, not mine.
http://www.roadkill.com/lemons-new-jersey/
http://www.motorpunk.co.uk/articles/10136/

 

[Chadddada]

For the shop we moved in 2 5 series BMWs. 1 is being chopped up for parts and the other may become a Lemons/Chump car... Still trying to decide if we want to race it. The potential race car is a 535i with a V8 swapped in (4.0L M60). Right now I am just processing the donor. Just need to pull the engine/trans, drivers seat, dash and plasma cut it into pieces.

Donor parts and some pics of the garage:

At the last AER race in WG we were unfortunate enough to have the 190E blow up in practice. After this 5 series is off the lift this is probably getting the engine pulled. TBD on what the swap will be. Currently it has an unobtainium 16v benz/cosworth.