Light at the End of the Tunnel, or Hood...

We have been picking away at this project fairly consistently this year and we are beginning to sense the end is nigh. At least in terms of the dry build phase. If we are feeling generous, we could probably convince ourselves we that we only have two things left to do: all the wiring and all the bodywork! Plus, this stuff below.

2023 got going with a visit from Ryan Thompson, owner of TRF, one of the country's premier rally car builders and the chap that built our cage. We wanted to move the driver's seat forward and up and Ryan insisted he do the bracket welding. We did not argue with him.





Next, we thought we'd have a go at the hood pins. We'd been holding off on these as we’ve been using the slots to hold our makeshift work light so before we could begin on the pins, we had to buy a proper under hood work light.









We like speed holes. Who doesn't? So, we added some; first to the B-pillar gussets and then to the A-pillar gussets.







Next, we finally removed the ugly residue of the handbrake bracket. We drilled out all the spot welds and then welded up the hole. I wonder what we'll install on this newly flattened surface. Cup holders?

 

RAD SHROUDS

The ancient art of ducting cold air through the radiator is shrouded in mystery. We were fresh out of mystery so we used ABS sheet instead as it's malleable and we had a lot of it lying around..



With a bit of heat and some persuaders it can actually be formed into 90 degree bends!













We were pleasantly surprised how it came out, except the top piece looked too white so we covered with a piece of faux carbon fiber film for now while we come up with a better solution..

 

We are checking things off pretty quickly lately and are starting to feel as if we might actually finish this phase of the project someday.

One major victory was getting the intake sorted. We had settled on a simple cone filter next to the turbo but were never really happy with it.



We really wanted a Group B Kevlar tube taking cold, pressurized air from the cowl but that was a bit of a stretch for us and we have a dirty great MAF to accommodate so we couldn’t just buy one.



So, we came up with a compromise. We’d build a filter box in the cowl, under the bonnet louvers where the Group B filter was and send the cold air into the passenger foot well, through a 90 bend and out into the engine bay through the firewall. Then we’d snake some 3” silicon tube to our MAF sensor. Let’s see how that went.



BFH













We used the connector off our cone filter to attach the filter housing bas to the tube coming up from the cowl.







We even managed to come up with a heat shield.

 

It’s been a little while since our last update but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been beavering away on the car. It just means we’ve been too busy to write an update. Let’s rectify that now.

We finalized our mounting system for our spare and tool kit and jack.





Then installed our intercom and Rennline fire extinguisher mount.







And then found room for one of these fancy Element fire sticks.



We even installed the co-driver’s map light!



Does it look like we are running out of things to do? Feels like it too. Don’t worry, there’s still lots to do but it does feel like we might get it into paint this year!

 

One of our favorite aspects of this build is how many friends in the local car community have helped us with it; so, you can imagine how thrilled we were when we got the opportunity to work with a personal friend on the car. The original works cars used a canvas dash pad/cover held on by snaps that was somewhat unique. Our friend Jean is a dab hand with a sewing machine and we were excited when she agreed to help us make one. We secured the appropriate snaps and period correct canvas and invited her over. We were stunned by the result.

 

In order to move the project along at a quicker pace and to implement the wiring at a much higher level than we could manage we have engaged the services of Jonathan Carlini of SportsCarTecnologies.com To build us a custom, race specification wiring harness for the project. The first part of this was the battery and power cables he built and delivered so we were very excited to get them installed, as you can imagine. First, we installed the battery wiring.











...and then we ran it through the rear firewall towards the dash mounted cut off switch.









Next, we’ll send one of these to the alternator, starter and then move on to the engine harness, dash harness and body harness.

 

PLAYING THE SLOTS

Building this car was always going to be a gamble but we had no idea how addictive it could be. And so, it was proven when we started to consider putting the screens into our bumper slots. We always thought they would need cleaning up a little but the closer we looked the worse they looked. We soon realized they were all the wrong shape and even, to some extent, in the wrong place! Oh boy; another rabbit hole. Here’s a comparison between ours (below) and a works car from back in the day.





It might not be obvious but you can see how the large, upper slots are supposed to have fillets in the corners. They are also supposed to be equi-spaced and centered about the centerline of the bumper. Ours weren’t. Even though most these will be covered by giant spotlights we just couldn’t live with it so set about fixing them. We assumed we could live with the lower, thinner slots as they were however.

Using a suitable size socket, we estimated how much radii we needed in each corner and drew a template and a buck (right term?) to shape the slots around. We thought we’d need to use fiber-glass to add the needed material but as the fillets ended up being really small, we just used reinforced body filler instead. In fact, on many of the slots we were just removing material, they were that far off. So, after hours of filling and sanding over and over we finally had our big slots perfect-ish.













Unfortunately, we then looked at the smaller side slots. They were even further out.





Check back later to see if we managed to leave the lower slots alone. (spoiler alert: we didn’t)

 

MORE SLOTS & SCREENS

At the end of our last update, we left you wondering if we could resist the temptation to adjust the lower slots on the bumper cover. Well, of course we couldn’t. They actually didn’t need much fettling. This was the worst offender and a fairly easy fix.



So, we moved on to installing the screens. We found this nice stainless-steel mesh online that looked about the right size. It came in a roll so we had to convince it to be a flat sheet again. It wasn’t welded so would easily deform from being a rectangle so we covered it with masking tape the keep the mesh at right angles.









We decided to mesh the bumper slots in two halves rather than individually. Thankfully one piece of mesh was long enough. The un-meshed slot is for the light bracket. Still taped up we manipulated it into shape before removing the masking tape.





Then we clamped it where we could and used bags of lug nuts and anything else we could find to weight the mesh down so it would stay flush with the bumper while the glue set.







It worked very well.







Inspired with how the mesh screens turned out in the bumper we looked at the hood slots next. They were a mess too, not surprisingly.





So we set to work with the filler and files again.



Once perfect we made individual patterns from cardboard and transferred them to taped mesh once again.



We used the same method of clamping and weighing while we glued the screen down and were very pleased with the result.

 

TEAM ILLUMINATA MOTORSPORT 2023 FLEET REVIEW

83 QUATTRO RALLY BUILD: https://teamilluminata.com/blogs/quattro-rally-build

We are closing in on finishing the dry build phase of this project. Once we get the wiring done, we can disassemble the car and prep the shell for paint. Hi-lights this year include, power steering pump mount, hood pins, A-pillar gussets, handbrake lever delete, radiator ducting, cold air intake, spare tire, intercom, fire extinguishers, map light, dash cover, power wiring and the bumper and hood slot mesh.



84 911 RALLY CAR: https://teamilluminata.com/blogs/84-porsche-911

Not a lot of work on the 911 rally car this year but we got to drive it quite a bit. The year started out with some new wheels and tires as we upped our game with tire width. Then we replaced the front anti roll bar bushings and fixed an oil leak. We took the car to plenty of cars and coffee events but the standouts were our attendance at the Woodward Dream Show at M1 Concourse with around 15 other rally cars as part of the Woodward Rally Cars (WRC) Group. We were also invited back to the American Speed Festival at M1 where we demonstrated the car’s track capabilities and the Empire Hill climb again. Not a bad year for the little car that can.



85 QUATTRO: https://teamilluminata.com/blogs/85-ur-quattro

This year we got to drive and show the 85 Quattro a few times. We are still chasing some minor drivability issues and the passenger side window regulator is awaiting its third fix attempt but we can now enjoy the car. We got it fully detailed, paint corrected and ceramic coated at Auto Europe early in the year and it has never been cleaner. We really enjoyed showing the car at the DeutscheMarques show at the Gilmore Museum and a concours in Northville as well as numerous cars and coffee events.



89 944 TURBO: https://teamilluminata.com/blogs/89-944-turbo

Early in the year we got a new addition to the fleet. A 1989 Porsche 944 Turbo (951) fully built race car and all its spares. We are not sure what we’ll do with this one yet or how it will fit into our marketing plans but it does look good in the showroom. As it’s not even close to being street legal we haven’t driven it much but we did shake it down at a local autocross in the summer where, despite its wide Hoosier R7 tires, it performed very well and was very easy to drive. The only real mechanical work we have performed on the car is to give it some proper BRAID wheels and more autocross and track day friendly tires. Hopefully we’ll have some opportunities to get this beast out on a track during 2024 so we can see what it can really do in the environment it was built for.



2005 CAYENNE (TIMSYBERIA): https://teamilluminata.com/blogs/timsyberia

The Timsyberia Cayenne continues to fulfill its daily driver and TSD rally roles admirably while keeping us on our toes mechanically. No Cayenne nightmares have appeared and it has never let us down but we have had to fix a small oil leak, and replace the hatch struts during 2023. We gave it some 17” BRAID wheels and Blizzak winter tires recently and some rust protection from Krown as it’s just so clean. We took the car up the actual Sno*rift rally and also used the car to discover Northern Michigan’s trails on two separate occasions. We also participated in the Son of Sno*Drift TSD rally in what passes for winter these days. We were entered for the Press On Regardless TSD rally in the Fall but a back injury saw us withdraw a couple of days before. We’ll be back to conquer that one in 2024 however.



2015 SPRINTER (RALIVAN): https://teamilluminata.com/blogs/ralivan2

Of all our vehicles that actually drive this might me the one we’ve used the least this year. About the only proper road trip we’ve used it for was when we dragged our 911 up to the Empire Hill Climb again. Before we could do that, we had to address the cooling issues it had exhibited the last time we did this. To be sure we didn’t have any more issues about a month before the event we replaced the radiator and viscous cooling fan and give it some new coolant and a transmission service. Other work on the van involved wiring the heating elements of our amazingly comfortable Scheel-Mann seats and installing a bulkhead to separate the cargo area from the cabin. We also took the van to the Mercedes dealer in Novi for a recall and to have the 70mph governor deleted from the ECU. We now can rip at around 85 if we want to!

 

We are running out of things to do again so are picking away at bits an bobs before we send the car out for its wiring harness. Here’s a few little things we managed over the last few weeks:

The shape of the curve on one of the rear arches has always bothered us. We got the body filler out and fixed it.



We want a strut bar in this car so, of course, we are going to try to replicate the works version, as best we can anyway. We don’t have many images of it but it looks and mounts like this.



We’ll need to reinforce those mounting surfaces but otherwise it looks doable. After a bit of trial and error we came up with this.



The uprights are a bit long right now but we want to wait till the wiring harness is in as it comes into the engine bay at about the same height so we don’t want this to be in the way.

One thing we’ve been meaning to fix for a while is the inlet to the intercooler. The inlet hose has always impinged on the bumper bar brace so we needed to alter the angle of the inlet so it would clear. A good a time as any.







Fits. Just tacked for now.

The works cars had windshield retainers so our will. Especially as they were easy to make.



With no glass in the car yet we had to use our other Quattro as a model to get the angle correct.











Next time we’ll make the doors fit and prep the car for its wiring harness installation.