Some progress - steady by jerks.
I ordered wheels today, through a company right here in Beerhaven. Diamond Racing Wheels. Thanks to Curtis Halvorson for making me aware of these guys in my own back yard. Talked with Bill Tandetzke, the President, face to face - super guy - and here's the kicker - he asked ALL THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. He had a Speedweek program sitting on his desk in his office, understands LSR, knows the rules and requirements, and has done work for a number of other teams. He gave me a tour of the shop (it's got to cover two acres) - it was fantastic.
He has a lot of Late Model work on the schedule, but he says he can have 'em done for me in about 4 weeks. Perfect.
Here's one of the turn signal surrounds welded into place by Joe "The Body" Phillips. A skim coat and some block sanding, and it'll be good as new.
Doors are in place - hey, and they actually open and close!
I'm at the point where the cage will be going in. Skeeter does a lot of small order job shop stuff, and he's been busy - a good thing in this economy, but the Midget has been languishing. He wants me to bring it in toward the end of the month. As most of what I need to do to the chassis at this point should wait until the cage is in, I've been at a bit of a standstill.
That said, it's given me the opportunity to turn my thoughts toward the engine.
The plan is to destroke a 1275 down to 970 specs, a trick the BMC works guys did in the early '60's on the Mini Cooper to produce a factory homologation short-stroke 1 litre. The problem is that the crank for the 970 Cooper has a different tailshaft than the inline BMC "A" blocks, and even if it could be made to work, the likelyhood of finding this "hen's tooth" and the accompanying factory rods and extended crown pistons is all but impossible. Additionally, the budget just isn't there this year to invest in Carrillo Rods, custom pistons and a billet crank.
Still, I want to get this thing on the salt this summer, so the plan change is as follows.
I've got 3 inline "A" blocks - a 948, and 2 1275's. The 948 was my first plan, which I gave up on when I read more about the 970 configuration.
Right now, it's a boat anchor, but I do have a good crank for it, and if I relieve the block, the 1275 open chamber head will fit. I'm thinking of screwing this combination together just to have a moderate output street engine which I can use in the future for some other project, but put it between the fenderwells of the Midget this summer and run the 130 club this September. And while there's no reasonable expectation of running 130, this will give me an opportunity to make sure the chassis is sorted, and get some experience on the salt in a no-pressure environment.
So there's the update - back to the garage.