Fall is supposed to be the downtime to get ready in a leisurely fashion for the next season. But the shop is full of projects, and I’ve got this new car to complete in anticipation for next October’s La Carrera Panamericana.
Our La Carrera ES was introduced to the public at the 10th Annual P and B Motorsports Garage Party and Car Show in October. I made sure our two current sponsors. VP Autoparts and VTO Wheels had their space on the car. But progress has been slow.
My P and B Motorsports partner Dave Buettner said that this project was going to challenge me and my skills and he was certainly right. Combine that with wanting to have a life beyond being in the shop every moment, my natural tendency to worry about getting things done, and it makes for a stressful fall with much more to come.
After having a B20 block bored to fit some nice JE race pistons and accumulating all the rotational assembly parts I thought I was ready to do an engine assembly in advance of fashioning a skid plate. A nice, never used race head had been secured from a fellow Volvo racer. New rings and bearings had been delivered from Autoparts, but Murphy’s Law of Racing kicked in immediately. I am using rods and pistons from one of my previous race engines and discovered that the Crower rods were designed for later style bearings, not the 1973 variety I had in hand. No big deal, just order new bearings.
But wait. Better check the piston height before going any further. Uh oh. The decking that the machinists had to do brought the piston out of the hole by 0.066”. We could deal with that if it were not for the high compression ratio that accompanies that little detail. This motor needs to run on pump gas, not the stuff that flows through 1 Red. Race fuel cannot be transported across the border. Even with the octane booster allowed this is just not gonna work out so now we’re at the drawing board discussing new rods or dished pistons. Arg!
Well, there are plenty of other things to be done. The car is more of a hybrid between a street car and ad a road car, and it needs to be street legal. Sorta. Bumpers have been painted to match the body, trim painted to match the Swedish blue striping.
Whether we want/need a rear bumper is under debate, but the ’73 mounting points for them no longer exist. Headlights were sourced from Toyota because they are just really good and were so inexpensive that the dealer had to check the price twice. Front and rear IPD sway bars are installed. Time to start thinking about the dash before the Painless (?) racing wiring harness gets installed.
The roll cage interferes with the lateral mounting points of the instrument panel, requiring a bit of cutting and shaping.
I’m using Autometer gauges for everything. They’re slightly larger than the Smiths stock gauges, so all the holes needed enlarging. The fake wood fascia is being replaced with aluminum.
There are still things to be ordered, but it’s not as though there is a lack of items to be installed. It’s quite amazing how long each one of these seemingly simple things can take.
This is like the 20-mile march – one step at a time. Keep marching with me!