Monday, March 24, 2008

Dragon of the King...

If you didn't know - seven years ago, I have purchased homologated racing seat from little known manufacturer King Dragon. They are based in Italy, however name tends to be somewhat oriental. Knowing that Italy some time ago was primary "relabelling port" for China - that's no surprise.

Also as you all know - I'm the slowest person in the planet, so the seat was stored in the basement for quite a few years. As years passed - homologation expired, but I think, that this seat still is safe enough to use. Carbon/kevlar - lasts quite a long without changing its' strength Now obviously it is time to pull seat back upstairs, and mount it into the car (because at last it will have roll cage).

So, to mount seat into the car - we need mounting rails. Let's see what do we have there, under thick layer of dust:Seem to be untouched by the time :), 5mm heavy as hell FIA approved mounting brackets
Let see how they bolt to the seat... WTF? Seat doesn't have any thread (at least visible) in it's mounting holes. After searching Internet, and discussing with more expierenced local guys - decided to use M8 (standard) bolts, and just screw them into the hole, hoping that it catches thread somewhere there... Not very professional approach as for 700$ kevlar/carbon racing seat I would say. Here is result:With both brackets mounted it looked like this:Not so bad. At least it is holding me sitting in :). With racing harness. BTW camera used better color balance - this picture shows more realistic color of the seat:P.S. Yes, I know about position of the belts. They are just posing for the picture.

Monday, March 10, 2008

ADZ

Today it was very nice spring day - very suitable for working outside the garage. As I had no car, pulled "old-new" gearbox to the daylight. What a mess. Spent almost hour scraping few pounds of gravel from the housing, to reveal that it is audi gearbox ;). And the code is ADZ.
Long fifth gear, i theory, it can go beyond 280km/h limit. Tempting ;). Will see :evil grin:

Something missing :'(

Car is transported to the Sabotaitis racing developments (for roll cage installation). Due to status and funds, it will take up to a month to install and homologate roll cage. I'm starting to feel bad :(.