Well, I have the motor assembled.  Although it looks complete, I just have it bolted together.  I am in the process of modifying the crank gear that drives the cam.  It is out of alignment with the cam by a few thousands so I am taking a bit of the back side.  After I get that back, I will fully assemble the motor.  I have the Webers assembled and ready to go on.  I am going to wait to put them on the motor until I have it fully assembled.

I have also started the reinforcement of the front suspension and upright area of the car.  Abarth did this on their race cars for good reason.  You can see in the photo, the tear in the floor of the tub near the suspension pick up point.  The much greater braking forces created by the disc brakes causes this weak area to start to tear itself apart if not reinforced.  There is already a one inch tear, but I will correct it and weld in a panel.  The last thing to strengthen will be the upper shock mount.  This will now become the upper mount of the coil over shocks for my independent suspension conversion.  This suspension will mimic the Abarth TCR setup.

Still lots to do and the season is under way.  We spent last weekend at PIR (Portland) with our newest team member Mike Smith.  Mike has a Datsun 2000 roadster and will be joining us from here forward on our vintage racing adventures.  Nobody but Mike ran last weekend as it was the SCCA school weekend and also it was scheduled to rain.  Which it did.  What we did not expect was the snow.  Mike did his race on Sunday in snow showers.  He got it all done, passed the school, and did a perfect job in the race.  One more race and he has his regional license.

Pressure is on to get the Abarth done!

joe