Progress

At first I was, unrealistically, expecting to build the Celer in a year's time. I now know that its going to be more like 2 years at a minimum.

October 2013 - purchased a Honda VF700 motorcycle engine. Price included almost everything - I had to also buy the electronic ignition control and the exhaust system. I built a frame from 1" square steel tubing and mounted the engine. I first tried to start the engine in late 2013, and while it ran, it was a little rough. I have been working on the carburetors, but have not gotten everything smoothed out yet.

January 2014 - purchased a set of used 315/35 R17 tires for the rear of the car.

February 2014 - won an eBay action for a pair of Mickey Thompson 17x9 rims for the front of the car. Almost blew it on them - I had my bid set for $135 and entered it 10 seconds left. Someone out bid me and I quickly entered, what I thought was, $185. Turns out in my hurry I hit the 5 twice, so my bid was $1855! Fortunately I won at $185.

March 2014 - found a junk yard in Goldsboro with a Saturday deal of $50 for all you can pull off their cars. The only catch is that you have to be able to carry everything the length of their 70' scales. No wagons, no wheelbarrow, no hand truck - you have to carry it. Mary and I rode down to visit them on a Saturday. They charge $10 for you to wander the yard on Saturday (free on weekdays) and then if you find what you want, pay $40 more and you can take your tools into the yard and have fun. I found a 1987 Supra with wishbone suspension front and back along with a limited slip differential (4.30:1) in the yard. My son John and I went down the next Saturday and removed the parts from the Supra, along with the headlight assemblies from a Lexus. The yard provides transportation for parts up to the scale, which we took advantage of. After roping the differential, rear axles, hubs and rotors to the front hubs and rotors, we discovered that without killing ourselves, there was no way we were going to carry all that in one trip, So we carried the rear parts to the car (and Lexus headlights) across together, then I paid an addition $50 and carried the front knuckles and hubs across in a second trip. But even at $150, I saved a ton of money compared to what these parts sell for on eBay or other such places.

I ordered a sandblasting gun to clean the parts up.

I have finished the 7th drawing of the body of the car in AutoCAD and decided that I needed to make a model of it to make sure it looks like I think it is. The drawing has ribs positioned every 2.25" apart to give the profile. I reduced all the ribs to 1/5 scale and cur them out using my small CNC machine with a Dremal tool and extruded polystyrene foam. A series of guide holes were drilled in each piece and five .0625" rods were used to align the pieces. These were then superglued to the the rods. A layer of 1/2 oz fiberglass was placed of the model followed by a layer of bondo body filler. This is sanded down to give an accurate reflection of what the car will look like.

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