August 2020 Update #2: 50 Mile Test Drive and Final Dash Install

Test Drive: Took the car for its first adventure of my own street. I had to squeeze the drive in between some scattered showers- it’s definitely not waterproof – but the trip went great! Definitely things to fix on the car, but nothing new found on the drive :). I drove about 50 miles round trip on two lane back roads.

The car is loud! I think this will get significantly better than when I finish sealing off the cabin from the engine bay, but right now it definitely makes longer drives uncomfortable at speed. Makes very good turbocharger noises though.
Alignment definitely makes the car super darty at the moment. Better than it used to be but it’s very much a two hands on the wheel at all times experience at the moment.
A/C needs to be charged soon, it gets toasty in the cabin.
Even after raising the rear ride height a bit, the driver side rear wheel well rubs the tire on big bumps. The passenger side wheel liner sits a bit higher so it does not. Trying to think of ways to get the wheel liner to move up a bit to fix this.

Finished riveting in the front cabin corner aluminum pieces. I used rivnuts to install them because they will have to be removed any time the doors need to come off or any changes need to be made to door/speaker wiring.

I used some leftover plastic trim that FFR provides to cover the metal edge of the cutout I ran the wires through. Help from a heat gun made this trim really easy to mold to the right shape.

This was pretty difficult! Reaching underneath and connecting all the wiring for the AC controls as well as the vent plumbing was really a challenge. Hopefully I don’t have to do this again for a while – I intend this to be the final install of the dash.

Finished installing the last couple pieces of the wheel well aluminum. There are two pieces directly in front and behind the tires that protect the headlights and the doors. These pieces will likely have to be removed for things in the future such as taking off the fenders so I installed them with rivnuts.