NoHotWire Racing / Car & Driver Koni Challenge 350Z for sale!

June 2013 Administrator Note: We recently got word that the entirety of the car (and parts) has been sold. Looking forward to seeing it back in action on some US tracks soon!

We caught up with Rich Biscevic to get an update on what’s going on with them these days, and he asked us to post up some info on the status of the race car AND the extra chassis they have for sale. I’ll let Rich take it from here:

This is the sister chassis to the car that was in the Car and Driver article.

NoHotWire / Car & Driver 350Z

We’ve just moved our shop from Hayward, CA to San Carlos CA, and came across a bunch of items that can be used on the chassis that we’ll give to the buyer with the chassis.

Here’s a list of parts included with the chassis. Included in the price, we have:

— a large number of plastic/metal undercarriage parts used to control airflow
— front wheel well liners
— structural members, (like the large “M” at the rear, and other smaller cross braces)
— brake booster
— metal hydraulic brake lines for front and rear of the car
— front wiper motor and arms
— TWO (2) wiring harnesses
— TWO sets of OEM ECUs, 2 sets of fuse & relay boxes, and 2 IPDRs, and keys to go along with it.
— Transmission tunnel aluminum heat shield
— Weather stripping seals
— And if needed, we’ll line the engine bay and transmission tunnel with heat reflective materials, the same way our full race car is done.
— We’ll include a long block motor at this price as well.

In addition to the items above, we’re selling the chassis (of course), front sub frame, rear sub frame, front suspension, rear suspension, steering rack and shaft, stock steering wheel, dash with master battery switch, hood with hood pins, front radiator support, doors, bumper covers, fenders, head light with headlights, pedals, brake master and booster, a set of wheels and Cobra 6 point harness. AND a Cobra Evolution S Kevlar seat (over $1,000).

We’re also including the fuel tank, red heads, fuel discriminator, clutch, seat slider, and the carbon fiber covers over the fuel tank.

What is not very evident in the photos is how we tied the roll cage into the rear sub frame of the car. We crossed over the tank and attached directly to the sub frame. In the rear, we cut away the sheet metal and went down to the structure underneath it, and covered it back up. NO expense was spared in preparing this chassis. We welded a ‘ledge’ around the rear trunk area to provide structure for the Lexan which separates the driver from the fueler. The whole thing was well thought out.

As anyone knows who’s built a race car, the worst part is the beginning. This chassis has all the crappy work done to it. The stripping of the parts, the scraping the sound deadening, the digging out the seams for seam welding, the cage design and build (welding upside down and getting burned!), the painting, etc. We’ve gutted the doors down to the skin. We even ‘deleted’ the hole for the antenna! Now all that’s left is the fun part. Putting the go-fast parts on it!

We really didn’t spare any expense in building the chassis. It’s a shame we have to sell it.

The whole interior has been painted white. The exterior has a $7,000 paint job on it. (In stock colors, nothing exotic, just a really well done paint job).

The cage was TIG welded, with the exception of where it ties into the stock chassis.

Here’s the video of us stripping the car, click on the link just below the car:
http://www.impact-engineering.com/

And the photos:

One thing to note in this picture is the A-arm. The 350Z has a very wide radius A-pillar, so putting in a cage that is tight to the body is very difficult to do. Most tube bending equipment can’t handle a radius so large. We found an aero-space manufacturer in Silicon Valley that had a big enough die to bend a radius as wide as we needed. Most cages we’ve seen had a smaller radius and a lot of space between the cage’s A-pillar and the chassis. This is quicker and easier to do, but less desirable. It’s best to keep the cage as close to the chassis as possible. We increased the strength by gusseting and skip welding the length of the arm.

Note the X over the driver’s tank. The rear bars connect to the front of the rear sub frame for added strength.

This TIG weld is an example of the tightness and penetration we achieved with each bar in the cage.

Another example of the quality of the welds. Of course 360 degrees was possible because of the process and method used to construct the cage.

Note how far out the NASCAR bars go. The are within a ¼” of the door skin! This allows for maximum protection and ease of entry for the driver. Look how close the A pillar bar is to the chassis. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

The cage was MIG welded to the chassis, thus the larger welds. MIG is lower heat, which is what you want when welding the cage to the chassis. The metal ‘coffins’ which the cage rests on widens the area of attachment to the chassis, and increases the safety of the cage. The cage won’t tear through the floor of the car!

And the cage is braced against the firewall as well.

The custom seat mount allows for a slider and is much stronger than the sheet metal sliders that you normally see in race cars. It is also lower, so a tall driver can get in without hitting his head on the roof!

And the wheel wells:

Here are some new shots of the skip welding done on the car. As you can see, the welds were shaved down prior to painting. All seams were scraped out, cleaned up, welded, shaved, primered and painted.