One of the last Hurricane builds....for now --> HM-2040

[Malgyver]

Hi All,

Welcome to my HM-2040 build, purchased as kit in February 2022, and delivered to me on September 7 in the middle of the night 8)

My goal is a build in 200-300 hours, which I'm keeping track of, and about 3 months. I originally was set on completing the car in 2022 so I could get in line immediately for the California SB100 registration, but I'm starting to think that they don't "sell out" of sequence numbers quite that quickly.

I imagine I'll mainly use it as a street cruiser.

By the time the kit arrived, I had ordered and received the engine, transmission, flywheel, bell housing, clutch, and wheels. As of this writing, I need to get a fuel pump, delivery of my tires, pulley kit, water pump, expansion tank, and engine mounts ASAP. Once the engine is mounted, I'll be looking at a driveshaft with a couple week lead time from MDL, and whatever else comes up.

Specs:

408W roller motor, Holley Sniper, MSD, Scat Crank, Aluminum Heads, see dyno sheet below. (please ignore those awful valve covers!)
Tremec TKX
Trigo 15" 427 Wheels
Mickey Thompson Sportsman S/T 295/50 and 245/60
Ram Lightweight Billet Steel flywheel
Ram HDX Clutch

Taking delivery of the kit was a little bit of a challenge, as I have a long (200') uphill driveway, and the two streets from my driveway are not accessible by the tractor-trailer dispatched by Stewart Transport. Poignant that the trailer was plastered with Factory Five all over it. I had to grab a Uhaul trailer and meet him up the street, as you can see below.

This kit is one of the last ones off the line, and Jake has been amazing to work with, who has essentially taken over after Alec's departure. When it shipped, he was told that it was complete aside from the hinges, which were at powder coat. When it arrived, it was missing quite a bit of stuff, all of which has been accounted for, is in Iowa, and is being completed/shipped out to me currently. These include the 3rd member, some frame parts and the aluminum panels that lingered at powdercoat, and some miscellaneous parts. Some of the build manual is outdated, for instance, I received an aluminum fuel tank, but the build manual shows something else. Finally, the last little snafu was a communication issue early on which led to my headers arriving uncoated. I searched and found a local company who builds professional headers and does the polished ceramic coat, so I won't have to ship the exhaust back out to solve that issue.

Along with this thread here, I plan to do some video logs on youtube as well, and will post video links here as I complete them.

BUILD PROGRESS

So its been about a week, and I was able to cut the holes in the body and mount the windshield, assemble the rear suspension and the front suspension.

A couple of issues came up, including the axle side of the rear end trailing links not matching in design to the manual. In short, the brackets welded to the axle for the trailing arm were not wide enough to need/accommodate any spacers, there was 1/16" of space on each side, which I took up with a 5/8" washer with a small OD. Per the manual, there were supposed to be "5/16" spacers on each side the heim joint which apparently go through the heim joint, which seemed impossible and which were not provided, and there were supposed to be 3 sets of holes in the axle mount when there were only 2. So in the end, the heim joints went easily into the brackets on the rear end, it needed a 1/16" "spacer" in there, and everything snugged up well.

The front suspension went together easily and per the manual, however, one of my lower control arms suffered the issue of the two legs not sitting evenly in the brackets welded to the frame. After searching the Hurricane forum, I used a floor jack and some wood blocks to widen the legs, and it all went together great. The upper shock mount is significantly wider than what is suggested by the build manual, which states to use one 1/2" washer on each side inside the mount, however, it will take 1/4"+ of spacer on each side to take up the space. My ball joints screwed into the receptacles without freezing/heating, and I will need to grab a socket to snug those up. I did shorten the 5" swedge tubes to 4.5" as it seemed like the camber was not going to come into place without it, which was another piece of wisdom I picked up from searching the Hurricane forum.

I hope you enjoy the pics and video below, "Clocking In" has become the theme for my video series, as I plan to work on the car more hours per week than I work in my career, which I'm thankful to say is in the 15-20 hour range.

[Malgyver]

More pics. Shameless plug by the engine builder on the valve covers! Those will be changed out post-haste.

[MasterAnubis]

I'm pretty excited for you!

Long story short. I was asking them for a quote on just a casting of the very front of the body. The goal is to make wall art and also attempt to replicate it with 3003. I was looking forward to talking with them again. But alas, this wasn't to be. I even included pictures of the 3d printed frame I modeled for a display.

Anyway, be sure post your channel and video links!

-Shawn

[Malgyver]

Thank you very much! I am even more excited than you are lol

If you look at the molding lines on the body, I believe the molds are a top and a bottom piece. I think that would make it nearly impossible to get to you just the front of the car.

[KarlzEE Bebout]

That engine is a stump puller. 538'# at 3800RPM. Very nice street engine with all that grunt!

[Malgyver]

The engine was advertised at 450/500, but it clearly topped that on dyno. I was pleasantly surprised, and it seems like most of the larger Windsor motors I came across have higher HP figures than torque. And it carries a 2 year unlimited mileage warranty!

[MasterAnubis]

Originally Posted by Malgyver

Thank you very much! I am even more excited than you are lol

If you look at the molding lines on the body, I believe the molds are a top and a bottom piece. I think that would make it nearly impossible to get to you just the front of the car.

Yes, that seem means that is how the mold is. However, it would be just a matter of stopping a couple inches past the area I'd want. Then just it to size after demolding. FFR has the front as a separate segment. That does allow them to make that piece separate more easily. That's were I got the idea. They sell that piece as a kit with the lights.

I would prefer the Hurricane part because that's what I want to build. So I contacted them and after a couple of unanswered emails, I found out they are stopping production.


Here is the frame I printed after gluing the 30 some odd pieces together. Solid axle with both roll bars and even the dolly they use to move it around.



-Shawn

[Malgyver]

Hi all,
Just a progress update on my build, and links to videos for you to enjoy. I’m 3 weeks into the project, about 35 hours total, and have 4 videos to share.
Thus far things have been mostly straightforward. I have run into the following issues, though nothing to write home about.

• Left lower control arm needed to be expanded to ride evenly in the frame brackets, apparently a known issue that I came across readily while searching the Hurricane Forum.

• One of the 4” swedge tubes had been swedged/tapped into the tube at an angle. Instead of bothering Hurricane about this, I called Southwest Speed. They elected to sell me a new one, which was about $20 shipped. The replacement tube had the same issue! So I ordered and received one from a different manufacturer, which was straight and true.

• As expected, I had to shorten the steering rack, I took about 1.25” off each side, which left plenty of threads inside and plenty of adjustment.

• Learning curve regarding having to collect the proper fasteners, which has caused a delay in building out the rear brakes and the assembly of the motor/tranny unit. Essentially, I have made separate orders for the following hardware, somehow assuming each hardware set was included with the new part: T-bolts for mounting the brake backing plate to the rear axle, bellhousing bolts that were the correct size, flywheel bolts, pressure plate bolts, pressure plate pins, water pump bolts, motor mount bolts, and….who knows what else is next. I ordered a starter….will probably need bolts for that. Yet another order! I am choosing to go with fancy fasteners (mostly ARP); I know I could just go down to the hardware store and collect what I need, but I wanted everything to look uniform. I probably could have started on the trunk and cockpit tub by this point had these delays not happened.

• Still waiting on the rear axle diff from Hurricane to complete that part of the build.

• I seem to be receiving a lot of open box parts when ordering stuff through Amazon, even though it’s originating through Summit and other large retailers. Such was the Holley fuel pump I ordered, so I’m returning that and hopefully the next order will be in a new box with all documentation.

• Had the guys at Roger Kraus Racing (right here in my hometown!) mount my tires, and Brandon there said he would be happy to do my alignment when the time comes. I think I will trailer the car down there once it’s running, but pre-body mounting, to make the alignment a snap for those guys.
Next steps are to wrap up the fuel lines, the rear end when the parts arrive, and the e-brake cables. From there, the cockpit tub will go on, and, I’ll be reading forward into the manual.

These forums have been indispensable in making this build move forward quickly!

[Malgyver]

The first 4 video links for you to binge watch 8)

https://youtu.be/IJttPEApO3w Part 1 - Intro

https://youtu.be/zTx7PrDEc7I Part 2 - Rear End

https://youtu.be/JM1gv7kSGQE Part 3 - Front End

https://youtu.be/xfSuFFxIo7M Part 4 - 3 week update

[Sycraft]

Just an FYI, I would have body mounted for alignment, should be at weight.

[Malgyver]

Thank you for the heads up, didn't think about that.

The Intro Video Part 1 is up, was having some connection issues in uploading to youtube.

[Malgyver]

Just finished baking my wrinkle paint job on the new water pump. Its a Flowkooler that is basically a natural aluminum casting, with an improved impeller.

Shout out to Daisy for putting the perfect 3 coats of paint on before getting it to wrinkle! Should look nice with the CVF serpentine kit I have, which should get installed today.

[Malgyver]

Hi all,

Here’s the next update. This works out to be about 4 weeks from delivery. Although I’m happy with the progress, I feel like parts delays have kept from getting more accomplished by now.

Woke up this past Sunday morning sick, after having a cold since Thursday night, and decided to Covid test. Positive! Finally lost that virginity. It hasn’t been so bad. So I decided I would push the limits of building on my cobra and about 3 days later, here’s the progress.

• Completed the CVF Racing serpentine belt kit. This was mostly straightforward, though I wasn’t sure about the appearance of the chrome alternator. I decided to just mount it, and would look at refinishing it with black wrinkle down the line. Had the typical bolt length issues with a stainless 12 pt. kit that came from eBay.

• Major issue with the engine/trans combo. Long story short, the trans shaft just seemed too long by about 1/8”, and the assembly would bind when the bellhousing bolts were tightened up. After pulling the trans off, it was obvious that the pilot bearing had been indented by the trans input shaft. So either the trans shaft was too long, the bellhousing was not the right depth, or the pilot bearing was wrong. Background: I found a steel SFI bellhousing from Summit for about $200 less than the QuickTime unit, and I believe it’s a knock-off of the old Lakewood unit, but there was little info about it, and I just assumed it would work like all the other offered bellhousings. In the end, I destroyed out the first pilot bearing, and reinstalled one that I modified and machined a little bit to provide a little extra clearance.

• Finally received the John’s differential. The carrier was rusty, which was a disappointment, so I put Daisy to work with wire wheels and brushes, tape and a spray can, and she did a great job, just as she did on the black wrinkle water pump paint job! Of course, there were no nuts provided to secure the carrier to the housing!

• Rear axle installation was not as per the manual, but much easier. There was no “gluing” of a plate with silicone, just place the backing plate, axle shaft, tap into place, and bolt the bearing retainer plate to backing plate and axle flange.

• The seemingly short bellhousing also caused a 1/4” misalignment of the poly trans mount, requiring lengthening the holes to get things to line up. And of course, no bolts from the mount to trans. I think they are ½-13 1 inch.

• Installed the E-brake cables. Read about others flipping the brake backing plates for better cable routing, but will just mount them as instructed. The cables seem to work smoothly even with tight-ish curves. Had to cut the cable housings and cable for the optimum fit. Grinder and a small round file worked great here. Used rivet nuts on the top of the X brace member to attach the cable mount, a good clean installation.

• Finished up bending and attaching the fuel tank straps, all straightforward.

• Had a hell of a time getting the fuel tank sender in, what with the baffles close-in to the space that the float needs to move. In the end, some “adjusting” with the grinder on the shaft of the sender allowed everything to fall into place.

• Rear Wildwood brakes went on easily. Mounted the wheels and ditched all the wood blocks and jack stands! Took out tons of boxes and bags from all the hardware and whatnot.

• Somewhat in disbelief at the size of this car, knowing the power of the motor. Uhmmmm….

[Malgyver]

https://youtu.be/EoymuCFXXDo

[mattbrowne]

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to watching the progress.