Fabrication Archives - John Heard Racing

Nova Fiberglass Dash

Chris & I wrapped up the fitment of the new Glasstek fiberglass dash last night. Only had to take it in and out a thousand times to get all the cage bar slots put in it, but finally got it done. It won't be a huge weight savings, however at this point we're having to chase a few lbs here and there to make progress. The good thing is it certainly makes it easier to work on the electrical stuff when you can pull it out completely. The dash, before cutting, weighs about 6lbs, it might be down to 5 or so now after all the trimming. The biggest weight savings with the fiberglass dash update was the removal of all the previous dash mounted gauges as we're switching to a digital dash from RPM Performance. That saved about 12 lbs overall and it sure cleaned up the wiring as well. Next up for projects we're getting stainless fender exit headers built then will be finishing up the rewiring project as well.

New Nitrous Bottle Water Heater

After many years of loading and unloading my homemade Igloo Nitrous Bottle Water Heater from the truck bed at the track, I finally decided to make a new one that mounts permanently in the trailer. I didn't have enough room for the bigger igloo setup so this narrower aluminum one will be really nice to have. While I was at it, I added a new secondary thermostat that will kill the power if the primary one fails and the tank overheats. Sure it's a rare situation, but I like having the additional peace of mind for safety's sake. Kurt Riffle from Riffle Motorsports had an old tank he had laying around since he used to run Nitrous and I talked him into modifying it a little for what I was wanting to do. He added some additional drain bungs, and a pad to mount a snap action safety temperature switch to the side. That safety switch is something I've been wanting after witnessing a controller malfunction due to a bad sensor and stay on causing the bath to get too hot, obviously that would be a very bad situation with nitrous bottles that we want to avoid. Here's a list of the controls I'm using on this new setup if anyone is interested -

PN# TG1153L - 1500 watt 120 volt water heater element from Grainger. This is a 4 bolt hole, 2 1/2" dia bolt circle flange mount style.
Johnson Controls PN# A419ABC-1C 120 volt includes Johnson Controls A99BA-200C Sensor with 6.5' leads.
Johnson Controls Immersion Well PN# WEL11A-601R.
104° F Thermal Switch Normally Closed PN# KSD301 *
Unknown brand small pond pump to circulate water within the tank.

Here's how we mounted the Thermal Switch on the Nitrous Bottle Water Tank. I also used thermal paste to help transfer heat better to the switch. That's the same kind of stuff you get for mounting computer processors to their heatsinks. *Update - The KSD301 Switch I bought worked great, it tripped at 102° but, it failed to reset. Apparently some of these switches are "one shot" and do not automatically reset. So, make sure you are getting the one that self-resets (or manual reset), not the "one-shot". The switches are not marked as to which ones they are.

Here's the new heater all installed in the trailer. I mounted the control up on the wall to make it easier to see. The first test run seemed to work great, so looks like this project is finished, on to the next! Previous article on my Igloo Nitrous Bottle Heater Controller Retrofit.