To say this week went smooth and without trouble would be a flat out lie.  As noted in “The Rock Bug has Left the Building”, Tracy and the Rock Bug headed back to Phoenix last Sunday to, and I quote, “wrap up the final details on the Scat V4”.  Wrap up the final details my ass! What started out as final details turned in to everyone’s worst nightmare.  The Scat V4 was pissed and refused to run.

Think of “Tucker: The Man and His Dream”, except in this movie everyone wanted to commit suicide.  This pretty much sums up the week.  Here is the break down as it happened starting from Monday.  To kick things off, it helps to know just a little background on the motor.  One area that makes this highly custom motor tricky is its “odd” firing sequence which single handedly created our biggest problems.  Every time the motor would try to turn over,  almost immediately the Scat V4 would violently shut down as the firing sequence was not in harmony with the motor.  Repeat this violent behavior for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and you end up with a Scat V4 and transmission flex plate that are so badly damaged from the abuse they need to be completely torn down and rebuilt.

Its now Wednesday night, and Tracy is back wrenching on the Rock Bug, tearing out and replacing the destroyed flex plate so the Scat V4 can be completely rebuilt.  Have I mentioned Tracy has not sleep in nearly a week?  It was pretty obvious at this point Tracy needed some help and support, so Eddie (and his 6 year old son) booked the first flight out to Phoenix (Thursday morning) to hang once again with Tracy and the Rock Bug.

It is now Thursday and with a new flex plate installed, the Rock Bug and what is left of the Scat V4 are back with Dave of Powerhouse Motorsports.  Although the clock is ticking, Dave is careful to take his time in fully rebuilding the Scat V4 as this could honestly be the last chance we are all going to get before KOH.  The complete rebuild goes into Friday afternoon.

And here we are.  Friday night and the Scat V4 is still pissed and refusing to cooperate.  Luck will change however with the visit of a new face, at least in the eyes of the Scat, namely Gerald King of Finish Line Racing.  For those new to the blog, Gerald wired up the entire Rock Bug as posted in “Rock Bug Weekend Update for January 24, 2009”. Gerald stopped by simply to tie up some final ends on the wiring, completely unrelated to the Scat V4.  Hearing how pissed off the Scat truly was, he couldn’t help but jump head first into helping solve the firing order mystery.  Wouldn’t you know it, about 1 hour later all of our luck had changed.  The Scat V4 was running and man does it sound great!!!

We couldn’t make this stuff up even if we wanted to so there you have it, the complete timeline from Monday through today.  For those, including us, dying to hear what an un-tuned Scat V4 sounds like, go ahead and play the video below taken a few hours ago.  Just below the video is a small collection of photos showing off stills of this weeks adventure. 

Finally, we can all sleep a little better (or for Tracy’s sake sleep at all) knowing the Scat V4 is indeed alive and happy.  Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, Tracy will “drive” the Rock Bug over to the engine tuner for some quality dyno time.  As far as the rest of the schedule before KOH, the Rock Bug will hang out with Dirt Sports all day Tuesday for a “Master Piece in Metal” photo shoot (we are told this lasts for 12 hours!).  This was kindly rescheduled from Friday the 20th due to all the issues of the week (thanks again Boyd for working with us).  That’s it for tonight.  Enjoy the video and pictures below and we will see you next time for some more, but hopefully less painful, Rock Bug adventures.

Well that’s a wrap, at least for now.  The last bit of fabrication is officially finished and the Rock Bug is heading back with Tracy to AZ.  With no time to waste and no sleep to prove it, once Tracy pulls into Phoenix he will team up once again with Gerald King of Finish Line Racing to wrap up some final wiring.  Then, first thing Monday morning Tracy will work with his engine builder & tuner to wrap up the final details on the Scat V4. 

Rock Bug coverage is far from over, actually we like to think it is just getting started.  We will be following Tracy and the Rock Bug all year, covering competitions like King of the Hammers & W.E.Rock as well as updates on how the Rock Bug and all the new concepts are holding up.  All of this will be posted right here on our blog as it happens.  Who knows, we may even come up with some new concepts to test along the way.

Pretty sure this post will go down in Spidertrax Blog history as the shortest & quickest post yet.  The clock is ticking with plenty to finish up, so we will keep today’s entry down to a minimum.  Enjoy the very quick 33 second video taken today at 3:30 pm MST.  As far as the schedule of things to come, we are wrapping up the body panels right now and will then move onto fabricating the engine skid plate, arms for the rear sway bar, shifters for the t-case, and finally head rests.  Our goal is to have everything ready by this Wednesday the 11th.  At which point, Tracy will take the Rock Bug back to AZ to finish the last bit of wiring as well as dyno the Scat V4.  Be sure to check back tomorrow as the body panels should be wrapped up by then.

Consider this a “work in progress” update.  Although I planned on writing the next blog post when all the electrical work was completed, there is so much going on at the same time today I couldn’t help but post some pictures and video now.  Things are going as planned this week, with electrical being the major project to finish by the weekend.  Since our last Rock Bug update on the 19th, some of the progress has included, but is certainly not limited to, fabricating the control section for the dashboard, chromoly mounts for both the fuel cell and battery, intake routing for the Scat V4, and a custom chromoly brake pedal.  Enjoy the pictures and video here, but don’t forget there is more video at SpidertraxTV on YouTube and more photos in the Rock Bug Set on Flickr.

So no time is wasted, Tracy picked up the now fully assembled Scat V4 motor from Powerhouse Motorsports and drove it all the way back to our shop in Longmont, CO.   The underlying theme this week is having everything fabricated and installed so all necessary electrical work can be completed.  Today, Tracy is flying in his good friend Gerald King of Finish Line Racing to handle just about all the electrical work on the Rock Bug.  Finish Line Racing, which can be reached at (602) 576-8332,  specializes in electrical work for all types of performance vehicles all the way up to Trophy Trucks and has worked with guys like the Gieser Brothers & Dunebuggy.com.  In order for Gerald to do his job, we will be busy supplying him with everything necessary for electrical such as fabricating and installing the Rock Bug’s dashboard, battery, fuel cell, Scat V4 accessories, and anything else for that matter that has wires running to it.  We had a great opportunity weighing both the chassis and fully assembled Scat V4 motor during the assembly.  As of today, the chassis weighs in just under 230 lbs and the Scat V4 motor weighs in just at 221 lbs.  The Scat V4 is projected to produce about 300 HP, so the power to weight ratio as it stands should serve the Rock Bug well.