With the new engine ready, Kiesel turned his attention to the void the old body kit once filled. Kiesel is a racer who understands the importance of lightness. With the goal of keeping the car as light as possible, he decided to go with a full-carbon body.
Not one to just sit on the sidelines and watch things happen, he took part in the process of designing and building the one-off custom body panels. While it was officially designed by Ulises Merino of Carbon Tech, and built by SDCS in San Diego, California, Kiesel owns the molds and says he might be convinced to make more carbon bodies... RX-7 owners take note.
One of the cooler features of the bodywork is the incorporation of air jacks. A nice thing to have if only for convenience and speed when changing wheels or making repairs at the track-it'll also prevent any jacking damage to the beautiful and expensive carbon body.
With a legal engine installed and the body done, the only thing left to do was a little fine-tuning before it was ready to hit the circuit. With the help of a few fellow RX-7 fanatics, Kiesel worked out the suspension tuning and started in the 2005 SCCA BP racing season. He must have done something right because in his first season out, Kiesel and the RX-7 took the win at the 2005 SCCA Nationals. Unfortunately, the victory was short-lived.
Right after Kiesel won, the second-place finisher complained that Kiesel's car wasn't technically legal. While his RX-7 was over the minimum weight, according to the rules, a 10-pound piece of metal that must be in place wasn't present on Kiesel's car. Because of that technicality, the championship was ripped from his hands.
After learning his lesson the hard way, Kiesel decided to prevent another fiasco and personally took control of the build. To the average racer, more oversight might simply mean spending more time in the shop that's building the car or calling the fabricators five times a day. Kiesel don't play that way.
Like we said before, when you want things done right, you've got to do them yourself... and that's what he did. With no previous welding or fabricating experience, Kiesel bought himself a welder, a tube bender, a notcher and set out to convert his ride into a full tube-framed racer. After a 20-hour crash course on welding from a buddy, he got to work putting together the chassis in his garage at home. Fabricating a custom chassis is a lot more complicated than connecting a few tubes. It takes time and skill and lots of math to get things right, and surprisingly, this rookie fabricator hit a home run.