We did everything ourselves , chassis, , engine , trans , body and paint
Car ran 6.41 , 1.35 60 ft and weighs 2050 , a street car.
If anyone is interested I will post the build pics. Mike McCarthy
nbturbo ·
Of course- give us something. Well done.
mactaylor ·
Build pics would be great! thanks Mike!
dragvw2180 ·
This is what we started with , she had been hit in front so we cut off the bad stuff, hey it was free.
dragvw2180 ·
Originally we were going to do a simple 3" trans raise, here is the mock up on that, After looking at the pan and rollcage we decided to go further by back halfing the car and went to ladder bar suspension.
dragvw2180 ·
John my racing partner decided he liked the way my old car handled so we copied my front suspension and narrowed his beam 7" same as I had. We used Ghia front brakes so it kicked out the wheels slightly and made the narrowed beam fit perfectly.
dragvw2180 ·
We like alot of caster so we fabbed up some shims, 15 degrees caster makes the car want to go straight. After aligning the front end we welded the shims to the body so nothing could move.
dragvw2180 ·
Well we got to the point where we had to start on the roll cage, after drinking a few shots of tequila and a few beers we reassessed the direction of the car . We decided to not only raise the transmission 4" but to also back half it and do ladder bars.
We welded the front transmission mount plate in and it made the rear really ridged , the engine mount we used 4 stock bolts so we could remove it for ease of trans replacement. We made bungs that were welded inside the tubing for those bolts.
dragvw2180 ·
we both replaced and moved some pipes as we went along , tack as you go and weld once.
dragvw2180 ·
Our original ladder bars ended up being 4" too short to work correctly so we made new ones and also the plates to bolt them to. After reading some chassis books we discovered we accidentally put everything exactly where it should be . We made in way more adjustments on everything which will allow us to change any setting.
dragvw2180 ·
These were my two supervisors, they overlooked every weld I did and kept me company, miss my old lab.
dragvw2180 ·
Here you can see we installed new floor pans and started on the interior metal work. We decided that since this was going to be a street/race car that we wanted to upholster everything, carpeting and padding covers the sheet metal interior later down the road.
you can see the way we mounted the race seats and we had the chassis certed for 8.5 1/4 before doing the tin work
dragvw2180 ·
A pic of the transmission we built , a duplicate of mine. Autocraft case and all the accessories
dragvw2180 ·
The last of the chassis work done until we refit the body ,it actually rolls.
I will post some more tomorrow . Mike
nbturbo ·
Thanks so much for the pics n stories-keep it coming.
dragvw2180 ·
We tried really hard to make the cage fit as tight as possible to the body , even tied the roll cage hoop to the seat belt bolt on the B pillar.
dragvw2180 ·
Another view of the cage on drivers side. When we had it certed the inspector wanted to see the lower pipe which is covered up by the heater ( just a skin ) channel so we welded another pipe above the rocker and added a Kidney pipe to meet all standards.
dragvw2180 ·
I needed a break from welding so we decided to work on the body awhile . The rear window had alot of rust at the bottom so instead of just patching it up we decided to replace it with a fibre glass split kit. The first two we had sent to us did not come close to fitting the way I wanted to so I had the company send me a kit that was not bonded together. After cutting and removing unneeded metal from the 67 window frame I fitted the two pieces into place and clamped them to check for fit, perfect ! I removed the window and ground the whole area with a 36 grit disk so the fibre glass would have something to bond to and then refitted both halves .
We had to roll it outside to get a better visual look to make sure it all looked right, ya man were we excited , LOL
dragvw2180 ·
I went to the interior and started to glss the inner panel in place, the outer panel was taped in place with aluminum tape so it would stay flush and also hold the inner panel from moving . You can see I used fibre glass and Matting rather than cloth as it was easier to pack and fill the gaps with it.
dragvw2180 ·
I let it harden all night and next morning I removed the outer skin , this is what it looked like ,
I was very happy so I filled the gaps and made a nice smooth surface for the outer skin to bond to .
dragvw2180 ·
After prepping and checking the fit of the outside skin I painted both surfaces with Resin and filled gaps between both pieces with resin soaked matting then clamped both pieces together, I think I used every clamp I owned.
I ground all the excess glass and paint and put a skim coat of body filler over the whole area , time to fit up the wing and bread box, yippeeee !
modnrod ·
Looks hard as nails! Thanks for the write up, very cool to see the steps you took to get there.
That glass matting is DAMN strong isn't it? I use a flap disc to get the levels right coz it tears up sandpaper in seconds.
dragvw2180 ·
You are absolutely correct, you could hit the fibreglass with a hammer and not chip it . I used a 6" grinder disc with backing plate on my old air grinder to remove the excess , small enough to get into tight places but big enough to make it pretty smooth. Before I ground it I used a small sandblaster to remove the worst rust spots. I do have many many more pictures if there is something specific you want to see.
Well back to the chassis, we gutted the inside of the pan tunnel so we could use it to hide plumbing inside it , here you can see where we mounted the fuel pump and we used a bulkhead connector to simplify our fuel line connection . Our fuel line , clutch and brake lines for the rear are inside the tunnel .
dragvw2180 ·
Some more pics of the front ,
the tie rods were just slapped on in this picture so we could move the car around. We made those out of CM tubing, tapped them and used Heim joints instead of tie rod ends and located them on the upper side . I added a flat washer just in case a joint ever came apart to retain it.
LOL , the front of the cage was pretty packed with stuff. Weight distribution was a big worry when we started on this project, we decided on a larger fuel cell because this car is a street car. It was built for a race class called Unlimited Street East , you had to drive the car 20 miles and then race it heads up , we didn't want to run out of fuel, LOL. We also wanted the battery up there so we mounted it under the front roll cage in a battery box. The box and the lower roll cage unbolts from the beam so any and all of it can be removed.
dragvw2180 ·
We used Heim joints for the tilt mechanism so we could adjust it up, down, and sideways, axtually worked out really well.
I also built stops so that when opened it would not crack the F/E , plus one person can open and close it without scraping any paint off
dragvw2180 ·
This is the best picture I have of how we built the tilt setup,
dragvw2180 ·
John's grandson dropped by to give us some help ,
If anyone wonders what the numbers are on the paint, it is the degrees for each tubing bend on the roll cage . Two old guys trying to remember by writing them down on the car as we went, LOL
dragvw2180 ·
After we completd the tilt we adjusted the F.E , was pretty happy with final result. John said he wanted the doors removable see we removed the hinge pins and made removable pins out of bolts , left them a 1/4 long so we could push them out easily.
dragvw2180 ·
There never seemed to be an end to welding , my welding abilities are kinda like sex, I am not that good but I like doing it, LOL
Time to go cut my grass , see you Monday, taking my wife to the coast for the weekend.
Notice my blue print for the rollcage pipe angles and lengths written on the car
modnrod ·
dragvw2180 wrote:There never seemed to be an end to welding , my welding abilities are kinda like sex, I am not that good but I like doing it, LOL
Hahahaha! 😂
More pics man, great stuff.
dragvw2180 ·
We decided to use an remote oil cooler with thermostat and fan , we mounted it below the shift rod in an empty area between the cage and transmission. It fit perfectly .
dragvw2180 ·
One of the things I spent days on were the rear coil over mounts , I tried multiple ideas but after making and installing them I did not like them. This is what I ended up with , SIMPLE .
Its hard to tell but there are two piecec of tubing welded into the mount that sandwich the shock heim joint and they are welded into the mount.
dragvw2180 ·
As you can see in the above pictures I built a framework to support the interior sheet metal , plans have changed and we will be removing sheet metal and replaceing some of the tinwork with aluminum. The goal is to reduce weight everywhere now as our race class ( USE ) no longer exists and John will be racing it , no more street car.
dragvw2180 ·
I only have a few pictures of the original engine, she was a 2387 with a GOL set of engine tin plus headers and turbo system we fabricated.
We tried a programmable ignition system with boost control and it failed on us causing this engine to destroy itself under boost but that is another story.
dragvw2180 ·
This was my engine but John's new engine ( 2332) looks identical with the exception of the carb, he is running a Holly 600 instead of the Preditor.
dragvw2180 ·
I miss seeing this website as active as it used to be , I hope it will not be going the way many have because I will miss it. Here is a video of the painted car, 15 coats of lacquer .
nbturbo ·
Hope you don't bail out on us. I can't figure what you did with the top coil over mounts.Always keen to see neat fabricating tricks.
dragvw2180 ·
LOL, it took some thinking. On the lower side of the tubing I cut an oval slot long and wide enough to slip the Heim joint into without touching anything . After doing that I drilled a hole through the tubing big enough so I could fit a piece of tubing on either side of the shock Heim joint . I installed a bolt through those two pieces which sandwiched the Heim inside the 1 5/8ths tube. Before welding the small pieces of tubing on either side I centered the assy. Now when I remove the shock I just remove the grade 8 bolt to remove the shock. The Heim joints are high deflection units . If more pictures are requested I can take some . Right now I am in the middle of removing the engine on my car, I got greedy on my tune and cracked a cylinder . Within the next couple days I will take a break and make another mount so you can see exactly what I did. Mike
nbturbo ·
OK-got it now.A lot of work to achieve that.Good job.
modnrod ·
dragvw2180 wrote:I miss seeing this website as active as it used to be , I hope it will not be going the way many have because I will miss it.
Me too.
I try to find a vaguely interesting pic to put up at least every couple of weeks for just that reason.
Your coilover top mount is the same as used for many bikes with monoshock rear. I like seeing all the different ways of doing stuff too.
Thanks for the pics.
dragvw2180 ·
I use ideas from everywhere , including this website, thats what is wonderful about sharing ideas. I am definitely not a genius when it comes to fabrication but I can usually make something work, LOL. If either of you see or want to see anything in particular let me know and I will either dig up the pictures or take some additional pics. The great thing about having a friend who does the same things I do is that we make each other better than we would be on our own. My friend John Toomey is a good fabricator and comes up with great ideas also. Mike