I want to cut out the rear trunk pans and support between the rear shock towers to make more room for a Renegade SBC conversion and make things more accessible. I would weld in permanent tubular cross bracing. This is going to be a street car. Does anyone know if I am going to run into inspection problems in NJ?

Just don't open the trunk and show them......

If you are worried about issues don't do it or see what everybody else has done.

I'm sure there are a few SBC conversion cars on here that can show you ways around or more helpful way to access parts.
OR
You could do your tube work and cover it with .080 aluminum sheet with quarter turn fastners for access panels.

tell them to go pound sand, they have no damn bussiness inspecting YOUR car. that is so bullshit. What are these guys anyway, Nazi's???? why do they need to inspect your trunk, that is just crazy , none of their damn bussiness.

if they get pissy tell them the trunk lock is broke.

You only need to notch out for the distributor. I have a full trunk with my SBC and have no access problems. The only thing to acces easyer would be the starter. I don't think you should cut it all out. I would suggest adding a shock tower brace.

It's your car, do what you want. I think it is not needed at all and will make the rear of the car flimsy unless you go overboard with bracing.

Mine has cross bracing and my ECU and wiring. I can also store my targa inside still. Things to consider brfore cutting up a street car.

Click to view attachment

Here is a better pic of what you need for the trunk.


Bracing the shock towers TO the trani pick up point is a good idea. If you cutout the whole firewall, brace the shock towers

No need to butcher your trunk unless you're going with some crazy hp.

IME, there's no law covering what you want to do. Why would "they" care? The laws you need to care about are the emissions statutes. The Cap'n

I had to reply here. I like your way of thinking. Bastards failed my 86 GMC Pick up because it had a quarter sized rust hole in the rear qtr panel and the other one was rusty too. I had to cut them off and weld in new ones just to get it through inspection.

NJ probably isn't as bad as some other states but as mentioned before they failed me on little rust on my rear qtr panels, 86 GMC 3/4 ton. I had to weld in new ones to get through inspection. I only use it for an occasional trip to the dump or garden center. What they didn't notice is the frame is about to rust in half! Seems they are more concerned about appearance of the vehicle then real safety.

Hey Mike, this looks like a really nice set up. Do you have better pics you can share?

what the heck, is new jersey nazi germany???? the neat police at it again? they care about looks???? I know they have a-hole strict appearnace laws in germany (which is likely designed to get older cars crushed inorder to support more new car sales and support the big bussiness and automotive labour unions who happen to be big political 'donors" (bribes is more like it)
it makes me sick that these nazi's forced you to fix a body rust hole. hell fuck them, fix the rust hole and paint the truck phycodellic rattle can with ten different colors. hell will they get all pissy if you place one of them sticker bullet holes on your panels? maybe paint on the truck "wanted dead or alive New Jersy nazi motor vehicle officals for acting like nazi's".

you need to elect politicans to repeal this stupid nazi law. these guys need to be tared and feathered. I am surprised they dont have death warrents issued on them.

yes I could understand the want to inspect for working lights, or worn out tires , but cosmetics, that is so BS the economy is tanked, folks are out of work and these over paid pension promised nazi sate employees are forcing folks to spend money needlessly to make there vehicles look pretty, the govenrment is out of control.
do poor folks really have to decide if they pay rent and buy food verses having to pay for their car body work done under threat of registration denial.

this is class warfare, them governemnt officals probalby expect you all to take public transit anyway, by making cars unaffordable for the common man. gawd damn them to hell, bastards!

I am a "government official" that has worked in public transit for the past 25 years in both the private and public sectors, and I don't expect (nor, frankly, want) you to ride our buses. I'd rather you walked...

Am I overpaid? No. Do I expect to have a pension when I retire at 65? Yes, after dedicating the better part of my life to improving our community. Is my anticipated retirement excessive? No. In fact, I'm glad I contributed so much of my salary while in the private side into my 401(k) accounts -- which have shrunk incredibly over the past few years, but not due to the malfeasance of public officials. No, that was caused by the greedy bastards in the private banking sector.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- take your vitriol to the Sandbox...

Yikes! Talk about getting off on a tangent. Sorry about that. I read a thread on here regarding adding tubular supports and whomever started the thread was concerned that their car wouldn't pass inspection. I was wondering if anyone had trouble in NJ getting a SBC conversion through inspection.

I will try to post some later today.

I agree 1000%
please stop taking these threads off topic and preaching
we all have heard your rants enough
please take it somewhere else!

Chill the FUCH out. I've been back east, have you ? You really want that old rusted POS dropping parts off the car in front of you? Or have some major failure from rust causing a huge accident? Thats what they look for, not just lights and horn like they used to do in CA.

So you turn a trunk into engine compartment? I would think that the rear trunk turned into the engine compartment as you plan to do, would not violate any state laws.

BTW, I checked with my PA state inspection mechanic about the fender cut-out shown below, he said that would pass PA inspection since it had no sharp edges nor was rusted out to the interior. Definitely surprised me on that one.

As a guy living in PA, I have gotten to see what winter salt roads will do to a car. the parts truck that I have for my jeep has spent all its years here, and it is swiss cheese. And yet, it ran like a top. If there were no inspections, someone would be driving it - and lots of other cars in worse condition. It is not a road worthy car.

Folks living in Cali and Arizona have no idea what rust is here in the rust belt.

Zach

well maybe you ought to fuching re-read the post, the poster said the rust hole was only in the sheet metal panel, that is not a structural issue. I dont see how fixing a "quarter sized hole" in the panel will prevent stuff from falling off and causing accidents.


and yes I have been back east. so chill the fuch out.

Oh really?

You just earned yourself a 5 Day timeout ...
You can still log-in, check PMs and read threads, but no posting for 5 days.


Take your Nazi bullshit to the sandbox, or better yet, keep it to yourself ...

And yes, i know what you're calling me right now.
Andy

Thank you Andy!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. I was fast loosing interest.

On notching the trunk for the sbc if you use the LT1-4 it doesn't have a distributor on the top and the cam driven waterpump might clear also.

On my suby conversion It's a lot of extra work but I would like to make the floor in front of the tranny support all the way up to and including the firewall unbolt. Maybe just have a rectangular tube inbetween the towers for support at the top of the towers and at the lower front at the floor. I also want a motor tranny cradle that goes from a bulkhead mount to a rearfirewall mount to the tranny support that will split at the bellhousing to remove the tranny only.

Thanks Andy

i want to ask any admin why is calling some over bearing government as nazi like so bad, when another poster (Pete) calls them "bastards'. is the word "nazi" banned, but the 'bastards" is ok for discribing the same folks?

yet Dr 914 on another thread is using the words 'Cheap Jap Crap" to discribe japanese products yet sir andy takes no action on that? (I asked sir andy about it via PM, he told me i just dont get it, which is why I asked him, i dont get it, how "nazi" is not allowed but "jap' and "bastard" is????)

i'd like some clarification of the rules so i can stay within the rules and not have problems in the future with the rules


i kindly ask for any admin to please reply to these questions regarding nazi, bastards and jap.






attached below is from Dr 914's post:

"Sep 13 2010, 03:25 PM Post #20


Advanced Member


Group: Members
Posts: 3,340
Joined: 3-January 07
From: atlanta georgia
Member No.: 7,418



The AA piston and cylinder kits as scotty says are a crap shoot but so cheap that they can be used and taken the extra time to match up and measure. We use them here for cheap engine rebuilds and have not had a problem after carefully fitting weighing and mic ing them. NPR were the best made in Japan but long discontinued. As an amusing anecdote, after the war my dad called the stuff from Japan cheap jap crap!!! Then japan got better and better, until he actually PREFERRED products from Japan (except cars!!!!!)
Eventually the Chinese will be there.
Please note that the AA stuff is not ours!!!!!'

one last post out of context and two total pc stuff will not happen or lots of us would leave.... The "N" word in either case can probably be retired without too much objection..

Im an old jersey guy and can be totally non pc....I do my best to keep it controlled.. answer the mans question or go to the sand box!!!

I'm going back to looking for all my nuts and bolts to put my car back togeather...! Ta taa....

thats what I need to figure out. The 'n' word, now we cant even say that can we??? is that the N word Nazi, or the N word N%^ger??? is Jap the new J word (seems it is aceptable to the admin) or not? and then we have the B word "bastard', used in the same vane as the N word Nazi, yet it is acceptable???? or at least sir andy is not letting on if it is accpetable or not.

that begs to ask, if n word (nazi) is bad, why would B word or J word not be bad also???? Why is N word (nazi) so harsly condemned by admin, yet B word and J word are seemingly ok?

The Nazi's brutally murdered over 1 million people in an attempt at ethnic cleansing. Many people are very sensitive to this. There are even groups of people that deny this ever happened. Perhaps this is the reason?

again , answer the mans question or go to the sand box!!!

Im sure this can be cleared up in a better forum....even I feel this thread has gone far a field....

and for the record...no trunk= race car......modified trunk for street car.... just one man's opinion

well that is a good theory but what of calling the japanese japs? does the admin believe that is ok, i thought a ethnic or racial insult is specifically banned, and is grounds for banning the person that wrote it? (not that i want Dr 914 banned)

or the word bastard, lots of bastards in the world that may not like that term.

nazis may have killed millions but so have the commies (amoung others) is that word banned to? the new C word is commie? I say I dont buy that logic. rules should be logical.

red, for me it's your constant negativity and government slamming. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, just keep the negative comments to yourself.

Actually, political rants are not welcome there either.

My take is pretty simple. If the car is safe (will protect me and my passenger) and has all of the features needed to make it visible (as far as possible) and have the ability to transmit the driver's intentions to other drivers it should be "street legal".

Whether or not those features are used by any one driver is his/her responsibility as with any car bought off of a showroom floor.

Anything else is lagnaippe... cajun for "a little something extra". An internal trunk doesn't make the car any more visible but adds a certain amount of strength.

If removing it weakens the car then other structure should be added by the builder to stiffen it back to at least stock strength. Otherwise the safety of the driver and any passenger would be compromised... ain't no free lunch.

please close this thread.

and as a car guy I apologize to the original person that started this thread

then you would also say the same to pete about him calling the authorities the "B word" for forcing him to repair his truck, the same authorities I called the "four letter N word with the Z in it" like for doing that to his truck?

This entire post was started over a question of what the authorites will force someone to do. If you only want positve comments on the authorites then I guess you need to look up a government website???
Some folks on this thread seemed to be shocked and mad at the thought of the inspectors looKing at a trunk floor, others gave the opinion that the authorities should inspect such things and take the folks cars off the road, some folks find this very offensive others do not, so you will get both negative and postive attitudes in a thread regarding authorities and their powers.

Would you say to the folks that have expressed support for the authorities inspections on this thread, that you don't want them to post positve comments about the authorties . if not would that not be kind of pro-authoritarian on your part to ask that pro-liberty comments be surpressed while pro authoritarian comments be be allowed?


Since Pete was not called out for his negitive to the authority "B word" comment And I was specifically called out for the "four letter N word with the Z in it", I dont think it was becuase of my pro-liberty (negative authority) views. but then again if the Four letter N word with the Z in it is bad why is the three letter J word or the B word allowed?





i

dude...give it a rest.....one word "decaf"

I was wondering, is there a way to delete this thread? It's just fodder at this point.

I think it would be very cool if a removable trunk pan coule be fitted. Maybe with some dzus (did I spell it right?) fasteners. Then you can have the best of both worlds. You would need some extra bracing, but the end result would be cool.

Yep, you can. In addition you don't have to stick to the factory trunk profile. If the body-strength has been maintained (or improved) you can make pockets everywhere for street use. Like deeper on the sides of the transaxle.

Besides sealing against rain and surface water splashed up from the road, the trunk poses only the radiant-heat issue from the exhaust, engine and transaxle. That can be addressed by some really good insulation work. You don't want to block the cooling air from those parts either, or trap exhaust heat and dump it into your tranny.

I've considered doing just that in my front trunk, which is filled with... well, look at my avatar. There is still plenty of room over my feet where the stock tank was to make a removable storage compartment and hang it from the crossmember. Or I can install another "reserve" fuel cell from there and push up my 15 gallons to 20 or 25. Oh yeah.

Design and fabrication is a neat process and especially good when the entire car is taken into account, rather than one system at a time.

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Hey Pete,

I'm in CA, so we don't have to worry about rust as much as the east. However,
I take the view that if they can't see it, it's fine. Do you have to take the car through a state approved inspection?

Regardless, I writing laws, I would expect the wording to be something like " vehcle must be structurally sound and in not danger of failure during use." Unless
your law states specifically that there can be "No modification" of structure, then you are good to go.

FYI: check out how much of the trunk I've cut out on my 383 street/track car.

Wow, you have a lot going on there. Excellent! Do you know if there is room for the original battery tray location with a SBC 350? Judging by your pics I'm not seeing a lot of room. However, I have headers which go below the engine. I would like to weld in the new battery tray before going through the trouble of installing the engine. Hopefully this thread will get back on course.

Pete,

If you register the car with "Q" plates (historic) you are exempt of the sate inspection. However, the care needs to be in a safe driving condition and able to pass state inspection.
You will not find anybody at the MVA that will give you a writen OK to cut the boards. DId you ask them?

Dragan