So I have been working like a dog at work, on the house, with my kids, wife and not in this order. The last 20 months have been when the majority of the work has been done. I do enjoy the post here and try to contibute, but I just haven't had the time to make a progress thread. What may or may not be seen in the pics: chasis stiffening kit, engman kit and suspension console reinforcement of my own design. This console reinforcing was detailed on the club site and is in the classics. This car is being built for mostly track use, but I intend for now to keep it street legal...or at least appear like it is. The car started life as a 1972 1.7 I bought for $300 complete with 86k total miles. I got it to run with the replacement of one seal and a used head sensor. I bought it for my ding dong brother who later said he didn't want it. It made sense for me to convert this car for track use rather than butcher up my very nice 75. As luck would have it, about 6 months later I purchased a very wrecked original 70 six with a 3.0L in it........

The body on this car is very straight, just uglier than crap. Hood was rusty and dinged up, but it mostly worked out. I made steel panels and welded them in place of the headlights. I intend to put some HID bulbs in the turn buckets

I have an RX-7 cooler with a shroud that I built to vent up through the hood. I will get to these pics prolly another day.

The cage is from Tangerine racing with some other bits I added tying into the front and the rear suspension.

The engine compartment, with bracing and angle iron added to shock tower/long area. And my home depot battery tray for a smaller odessey battery. Link for my console reinforcing: My Webpage

I did some bracing in the rear trunk as well. I copied a lot of ideas from Jim Patrick's web site. I studied those cages a lot, Oh and I LOVED the way someone on our site did their rear lid. It folds back out of the way for some mad access to the engine compartment. It involves the front trunk mechanism from an 89 Buick Le Sabre. It was pretty easy to get bolted to the body and the welded to the trunk. The square tubing on the top of the lid keeps the front of the lid from lifting up.

closer

I also did away with the front trunk springs and made a simple prop rod out of one of the rear trunk torsion bars, cut down and bent. A part from a 96 pontiac fits the od of this rod and hold it securely in place!

$2.00 Pontiac part and reinforcing for front trunk.

Other bits not seen but on:
Rennmetal flat-tow bracket, reinforcing for body near sway bar.
Tangerine Racing raised spindles.
Elephant poly-bronze bushings.
Factory 6 engine mount.

Seen, but not described:
And YES riveted on fiberglass fenders!
Lots of holes drilled in parts like doors, lids and brackets. Not because its really that much lighter but because I had hole saws and it looks way cool! and goes with the aviation theme/scheme i've got going on.

This is a cool looking build!

Lets see some more and larger pictures.

John

I have some more time to post pictures correctly. The car was painted last month a matte metalic silver. This paint is a polyurethane and looks awsome in the sun. In the garage it looks a little dull. Basically it looks like glass beaded aluminum! The paint is from TCP Global in San Diego. Hot Rod Flats is the color line.

I thought the big rivets, silver paint, and the holes I drilled in the car lent itself nicely to an aviation theme so I'm running with it.

A dozen spray cans of olive drab was easy to do in the front/rear trunks, inside the doors.

It looks so freakin cool

Here is the front trunk with my "deluxe" home made shroud. This was fun to do.

looking nice Andy, and some excellent "outside the box" touches..
I also see your Rennenmetal super beetle tow bar bracket!

I owe some credit to Sir Andy for the how I cut the front lid for the exit. He posted a drawing how he was going to cut and bend the front of the hole up and the rear down for venting out his hood. The exit area is more than twice the intake area. I placed the exit towards the front of the lid after studying the aerodynamics project that was going on at San Diego State? that shows a lower pressure area on the front portion of our trunks ahead of the turn buckets. Will it work.......well see.

Ha Ha thats funny Dan!

Another rear trunk done!

This car will handle like it was on rails so I'm deleting the tires and setting th car up with a flux capacitor! I paint stripped the wheels. I was stoked at how cool they look naked I had to put them on! I am not painting them.

Nice placement of the angle iron rear tower brace. That's where these cars have shown stress cracks. Also the front bulkhead triangle. This is a common stress buckle of a front end collision.

Front suspension detail: Carrera front struts/brakes- Konis, turbo tie rods, elephant polybronze bushings, low friction rear mounts only. 22mm bars, vented backing plates/ hub block offs. Chassis reinforcing for sway bar.
oh, I do have a Tarret front sway bar, but I'm leaving that for a rainy day.
Edit: 21mm torsion bars

Rear suspension detail: Elephant polybronze, Koni adjustable, Ground Control adjustable sleeves. 250# springs
Not shown: SC rear brakes
Edit: 200# springs

WOW!! love it !!!

Very nice job, Andy!

Looking great man!

Hi Andy,

All of these body color engine bays and your color too, I have decided to take my engine / tranny out again and really clean up and paint, silver in my case. I am also going to follow up with Tangerine on the Cage. I like the addional reinforcement you have done.

What is the brand / model of lift you have? That looks really cool and would work really well in my single car garage. i have been doing a complete rebuild sadly for more years than it should take but, am getting there.

Yours is a very cool car!

Grant

Nice work Andy! Living the dream!

Thanks Rob, I am living the dream! I am living the dream! I just gotta keep reminding myself sometimes.

Thanks Grant. Here is the link for my EZ lift: Lift


Edit: This is my 914th Post! I think I finally figured out how to do a link correctly!

Andy! Nice work buddy. It's great to see all that reading, practice, and experience culminate in a successful progress thread with a working link.

Great work on the 6! I hope it gets giant fighter plane sharks teeth in the front and a sexy gal painted on the sail panel.

Of course I wanted something different for my dash that matched the rest of my theme teen. Here is the template I made out of cardboard and the aluminum sheet of .80 that has been cut out.

As you can see the dimensions are similar to the stock steel dash frame. I cut off the steel frame that holds the gauge plate and will be bolting that on once the aluminum is bent up. I will be using the stock gauge face plate as well. Gauges will be 911 oil temp/pressure combo, 911 tach, 914 150 mph speedo. Down on dash face the single cut out is for fuel. Thats all I'm doing so far. I want to drive this freakin thing. I am going to spray the dash with black wrinkle paint. Aluminum is so much easier to work with!

Great job!!!

Here is the dash bent up. I paid the shop where I buy materials to do this $35. I had to trim the corner tabs on top of the dash. When I drew this thing up I wasn't sure if I could install the dash with these corners with the roll cage installed in car. I cut them off. The aluminum sheet is .80 thick. The top bend is 110* just like stock.

Here is the gauge hoop bolted up. A little more filing for the gauges and where the steering column turn signal/washer assembly go. Then the folds will get tig welded. I need to finish the hood cover for the gauges.

Sweet project Andy.

What kind of floor lift is that? looks pretty slick.

A very cool tool. Check post #30 for link.

Andy,
Cool project, I like the aircraft theme you've got going from exposed fasteners to paint and cool mods, great job.

Dave

Got the cover made and riveted in place. I used seam sealer on the inside between the cover and the dash to fill any gaps an hold it in place from vibrating.

Bird's eye. I have a can of krylon wrinkle paint for the gauge plate and dash!

the coolness of simplicity.

So minimalist.

Great.

Really Neat... like what you are doing.

Dash pic added. Wrinkle finished failed large flat surface area. My Webpage Painted SEM Tirm Black.

Got the engine lid finished. Home depot handle and pins to locate on the fire wall. Hood pins will hold it on to body

So I have been working on my car and its been nearly a year since I've updated. My new economy throttle linkage. $15 for two of the ball joints that the cable goes to (one spare). My goal was to get rid of the monkey motion, use a stock throttle cable and not spend much. I am using an aftermarket 914/6 cable from Patrick motorsports $50. I bought two so I'd have a spare. This set up has been tested with the engine rolled under the car and the cable installed in the car with the pedal assembly. I get full throttle and still have some adjustment that I can make to the rod lengths, cable length or bracket position.

I need to rebuild the carbs still. The bracket on the shroud is made from a recycled chunk of steel I cut out of the rear bumper of my 75 when I was lightening it. So there is some value to those big bumpers!

Since this car is such a mix of parts I needed to make my own wire harness. I also wanted to eliminate the relay board. This is not a fancy connector. I found it was a big hassle trying to find just one male/female connector. I called JEGS and ordered a weather pak unit.

Here is the rest of the harness. Most of my supplies came from a local electronics supply. For the actual wires within the harness I cut the rear half of the wire harness from a 914 that was at my local pick n pull. It was in great shape. I used these wires in my new engine harness so they would match the wires in my body harness when pluggen in. Hi torque starter. Ottos built trans. I put the heavy cable from the battery to the starter in the harness as well.