I've been meaning to update this thread and the one on the corral. The car is doing good right now. Still have a couple more things to do before it is ready for the final NMCA event Oct 15-16. I didn't do much updating to my threads since I had been thrashing on the car trying to get it ready for the NMCA Sept 3-4 event. But unfortunately the car wasn't ready for that event.
Here's some of the back story of the car starting at the rebuild. I mentioned before the car was sitting on jack stands for around 10 years. My plan back in 2000 was to build a SCCA CP car. So the car was gutted and caged. I really didn't have the budget for it and after not turning it into a real CP car with fender flares and big tires after close to 6 years I just didn't have the money to keep it going. Since I didn't want to get rid of the car it went on jack stands with the plan one day it would race again. Then in 2016 I was able to make my dream of racing the car again a reality. I took the car off jack stands and started the process to get the car ready to run in SCCA CAM-T. Here's how the car looked when I got it home.
View attachment 79610
The car already had the Maximum Motorsports front suspension on it. The rear had a parallel 4 link with MM panhard bar and road race lower control arms. Here's how the interior looked.
View attachment 79611View attachment 79612
The first order of business was removing the front part of the cage and leaving the rear roll bar. The next thing I always wanted to do was build my own motor. I had never done that before but I knew I wanted to try. I really wanted to build a 347 for the car so i talked to Jim Woods aka Woody at fordstrokers. So I bought a pile of parts from him and set out to build an engine with his help. I decided not to use the block from my old motor. I used a Dart SHP block with a big bore 4.125 and a shorter stroke AFR heads. Which turned out to be really good for my first attempt at building an engine.
View attachment 79614
View attachment 79613
Then I worked on widening the car since I wanted to run a 315 on it. I picked up Chicane 23 fender flares and started cutting up the car. The front was easy I did it myself but the rear I had help with since I have never really welded before. After a lot of work i had fender flares on the car. If someone wants to see what I did to make the flares work I can post more pictures.
View attachment 79615
At this point the car was running and I took it out to it's first autocross which went better then expected I only had a couple minor issues with the power steering going dead mid corner which made things hard when you have 315 in the front an you loose power steering in the corner. Here's a picture of my second autocross with the car after I put the saleen air dam on it.
View attachment 79616
This I believe was late 2019 if I remember correctly. My plan was to test the car with the flares just riveted on so if a tire hit one or something got damaged I wouldn't have to do a bunch of body work over again. I felt like the car was pretty set for the 2020 race season. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned as we all know. Between the stadium closing since it got sold off and covid my race plans got put on hold for 2020.
When I realized racing wasn't going to happen I decided to do the body work on the car. I've never done it before but I gave it a try. It didn't turn out to bad for my first time. I had always planned on wrapping the car. I wanted to be able to fix things myself and not rely on a body shop. So I did my best to blend the flares to the car and wrap it.
View attachment 79617
View attachment 79618
View attachment 79619
Other things I had been doing during this time was add a 04 Cobra IRS and ABS system to the car. When I installed the IRS I was looking at the ABS sensors and thought I already of the mounts for the sensors and tone rings all I need to do is add plumb it and wire up the ABS module. Since I removed everything under my dash that's where I put my ABS module.
View attachment 79620
The first event for the newly rebuilt again car was Jan 5 and chuckwalla valley raceway. I really wanted to the first event to be an autocross and not a track day but it ran good with no major issues. I did a bunch of autocross events another track day in 2021 and got a lot of the bugs worked out in the car and I managed a win in NMCA modern muscle class. I was looking forward to the 2022 season with the car.
For the new racing season I added a Pro-M EFI system and took the car to the dyno. I knew the car didn't make great power but I really didn't realize how bad it was. Since the car has a 347 with AFR heads mild cam it should make more then 300hp it only made 275hp and 318tq. The power fell off like a rock after 5000-5100 rpms. It did make great low end torque which is why the car did great on short tight courses. I decided to wait until the summer break to pull the motor put a new cam in the car with shaft mount rockers Holley Systemax bigger throttle body and MAF from Pro-M. I also set the car up with a better fuel system so I could run E85. I didn't do the motor work this time I really didn't have the time so I had the engine builders at JBA Racing do the engine work. Since the engine was out I added an Tremec TKX and MDL hydraulic clutch setup.
The car is currently at JBA getting the exhaust fixed and having it tuned for the new setup. It runs pretty good but it does need some fine tuning. I was hoping to get test event in before the NMCA event but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Here's some pictures of the interior and the new engine setup.
View attachment 79628
View attachment 79632
View attachment 79631
View attachment 79630
View attachment 79629
This is a cliff notes version of what I did with the car if anyone has questions about any part of it please let me know I'm happy to help if I can.