Free Raffle Car - Q45-2020 Challenge

Ok started out as a day to get a few things done and turned into a day of hacking metal.

First we yanked the front suspension out of the donor corvette and set it up on a dolly for an initial test fit. I think we will end up notching the lower frame rail to match the corvette cross member. then weld it in. Plan right now will be to cut the inner fenders out and run the front end open wheel. After we placed the engine (next steps) I think we can shorten the wheel base by 3 or 4 inches.

I thought I took other pictures but guess I did not.  Once we get engine mounted we will go back to fitting front suspension.

Next was cutting firewall for engine set back, several cuts later we have the engine sitting about where we want it. Front of balancer is sitting about where the original firewall was located. Plan is to make a new firewall out of sheet metal and adapt the trans tunnel we cut out. This will include relocating hte shifters position.

Guys also stripped rear end out of corvette for recoup. Sammy had a couple of his friends over to help, his first time leading a team with a project. 

All in all more accomplished than we thought was going to happen today. Next is ordering metal for roll bar .

Didn't get any work done on the car this weekend as I had to travel for work, but did get a couple of packages in while I was gone

Here are the shocks we plan on using, QA1 7" stroke for front and 9" for rear. They are nearly new and although they are not adjustable they are user rebuild able and revalvable. $66.05 each including shipping. I am waiting on springs until we get closer to final build weight so we can select springs by corner weights.

Next was spotted this on Marketplace and thought it would at least be a good option for seats even if they do not make the final cut. Seats, sliders, mounts and covers for $50 and they threw in 5 cans of spray paint as well.

I don't know how I missed the Feb 2nd update but that's awesome. 

Had some free time this after noon so started prep work for tomorrows work day. We are planning on making motor and trans mounts as well as mount front cross member for C4 front suspension. So inner fender wells had to go

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Clean slate to start tomorrow am

This is mental.

And i like it.

In reply to Fladiver64 :

I showed that picture to Lil Stampie and he just kept repeating oh wow over and over. 

I love the direction this project has turned. C4 sub-frame swap all the things!

Ok so we got some work done today, not as much as we had hoped for but the day got cut short.

Started with Sammy removing sound deadening material, have air chisel will hammer

Robbie inspired me along with a hammer store coupon to add a band saw to the tool arsenal. I mounted a table and made it so it fits on the metal working table. We have 4 stations with a receiver style hitch system so we can mount different tools as needed.

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We started the motor mount process with prep work and welding in some doubler plates to beef up the areas we cut out.

Plate welded to floor where motor mount will be installed

Angle welded in to start bracing where we cut one of the floor braces. 

Motor mounts welded in. This is in the front seat floor, but is now on the engine compartment side of the new firewall that will be installed

Stock trans cross member reused with some additional angle. Right now just tacked in place we will weld in fully a bit later as there are still some things that need to be worked out for the trans tunnel and floor.

Important picture, engine and tans attached to car without any assistance of lifts or blocks.

The front of the engine ended up right at the original firewall position.

We did get teh C4 cross member stripped and started working out where it need to go and ran out of time. That is going ot be put on hold as my son ran his Avalon into a curb and broke a LCA, CV axle, and maybe the strut. I'll know more when I take it apart tomorrow, but that will be occupying the lift space for the next few days.

Freakin awesome! Can you post a pic of your mount for the saw to the hitch receiver?

And ouch about the curb. No one was hurt I hope?

I'd love to see a side view and maybe show us where you're going to cut the front. 

In reply to Robbie :

No one hurt, just bruised teenage ego.

Here is the bracket I made. I think I will add some support under to hold the weight of the saw.

In reply to Stampie :

Ok here is the plan. Side view as requested.

The top blue line is where we plan to cut the doors down to. There will be a 1" bar welded to the roll bar and dash hoop that will run right next to the door skin. The door skin will be wrapped around the bar and welded in.

The front vertical blue line is where the new firewall will be. We are planning on installing a dash bar there with two braces running to the frame above the front cross member. This is also about where the shoulder bars for the roll should terminate at the floor.

So everything outside the blue lines will be cut away.

I am terrible at drawing but maybe this gives you an idea.

This is view from top, Plan is to create a fiberglass front end from the new firewall forward, that will curve into the front frame rails then in front of the wheels pinch down and we will install a front wing. Plan is to run the front end open wheel, with the C4 suspension in the open. The shocks will mount cross ways between the a arms. We are thinking about putting two small radiators on each side of the engine kinda of like pod style on an Indy car.

Most of this is open to interpretation amd modification as we build . Exact rear end design and wing is still being worked on.

Now it makes sense why you saved the frame rails that far forward. 

In reply to Stampie :

Not sure it will stay, but didn't want to cut off until we know.

Started on the C4 cross member this afternoon. I made a couple of brackets that allow me to clamp the cross member in place and we can measure for placement. I think I will need to make a couple more to adjust the height of the cross member as well.

I need to get teh ride height set up as I think the cross member is too high in the frame and the frame is too thick so it will need to be trimmed and plated.

Little switching gears. Cleaned up floor pan and made plates for roll bar. Decided to split the plate between the floor and the rocker to make the attachment point stronger. The main hoop will be right over the rear cross member.

Very long day in the shop today. All of the boys had other plans so it was just Kurt and myself.

First on the agenda was C4 front suspension. We had to notch the frame rails to get the proper angle for the cross member as well as establish the ride height. We cut the lower frame rail and then welded in a 3 x 3 x.250 piece of angle to reinforce the frame.  Didn't think to take an interim pictures but this all has to come out again to cut the top of the frame rail so the a arms have clearance. Wheel base has been shortened from 113" to 110".

Next Kurt welded in all of the plates for the roll bar to the floor . I trimmed up the firewall bar and we welded that in place. The plan is to add bars from the firewall bar to the front frame to support the front suspension. In addition we wll at a diagonal as sell as some lighter tubing to mount the firewall to.

The the big install, the main roll bar hoop. Because I am so tall (6'6"), by the time I sit in a race seat with a helmet and have the reqyired 3" of helmet clearance, The bar was taller than the roof. So first a couple of support bars get welded in place.

Then we cut a slot in the roof to install the main hoop.

Main hoop welded in front view.

Then we trimmed off the back half of roof and installed the back bars.  We just rough cut the roof panel, the actual cut line will be lower on the body but we wanted to wait for a few other things to be installed before making any final cuts.

Kurt welding in back bars.

Hoop and rear bars.

Are the doors going to be welded up?  

Truck it!!!!!

This is beyond insane...

In reply to Stampie :

The plan is to pull the door skins off and weld them in. The doors themselves are about 50 lbs each even with the glass and electrics removed.

Pete Gossett said:

This is beyond insane...

I will take that as a compliment from this group.

Had a free day so Kurt came over and we worked on getting the front cross member permanently mounted. In the C4 it is bolted in, for our application we are welding it in. First up was cutting off the engine mounts since are are not using them and grinding all of that flat. Got to love one sentence jobs that take a couple of hours.

We had to cut the top of the frame rails since the frame is too thick.

Then we mounted and squared up the cross member. Set up level and square to within 1/32nd of an inch, then tack welded.

Then a little cardboard template, made up a 3/16" top plate. We didn't get a chance to finish welding it in but that will be next.

Is it bad that after looking at all this great fab work I'm still looking forward to seeing head gasket carnage?

Didn't get anything done on the car this weekend, house chores on Saturday and helping a scout work on his eagle project today.

I did manage to reorganize the scrap metal area in the shop since it was getting hard to find anything. Now stuff is organized by steel and aluminum, tubing, angle, bar stock and plate. The bins are for the long sections, nice to have a 14' high side wall.