I'm addicted to old fiberglass sports racers

VERY sweet body !

I had an old Kellison up until last year, never should have traded it off. The fronts are VERY low on these bodies, front engines always necessitate drastic body work and messing around with the cool hood profile. Kind of ruins everything in the end.

A GM V6 mounts easily and cleanly in back of a built VW transaxle:

A frame like this one:

Would mate up perfectly with the remains of a motorcycle for a sweet tandem reverse trike with one of those fiberglass bodies draped over it, Any brave souls out there looking for some more insanity, the frame and the adapter/flywheel to mount the GM V6 to a VW transaxle are for sale. Even have a built Pro-Street VW transaxle to go with the the deal.

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

Some FWD Impala's came with a very nice V6 and and then some with a V8 LS4. Might make a nice rear drive package.

In reply to TeamEvil:

Would that adapter work with a 231 buick? How much do you want for it? Also how much for the transaxle?

Thank you for the input and suggestions.

I've spent some time talking today to the owner of the yellow Crusader. He says that though not high tech, the VW parts in this light of car work pretty well. On hoosier's he pulls 1.5gs. He also says that the parts are readily available and reasonably priced.

I've decided to build a replica of the original car to begin with. It's the easiest approach as I am going to be able to use the Yellow car to pull molds and to copy the original frame. With a removable DOT windshield and lighting it can be street legal. And, it will be eligible to race in many of the Vintage racing associations. Since there are only 4 originals left it will be different as well.

The Yellow Crusader is being raced at Lime Rock labor day weekend. After that it will be torn down to have the molds made. Looks like I'll have a fun winter project. I'll start a build thread at that time.

I'm retired and love these cars. This will give me something to be excited about doing.

So very very cool!!!! And AC cars sound great!

jmc14, please stop search for thing you don't need.

jmc14 wrote: The last thing I need is another old fiberglass body or project...

jmc14 wrote: I have a couple of Kellison bodies. I search ebay for "Kellison" regularly...

"I've decided to build a replica of the original car to begin with."

WOW, Terrific ! ! !

Please posts tons of pictures as you proceed, won't you? Oh, where are you located?

Best of luck, looking forward to this one !

TC

I was Just sent a picture of the the car with body that I purchased this week. The body is flared quite a bit for bigger wheels/tires. This body is 68 inches wide at the wheels. The original is 60 inches wide. I'm not sure why they opened up the front grill either. But, I think the car is very cool.

I'm pulling molds from the original car. But, I think that at some point I'll have to build one with the wider one. Maybe that one will have different suspension and drivetrain.

I'm near Lake Placid New York.

[URL=http://s1143.photobucket.com/user/jmcbigbelly/media/crusadermybody_zpsbd00aa7c.jpg.html][/URL]

You guys are gonna dig the 1958 Tornado Typhoon that we will be building in Classic Motorsports! Fortunately we are having a 10 year subscription sale--- making it easier than ever to subscribe!

http://classicmotorsports.net/project-cars/1957-tornado-typhoon/

"I'm near Lake Placid New York."

Up there not too long ago looking at a car for sale, at at the "Tale of the Pup," great experience. Beautiful piece of the country ! !

Cotton,

The adapter and flywheel were made for the 3.8/4.1 Buick based even fire V6. I'll gather them up, look them over, and post everything for sale in the cheap stuff for sale forum. PM doesn't seem to work for me.

TeamEvil wrote: "I'm near Lake Placid New York." Up there not too long ago looking at a car for sale, at at the "Tale of the Pup," great experience. Beautiful piece of the country ! ! Cotton, The adapter and flywheel were made for the 3.8/4.1 Buick based even fire V6. I'll gather them up, look them over, and post everything for sale in the cheap stuff for sale forum. PM doesn't seem to work for me.

Okay you can email me at cottonyzf at gmail if you want. It looks like I'll be parting my buick powered sprite out and I want to find an interesting home for the engine.

Very nice. Is it bad to look at vehicles like this and think that the back of one is a great place to stick a beigemobile V6/auto?

Not an automatic, the 4.1 is coupled to a built up Pro-Street VW transaxle via a Kennedy adapter and custom flywheel.

neon4891 wrote: Very nice. Is it bad to look at vehicles like this and think that the back of one is a great place to stick a beigemobile V6/auto?

I like the way you think.... Sort of a Poor Man's Lola T-70...

Stroker, my favorite cars are the old Can Am cars. The first race I saw was a Can Am race at Riverside park in Ca. That was the late 60's. I've been hooked ever since.

jmc14 wrote: Stroker, my favorite cars are the old Can Am cars. The first race I saw was a Can Am race at Riverside park in Ca. That was the late 60's. I've been hooked ever since.

I hear that. Road America '69 for me...

jmc14 wrote: Thank you for the input and suggestions. I've spent some time talking today to the owner of the yellow Crusader. He says that though not high tech, the VW parts in this light of car work pretty well. On hoosier's he pulls 1.5gs. He also says that the parts are readily available and reasonably priced. I've decided to build a replica of the original car to begin with. It's the easiest approach as I am going to be able to use the Yellow car to pull molds and to copy the original frame. With a removable DOT windshield and lighting it can be street legal. And, it will be eligible to race in many of the Vintage racing associations. Since there are only 4 originals left it will be different as well. The Yellow Crusader is being raced at Lime Rock labor day weekend. After that it will be torn down to have the molds made. Looks like I'll have a fun winter project. I'll start a build thread at that time. I'm retired and love these cars. This will give me something to be excited about doing.

This sounds like such a cool project. I was really into AC VW's about 20 years ago and I always thought the simple components would lend themselves well to a nice, light sports car body. Back then the only thing I could find that was anything like that was a Bradley GT, but that was too "kit car"-ish for what I was looking for.

I had been thinking of doing something similar with an Elva MK7 body, but I just don't have the time to do the engineering.

Please keep us posted on your progress!

Why couldn't you do something like this with an old Formula Ford?

stroker wrote: Why couldn't you do something like this with an old Formula Ford?

You could, anything is possible. But, for me there are several reasons why building a clone of the Crusader VSR is attractive to me.

• I love the looks of the Crusader VSR
• The car was an actual car that ran in the 60's. A clone will be eligible to run in some Vintage groups.
• I don't have to engineer the chassis or design and build the body. It's a lot easier (and CHEAPER) to copy something than to create the original. I've done both.
• All of the parts are readily available and inexpensive.

I could build a faster, better handling car. But, this is the car that I want to do.

Awesome project, I love this car! Are you going to do a thread in the build section?

The suggestions of Hayabusa engines early in the thread got me wondering. There was a stillborn effort to do Formula Hayabusa using as much off the shelf Suzuki stuff as possible. I never have been able to find out what they used for a transaxle for that. That might be useful in this discussion.

stroker wrote: The suggestions of Hayabusa engines early in the thread got me wondering. There was a stillborn effort to do Formula Hayabusa using as much off the shelf Suzuki stuff as possible. I never have been able to find out what they used for a transaxle for that. That might be useful in this discussion.

Why wouldnt they use the busa trans with a 530 oring chain (or double 520 on heavier cars) to a rear diff with a sprocket on it like every other bike engined formula car ever.

You can get a Hawk adapter for the Hayabusa transmission to get the output to a driveshaft. Then you can use a more typical rear end.

Leafy wrote:

stroker wrote: The suggestions of Hayabusa engines early in the thread got me wondering. There was a stillborn effort to do Formula Hayabusa using as much off the shelf Suzuki stuff as possible. I never have been able to find out what they used for a transaxle for that. That might be useful in this discussion.

Why wouldnt they use the busa trans with a 530 oring chain (or double 520 on heavier cars) to a rear diff with a sprocket on it like every other bike engined formula car ever.

For whatever reason that's what they did NOT do. They used a transaxle bolted to the output shaft on the engine. I wish I could find out what they used.

I was in my shop the other day. I've been working on a Miata based project for awhile. I built a space frame and bolted in the Miata suspension cradles. I built the frame with a 95 inch wheelbase and then moved the engine rearward.

The modified Crusader body was on the floor. I looked at the body and looked at the frame and I decided to see if I could modify the 1 off body to fit my Miata frame. The Crusader is a mid engine, the Miata obviously front engine. Could be interesting.

Here is a pic of the initial mock up. I like it and am going to continue on it. I'm still having health issues so I will be working on this slowly.[URL=http://s1143.photobucket.com/user/jmcbigbelly/media/miatacrusadermockup_zpsd059c760.jpg.html][/URL]