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Tue Aug 18, 2009 5:34 pm

So, finally getting around to creating a build thread for my friends baja that we have been working on for about 2 years. money, school, and available shop time has all been a factor on the timeline of this build, but its getting a lot closer and has come a long way from what it was when originally purchased.

some specs on the car
3x3 boxed rear arms with 930's and a 3 rib bus box with frame horns extended 3 inches. gear box built by kevin at trans west.
suspension in the rear is Fox 2.5 14" travel coil overs. spring rate to actually be used is yet to be determined.
power plant is a 2165 with a cb fuel injection/turbo with the Schwitzer S2A turbo. motor is in a street car for tuning at the moment but will soon come out and get a fresh set of Super Flow heads put on it. ignition is a pertronix billet distributor with flamethrower 2 epoxy coil and an MSD 6BTM.

for the front end of the car we just started working on it. it is a 6 over beam with Foddril king kong combo spindles with Foddril 4" over trailing arms. Saco 1.5:1 rack n' pinion with international ends and chromoly tie rods. the beam is pushed forward 10 inches and will be running Fox 2.0 12" travel coil overs. CNC wide five 2 piston brakes.

the pedal assemblies are all CNC consisting of the independent gas pedal, dual master brake pedal and hydraulic clutch pedal.

now time for some pictures!!!

these first couple are from when the car was first purchased...

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Tue Aug 18, 2009 5:41 pm

now here are some progress pics from when we first started modify The Destroyer, and yes that is its name! there were not picures taken of everything, but there are quite a few.

Tue Aug 18, 2009 5:47 pm

and some more...

Tue Aug 18, 2009 5:53 pm

and the list goes on...

up until this point was all done little over a year ago. and was up and running for a little while. until 2 weeks ago it has been just sitting collecting rust, dust, and a few critters living in the tunnel!

Tue Aug 18, 2009 5:57 pm

now onto the front end, and modification of a pilar and bar across the dash as well as ditching the stock steering column.

Tue Aug 18, 2009 6:01 pm

more of the front end progress...

the work in this post was completed last night, and looks like we will be back in the shop tomorrow night to get the upper supports down from the a pilars to the beam and get alot closer to being a roller again.

stay tuned!

any questions or advice feel free to fire away

Tue Aug 18, 2009 6:11 pm

looks good man, it might just be the pics but why did you make the cage so tall? just more room?

Tue Aug 18, 2009 6:17 pm

tody wrote: looks good man, it might just be the pics but why did you make the cage so tall? just more room?

yeah that....

its actually a 3 seater. and that rear seat sits pretty high

when we initially cut the roof and re-did the cage it was pretty square and boxy looking, the rear end to the engine cage helped the rear.
for the front we now made it about 8 inches wider between the a pilars which will give more room around the steering wheel, and we allso kicked them back closer to the angle of the stock windshield which makes the thing look a whole lot better.

Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:58 pm

thanx for putting up the freaking goofiest pictures of me and my beast on there....what? no special thanx to the Damoness and John at powerhaus?

Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:13 am

What's up with all the butt splice everywhere? And are you really going to leave it like that down by the floor in the front where the main front to back hoop ties in? I hope you never roll it because I wouldn't trust it the way it is now.

Sat Aug 22, 2009 6:05 pm

what do you mean by butt splice?
if you are talking about half way up the b pillar? and where the top from the front meets the b pillare? if thats waht you are talking about they are sleeved, not just butted together and welded. as far as down low at the a pillar we are gonna add more support between the floor piece and where we relocated it to.

the car started with a cage and we modified it. we werent happy with the way it looked, and how narrow the front was, so we modified it yet again. there will be no more significant changes, just finishing off all the chasis work to the front end. and i am gonna push to get my friend to put some good gussets wherever possible.

Sun Aug 23, 2009 3:47 am

What's with the roof cross members? They start on the top tube at the back then intersect down low in the middle and the front....
I'm no pro and don't claim to have issues with my rail but there are some odd looking design issues with this thing. Is anyone else seeing this or is it just me? I just hate to see this thing fail in a worst case scenario such as this: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3...highlight=

Sun Aug 23, 2009 9:31 am

yes there are some weird things going on, ad like i said we are tryig to adapt form something that was already there. the roof bars not being level and dropping to the front was to sorta help the look of it with how tall it ended up being because of making it a 3 seater. it was also to try getting and integrated roof rack, but there really isnt much to the sides, so we will probably still end up building one anyways. we are building it with a guy that has built a couple class 1 cars and a couple class 7 trucks. and he feels comfortable with what we are doing. but i am still going to push for gusseting as much as we can. weve got free shop time, but its limited, so we need to get it back into a roller first, then we can finish off anything else we want to do.

Sun Aug 23, 2009 1:30 pm

DamnitJuice wrote:

if the car were mine i would be more willing to bend a "s" shaped piece and sleeve it to the old mount and connect it to the new a piller at about dash high... to be completely honest i think thats not going to hold up to a rollover without making it rediciously braced to get the same strength. not to mention i just see someone getting hurt with that stub of a bar sticking up.

don't get me wrong im not bashing your idea it could work its going to be alot of work to make the same strength but its doable. i would really suggest re doing that section completely i think in reality it will take you about the same amount of time to redo and make it right as it would to make the current setup strong.

just my .02 but your on the right track the car is looking alot better!

Sun Aug 23, 2009 8:59 pm

thanks for the concerns, and we will take any advice into consideration.

that section that is left really isnt in the way, but will still be padded for safety sake.

if this was a fresh ground up build there would have been a lot of things that would have gone a lot differently.

the red line is what we plan to do, along with prabably some dimple died plate in the 2 voids to either side

Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:04 pm

well, we finally got back into the shop last night and didnt have any distractions so we were able to make some goo progress on the front end.
got the beam mounted, trailing arm bushings in and reamed to fit the arms, and got the arms and spindles on.

we should be back in the shop wed to make the through rods and then we can finally start making the upper shock mounts. if we can bust that out in just one more night it will be back into a roller.

here are some pics from last night

and yes there will be some more bracing of the front end, just not essential to get it back into a roller.

Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:58 am

I like what you did to the front end. That Baja looks tough.

Thu Aug 27, 2009 2:05 am

Well, we got it back rolling tonight!
got through rods made up, got some wheels mounted.(wheels in pics are lenders until the btr's are picked up. tire will also be at least 3 inches taller.)

as for the upper shock mounts, we got an outer hoop fabbed up for each side, and there is a support tacked into place between the 2 just for transportation purposes. there is still more to come for the upper shock mounts and cross bracing.

time for some pictures...

the design for this front end is being copied off something i had collected pictures of to use for ideas. came across it im my collection, and we decided to just go with it. if anybody recognizes the design and can point be in the direction of a similar front end project that would e awesome.
thanks.

the owner of the car had just a little captain in him!

Thu Aug 27, 2009 7:24 am

You may already be planning this but make sure you double sheer those front shocks

Thu Aug 27, 2009 10:49 am

shred625 wrote: You may already be planning this but make sure you double sheer those front shocks

yeah, its in the plans. that bar across the hoops now is just temporary until we get the rest fabbed up.

we had to get it rolling and out of the shop we were working on it in.