Landspeed Racing Project, My 57

[slalombuggy]

Well I ran my buggy in 2010 to 115 mph in the standing mile at Bonneville, next year I'm going back with my buggy and hopefully my latest project, a 57 that was saved from the scrap steel man a couple of weekends ago.

It's going to sit on the 71 pan that was originally under my first car 25 years ago. The chassis mods include changing the bulkhead to fit a kingl/ink 4" narrowed frontend with dropped spindles and disk brakes and raising the rear torsion housing 3 inches and lowring the rear one inside spline using HD springplates and torsion bars. Steel mounts will be used for the tranny as well as a Berg mid-mount. Rear brakes will be disks as well.

A 'glass areodynamic front end will be used (don't cry the front clip is going to be used to fix a 54. the rear will be all steel with the parcel tray being lifted 3 inches. I'm hoping to use as much of the factory metal as possible.

Engine will be a dry sumped, aluminum cased, 2332 with CNC heads and 48 Webers. Gearbox is yet to be determined but either a 3.88 or 3.44 R/P will be used.


brad

[Trevor P]

Looks pretty solid Brad. Can't wait to see this one ripping up the pavement and/or salt. LMK if you need any help/parts.
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53 Canadian standard oval
56 Wolfsburg PG/SG
57 Oval, 2332 & Berg 5
70 911T
91 Westy

[slalombuggy]

Thanks Trev, not too many factory parts going into this one so the shell was a good choice. I got my old 54 that will donate the rear clip and possibly a heater channel, but other than that the car is pretty solid. If Todd can't find a good one, I might need a drivers door. The one on here is rotted at the bottom sill from having sat with no glass in it. I have a good pass. side one to use. I have a few OVal parts kicking around for the dash that are in better shape than whats on the car. Time to fire up the spot weld cutter......

brad

[slalombuggy]

I started the biggest body mod today. Raising the rear parcel area 3" to match the raised torsion housing. I want the interior to look somewhat original and a big aluminum engine cover wouldn't do that.

Here's before

And after with rear section set in place. With some body work will look pretty good I think.

Side veiw showing the overlap. I will trim the inside piece so there isn't as much overlap. Some relief cuts and hammer and dolly work will be needed to get everything contoured correctly

The rear wheel well showing the raise. I'll probably cut and lift the rear portion to match the relocated lip on the bottom. Most of it needs to be replaced with good metal anyways and also some room added for the bigger motor.

This weekend is going to see the torsion housing raised and set the rear ride height.

brad

[drscope]

Brad you better be careful! You keep cutting them like this and they are going to make you go over to the volksrod site!

Interesting project! Good luck and keep us posted (I know you will).
_________________
Mother Nature is a Mean Evil Bitch!

[slalombuggy]

LOL wait till I break out the shaker can primer for the final finish.

I know the glass nose, cage and wing will be a dead give away but I kind of want the interior to have a vintage feel including a stock dash, gauges and auxiliary switches will be mounted off the tunnel.

I'm hopefully going to get the race seats covered in a pinstrip material as well as the aluminum door and 1/4 panels and it will have a Standard syle headliner in it. Will also probably throw down some of that cheap trunk liner carpet that I can pull out easily. I am going to drive it so don't want the tin can echo chamber effect of an all steel car. The urethane suspension and steel mounts will make enough noise. I'll save weight where I can but ultimately it's a street car. It will just have some attitude.

Stripped the pan tonite to get ready for cutting the tunnel and raising the torsion housing this weekend.

[valentinesr]

I found a picture of you...

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Valentine, Ray J Sr.
Ontario, California

[slalombuggy]

How'd ja knoow it was me???? LOL

Got the torsion housing rasied today. Not a hard job, just lots of details to pay attention to. MEASURE 5 times cut once. then measure 10 times and weld. I've never done it before so it was about a 6 hour task from tear down to dropping the wheels back on the ground.

If anyone is interested in the plates to do this, PM me and I will give you the name of the supplier. Be forewarned that he will not sell to you if he doesn't think you are up to the task and can complete it competently. You WILL FK up your car if you do this wrong. He's a great guy, but doesn't want people to use his parts if they aren't able to do a safe job.

Here she is with a mystery rider

Tried it out with a rear wheel I had built for the buggy. Need to have the wheels set in about 1.5 inches in the rear.

Passenger side with 185/60/15s on the rear on 4.5 inch wheels. Still too much positive offset. Good thing I have friends that build wheels for a living.

brad

[Trevor P]

[meciscokid]

IT LOOKS GREAT BRAD!!!!!! You work fast! Juan

[drscope]

[Keith]

Man that looked pretty solid!!! Why did you decide to hack it for the racing project and not save it? Looks alot more solid than the '62 Ragtop I'm doing.
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Formerly known in the forums as "OVALTEEN"

"I firmly believe that some villagers from Botswana could probably build a better road than PennDot."- Splitty

"If you do anything to your car someone will hate on you for it. People absolutely love to complain and find fault with others. Don't let it bother you. Just live and have fun."- Lind

[drscope]

[slalombuggy]

I cut it up instead of restoring it because IT"S MY CAR All I got was a shell no motor, fenders, tranny hanging by the front mount.. Floors rusted out and missing just about everything. Even the ashtray door is bent. And I don't feel like tracking downs parts for 2 years and spending 25K on a car. I've always wanted another Oval, I've always wanted a flip front end on a car, I like driving fast. TAH-DAH..... my new ride. I will keep a vintage flavor to the car. The front clip is going to fix someone elses car. I have a 4 tab hood covered in moss and hail damaged but relatively rust free if you want to ship one from Canada.

I go into work 1.5 hours early in the morning to pick away at small stuff and do most of my "sit and think" with a coffee. I'm trying to keep it functional and simple. Most of the stuff I am going to do has been floating around in my brain for over a year, so once I start I have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, sure speeds up the process. The reaar parcel tray is not working out like I planned so I'm going on another tack, that will be much simpler and faster. Too much rust replair to do it the way I was going to, working around that will speed things up. I will still be using the stock parcel shelf floor. Just lifting it up[ another inch to let me bend an inch of metal in from the remaining wheel tubs to set it on. Then fab up some patches for the corners where the factory body mounts were.

As for racing being an addiction fueled? by heroin Who told ???? Just joshin' I barely drink. And I promise to give it a GOOD bath when I get home from The Salt. After the mess it made of my buggy I can see things coming apart this time to clean. I am going to use paintable body sealant for ALL the seams that I can get to. That shite is super corrosive and I'm going to take every measure possible to protect my investment.

I wonder how the guy with the R32 that was doing doughnuts in the soft salt last year faired??? HE had 4 inches of the stuff packed in the wheel wells before the marshals came to tune him in..........

Thanks for the encouragement, will try and post some updated photos soon. Just been picking away at interior sheet metal mods.

brad

[Trevor P]

So which flip front end are you using? I drove by the shop during a road test the other day and I saw the sea foam green one on it.
I'm gonna have to stop by when I get some time and check it out.
_________________
53 Canadian standard oval
56 Wolfsburg PG/SG
57 Oval, 2332 & Berg 5
70 911T
91 Westy

[slalombuggy]

That's the "keep the rain off the open dash, front end" And I have to figure out some tire clearance issues with the other (black) front end. I'm going to use the green one to figure out the front mounts and then match the black one to them. I want to paint both fronts and use the now green one to autocross with wide front tires. I have all the plans for a quick change mount system floating around in my grey matter just gotta go buy some steel.

Figured out my shifter and park brake set up this morning and fabbed up a pedastal for the park brake mechanism to sit on. The shift rod is now above the tunnel so everyhting else has to move up.

I'm just using a basic buggy box as a starting point, no need to re-invent the wheel. I will probably build my gauge cluster and switch panel off of this. On my buggy I have my hydraulic park lock and brake bias valve for the front brakes mounted on it.

DR. I've got an an inch and a half between the spring plates and my buggy rims (black and silver rears) When we took these pics the car body was actualy sitting 2" off center to get the wheel under the fender. I will move the wheels in as much as possible and i just got a quote from CCC for some 1.25" wider glass fenders. Once I get them I can do my measuring and get my bud to make my rear wheels and change the offset on the front ones.

brad

brad

[slalombuggy]

Here's some shots of the torsion raise. DLX-Fe Products supplied the plate and some gussets that have yet to be welded in. The parts and some very good directions from Doug made the job pretty easy.

brad

[splitjunkie]

looking good.


You might also find that some triangular gussets might be necessary for your e' brake since is it smaller than the brake mechanism.
_________________
Chris

You know, a lot of these scratches will buff right out... Jerry Seinfeld

[slalombuggy]

Chris, I'm running the same set up on my buggy and once welded into place is super strong. If it moves your pulling WAY too hard.

Got everything tacked into place to test fit and see how everything feels when sitting in the car. I thought I'd be moving the shifter back a few inches, but it actually works really well in the stock position and with it being raised up a few inches is very quich to go from wheel to shifter. I did move the park brake back about 7 inches. No need to worry about it being in way of rear passengers and is more convenient placed where it is.

When I welded the transfer plate in to raise the torsion housing. I drilled holes for the park brake tubes to go through. By happy coincidence, when I cut the tunnel the tubes stuck out a little bit and protruded into the holes a bit. I then took the tubes out of the front of the tunnel and welded them into the holes and made braces for them out of the remaining pieces of tube. You can also see the 2 gussets that have to be welded in. I wanted to get the park brake tubes figured out first and see where they would fit in.

I got a 13" aluminum wheel to put in the car as well as a quick release hub. This will save about 4lbs over a stock wheel....they weigh nothing. The early wheel and column and switch will go to another car being restored.

My knees were killing me from crawling around in the car, so I took a break from that and moved to the engine compartment for a bit. I took and old case and bolted the top tin on to see where it sat in the car. The flats on the cylinder tins are about even with the top of the apron. I'm going to have to cut out most of the guts of the rear apron. Don't cry all you vintage guys. The sides and bottom brace are rusted off and the the seal track is smashed to smithereens. Yes, I know it's an "H" apron, but the amount of body work needed to restore is puts it near the value of just buying a nice clean new one.

You will notice the louvers are missing from under the grill and the brown paint. The parcel tray is now one with the body again sp I ground down the welds and gave them a shot of spraypaint to keep the rust away till the body gets blasted and primered. Time to start fabbing up fillers panels and doing some rust repair.

It was a good Sunday afternoon of fun.

brad

[joshbuchan]

Hey man, I might know where a set of CCC wide fenders are, brand new in BC