The Project Pad

Started a new thread as its been a couple years and all the pictures were broken anyway.

After taking 2 years off my rally car for various reasons, I'm digging back in. I rolled the car at rally Idaho after continuing to drive a car that should've retired. I added insult to broken car by not paying attention to the navvie and mentally starting the fix it list before finishing the stages yet to go before service. Then I rolled it...

Couple pictures below show the suspension travel and tie rod clearances through the "window" for anyone interested. Their is ~8" of strut travel im playing with.

Rebuild consists of a lot of simple stuff.
New poly and solid bushings from one end to the other
Spherical tie rods front and rear.
G60 brake upgrade
016 trans refresh
Compbrake strut mounts (just learned they do offer a 22mm id spherical bearing option!)
Mostly stock 7a with piper cams and some head work
Lexan windows
As much lightening as i can do without drastic measures
Paint it again then pound on it.

I'll be running open light this go around (no turbo) goal is a reliable, consistent car that stands a chance at a class podium.

Couple more random pictures

Nice to see your are back at it! A wreck like that would cause anyone to press pause for a while. I know there were other factors at play too though.

Should be a fun peppy little rig when it's back on stage. Keep us posted.

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DE80q wrote:Nice to see your are back at it! A wreck like that would cause anyone to press pause for a while. I know there were other factors at play too though.

Should be a fun peppy little rig when it's back on stage. Keep us posted.

I've also got the stroker but I'll put that together after the car is up and running. (but I really want to put it in the datsun)

Glad to see this back up and making progress!

For suspension, are those Bilstein Motorsports universal 46mm struts or if not what are they? Looks like a beefy setup!

vt10vt wrote:Glad to see this back up and making progress!

For suspension, are those Bilstein Motorsports universal 46mm struts or if not what are they? Looks like a beefy setup!

Sorta. We whipped em up just before bilstein offered the universal kit. I yanked a couple sets of bilstein 5100 shocks from the back end of some fancy version of chevy blazer. They were the correct overall length and had 8.25" of travel. JVL cut the eyes off both ends, threaded the skinny rod, welded a pin to the fat end, had them chromed and then sent to bilstein to be rebuilt/revalved. Took almost 9 months from start to finish. Somehow in the process two of these were given to a subaru guy and I ended up with a hair shorter front struts that were done through a different process. The chroming process for the front struts was done at a different vendor than my original struts and has had issues with flaking. I'll run em till they're toast then swap to an off the shelf insert to replace the fronts.

Good to see you back at it!

Looking forward to progress updates and of course, video!

that's an awesome looking suspension setup. Crazy how much height adjustment you have.

Yeah, I'm pretty excited to abuse the suspension again!

Took some "before" pics as i clean out the inside. Started carving some small amounts of weight out of little spots id always meant too. Getting ready to yank all the wiring as its all getting replaced.
Impressive how much the doors still weigh with nothing in them but every pound counts. Going to try to "roll on" the epoxy interior paint as soon as I can get it prepped. I've always been curious as to how well it would work. If it doesnt pan out I'll start on the temporary paint booth and spray the whole car

Also of note, the door seals mate to the door card rather than to steel. From the already destroyed sacrificial door card it looks like i can switch to som other material with some careful cutting of a good door card.

Engine bay painted, stockish 7a up for reseal, g60s installed, front suspension and fecking steering sorted on v3 setup. Continuing interior prep for paint as well.