Next project - 38 fiat topolino

cant wait to see assembled pics!!!!!

 

working away ... still been on the interior, got the sound proofing in and the padding over that. have the head rest pads 90% finished. have the seats 75% finished. 5 days was enough so I went to my friends body shop and brought the doors and nose piece home and colorsanded them. Tomorrow I am bringing the body home in the morning so I can colorsand it by the end of the day. tuesday will probably do a hard polish and then set the body on wednesday. (we'll see how it goes) fyi I did shoot the body satin black after the gloss black I already posted.... had to do it just to see... don't like it now its gloss black AGAIN and on its way to being, as noted, colorsanded and polished


these pics are from my phone... better quality will be coming soon but wanted to throw up a few progress pics

pic 1 is the drivers seat bottom from the front showing the quad bolster to support legs in the short legroom car and the arm off the side is a thigh rest pad so I am not resting on the shifter or trying to not rest on the shifter... in very rough beginning stages

pic 2 is one angle of the satin paint job
pic 3 is another satin angle right before I started to wetsand it
pic 4 is the scoop I built from... you'll have to wait for the indepth pics to see what I used... you won't believe it excuse the blur
pic 5 is.... GLOSSY again
*******************************

 

about 100 pics behind currently. once I put the body on I made a few major design changes and I had a couple of set backs from vendors that pinched me a bit as well.

ex: the M&H tires I had on the rear wheels started to crack... NEW tires that sat inside started to crack. M&H completely blew me off telling me that it was a year and they refused to do anything about it referring me to their warranty policy and their return policy. The return policy stating that any defect must be reported within 30 days.... that's great if the defect shows up within 30 days... and the warranty policy on usage starts with USAGE and mounting tires on wheels is NOT usage... actually driving on tires is usage... therefore that policy didn't come into effect as yet.... M&H refused to even respond after that.... I found another way around the problem that is almost complete so I will give that piece of info here later, but I did want to let everyone know that M&H made a really poor choice in how they choose to deal with me and it was really baffling that they didn't even want to know what the defect in thier product was.

Perhaps spreading the word around this and other sites that M&H sold at least 2 defective tires and has zero concern about it might help others?

The Art Carr built transmission which was suppose to have a 3100 stall converter actually had an 1800 stall converter... sooo they built another converter which I was suppose to have a week ago and they just shipped it out friday... AND they can't tell me for sure what it will stall at because they can't test it but they have a chart they build them to... what?

ok on to the design changes..........

When I orginally designed this project I was going for the rat rod look, rear tires way up the quarter panels etc. somewhere in the process it became a hot rod and when the body was set it just didn't work for me.... hot rod front with a rat rod rear... some liked it but I was not one of them...

so I pulled a rear wheel and raised the rear and pushed a tire UNDER the body and BAM hot rod front to back and awesome... the body lines got really sexy with the rear raised a few inches... ok so what does it take to accomplish that change?
pic#1 is the above mentioned test look with a tire under the body

I took the rearend out and disassembled it and ran it back to Curry and had it narrowed another 6"... I had 31 spline big axles built when Curry first had the rearend so they just cut them and pushed the splines farther down the shaft.... really reasonable $285 for everything. I have to design and build new lower shock mounts, new bump stops, buy longer limiting straps, bend new brake lines, build a new pan hard rod, and shorten the driveshaft... I think that covers it? That's this weeks project....

***update now that the rearend is set in place at the height I want and the pinion angle is back where it was built to be, the travel of the driveshaft is now directly affected by one of the rear frame rails that runs from left to right... currently it is notched and reinforced and worked great when the car was low, now that the car is 4" higher I have to do a bit removal and rebuilding of that cross frame and then rebuild the driveshaft loop above it. The current driveshaft loop is too high now but instead of changing that and then changing the trans tunnel I am going to use that new found space to cut in a storage area and lid. In lowering that cross framerail I have to either relocate or build a new the following; d/s e brake cable, another brake line, positive battery cable... Already have the design figured out that accomplishes the space, offers even more strength than what is currently there, and looks good under the car.


I finally have the nose section mounted and the under supports in place, I ended up extending the roll cage from the A-pillar bars out around the engine to the front of the frame, then tied the front shock towers into that, then made brackets for the nose support...AND... that entire section unbolts and pulls out of the way if I have to pull the engine. Will post pics eventually.
pic#2 is one jackstands but a tasty look... the nose (unpolished) is finally mounted and secured and the alignment is perfect (finally)... the trouble with building your bodywork to fit perfectly and then cutting it apart (as shown in the body work posting) is that there is a certain place in the alignment where everything is perfect.... now go find it : )

after the rearend is completed I have to pull the trans back and change out the converter... then I have to figure out my headlight mounting ie: where they will sit, how they will mount, and what type of lighting I am going to use. The original buckets are already painted... after headlights its back to finish the interior and then..... ?

 

Great job, love it.

 

with all the rain I took 5 days away from the hot rod.... longest stretch since April... spend the last two days under the rod cutting, removing and then welding in the new rear frame section and designing a new pan hard rod... sort of complicated process to get to a simple solution. pulling the rear end out tomorrow to do some tight area welding and grinding... will reprime the rearend while its out as it got banged up a bit in the shortening process. suppose to get the new converter tuesday so looking to get all the running gear items addressed by next weekend and have the rod back on the ground.

 

looks good . As for your Art Carr problem , I've never known anyone with anything good to say about them . looking forward to your updates .

 

puttered around today in the cold and ended up pulling the trans down and swapping out the new wrong converter for the new "right" converter.. I decided not to remove the trans tunnel and once I added in all the mounts on the backside of the engine for lines and hoses and coil and xyz getting in there between the firewall and the block became more of a hassle...so I ended up cutting in a couple access ports in the tunnel so all the bellhousing bolts are simple to get to (its easy if the tunnel is out but now the tunnel is complicated with the shifter and switch panel and soundproofing and padding and etc.) ... built over sized new plates to cover those ports and now its just easily serviceable once again.

 

lookin badass

 

time for some updates;

pic#1 pic #2 pic #3 the steering wheel I built.

I have such limited room that I had to go with the vintage dragster style to pull the hand contact area closer to me so my wrists didn't run into my knees. after the function was handled I added a bit of form and that with the quick release coupler makes for a great part.

pic#4 pic#5 two views of the trans blanket. pic #4 also shows one of the 3 shift cable brackets, the shifter mount and the blah blah blah

 

pic #1 is running the wiring loom across one of the rear panel support rails... we used a shielding that wraps around itself so you technically don't need zip ties, used factory loom clamps as well. you can also see the fan temp sensor along with the probe in the radiator itself and the wiring going over the rear upper shock support (top of picture)

pic#2 is the wiring running across one fan to the radiator fan relays, going up to the fuel cell level relay, going down to the carbon canister and continuing to the rear lights.

pic#3 is the carbon canister (bought a new can and a factory wiring plug) still have to hook up the vacuum line.

pic#4 is the wiring at the alternator... feeds the electric water pump, water temp and continues to the d/s headlight.

pic#5 is the wiring going over the rear upper shock support and around the radiator... hence the hi temp heat shielding... hard to tell but where the harness bridges up and over the metal support is actually going 'around" it not over it..


one more pic to follow

 

pic#1 is the wiring loom AFTER is exits the passenger compartment thru the floor/firewall joint area then goes between the water tubes (covered by a heavy hi temp shielding) and along the frame rail (thru the motor mount) pov is from the front looking to the back

pic#2 is the plug wires along the passenger side... just showing the seperators to eliminate all spark crossings... you can also see the ground strap from block to frame and power to starter.. #2 gauge wire

pic#3 is the drivers side... before the headers where on, and before the firewall was in, and before the body was set and and and...

 

e brake ...

after buying this cool part.. I had to remove their mounting hardware and fab my own... I decided to mount it on the left side of my seat ala corvette style since there was zero room on the other side..

pic #1 and pic #2 show the mounting bracket

pic #3 shows the cables running thru the frame

pic #4 shows the cable mount bracket and the entire system mounted... you can also see some of the seat mounts and some of the seat harness mounts... and the front u-joint scatter shield

since I have changed the rear frame rail and the cable path under the car I will post those pics later...

 

That's some real nice work there. Great to see somebody doing as good a job on the small details as the big stuff.

 

and then there was the mounting of the body, a simply 10 minutes job.... except.. I forgot that I added support bars in the rockers which made the body much stiffer so getting it around the mounts was an adventure, not to mention I cahnged the direction of two large front suspension bolts.. so instead of clearance for the bolt head I now needed clearance for the nut, washers and remaining bolt threads... not a major adjustment just adds a bit of stress when the body is going on and off and on and off and on and off ugh...

pic #1 and pic #2 are the body during the on and off dance

pic #3 with the body on.... the front of the rear tires landed exactly where they where designed to land, just enough clearance to the 1/4 panel at the front of the tire.. perfect rat rod look, however, turns out the little rod is actually a HOT rod not a RAT rod.... YIKES!!!

 

pic #1 shows the rear side of the rear wheel in relation to the body, WAY too much open space for me.... (exactly as it was set of rat rod, that was as close as the wheel can get to the OUTside of the body at the FRONT leading inner edge of the tire.. also, in this pic the body is jacked up so you are not getting the lowered rat rod look, check the earlier post for that look)

pic #2 shows the rear side of the wheel once I took the wheel off, jacked the frame up away from the rearend and placed one of those extra defective M&H tires (I have yet to send back) under the body to close the open space

pic #3 shows the rear wheel from the front side with too much space.. in this pic the body is NOT raised up... this is the rat rod stance with the wheel up the 1/4 panel

pic #4 shows the rear wheel from the front side with the tire moved under the body.. body raised up.

hmmmm what to do?

 

Back to Curry "take off another 6" please"

even happier I had monster axles built for it the first time around...

 

front limiting straps...

since I have adjustable coils on the front and the shocks have more travel than the length
of the spring under weight I had to run limiting straps so the coils would not unseat from the perches when the wheels lift... the springs compress 2 1/4" under load so any shock shaft extension beyond that and the spring would unseat from its perches... so if the front end lifts from a hard launch I need to limit the amount of extension the shock has, sooo limiting straps it is.. besides the coils unseating from thier perches I never want the shocks to see the end of their travel...

(I'm guessing a 2000# car with a 8 1/2' wheel base and all the engine behind the axle with 635hp and 522 lbs/ft of torque with 4:11 gears a 3100 stall convertor and a trans brake... probably a safe guess the front end is going to lift from a hard launch)


pic#1 is the monster 4 layer straps I bought... I think they were $25 ea

pic #2 is the grade 8 bolt welded into the lower shock mount

pic #3 is the frame bolt hole (oooohhhh wow a hole)

pic #4 the strap installed

pic #5 the wide angle shot

pic #6 back view, also shows the chain from the block welded to the frame.... (about 3/16" of movement allowed in the motor mount)

 

thanks Claymore

 

Man it's beginning to look EVIL (in a good way) with the combo of shinny and flat black. It looks like a B-2 stealth bomber and it's going to give the competition a bad case of "O no why did I draw this guy" just from looking at it.

 

When I started looking around for an air cleaner/filter set up I was shocked at how limited the choices where. In fact, everything out there for
a dual quad was running 2" tall filters and that was NOT enough airflow for this engine...

I talked to the tech guys at K&N and they crunched my numbers (cam, valves, heads, max rpm, carbs, etc) and came up with a minimum amount
of air flow the engine needed to breath. I looked at what they offered in the "middle" range as I did not want to be flowing the minimum amount of air.

I decided on a 4" tall air filter that offered plenty of air flow, now the issue was finding an air cleaner that would fit them. NOPE

Soooo what can you do with some really large pieces of PVC?

pic #1 these are 8" I.D. pvc couplers that are solid and thick and have the bend I wanted to start with.

pic #2 after doing some slicing I mocked up what I thought I wanted to end up with

pic #3 this is the steel bottom plate I fabbed... getting the stagger bent in correctly was fun... a bit off short or long and it doesn't sit on the carbs.

pic #4 after slicing the collars off both parts and trimming them over and over to get down to the size I needed to start with..... hmmm $80 down the drain?

 

pic #1 is the front view before I removed the rear side of the rear part. I wanted to utilize the air pressure that naturally builds up at the base of the windshield to feed the back side of the rear filter

pic #2 I took one of the large collars and cut it into 4 parts, then removed 1" from each part and taped them to gether, then sliced the 4 parts with a little bit of a pie shape to them so the opening is a little smaller than where the collar meets the main frame section (helps to pack the air) also made the opening just a bit square, dont get me wrong its a round opening but if you look closely there are 4 corners within the round...

I sliced into the pvc and epoxied in steel rods for support

pic #3 this is the front look, you can see how the air cleaner drops below the front carb to grab more air and force it up into the tunnel and the 2" above the front air filter feeding the rear

pic #4 now the fiber glassing begins...

 

pic #1 after glassing the support bars I used a mesh/fabric weave to cover the entire part

pic #2 after grinding the glass I did some bodywork inside and out there a poly primer and after a day to cure in the heat I block sanded, reprimed, block sanded and... you can see the inner collars I made that the filters register on.

pic #3 is a different angle. the steel base plate is glassed to the sides with 3" wide strips of mesh.

pic #4 another angle

pic #5 painted

I bought a "double barrel" scoop made from aluminum just to get a feel for it and to get a weight to stay under. The aluminum scoop weighed 12.8 pounds, this one weights 9.8 pounds....

 

these pics are with my phone so they are not great

pic #1 is a side shot, the "end" collar that is detailed in an earlier post about the "pie" cut when pieced back together shows up in this side pic as you can see it sweeping down across the top. I also shot rubberized texture on the inside to slow down the air flow and cause turbulence, which makes for a more dense environment for the engine to breath from.

same rule of thumb that after you polish your intakes and exhaust ports you rough them up with sand paper so the air along the inner walls bumps and rolls which actually causes more air to flow, otherwise the air along the walls sits fairly still and the center of the ports flow rapidly

pic #2 is from the back side... using the high pressure area at the bottom of the windshield
also this allowed me to keep the air cleaner thinner with out limiting air volume.

pic #3 is the front however it does seem to have a "fisheye" lens affect haapeing in this pic.

you can also see in this pic how I forgot to notch the nose panel to clear the intake, duh. I pushed the intake back (this is before the engine turned out to be junk and the intake was sitting loose) to make the side mounts, then pushed the intake forward into correct location (with the nose off) to work the body behind the engine.... repaint anyone?

when I started playing with this thing I was just going to make a plug and then pull a glass part off of it, as I got farther and farther along it seemed to be a functional part, it was less weight than every other part I looked at, it was certainly stronger, it allowed for larger filters which no one else did, soooo I painted it. the 2nd and 3rd pics below seem to have a rather comic strip thing going on.... maybe they can counter the "evil stealth" look ?

 

This is the first time I've checked this project out. I opened the first page, and thought cool. Then I looked at the date on the first post and jumped to the last page and WOW. You've done a great job!! I can tell you've put alot of work into this and it looks scarry fast!! The air cleaner looks great!! K&N told you those 2 air cleaners were in the middle? They must test them on a flow bench to get ideal flow. I'm not trying to be mean, but they look like the same air cleaner I have on my air compressor. After you get it running take it off and run it, see if it feels like the engine was just set free.... A good part of the air cleaner is the base and the area around it. The engine looks like it could eat those air cleaners.

 

Dyce,

notice that I took over this project on page 5, check the work from that date forward till now. as for my 'air compressor" filters : ) yeah K&N flow bench tests everything they sell. this engine needs 800cfm of air to run at 6000 rpm each one of these filters flows 477 cfm, (which btw are 4" tall and 6" o.d., they also have a 5" tall by 6" o.d.)

 

with the roll cage I had to sacrafice the folding top structure. after some thought I decided it would be wicked cool to have a lexan top in a very very dark smoked shade. I could put mounting bolts in it and drop it into place on a rubber seal and have a see thru solid top that was removable.

how to get there?

pic #1 I bent 1/8" steel rod from side to side, each one having a different arc

pic #2 I then bent steel rod from front to back, again each rod having a different arc

pic #3 this shows the arc that I believe mimicks how a hard top cars bends would be

pic #4 this step was a "duh". I placed a sheet of plastic on the steel structure to catch the fiberglass resin, of course this kept the glass from wrapping into the steel so I had to do some work on the other side to correct that issue, it all worked out fine in the end just a few extra hours of resin and FUN.

pic#5 a view from inside

pic #6 laying up more glass

I did bodywork from the actual body 6" onto the roof plug, so the panel flows right onto the car body and I wouldn't have to put the plug back on the car after it was painted.

eventually I will finished the bodywork on the plug then take it the plastics guy who will place a large piece of the material I pick in his large oven and once its heated he will pull it out and drape it over my plug... with in minutes it will be set. I will take it home on the plug then trim it, drill it, and sand it to a nice fit. I'll use some small door rubber and of course use the steep angle plastics drill bit for the holes.

I was also thinking maybe a really really dark blue top? what ever color lexan I use for the winshield and doors will be the top color.

 

I'm not trying to knock your work. I like the look of the air cleaner and I like how you made it. I wouldn't have thought to use pvc pipe. I've run a 2x4 setup and I agree that you just don't have many options. You did a nice job on the scoop. I'll admit, my air compressor air cleaner is smaller. But it has a chrome lid I guess I'm a fan of open element air cleaners with a good base that dirrects the air into the carbs clean. I have a feeling with that big block it will go like stink no matter what you put on top.

 

didn't take your comment as a knock.. just wanted to put sizes to the pics... yeah most of the 2x4 options run those dumb little 2" tall paper filters that don't do much but kill horsepower. thanks for the thumbs up... if you get time check from page 5 on and you'll see a bunch of slick little widgets I built... and yes, the big block runs HARD... it torques like a BBC and revs like a SBC... gotta love the balance shop...

 

this is off the hook, bitchin

 

I just scanned through from page 5. You put alot of work just in taking pictures and posting. Thanks for taking the time!! I have a 1948 Anglia tucked away I want to do someday and this gives me some ideas. I saw the original heads were 366. I ram a set of 366 truck heads one time on a 396. I cut the original seats (1.94 in 1.6 ex) to 2.19 in and 1.88 ex. The intake and exhaust ports were the same as the passenger ovalport design. I also anglemilled them and they came out having a 87cc combustion chamber. I ran stock 402 pistons and wow did that engine crack!! It went in a '59 chevy 2dr sedan. It was a ton of work cutting them out and porting them, but it gave me a tight combustion chamber, and enough flow the 396 pulled passed 6500 rpm. I used to own a machine shop, so playing was cheap. And I played alot with that car...