i too recall your car on cc years ago, actually tyler showed it to me when i was first getting into pro-touring and remember him being soo stoked on your car and that you did it all under a carport!:thumbsup:

The build is inspiring:thumbsup:

I can't wait to see your big little windsor with its twin turbos. You should have more hp than you need.:D

The tire debate is interesting. I hear everything you are saying about our nose heavy street cars and it's all logical. The only thing that makes me think is Vipers and Vetts come with staggered tires in their most potent street forms. This despite the drawbacks of different sized tires for a true street car. Do they go to a square setup for race stuff?

Rob, don't forget that those Vipers and 'Vettes are all engineered to have a safe amount of understeer when braking. I don't know how much that is on a Viper, but I do know Grand Sports like to push a little bit.

I know my big front heavy GT500 performs a lot better with a "square" setup than with a factory 265/285 combo. I don't know if steering feel is slightly more vague though.

I too would be interested to learn more, and hear more feedback about front and rear tire sizing. I suppose you could say I've joined the club of the "more front tire = better crowd" simply because it seems easier to drive and tune that type of set up. I'm not the best driver, or tuner, and I can really benefit from simplicity.

Preston, I want to see more pictures :thumbsup:

Matt

All right Preston, leave my name out of it.LOL

I told you, the only reason I joined C/C, and took the public flogging was to look at your car. Still amazed it was all built on the car port(definitley get extra style points for that). Love how our cars morph from one design to something totally different, and WAY more expensive.

Can't help but love the fact that we can bounce ideas, and errors(lots of errors) off each other. That is what keeps me reading, and posting on these sites. Hope to see that car in person one day.

You know all those photos we love of the completely gutted car shell sitting on the build table at Troy's or Rodger's place ?

Well we never seem to see any photos of how it got there ! Here's how mine worked, I think this is what they do at Rad Rides (?)

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ming%20Off.jpg


(Note this photo below is the roof coming off my old chassis - see how I kept just the barest bit of metal holding the door jam on ? It saves a lot of time if you can index something like that even roughly)

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ther/Roof1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ther/Roof2.jpg

BTW that roof section with a-pillars, sail panels, and 16 lbs of dynamat permanently stuck on the inside of the roof weighed 120 lbs. OUCH

I started drilling holes in the unibody roof support structure but it was only 22 awg steel and I calculated that if I drilled 2" diameter holes all through the structure it would save like 1.2 lbs. So I gave up on that.. Lightening holes are almost worthless compared to using the correct and lightweight material in the first place when you are building something.

The next most important step is of course getting the roof placed right. I probably spent a few weeks mocking that up and testing the door fit before tacking it in place. The first big deal is getting the door pillars in the correct place. So clamping down the a-pillars I attached the doors to index the jams and verify the fit of the roof (thank goodness the top of the door on these cars is perfectly level). I also knew the correct angle of the windshield pillars to help me.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...engersmall.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...illarsmall.jpg


Next finish up the rear filler panel and deck, you can see how the interior panels have been built here, generally .063 aluminum with dynamat on the top side bent in a cheap brake and pop riveted and siliconed together. Sounds cheesy on paper but a large diameter 3/16" pop rivet every inch is pretty secure. A 1ft square of 20 awg steel is almost 2 lbs. A 1 ft square of .063 aluminum is 0.7 lbs, with dynamat its about 1.8 lbs. Of course, I now realize the aluminum is worthless for fire protection compared to the steel. Besides the weight, I use as much aluminum as I can because it doesn't rust. I can't stand seeing rust and I have a very difficult time preventing corrosion working in my carport and without any skill at painting/sealing stuff.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ttachsmall.jpg


Here you can see the replacement filler panel attached. I used a cheap harbor freight brake, and a cheap Eastwood shrinker/stretcher to build all sorts of these panels and stuff.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...panelsmall.jpg

I probably should go more into the process of indexing the body and stuff as it took weeks and weeks of configuring and reconfiguring, but its kind of boring. Just make sure you have a good centerline through the whole build, and put on as many body panels as you can mock up to make sure everything lines up. For example my "unibody" still had a place to bolt on the hood hinges to line the hood up, and as seen above I could mount the doors correctly as well.

here is a shot of the seat being mocked (make sure your head and helmet fit the roof). In my case since the floor was so low I actually have a lot of good clearance to the roof and even have pretty good clearance from the cage for street driving without a helmet. In fact my bare head is about the same distance from the high density padding on the upper side bar as it is from the unibody structure when it was a normal car. Note also the big 2*2 bar holding up the sail panels for mockup. By shimming that bar with 1/8" steel pads I could get the perfect alignment. Note also the double shear brackets for the seat belts. The car is setup so I can run shoulder belts and 6 point harnesses at the same time.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...t%20mockup.jpg

Something we don't talk about much is cabin ventilation. After building a couple of these you realize how integrated that is into OEM design and how easy it is to F'up, especially when you no longer have a cowl. Most cars of this era depend on fresh air being prsssured down into the cowl and then routed to the cabin. And don't forget, that air also has to go somewhere, so you need exit vents. I had tried running 3" duct from the front of the car to the cabin before but I knew I didn'th ave room to do that so I built these ducts into the A-pillars and then run 3" brake hose to some fender mounted inlet ducts that you will see later. One duct goes straight to the driver with a manual door to block it off, and one goes straight into my heater box. I don't have pictures handy, but then I also built 3" ducts from the rear interior side panels behind the seats that connect to holes in the door jams. Sort of a crude approximation of the vents you see in GM car door jambs.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...20vent%203.jpg

Here you can see the "HVAC" system such as it is, or maybe I should call it the HV system. Its the smallest cheapest heater you can get form Vintage Air. Like all of their stuff its designed to just breathe in cabin air but I didn't want to circulate stale air and the fan is loud, so I built an aluminum plenum around the intake fan and tied it to my passenger side duct. The unit is small but it produces plenty of heat at least for the NW. You can also see the wiper being built up. I would have loved a nice big vintage air repro A/C heater box, but there was no room behind the firewall for that stuff because of the 15" engine setback. I used the vintage air electronic hot water solenoid though so I at least had a nice smooth modern feeling knob for controlling the heat level rather than some kind of crappy cable. although I still use a cable to open and close the little defrost door. The system has worked well for heat and defrost, but the little squirrel fan is still loud. Its kind of amazing to me how well the original '67 ventilation/heater box system worked, its too bad I couldn't have kept those parts.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...innerdash1.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...%20mounted.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...innerdash2.jpg


here is a shot of the finished insulated firewall (DEI tunnel/heat shield, pretty good stuff). You can also see the hydraboost brake booster adapted to dual M/C's.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...cyfirewall.jpg

I know these photos jump around the build process quite a bit but hey I'm lazy posting all this junk. I work on computers all day so I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time posting.
In that vein, here is the trunk coming together and one sexy shot to keep you interested perhaps in the final build. The coolers and pumps are for the trans and rear end. I would have preferred an internal mechanicl pump especially in the rear end but couldn't afford it or didn't know about them when I had it built. Also note the fuel filler tube.

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...her/trunk2.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr.../trunkjunk.jpg

http://www.carter-engineering.com/pr...ther/test4.jpg

That last picture is the money shot. Cool build Preston. :thumbsup:

Hey Preston...can't tell you how much fun it is to see/read about this car. The thought, design and execution is a great learning experience. Keep going Sir! :cheers:

I love the randomness of the pics. :thumbsup:

The cabin ventilation... that's a new one on this site for me.... see something different everyday.

Cool stuff Preston. You definitely did the right thing allowing for big front tires. I've raced Vettes and Vipers (which have static 51% rear weight bias BTW) a bunch in autox, and they just get better and better the more front tire you give them. 335s are definitely not too much!