A few more pics from Chad's cell phone. Engine and transmission finally getting fitted to the car. It looks like the engine will need to go back into the firewall several inches so it can drop in back of the rack and pinion. More work but it should help with the handling a bit. The transmission crossmember is going to have to move back a few inches as well.

http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...0Black/897.jpg
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...20Black/94.jpg
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...20Black/95.jpg
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...0Black/784.jpg

okay so where did these spare tires come from

http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...20Black/94.jpg

I think they're late model GTO spares.

Yep I have two of those in my garage right now. Looks like they mounted some motorcycle tires on them.

yeah Late model GTO spares purchased from ebay from a GM dealer. Showed up with no tires on them. GM calls for a 110/60/17 for them, which can't be bought anywhere except GM for stupid money. WE still race motorcycles on a occasion, looked in the trash pile outside at a stack of 120/55/17 bike front tires, and bam!! Took forever to mount, but they work. Got four (4) more GTO wheels coming, and picked up some more bike tires from the local bike shop yesterday

So where did you find them and does the guy have any more. I checked ebay and there are only two sellers

I got off flea bay years ago. It appeared I was purchasing from a standalone guy, but later after talking to him he was a parts guy at some shop up north.

The ones I got coming to me now have taken some work. My local buddy owns a big salvage yard, and he is finding them through there online parts network.

I've been sorta half looking for a set of these myself for a few months. When I see them they are generally fairly expensive and go quickly. They also typically show up as singles so you have 4x the shipping/transaction costs. I guess with the demand and relatively small/fixed supply that's just how it goes.

the guy I bought mine from is still on there selling , but his add has them listed for $999 each , and says out of stock and will change price back when they are available. I think I got about $500 in my first set, and will have about $250 in this next set. They seem to go from 75-150 a wheel on ebay

I used http://car-part.com/ to find mine. If you search for wheel the second pop up screen will let you select the spare. I got mine from two different local salvage yards. I paid $65 from one yard and $90 from the other. They also pop up for sale on ls1tech from time to time. Those guys use the rims for front runners for a drag pack.

I have been a little lazy on updates. The car has progressed over the past few months, and some design changes have been altered and some big changes to make this car one of a kind are beginning.

Wheel tubs, I kept to the KISS rule and used a off the shelf set of DSE tubs, and added a 2.5" strip to the center to widen them to meet up with the AME rails in the back. WE now have room for a 15" wide tire with room to spare. My 345's had 2" clearance inside.

http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...l_IMG_1036.jpg
http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...l_IMG_1035.jpg
http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...l_IMG_1033.jpg
http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...l_IMG_1041.jpg

SO now lets talk about Motor placement!! How about a full 12.25" of setback!!! This requires full rework of the firewall, cowl section, some of the dash, and lots of fab work of the mounts. Lots of head scratching and yelling with Jerry but I finally came up with something I am happy with

http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...normal_652.JPG
http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...normal_156.JPG
http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...rmal_84615.JPG
http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...rmal_84615.JPG
http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...rmal_41562.JPG
http://www.fletcherscustoms.com/copp...ormal_9481.JPG

Great stuff Chad. I see you guys have been busy. Looking great!

yeah we are making progress. Not as fast as I would like to, but moving along

Well, as with all such projects, this one is taking a long and winding road to get to completion. The car is back at my home now as Chad was unable to finish the car. Took it to Dan Holohan for an assessment and he gave me the unvarnished truth. Basically, I have a lot of really cool parts and a lot of problems to solve.

So at first I decided to just sell it off for parts and start over but since then I have had a change of heart and decided to do this as a general contractor type job. I'll sub out the stuff I don't feel comfortable doing and do the rest myself.

Here are some "as it sits" photos...
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...k/IMG_0862.jpg
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...k/IMG_0880.jpg
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...k/IMG_0873.jpg
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...k/IMG_0872.jpg

One of Dan's suggestions that I liked was to make this a full frame car so the body can be removed in order to powdercoat the chassis. I'll get rid of the round tube stuff that was added in which I highlighted in the large blue oval and tie the front and back chassis together with the same tubing used by AME. The tie in within the small blue oval will be left though I prefer to use something other than round tubing since it just doesn't fit well visually with rest of the frame.
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...IMG_0865-1.jpg

Then we'll cut the frame loose from the body in the only other point it is welded in, which is where the cross member hits the rockers. See area highlighted in red.
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c.../IMG_0868a.jpg
I'll put plates on the ends of the frame crossmember and matching plates in the rockers and have it bolt in there.

Then we'll cut the fuel cell "cage" that was fabricated loose and move it forward a few inches in order to trim the rear frame rails to the proper length and move the cross rail back so it can sit behind the tail panel without interfering with the bumper mounts as it does now.
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...k/IMG_0881.jpghttp://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...k/IMG_0882.jpg

Once these are located properly, I'll put end plates in place with bolt holes that will allow the endplates, body and bumper supports to all be held together with the same 4 bolts on each side.

Glad to see you've decided to keep the car/project Doug! :thumbsup:

You're "punch list" sounds like a good plan too! Looking forward to updates!

It will all be worth it in the end my friend! :yes:

Morning Doug,

Sorry your project went south.

I really likes Dan's idea of a full frame car. I would consider a chassis from the Roadster shop as they already have one ready to go and debugged !!.

I am not sure why you stuff the motor back so far. It is going to cause you another world of problems. Foot well space will be sparce at best. Unless this is a dedicated race car. Your going to have problems putting a radio, air or heat in the car.

I've been down the road your on with my last project. I had a lot of fun building the truck but thank God I am only 5' 6'' tall because if I was any taller I would have been really cramped in the cabin due to the fact that I moved my firewall back only 2". It's amazing what happens when you start moving things.

Buy the Roadster Shop Chassis. Have Dan make a new floor and plop the body on your new powdercoated chassis.

Heck you can send them your motor & trans and they can send you back a complete chassis with exahust and all plumbing complete and ready to hand off to Dan the Man. And trust me Dan can do some awesome metal work.

just my thoughts.
[email protected] ( just in case you want to bounce idea's off me as I've been in your shoe's before. )

Just focus on the finished product my friend! :)

Doug its a shame the situation you find yourself in, and even more of a shame how much we are seeing it lately. If the right minds get together anything is possible , I wouldnt be too quick to hit disaster mode yet,I really like Bens rendering, and hope you get with the right people to sort all of this out, could be a really nice car.

I haven't thrown in the towel though I was tempted. I can do the vast majority of the work myself, which should help recoup some of the money I have lost in the project to the experts.

I'm no TIG welder so the best I can do is tack the pieces where I need them and then have a certified welder do the real welding.


syborg tt - Dan is one hell of a craftsman. I wish I had taken it to him to begin with but by the time it got to him it was too late. Between what I had already spent and the cost of him taking it apart to get back to where he could begin on his own, I decided to wait until I could take him another project he could start on with a clean slate.

I felt comfortable that you would have built a nice car Chad. I never expected it to be in the craftsmanship league Dan is in but more in the way of functional but cool. And as I told you, I know that family has to come first. I was in my own personal purgatory for the last two and a half years with my 2nd wife's mental illness resulting from a stroke 6 months after we were married. It certainly made me reprioritize and grow in ways I could have never anticipated. Life can change drastically in an instant and the only two options are to adapt or don't.

I'll make the best of it and think it was worth Dan having a look at it because it made me see some things I want to do differently that are within my reach. I understand that he would want to blow it apart and start over because in the end it would be coming out of his shop and even his welds are a work of art. I'd like to have him build a car for me but after meeting with him and thinking it over, I would rather it be a fresh project.

I wouldn't get quite so discouraged - I think you have the foundation for an awesome car here. I know the engine setback will cause you problems but that is part of what is awesome. I set back the engine in my '67 Mustang 14" and Marty is right, I can barely fit a heater box in there, but if you must have AC you can always run a trunk unit. I know it can be a little discouraging with that frame sitting there rusting away and the parts half assembled. Personally I would teach yourself to weld to your satisfaction and get to work. I've built 3 cars from the ground up scratch built frame all self taught so if I can do it so can you. Don't let the TIG pussies intimidate you , just grab a MIG and practice a bit. The only factor that will really stop you is available free time. Hell, whatever, do it how you want but your setup is far from hopeless IMO, especially if you cut loose from some of the expectations that this site can create in all of our heads. 98% of the people who see the car will never know that the frame has some round tube that doesn't match the square tube for instance. I dont' see anything in your setup that looks like a showstopper to me, just make sure as you put it toghether with that big engine setbakc that you figure out your pedals early in the process.
I will admit though one thing that made my big engine setback possible was running the pipes down the rockers (and setting the driver back 10"), tough to make them fit in the trans tunnel and have any room for pedals.

I think I would move the engine back up to a somewhat factory position. This will allow you to use a lot of factory or manufactured parts. This will save you a ton of coin in custom parts and labor to fabricate to make all that work. Let alone the ability to work on the car easily. All for just some better weight distribution. You could full a full tank of fuel to help compensate for the added front weight. Lord knows the car is built pretty heavy from the get go.

I agree with Dan making a removable frame would be slick, but trying to make the floor strong enough to make that work well will take quite a bit of work. I think I would just powder coat the chassis you have and build a floor to go over it and move forward learning your lessons for you next build.

I think this build gives a classic example of why using a guy that does this work for living with a nice resume of completed cars is a solid reason why those guys cost more. Guys who work at home can do great work for cheaper. But things are more likely to come up in the life of the part time hot rod builder (kids, job transfer, divorce, etc ) and these things become the problem of the customer who went out on a lib trusting the builder who no fault or fault will not be able to complete the project.

I see this issue almost daily now in the current state of our economy. A guy goes to a lesser known or novice builder trying to save some dough, but has the best of hope and trust in a guy who for what ever reason cannot deliver. Guys wind up spending 2-3 times more money in the end when they should have just gone to the guy they thought they could not afford, but wanted to save some dough. These projects end up sold for pennies on the dollar or just project that will never ever be what the customer really dreamed they would be.

I appreciate the advice. Since this one is already this far along and the front and rear clips were both designed by AME, making it a full frame should be no big deal. It will still have the 3 and 4 links setup which makes it somewhat unique so I'm just going to run with it. We'll get it done and put this one in the books. Hopefully there were be other's to follow!

Sadly, this started out with people who do this for a living and have a nice resume of completed cars. I wan't looking to skimp and I thought I had picked a strong builder to begin with. When it got moved to Chad, I realized I was going from a much larger operation to a smaller shop but that was the appeal at the time because it was the primary project for them.

I'll get it done. I'm going to continue the course on this build. Here is a link to one that has a very similar setup so the roadmap is already there. I am using. It turns out they set their engine back exactly the same amount. So with pics of the fab work, one of the local race car fab shops should be able to fab the interior sheetmetal.

I don't plan on using the floor to support the body. Using the current setup and making the few mods I mentioned, it should bolt right to the rockers in 4 places, the factory front mounts and the rear factory bolt location for the bumper.

http://www.pro-touring.com/showthrea...78263-trans-am]

Need some of you guys to let me know your thoughts on this plan to mount the body to the frame.

First we'll replace the bolt in subframe connectors that Chad made with something more substancial and made of the same tubing as the front and rear clips.

The front factory frame bolt locations will still be used. In place of the front frame floor pan bolts, we'll keep the setup already installed by Chad which bolts the side of the frame rail to the rocker. This tie in is encircled within the small blue oval in the picture below. These were welded to the metal plate that was installed along the length of the rocker.
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...IMG_0865-1.jpg

Then we'll cut the frame loose from the body in the only other point it is welded in, which is where the cross member hits the rockers. See area circled in red in the picture blow.
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c.../IMG_0868a.jpg
I'll put plates on the ends of the frame crossmember and matching plates in the rockers and have it bolt in there.

Then we'll cut the fuel cell "cage" that was fabricated loose and move it forward a few inches in order to trim the rear frame rails to the proper length and move the cross rail back so it can sit behind the tail panel without interfering with the bumper mounts as it does now.
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...k/IMG_0881.jpghttp://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...k/IMG_0882.jpg

Once these are located properly, I'll put end plates in place with bolt holes that will allow the endplates, body and bumper supports to all be held together with the same 4 bolts on each side.

Doug,

I like the way that car turned out.

Okay so you have an Art Morrison Chassis - Awesome it's a great set up. I completely agree with Rodger ( yes Roger I said that ). Move the engine back up there is no need for it to be set back that far unless it is a dedicated track car. To much custom one-off fab work. I've been there and trust me in the end it's a waste of money.

My current project is the exact opposite of my last project. No Turbo's, No custom sheet metal fab work, A stock firewall with a very nice DSE close-out panel.

I've learned it's all in the details, you don't have to have the biggest baddest motor, suspension, bla bla bla. Build it so you can drive it and enjoy it

F'n rad man!

I just want to post in this thread so I can track it!

But have to say Doug --- when I first saw the "build" being posted... all I could see was "hackie motto". Doing the kind of work you took on (the builder) took on -- that's way more involved than the average guy is capable of. What I saw was too much overhead.... as in -- the builder was in way over his head! :lol:

Glad to see you're sticking with it... make it fun... make it a good learning experience... and then drive the heck out of it!

Doug.... Just keep going forward and build THAT car!!!!

I mainly just lurk on this site and very seldom post, but i read through this whole thread, you asked for opinions about making the body removable and I will give you mine...

without the factory floor and firewall, that relys on the rockers and whatever sheetmetal floor along with the "t" section of the roof to hold the car together. As factory designed these cars are full of squeaks and rattles as they age, doors dont fit right.. etc.

the full frame with the body actually tied into it making it a true unibody is by far gonna be the strongest platform... especially with the kind of power you're putting through it.

after a few years of having fun, i would put money on it starting to have issues if the body were to not be "one" with the chassis.

I didnt quite understand the reasoning for the motor to be set back that far, but number one, its a car. you have to be able to work on it. the dist being under the cowl just looks like a nightmare all the way around.

IF this was my project, I would tie the subframes together with material matching whats there. id cut off all of the round tube motor mounts and move it back to a semi normal place. build the floor and tie it straight to the chassis, and a flat sheetmetal floor isnt gonna do much without proper bracing and support. it can still be both functional and visually pleasing with some forethought (go back and look at the war camaro thread)

by all means I would do all of what I could on my own. without paying a shop to fix it, that leaves some money for tools, and some practice runs on scraps before doin the final parts. most of what is done to build these cars is thinking through the details and then execution.

oh, and the body doesnt have to be removable to powdercoat the chassis. I have a hot rod project goin on that I intend to powdercoat basically the whole car except the outside sheetmetal. all it takes is a big enough oven and a way to support it and get to everything.

again, these are just my own opinions, i'm not an expert. I build my own stuff for me, and I would rather push my limits and expand what I can do while having fun doing it than pay a shop to do what they do. but for me its all about the build, the creation, the fun after the fact is just a bonus (usually the project gets sold shortly after completion to fund the next one around my place)

I agree with Force-Fed

Appreciate the recommendations guys! You make a lot of good points.

After meeting with a highly reommended local fabricator yesterday and spending several hours pouring over the car pondering the possibiilties, I think we have licked most of the technical problems with making the body removable. Not worried about flex in this car with the chassis that is underneath it.

So the chassis and body will seperate. Now as far as leaving the engine in it's current setback position... That is still under full consideration. I'm going to get with AME to see just what the pros and cons are from their perspective.

I just think you should ask the Mods to modify the title of this thread...


Maybe call it "My car was Fletchered"?

But seriously now that it was "Fletchered" (a new verb?) -- it should have a new title so he's not getting "credit" for having done a bunch of work that all needs to be redone? :thumbsup:

I think you'd really want to start a new thread, since Chad started this thread.

Sorry to see this car not yet completed , i was hoping to see more second gens given the pt treatment. I hope you finally get the car you wanted. I think the best thing to do is sit back and carefully decide how to proceed, ive been in this situation and its dificult to think rationally. Best of luck!

Shutting this one down as the thread is being continued here:

https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=39175