Finished the interior in The 14 Car
 

Finished installing the interior back into my Firebird today and cleaned it up a bit from all the work thats been done over the past 7 months. I did a lot of safety upgrades including full cage, full containment seats, fire systems, etc. Full details about the project can be seen at http://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48151



http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...nterior422.jpg



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Nice! :thumbsup:

What are your goals for the car? Race the hell out of it I assume, but doing what and how fast?

looks insane. What was your reasoning for keeping a rear seat if you are taking the car this far?

Fab work looks great.

Previously I've used the car for NHRA and NMCA drag races, NASA and PCDA HPDE events at road courses and top speed racing at the ECTA. I'll continue to do those things and plan on upgrading the engine and transmission to run in the fast classes at open road racing events and Land Speed events. Top cruising speed now with the new 2.41 rear I built last year should be in the 150's MPH and I'd like to get up to around 200 at top speed events. I was limited to 135 MPH at Land Speed events without a cage etc.

I'd like to run the Silver state open road race and Bonneville. Will probably go to the Texas open road races first to get the new guy certifications out of the way since I'm way down in FL. Also I've got a buddy that wants to do the Targa New Foundland at some point.

My next track day is June 20-21 at Sebring for the full 3.7 mile course with NASA. Then ECTA in NC June 27-28 for a top speed event if I can get a fire suit before then.

Looks great John. It sure is a tight fit in there for everything!
Good luck at the events, be safe!

That's one heck of a setup. Those events should be alot of fun. Good luck.

Man, I'm glad your going to continue to beat that car to the limit!

Serious safety action
 

going on there. Let me know when you are going to Maxton and I will ride over and watch you run.

Followed your build. Nice Job!

Thanks guys, the safety stuff I've done is a bit overkill for the speeds I go now but hopefully I can step it up with some serious power! I didn't want to buy things twice or more as I moved up in speed classes.

Payton: Be great to have ya come watch. I'll be the guy that looks like he's in slow motion compared to the "regulars"! AHAHA The Hayabusas run 250 there! And Wayne Jessel ran over 200 in his pickup truck just before I went once! It's a great venue and inexpensive compared to road track events.The ECTA is June 27 - 28. I'll let you know for sure whether I'm going a few days before. Weather is the big thing since it's a pretty long drive for me. I wouldn't drive all that way if it was supposed to rain all weekend. Why don't you run a car? Its fun and pretty inexpensive. No need for all the crazy safety stuff up to 135 MPH. Just a basic tech inspection (like at a test and tune) and a helmet.

Good luck with the run John. Try to get some video footage of it if you can. I'm sure I'm nott the only one who would love to see that.

Thanks, The Sebring deal is mostly to get accustomed to all the new stuff (and I always wanted to run there!) so I'm going to start slow and work my way up a little at a time. We get 4 - 25 minute sessions per day on track and I signed up for 2 days so thats almost 4 hours on track. 3.7 miles is long so it'll take a while to get comfortable with the track.

I finally just bought a Go Pro video camera and rollbar mount. I'm going to try to test it during the week and if all goes well I'll try it on track. The only video I've ever had is a really short clip a buddy took at Road Atlanta several years ago. Here it is

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...h_MVI_0069.jpg

The car looked good from what little I saw. Now we need full laps. MANY full laps:D .

NASA at Sebring
 

The tech inspectors at the Sebring event were impressed with all the safety stuff while still retaining a somewhat stock dash, rear seat etc. Passed tech with flying colors!

Car ran well all weekend. Only problem was the belts shifted in one of the front tires at the end of my 3rd session on Sat and caused a bulge in one of the tires. I'd previously hit a square edge in a highway work zone really hard and that was right where the bulge was. So I guess once the tires got some serious track heat in them the belts shifted. I got new front tires at a local tire shop in town Sun morning and was back on track for the rest of the day. I got checked out and moved up into a higher group so now I can run solo! The lack of a 200 lb instructor almost makes up for the additional weight of the cage.

I go alone so I don't have any pics of the car on track, just ones I took in the pits. If I can figure out the you tube thing I'll post a vid from the go-pro. Here's a link to the pics I took this weekend http://s240.photobucket.com/albums/f.../Sebring%2009/

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...g620-21025.jpg

WOW - Aweseome work.

Wow turned out great!

This thing is awesome. Let me know when you bring it up to Barber Motorsports Park so I can check it out up close and personal like :D .

John

I love it!

That is one sweet ride!!! :thumbsup:

Thanks Guys! I was surprised to see this pop up out of the archives from over a month ago. Syborg TT must have been hunting around the site!

BBC71Nova: I've looked at that track a few times while surfin around. I'd like to go to Barber sometime.

Next track days are Sept 12 at Palm Beach International for a NASA HPDE then Oct. 3 at Sebring for a NASA HPDE then Oct. 11 a top speed race near Miami.

The Miami race is a sort of, minimal rules, run whatcha brung, kind of thing. 1 mile to speed up and 1 mile to slow down. It's non-sanctioned with minimal (very minimal) safety requirements. It's being held at the Dade/Collier airport out in the everglades which was built for the Concord SST flights but never used. Some guys rented the place and are putting on a race. http://milemarker-1.com/

I'm going to be waaaay outclassed at this party.... Out of over 100 vehicles entered, my car is the only old car. Sign ups are now closed and there's a waiting list. Almost all the cars entered are new high tech rides that are boosted, charged, or nitroused and have overdrive transmissions. They're gonna let people run up to (or over) 220 MPH without even a roll bar! GM High Tech Performance magazine is bringing a Vette and a 2010 Camaro. They're also doing a story about the race from what I've heard. The organizer said a Veyron will also be there. That outta be fun to watch!!!!

One of the Firebird/TA sites asked me for all the info and the story behind my Firebird and made up a couple pages web pages if anyones interested. There's a story, pics, and list of the parts I could remember from over the years it's been evolving. http://allgentransams.com/members_pa...enmp/john.html

LOL, well, why limit it to 220?

-Yikes!

next project for me is a second gen camaro and i've been really looking at your car a lot.

Looks great id love to drive it where you get the seats from?

Marty: Sent ya a PM. I'd love to see you do a 2nd gen!

Andrew: If you're over about 145 lbs or taller than 5' 7" you probably couldn't even get into the drivers seat to drive it. The drivers area is custom built for me and the seats do not move.

The seats are Kirkey # 63s and they are available in 14-15-16-17-18 inch sizes. I purchased them through Delaware Chassis Works. The drivers seat is a 14", the passengers is a 16" and both have been heavily modified to fit them in the confines of the roll cage and meet the tech requirements of the various sanctioning bodies. I was really nervous about cutting up seats that are about $1,000.00 each to see if we could put them in the car. There was no possible way to install a larger passenger seat and in fact I sent back the first one I was going to use there. Passenger seat will now allow a person up to about 6' and 210-220 lbs if they're limber enough to climb in. Installing the same seats in a first gen would be much easier.

The seats are NASCAR seats. They're surpisingly comfortable once installed and with all the padding in place. I've gone on a couple 2-3 hour drives and was pleasantly surprised once I got over the feeling of confignment. The drawback to seats like these is that you really can't move at all once seated and harnessed in. Here's a couple pics of them stock.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...keyseat010.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...keyseat011.jpg