So you might ask what’s been going on with the PT-57 and why has Russell stopped posting information. We’ll, we’re still in business after this last year. Its been interesting and that’s taken up too much of my time just in the day to day operations. We’ve gotten more models of the C6 parts and I’ve spent a large amount of time turning them into manageable files groups we’re I can adjust the suspension geometry in the computer depending on what car we’re working on. Lots of time consuming BS for a 2 man shop but it’s all necessary and we’re still in business. I think that saying a lot these days.
On to the truck, we were going to go to the Dallas Goodguys back in October but we had some issues and couldn’t make it in the end, that cost us a serious chuck of time. Part of that was in some new sheetmetal we wanted on the car. A local shop offered up a good price to bang out some sheetmetal work on the Fire wall of the PT-57 to help with her weight loss program. Let’s just say it didn’t work out to well, pictures are worth a thousand words so they say.
So my father (the retired metal art professor from Texas State) decided he wanted a whack at it finally. We cut out the old crap and removed lots of .250” steel flat stock that was welded in to the truck and used to form the sheetmetal around. Let’s just say I think with the new fire wall and floor tunnel, the truck is probably 20-30 Lbs lighter, and that’s being realistic. We mounted up the Vintage Air Gen 2 AC, tossed in some speakers, and decided to go to a hydro boost master cylinder on the fire wall due to packaging restrictions under the trucks floor and for the ease of daily driving.
Design ideas
So we had some big problems with the PT-57’s front frame design and its interference with the surrounding systems. The headers and steering were the biggest problems. The headers were so close to the oil filter that in the 2000 miles I put on the truck during testing I burned up 4 oil filters. The headers were so close that is caused the internals of the filter to break. To me driving I suddenly saw the oil pressure drop from 45PSI to almost 20, scared the **** out of me the first time. I feel luck that the starter didn’t burn up, the headers were just as close on that side. Next because of the frame and the headers we didn’t have enough room for a steering linkage I would normally approve of. So we needed more room for that as well. Rack and pinion choice also needed to be reevaluated. We went with a C4 corvette rack on the original design for the availability but with GM cutting back the racks are getting harder and harder to find. I also want 32 degrees of turn in radius for the truck so I can do some more drifting so we turn to Flaming River for that one. We will be using the Flaming River FR40001 with its 6” travel over the 5” travel corvette rack. The rack doesn’t have the clearance issues with the Power Steering lines anymore and we can move the motor down a little further getting the CG down a little more.
The rear of the PT-57’s frame also needs some re working for the new differential adapter and better turbo integration. The new differential adapter mounts from the top and the current frame didn’t have enough bracing to hold the differential with its short lever-less structure so more tubing needed to be woven in to make the functional support. I love the rear turbos but I need to take the complexity of the boost tubing down a notch so I’m also going to integrate some of the boost tubing into the structure of the frame so we don’t have to fish it through and around the differential and CV Shafts
Finally after some problems with the powder coating (and the final straw with the yellow V4 Frame) We built our own powder coating system again so this time we can do all the little bits and make sure they won’t crack off this time. We can also take out oven up to 800F so I plan to add ceramic (or titanium) coating to the headers and complete exhaust of the PT-57 for even better turbo response (I don’t know it that’s even possible.)
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
Project PT-57, 1957 Truck, Built By Hot Rod Jim's
Hybrid Mode
