78 Trans Am at Fletcher's Customs!! "Project TTTA", Pro touring, back halfed, C6 - Page 10 - Lateral-g Forums

fletcherscustoms · #91 01-17-2012, 02:36 PM

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.

fletcherscustoms · #92 01-17-2012, 02:47 PM

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

**tones2SS** · #93 01-17-2012, 06:27 PM

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

fletcherscustoms · #94 01-18-2012, 06:10 AM

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

Doug1 · #95 11-11-2012, 08:12 PM

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...

Doug1 · #96 11-11-2012, 08:13 PM

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.

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.

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.

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.

OLDFLM · #97 11-12-2012, 11:01 AM

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

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!

**syborg tt** · #98 11-12-2012, 11:21 AM

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. )

OLDFLM · #99 11-12-2012, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug1

We now have the rendering. Ben did a great job as usual.

Just focus on the finished product my friend!

**GoolsbyCustoms** · #**100** 11-12-2012, 04:34 PM

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.