Mikespeed's 72 Drift Camaro Build

[SS1156]

Subscribing.

[mikespeed95]

So said goodbye to the Camaro today for about a week. They said they wanted to wait till the weather was perfect to do everyting so I just dropped it and told them I wasn't in a hurry.



At the blasting place. Guy on the Tractor's name is Bubba. Bubba has a 1st, 2nd, AND 3rd gen camaro rotting away outside at his blasting place.




Bubba's office is an old school bus.



Bubba is my hero.

[mikespeed95]

Sorry for the lack of updates,

So the sandblasting guys are dumb. So dumb so so so dumb.

"$275 blast whole care down to bare metal and prime" WHAT A DEAL!! Yeah too good to be true. Didn't even blast the car, idiots then gave me pictures of car before priming with paint on it, then the guy who did it admitted he didn't even blast it, he just primed it. Taking them to court, I'm not paying for work that wasn't done, especially after their employee admits he didn't blast the thing. Ugh. "I dusted it and primed it" Thats not quite whole car down to bare metal....luckily had a lot of friends tag along for pickup/dropoff, and we got the agreement on video, guy admitting he "had his guy blast hte whole car down to bare metal" then the guy who did it telling us " I didn't even blast it, I just primed it like my boss said to". Dumb rednecks. In other news, I bought a sandblaster and am back to not trusting anyone to touch my car except people I've known for a long time, like myself, although Derrick will be helping with a lot of the fabwork, and I'll probably try to ask some other people to do some things that I can't do as well. Its just tough trying to stay motivated becuase there is a lot to do, although I'm mostly done with all the boring stuff like welding holes shut/blockoff plates/firewalls etc etc. Its important stuff, but man its kinda boring and when you're done with it its not anything where your like "WHOA THAT IS COOL!!"

Anyways.

So I've been watching and building the following:

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Pulled the good old 240 project I just can't get rid of in, and started doing all the safety stuff. Some pics of progress on making front clip, sealin off firewall, lowering floorboard/removing hump with hammer/patch panels and simple safe and functional fuel cell mount, minus straps that I havent made yet.

[will69camaro]

Keep up the good work on the 72 man. Seeing you build it is getting me excited to work on mine again!

Let me know if you find a blast or dip place as I am in the market as well. I need to get to stripping down the 69 so we can get to work.

[YenkoSC]

Shame about the blasters but this will be a top car when finished. Did you by any chance own a 69 Camaro from 2006 or earlier?

[mikespeed95]

The 69 Falken Tire Camaro was owned by some guys from Arizona, I never had anything to do with it. Cool car though.


If you're still reading this you're probably thinking a couple things:

- Mike is all over the place
- Mike is never going to get anything done

Probably accurate.

So two days ago my friend Jonathan showed me a Camaro he found while looking for his own project. Derrick was offered an e36 project to build for our friend Aaron for the upcoming Fabricated Motorsports 2011 Texas Drifting Series, both were in Dallas, and I have a two-car trailer.

So at 5am Sunday I got home. Got back to the shop around 3pm and this is what we got.





The guy I picked this Camaro up from was a ultra-nice guy. Check this out, he bought it to build for is SON IN LAW. Talk about awesome.

Story on the car was a friend of his located it after a local owner of a salvage yard died in Nowhereville, West Texas, an estate sale was had, and this Camaro was supposedly in a building he had for projects that were his own, and it just sat for about 20 years. It honestly has no rust on it. The guy told me over the phone that the 1st person who actually saw the car would buy it, and he was 100% honest. There is a little bit of bondo in some random places but the car is super solid. Its also a 70 so has the lower floorpans on the rear seat.

This will get me by since the other Camaro is tied up with the BS the sandblasting place tried to pull, so now I can just take them to court and use the legal system to give them the running into the ground they deserve on my time, since I'm in no hurry to get the Camaro back from them now.

Basically its like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhahJVkehUc

Anyways, heres the gameplan. Found out I'm super lucky and get to go to SEMA this year, as well as XDC Phoenix. So I'm going to attempt to do these things before SEMA.

-Finish the new LS1 S13 suspension, and fabrication, and attach all body parts to where it just needs a cage, and drivetrain. Push outside, install car cover.

-Strip parts off of Rx7 I picked up for donor engines for the Brat, then sell.

Post SEMA:
- Get Camaro to status of just needing a drivetrain and rollcage
- Build engine that runs on both rotors for the Brat


Want to get all this done by December, then I'll go from there depending on how much work I can do to earn some money between now and then. We've also got an e36 LS1 project for the 2011 Texas Series, and some other new stuff that will be popping up. My friend Jonathan also FINALLY got a project car, went with him tonight and we picked up an 85 mustang GT that is now chillin at the shop, gonna help him build that up, which I'm also excited about because I've always wanted to play with building up a Fox, and he is pretty excited about doing it. Plus its always fun to help one your friends get into cars.

On a side note, my new trailer tows AWESOME with the gooseneck and 3 axles.


So if you're still reading, heres what you're probably thinking now

-Mike is really all over the place
-Mike is never going to finish anything
-Don't mess with Texas.


Any you LatG guys going to SEMA? I have been not really over here because thinking about the Camaro/Sandblasting deal just pisses me off, but would love to check out some of the awesome builds on here in person if they are going to be there.

[mikespeed95]

Heres some of the subpar quality projects I've been doing, nothing holds a candle to the stuff you guys normally put on here, but a lot of this is my 1st time at attempting some of this stuff.

Being 6'2'' normally makes it hard to sit straight up in a car with a cage, so on the 240's I've always had my head near the cage. Never liked this and it was hard to motivate myself to build a car knowing I wouldn't have headroom.

Or wouldn't I?

Got ambitious after the hammering/patching didn't work, so just went for it. Worst case scenario I'd learn something, and have to redo it.

Grabbed the Plasma cutter, and went for it.



Cranked the welder down to 1, and didn't burn any big holes. This is my 1st thinner sheetmetal project, and I was pretty careless with it as far as measuring. Normally I'd just cut the approximation I needed, and hammer something to make it fit. I know this car is going to get stuffed into a wall, and its just another lame LS1 powered 240sx (everyone has one nowadays), and its under the seat, so I had a really really difficult time trying to force myself to care, because on this car I didn't. If it was the Camaro it'd be a different story, but I have a real love/hate relationship with this 240, haha.

Got the 1st piece in, and test fitted the seat, and I had about 3'' of clearance with a helmet on. This seemed like it was going to work.





I got reallly lazy on the other side as I put the seat in, and had a ton of room, and some scrap metal laying around. Cut the piece a tad too short and didn't want to waste any good metal on this car, so one side has a nice 90* meeting of panels, and the other is one that is bent. Like I said, its all under the seat and I didn't care, and its my car so I'm allowed to cut corners on making it look perfect. Will function absolutely fine. I'm only trying to justify myself because normally the work on this forum is top-notch, and by some of the work pumped out here, I am not sure if some of you have any lazyness that might result in this, haha.

Here is a comparison of what it looked like before/after with the passenger side. I made a lot of room to lower the front and also by moving the rounded edge on the trans tunnel into a hard 90* that helped a LOT.

All of that crap you see is bondo, that I realized after I mixed, had just put resin hardener into. Couldn't figure out why it was the wrong color...



So I got to make a huge friggin mess.



Then decided that it was again, under the seat, who cares. Threw some primer over the welds, and declared victory on the task of creating headroom.




Also decided to try to play with filling in cracks on a dashboard. Still got a lot of sanding, but it seems to have worked. I just plastered some on the other day to fill the last of the rough spots and haven't had a chance to sand it down yet.





Lastly, I bought some new things for the shop.





If you're still reading NOW, congrats! Suprised you made it this far!

And yes I know, the shop is a mess, and its kind of embarrassing.

[will69camaro]

Who did the blasting for you again? Was it Camaro Country? If so I found lots of bad reviews If you still need it blasted call up Environmental Cleaners. I'll search for the number as I have it somewhere. A quick google search should bring it up as well!

William

[mikespeed95]

Some good old boys in Huntsville called Quality Sandblasting.

S T A Y A W A Y.

I just bought some equipment myself, 20$ gun at Tractor suppy, its gonna take forever and make a huge mess, but at least I can do it.

Are you still out in Midland? Might wanna see who does some of the oil companys blasting, as I hear they often have their equipment blasted to clean it.

[will69camaro]

No I'm in Woodlands/Conroe area. Been here for about 3 years now.

Place I'm likely taking mine do does it for a few restoration shops around town. Has TONS of good reviews. Pricey (~100hr) but dont have the desire to make a huge mess in my garage.