Project Nighthawk 1969 Camaro - Ground up rebuild

[syborg tt]

Can't wait to see more of this build.

ps - great Facebook page

[Amituk]

Thanks

We are very close to all out kick off

Have decided to have a custom chassis built, so retro power are trying to source a chassis table.

Jason at GMR will also be building the rear end soon so updates will start flowing thick and fast.

Also checkout the mood board here for a idea of what's to come

http://m.pinterest.com/amitdesai1978...k-inspiration/

[srh3trinity]

So the car is on twitter, facebook, and lat-g. You need to get it on foursquare and google plus and then it will be the most socially networked car out there.
That being said, the wheel choice is awesome. Looking forward to the build and the newsfeed updates.

[Amituk]

It's every where. The original idea was to get a lot more social feedback on the direction of the build and get the community to help shape the project.

I want to runs design comps for areas of the car but need more people on board to make sure I get decent designs lol

Still early days yet.

[Amituk]

Its update time.

I decided the ultimate camro wouldnt really be the ultimate camaro on the stock subframe and stock rear end.

So after discussions with RetroPower, we have decided to build a complete chassis from box steel. Retropower have tracked down a chassis bed, and work starts 24th Sept

In the mean time, I have asked Jason at theGMR to start work on the rear end.

I chose GMR because after talking to him for 5mins, I realised he knows his rear ends! He was a font of knowledge and information

So this is what we decided to build

a 9" full floater made up of

• Chromoly 325inch series housing with strengthening trusses
• GMR PT-R Aluminium rear hubs with tapered bearings - These are works of art!
• Strange Engineering 35spline Hytuf Axels
• Strange Engineering HD Aluminium 3.7 third member with chromoly yoke
• Strange Engineering S-track Diff.

I decided to go with strange engineering for the complete third member after doing a lot of research on how they have been performing on road and track.

With the top quality components I have gone with, this rear end will be capable of taking as much power as I can throw at it, and leave me headroom for future upgrades.

This rear end should be much lighter than stock, and MUCH stronger. I would of loved to have gone for the titanium housing, but I have to draw the line somewhere and the what I have speced above far exceeds the needs of this project.

Onto the build

Jason starts with a chromolly housing built in the USA from US sourced steel. Note the large hole. This is not a bird feeder, but actually an oversized oil filler/teeth inspection window



Axel tubes welded on



Fully seemed welded. Even the parts that will be hidden



Trusses tacked in place. No axel flex here!



Going to town on the welding



Thats all for now, more to follow.

Keep an eye on the pic album here Rear end build Album, if you cant wait for updates

[paydirt]

awesome progress.

[Amituk]

I promised updates would start coming thick and fast

I will let the pics do the talking









Thats the central housing complete, next steps, axel snouts and hubs

Amit

[davin24]

wow look at that tap

[JasonElvisHeard]

Originally Posted by davin24

wow look at that tap

That is a 2.5" tap for the filler bung post welding. We use it to clean up the threads, sometimes the heat can move the material just enough to make the filler a real pain to screw in. With this $$$ tap we can chase the threads and now we know the filler is going to be smooth as butter when the end user has his hands on the housing.

jason

[Amituk]

I like butter

Can wait to see this thing in the flesh.

There is nothing better than precision engineering and there is definitely a lot of that in the next batch of pictures!