1978 Trans Am mild custom

[takid455]

Since teh car is in the reader's rides section, I figured I post its build here. One thing about this , is that it is not a chevy or ford. get some variety in here.
I purchased the car in September 2005 from the original owner. Prior to my acquisition, many modifications had been done to the car. It even had contact with a wall which is why it had not front end sheet metal. Some of the modifications include Herb Adams front and rear sway bars, brake cooling ducts and other body and suspension mods listed in his handbook, weld in subframe connectors essentially making it a unibody car, support )H-beam) for added strength, .45caliber bullet hole in left ¼, switches to individually turn on/ off tail, side and head lights for ‘stealth’ driving ( not sure why anybody would think of doing such thing ), 474 engine with Holley projection 4, accusump oil reserve, nitrous just for giggles. Here is what it looked like when I first picked it up.

Original back in 1992 before accident

[takid455]

Some damage


Pulling the body straight





In addition to what has been done, I have/ will add the following:
GW upper and lower control arms with Aldan Eagle coil-overs, Koni’s in the rear
Aluminum radiator w/ dual elec. fans
4 wheel disc brakes by Kore3 to fit C5/C6 rotors and calipers
Modern lighting
Lizard skin heat and sound insulation coatings
T-56 (currently being built) w/ hydr. T/O bearing
Engine beefed up w/ KRE heads and roller cam
17 or 18” 3 piece wheels, still trying to decide although I am close. Wheels are way more expensive than I ever thought
All undercarriage and suspension parts are powder coated.

Some more pics
May plan of “just put it back together” didn’t hold for too long

[takid455]

At paint shop (10/06) for body work and primer, they will also do the final wet sanding on the high build sealer (HOK) and paint after I dry sand the initial high build primer(Claussen Z-chrome).





Few months later 12/06 its back. Looks like a leopard

[takid455]

Had to take the hood, trunk lid, and fenders down again because the original body guy I had lined up did something wrong and they were rusting under the freshly applied primer. Better to find out now than later.



Sanding the primer and under side. That hippie needs a hair cut. (1/06)

Looks like a car for the first time since 1993 (2/06)



Hoping this

[takid455]

Will fit into here




As of this writing 2/18/07, all plastic body bolts on are sanded and ready for sealer. I am waiting for G-Force trans to finish modifying the Lakewood bell housing to mate up to the t-56. I have found a builder for the T-56 which will be comprised of a 06 Z06 unit (don’t know how he got it, but it was reasonable and I’m not asking questions), the Z06 unit also has an built in pump so I can run a cooler for the trans should it be necessary, viper output shaft and tail and the usual keyway and fork upgrades. This should be good for 750 HP. Not sure why all trans are rated for HP when torque is what kills them. Once the bell is received, I will bolt the trans up to the engine and see exactly how much I have to open up the trans tunnel. A t-56 will fit in the tunnel w/o mods, but that is if you were to drop the body on to a frame per se, it will not be able to be removed or install with a clutch bolted to the fly wheel. I will have more updates on this as I make them. Oh, a custom cross member is also needed,


UPDATE 3/2/07

Since the last post, I stopped by the trans shop and looked at exactly what was inside this 6 speed mechanical device. Lots of parts, but nothing that looked difficult to build. Then again, nothing is hard if you know what you are doing. I supposed after about 3 shots, I might get it right. Gforce had sent the modified bellhousing and custom mainshaft to work with triple cone viper tail housings. Very interesting and nicely machine piece. Top notch work by Gforce. Here are some pics

Stuff, look at that bad boy. Rated to 750HP . Gears are the weakest link in this. Better gears are rated to 1200HP and cost 2200. I supposed if you can afford that power , you can afford the gears.


Gears


Carbon fiber syncros, not what I envisioned, but I guess they work well


I had thought that I would be in for a long night of cutting and welding to fit this trans in the tunnel. With the engine tilted at 4* which is the angle of the carb mounting surface relative to the centerline of the engine, the trans fit in and bolted up in about 1 minute. Not lying here. This is with clutch and all bolted up as well. I instantly doubled checked all heights, angles, ect and all were good to go.

[takid455]

So I moved on to the shifter using a stock viper unit. Sawzall and a carbide cutter made a nice opening in the tunnel. I have to move the shifter shaft in about 1” so it doesn’t hit the console. I will be installing a short throw, which will be normal throw with the add height/ length of the shifter. Mcleod makes a nice short throw that can be tailored to your specs.






This is all for now. Tomorrow is finish sanding spoilers and bumpers, fit hydrobooster and hyd. Master cyl in firewall.






Update 4/2
Since the last update lost of little items have been attended. Trans tunnel/console mount is attached to car, provisions for hydraulic master clutch cylinder has been made, weld on interior ‘H-beams’ and sub frame connectors have been smoothed and filled. Lizard skin coating has been applied to the interior of the car instead of dynamat. We’ll see out this stuff works out in the future. I held off on applying the sound control as my other t/a’s don’t sound all too load on the inside. Much loader when standing outside of the car. I assume this is due to the location of the tail pipe being a long distance relatively to the driver. I can always apply this with a brush later if the sound is deemed too load. But as the old saying goes, if its too load, your too old. Seam sealer has been applied to all seams and undercoating to the lower inner ¼’s as 1) they love rust and I am trying to break that bond and 2) rubber is easily removed from undercoating. All items that bolt on to the car have been sanded and initial bodywork done (spoilers, bumper covers, ect.) A new fender was add to the car as the original pass side fender that I had intended to use did not want to cooperate and would take more time trying to make it work than just starting over. I have also made provision for the battery cable to run through the frame into the truck where the battery will be located. Car as of today has left to the body shop for final sealing, fixing things that they missed the first time (not a big deal since were are still w/in the original contract as far as agreement, work to be done and money is concerned), wet sanding, subframe installation and paint. So the next time the car comes home, it will look all pretty. YIPEEEE. Gosh I hate bodywork. OK, so here are some pics:

[takid455]

No rusting here




No more messy welds by previous owner and Lizard Skin

[takid455]

A final round of powder coat was sent out as well. Just a few things to detail and polish and its assembly time.



6/12

Playing with color scheme ideas. after several test panels, I decided to do fender (junk one I had laying around) to get a better idea. here is where we are at the moment. also, the T56 is done and looks great. both the powder coater and trans builder are goingt to use it on their websites.


due to lack of sun and camera, teh color is off slightly. this seems to be a problem with golds and pearls.




the area around the extractor better represents the actual gold color



close up of scheme.



image courtesy of fellow board member

paint colors are HOK goldmine pearl, candy apple over soar gold followed by mercedes/ european black. the front and rear will tapper down a little. this is just for an idea to see how it would look around the body line.

[takid455]

A photoshop from a fellow board member at p-t.. wheels are a little big. they will also have a gun metal color on the center.

7/07
am definatly working with the side body line if I stay with the 2 tone. lettering would go on the bottome where teh panels concave in just about the rocker panels. I have decised to go with the house of kolors goldmone pearl which has noce effects in the sun and still looks good without direct lighting. many pearls dont look good or have no effect without sunlight light.

Parts update
I have decided to pruchase a watts link from Fays 2 http://www.fays2.net if I decide to run a 9". I have beening working with some fabrication and suspension people to arrive at an acceptable Watts link set up for the 2nd gens with a 9" but without making looked rigged or cause some outher aspect of the suspension to 'fight' itself, this setup looks good. and for the june special price, it is not too bad. If I wind up not using a 9" ( saving 1500 all said and done including cost of redoing the 10 bolt) and say with my current 10 bolt, I can use this on other t/a's for R & D puposes.

i scored a set of C5 calipers and brakets off erpae for slightly over 200 shipped. c5, c6 and c5 zo6 all use the same caliper with the exception of the zo6 being red. I will do mine in silver or black to keep the stealth look. the remainder of the brake system will come from tobin at kore3

http://www.kore3.com/

in the meantime, its rebuilding the rear and engine in my 79.

thanks again for the kind comments and thoughts.

8/07
Been a bit since I last updated this. Since the last post here is a tid bit on what all has happened and been accomplished.
All body work is completed on the car and was shot in a sealer. House of Kolors does not make the slime green sealer any more do to regulations ( damn environmentalist) so we had to use what they now make and use a gray sealer on top of this in order to use less paint. the gray sealer will be applied after the red sealer is wet sanded at 400. The underside will be shot in gold, subframe fitted and weld prior to the body being painted. I have to decide whether or not I want to put a roll bar in it to comply with certain racing regulations. most like not to comply w/ SCCA as that requires and entire cage. Mainly looking at 4 point like the Year One bandit car. have to check measurements I took for compliance. Hopefully I will be able to do that and compy with SCCA club or vintage racing and open road races such as silver state.
I have picked up some items such as KRE heads, cam, and a nice Aluminum radiator to keep this sukka cool. Engine is being line bored for new 4 bolt caps. A set of C5 calipers to halt this heavy mass as well. without further ado here are some pics of my red car.









While this is being done, I have installed a new 400 in my 79 so I have a car to cruise around town and have fun. thought about taking it to the nats but 3.23 for 600miles one way would be a lot of gas at 12 MPG

12/07

Wanted to update this for a while, the stars in the universe just haven’t lined up for me. As of this point, assembly is taking place starting with the suspension and then the engine and mechanical components and plumbing. The bottom of the car is painted and looks nice. All that time rubbing and scraping the underside has paid off. Too bad this area will only be seen when on a lift. While this all looks nice, some odd issue have come up, the LCA by Global West did not fit, they were off by ¼”. We resolved this by having, instead of ¼” thick thrust washers on the sides of the bushings, 1/8” washers on the outsides and 3/8” washers on the inside. This keeps the geometry in the intended locations. Global West was great working this problem out and shipped the required thrust washers to me within a few days. While there prices maybe slightly higher compared to other similar parts, their customer service is top notch. Another issue I had was the top of the coil over shocks hit on the subframe. Aldan Eagle is correcting this situation by providing me with different shock top and corresponding shorter spring. They picked up the shocks and I am waiting for the news ones. Better they fix it as compressing 650# springs wouldn’t be the easiest of tasks. Again, another stand up company and American made to boot. Other issues include finding bushings to fit vse leaf springs and sway bars which are long out of production. Prothane has a set that will work and are on their way.

I received front and rear brake setup from Kore3. This stuff is car part porn if it ever existed. Even my local machinist was in awe at the quality of the parts. Fit is dead on and all parts are cadmium or zinc coated to prevent rust. Every nut, bolt, washer, ect is included in the kit and will work with any of the corvette brakes from C5 and C6, C6 Z51 and Z06 as long as the caliper assy. matches that of the rotor. Excellent work from Tobin (owner of Kore3)

C5/6 brake interchange
All C5 and base C6 brakes are the same period just caliper color changes for Z06
C6 Z51 brake option will use above calipers , but reuires different caliper brackets
C6 Z06 is all together different. Rotors, pads, calipers and brackets are all different than above.

While suspension issue are being resolved, I cleaned up the chambers in the KRE heads and port match the intake to the heads. A lot of material must be removed from a RPM intake to match the ports of these heads. Air flow shouldn’t be a problem. I have been working on adapting a hydrobooster from an astro van to the car. I basically have to cut down the bracket on the stock booster and lengthen the rod on the hydroboost unit. I will probably have 1 or 2 iterations of the bracket before I am happy with it. I figure if all else fails; I can always call Paul at Hydrotech and get on of his units. Engine build will start this week.

w/o further ado, some pics.

[takid455]

looking towards the rear




looking towards the front


Cadmium plated hardware to prevent rust. I hate rust and 2nd gens love it.
Before