Kevin
Well-known member
- May 5, 2021
- 463
- 448
im going to try and redo my build thread that i started on here in 2008. I got the car running in 2012, and i pulled it apart in early 2020 to swap to ls power and then the world shut down, and that with some other personal factors i lost interest in glamis and the car. new years 2022 though i got the car up on stands and started working on it again. its seeing some major changes which i will try and chronicle here.
at the time a decent transaxle wasnt attainable for me so i thought i could make a mid engine deal work with a auto trans and a 9 inch diff with some cv stubs. the plan was pretty ambitious as i wanted to get it done in a year... it took 4. Looking back i could have gone with a s4hd mendi transaxle with what i ultimately spent on the drive train i ended up with. i tried 2 different 9 inch center options and neither was a good choice. I ended up talking with jeff at transaxle engineering about doing a quick change diff which is the way i went. Johnny Burns has recently upgraded it for me with billet side covers. ive broke it twice before this. i am running a powerglide from mikes transmissions, and its been good aside from damage i caused from a mount issue. i originally powered the car with a 406 small block chevy with 13:1 comp on e85. it ran good considering the car is a heavy bitch at 3300lbs. i thought the car handled decent enough, but once i drove @Grease Monkey G52 for a day i found out how shitty my car really was. I also drove my brother desert dynamics and his was far better than mine so i knew changes had to made to make it better.
so the changes im making are adding a rear sway bar, changing from the old school small block to a twin turbo LS, moving weight around to make the car more like a rear engine biased car as i felt the front was too heavy and turning at any speed below 60 mph was shitty at best. I am adding a windshield and redoing the body and roof. an updated front bulkhead is also happening and i will be painting it and calling it done.
here's the beginning on the jig at dave's shop. I got my chassis from dave in a month start to finish on the jig. which i was told was unheard of. i would randomly show up (3 times a week) to see progress and dave couldn't hide chit from me.
once i got it home, my part started.
i got floor tabs welded on and started mocking stuff up trying to figure out where to put everything.
It was at this time i figured out the a 3spd wasnt going to work as its too long, so i bought a shorty powerglide.
the first try at building a 9inch center for irs. at the time i couldt find a company that was willing to make stub axles, so i found the cast aluminum housing with stub axles already and tried that setup. Ultimately i found the 9nch deal was just too wide to get any reasonalbe cv angles for suspension travel. plus the offset of the pinion complicated that even more. so i went with the transaxle diff section from their auto transaxle.
i had some sheetmetal put on it. roof, side panels, dash and hood.
had pete (lovesdunes) do sme phtochop to get an idea of colors at the time..
this idea ended up being terrible when i had to replace the battery.. i had to remove the seats and pull the firewall to get to it.
first trip to the dunes in dec 2012
rail first trip 007.MOV
rail first trip 011.MOV
once i got it running, i broke the coupler form the trans to the diff several times. apparently htere was chassis/mountinf flex happeneing. so a re design was in order. my brother @Davyjones drew up some parts and had them machined then we re did the trans diff mount. its been solid ever since.
what we ended up with..
the new billet side covers johnny did for me.
killed the paddles finally
got a new set of 38 dominators in 2019.
the last change i made before taking it apart was to build full exhaust for it as the short open headers were getting annoying when i drove the car.
me and my brother @Davyjones in nov 2018 after he picked up his desert dynamics.
at the time a decent transaxle wasnt attainable for me so i thought i could make a mid engine deal work with a auto trans and a 9 inch diff with some cv stubs. the plan was pretty ambitious as i wanted to get it done in a year... it took 4. Looking back i could have gone with a s4hd mendi transaxle with what i ultimately spent on the drive train i ended up with. i tried 2 different 9 inch center options and neither was a good choice. I ended up talking with jeff at transaxle engineering about doing a quick change diff which is the way i went. Johnny Burns has recently upgraded it for me with billet side covers. ive broke it twice before this. i am running a powerglide from mikes transmissions, and its been good aside from damage i caused from a mount issue. i originally powered the car with a 406 small block chevy with 13:1 comp on e85. it ran good considering the car is a heavy bitch at 3300lbs. i thought the car handled decent enough, but once i drove @Grease Monkey G52 for a day i found out how shitty my car really was. I also drove my brother desert dynamics and his was far better than mine so i knew changes had to made to make it better.
so the changes im making are adding a rear sway bar, changing from the old school small block to a twin turbo LS, moving weight around to make the car more like a rear engine biased car as i felt the front was too heavy and turning at any speed below 60 mph was shitty at best. I am adding a windshield and redoing the body and roof. an updated front bulkhead is also happening and i will be painting it and calling it done.
here's the beginning on the jig at dave's shop. I got my chassis from dave in a month start to finish on the jig. which i was told was unheard of. i would randomly show up (3 times a week) to see progress and dave couldn't hide chit from me.
once i got it home, my part started.
i got floor tabs welded on and started mocking stuff up trying to figure out where to put everything.
It was at this time i figured out the a 3spd wasnt going to work as its too long, so i bought a shorty powerglide.
the first try at building a 9inch center for irs. at the time i couldt find a company that was willing to make stub axles, so i found the cast aluminum housing with stub axles already and tried that setup. Ultimately i found the 9nch deal was just too wide to get any reasonalbe cv angles for suspension travel. plus the offset of the pinion complicated that even more. so i went with the transaxle diff section from their auto transaxle.
i had some sheetmetal put on it. roof, side panels, dash and hood.
had pete (lovesdunes) do sme phtochop to get an idea of colors at the time..
this idea ended up being terrible when i had to replace the battery.. i had to remove the seats and pull the firewall to get to it.
first trip to the dunes in dec 2012
rail first trip 007.MOV
rail first trip 011.MOV
once i got it running, i broke the coupler form the trans to the diff several times. apparently htere was chassis/mountinf flex happeneing. so a re design was in order. my brother @Davyjones drew up some parts and had them machined then we re did the trans diff mount. its been solid ever since.
what we ended up with..
the new billet side covers johnny did for me.
killed the paddles finally
got a new set of 38 dominators in 2019.
the last change i made before taking it apart was to build full exhaust for it as the short open headers were getting annoying when i drove the car.
me and my brother @Davyjones in nov 2018 after he picked up his desert dynamics.
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