chelle

Hi guys! Nice to see everyone is getting things done on their toys!! I haven't been on much and have been making changes too So who was at Knotts? I saw a few pics and it looks like Mr Washington's tent had quite a few GTO's out front of it I wanted to be there but nothing seemed to work out to make it this year. We made big changes to the red car and Kim's white GTO is also getting a lot of progress. The white car is almost done with a Simpson dash and Vintage air. After that some mods to the nose and Kim wants it red (No more posing with the three in "red white and blue" order *pouting*) We are installing Vintage-Air in both cars. The recess in the firewall on the red car needed big mods to get the vintage air to fit, so we also changed the engine side of the firewall to make room for a new intake. That required doing away with the factory wiper setup and switching to a system with a cable and worm style gears more like the original GTO's had. Finally I'm totally rewiring the red car, with lotsa help from Kim as I hated the huge mass of wiring visible under the dash. I used a painless wiring 12 circuit panel and am trying to do much nicer wire management this time. That said.. here's some pics: The firewall recess looked like this and the engine side like this: so, we removed the dash and wiring/computer/etc.. Removed the nose and wiper motor/fuel and brake lines and cut away the middle of the cowl area Installed the new wiper drive using the stock bases bored out large enough to use them as the mounting brackets for the gear drive bases Then weld in the new section of the firewall inside that clears the A/C, cover that with Dynamat, test fit the A/C with ECU in place, fill in hole where wiring used to come in, cover the rest with Dynamat, make a panel to mount the new fuse panel cable management and terminal blocks to, mount that, etc.. Then pull the AC out and begin the fun of rewiring it Mount and test new wiper motor inside to the left kickpanel And now with the nose back on the car and a little metal welded in the area that was cut out making the recess go up to the bodywork now leaving lots more room for the new intake as well as better access to the back of the engine. I still need to replace the fuel return line and brake lines, but it's getting there!! Next I will modify the left and right sides at the back of the engine compartment to allow the the vents in the hood to bring outside air into the vents inside the passenger compartment..

We're putting a Simpson dash in Kim's white car. I'll be doing some work on it tonight and will try and post some pics late tonight. For this one we are using aftermarket gauges with new faces made to look like the original gauges and the speedometer will be mounted on the floor like an original GTO. It had a homemade dash that looks like Speedracers dash but it was cracking and looking ratty as the original builder made it from foam like 15 years ago. For this car we are also going to make a trunk from aluminum Agentone, we have maybe 2700 hours in the V12 car and more money than I care to think about lol looks like it's coming along nice Espeery! Chelle

I'm surprised this is the first time I've seen one of these.. . looks pretty darn good to me http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=007&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=170157421622&rd=1

nah, not busted, just every once in a while the definitions get revised for the base webfiltering software.. so one update will result in this site being accessible a few weeks, then the next will block it.. at home I have a nice wireless setup, but in our military hospital where I work wireless is strictly a no no.. I am one of the Alpha geeks there, but still have to abide by some of the rules, and everyone, even in the IT department I work in has to deal with the filter, and with my home wireless router being 9 miles away, I'm not connecting to that from the office..

Thanx for the reference Speedracer JM6, you need to add close to 4.5" to make the wheelbase accurate and while that doesn't bring the proportions exactly where they are on the originals it does make a huge difference. To be even more exact you could take 3" out of the roof and doors and add 7.5" in between the doors and the front wheels, and change the angle of the windshield. Most people wouldn't want to try that though.. adding 4.5"" to the front framerails behind the wheels makes a big difference. Stagger_Lee - our window and trunk lid are about 41 3/8th" wide. From front to back the window is 23.5" long, the divider is 2.75" from the window to the trunk and the trunk lid is about 16" to the spoiler. Personally I wouldn't go with the stock glass as by doing that you're denying yourself a lot of rearward visibility. By having the glass or lexan go all the way to the edges of where the hatchback had gone you gain about 6" of width to the rear window.. and rearward visibility is limited in these cars.. Hope this helps, hybridz is blocked at my office so I don't get on as much anymore.. Chelle

looks like a good find.. and it put a smile on my face seeing the pic of a finished car that he used.. Stagger_Lee- you're welcome... an thanx for the kind words.. I'm working on a few things on the car over the winter to give the car a little more "oomph" and agree, sliding windows are one of our upcoming projects as well Chelle

congrats!! can't wait to see!

Mike, I'll be happy to make a donation it's a worthy cause. I know all about magazines editing out things the subject of the article thinks is pretty darn relevant... it's happened to us a few times too. I didn't know this was happening and came across the magazine at Borders the other day. It kinda inspired me to try and rent a tunnel to see how the GTO's fare. Also to be safe, as we have been at around 145-150 in the car already and it has quite a bit more rpms to go - I'd rather know ahead of time if another 20mph would turn it into a sailplane.. Congrats on a great article

Okay, sorry for the slow return... turns out the place I was talking about for the foam is the same stuff just mentioned by boatbum... just a different URL.. http://www.uscomposites.com/foam.html way better than "great stuff" for our purposes and great prices too. Besides the price, the other great thing about this is you can choose the density depending on what you're trying to do. They have it in 2LB, 4LB, 8LB and 16LB densities. They will even sell you a pair of 55 gallon drums if you want enough to say carve out an Enzo from a giant brick of foam... not that I would ever consider such a thing The medium density stuff could even be used to absorb impact in collisions oh, and regarding mclark999's post about moving air under the car, check out the work done by Mikelly posted here: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=121877 They did a lot of great work on the airflow issues, and looks like more is coming. Kinda inspiring me to rent a windtunnel to see how the GTO's compare anyone know if there's a windtunnel in Chicago area?

Not mine, but thought someone here might want this - an ebay seller has a Vela Rosa nose with no reserve for 250 with headlight covers and driving lights http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170166103084 Zerrari, Kim found an online source for the 2 part foam that is a lot cheaper and stronger than anything you can get at West Marine.. I'll ask her for the URL and post it here ASAP.. Mclark, we have had ours well into triple digit speeds and I don't think the headlight covers make a difference. a belly pan under the engine and a front spoiler might reduce some lift but then the engine compartment will hold even more heat Dropping the nose some would help more I'd think. and perhaps something under the back like the F430 has, or this Z car..

TomoHawk, the Bullrun one wasn't a real GTO... it's a Z based one I gotta run to work... very late

NOPERS, the Bullrun car isn't ours.. it's here: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2602375 I'll try and find the original Alpha1 magazine article.. I do have it here someplace.. Sorry I haven't posted again much lately, this is blocked at my work again and at home I just get real busy with stuff.. I'll try to post more though.. Looking in new kit car builder there's an ad for a new Z based car... not to my taste really but it kinda looks like it's got a mildly customized Vela Rossa nose.. anyone see it?

Thank Duke!! The article came out great !! Sorry for slow reply.. been busy a lot lately.. trying to make it ready for a track event Chelle

no one does it - just do like we did - glass it all together and recut it! Chelle

yup, I am pretty sure that I know which car that is, was a ground up on a 250 Ferrari chassis. If it's that one then I tried to buy that car years ago a couple times. There's also similar cat with Corvette suspension that Lynn has which has the aluminum body, but the roof, door structures and windshield are still Z parts. best of luck! Michelle

I always love some of the e-mails I get "Hi, I like your car, please tell me about it and tell me everything it will take to get one just like it." VERY Very rarely do people ask specific questions, like they think I just have a book about it to send them. When there's a phone number I try to get back to them in a lot more timely manner, but I have a job and work on the cars too - really don't spend a lot of time doing e-mails. Chelle

Better to call than e-mail anyway. Speaking from experience it's easy for companies to get lost in flood of flood of incoming mail. Most people have a better chance of getting to me on the phone, and I'm not even a company. Thunder Ranch has been around a long time and they definitely know how to do quality glass work. Also I THINK the Vella Rosa rear clip is available without the convertible rear deck. Best of luck, Michelle

No one I know on Ferrari boards has heard of this either. Speedracer, I have a tired SOHC 4390 cc columbo engine for sale if you really want to try. The F1 engine is kewl, but reserve is likely around $80k missing a lot of parts. The pic posted earlier was of a 250 PF converted to GTO body by Greg Jones in Florida. When Joe Alphabet was selling these he apparently sold ferrari V12's to a few buyers, however my guess is most of those engines eventually found their way out of the cars over time - especially in the 90's when the prices on original F-car stuff began climbing into the stratosphere. I recently saw a fresh rebuilt Columbo engine with 6 carbs available and the price was nearly $100k, worn out but rebuildable 3 carb engines generally go around $20,000

Welcome Z8 builder! We would all love to see pics!!! Have you driven the car with the AZC suspension? impressions? I look forward to seeing and hearing more! Chelle

Thanx Dale! scary huh? lol... it was pretty flattering to have that site ask if we would be willing to help them by letting them take pics.. we JUMPED on the chance.. Not using the Carlisle stuff on this car, but we are going to use their fake webers on our Lamborghini - hoping that those will help with throttle response and get it through emissions. Their website is http://www.dynatekracing.com/fuelinjection.htm For the GTO we're using an intake made by the BMW Guru Henry .. Will try and find my pic of his setup Chelle

woo hoo!!!! This was so fun!!!! we went to all the places from Ferris B's Day Off!! and they wrote an article about it! I was waiting to tell anyone till the site went live http://www.motivemag.com/pub/feature/culture/Ferris_Bueller_s_Day_Back.shtml Chelle

Beautiful work Zerrari!!

Wow 250gto_au, pontiac power!! That's the first pontiac powered z based car I've seen , looks great! Smash, no need to run off totally, keep us updated! I know quite a few P4 replica owners, beautiful cars, which P4 replica you doing? Chelle

Heya guys... I had a humbling experience today... a few days ago a professional took some pics of our car in and around Chicago for something that is coming up - I can't tell ya details yet till the end of July, but the humbling part is seeing how much better a professional is at photos than a rank amateur like me. These are lower res shots..... holding back on more till they put them out - these are essentially just a couple proofs they gave us as a preview Chelle

Thanx Smash and all Carscoop took the three videos and made a nice 34 second compilation of them... much better than I could do (I know nothing about editing video) Anyway - ya can see and hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2KN1gqZWc Chelle