Been working on my 71 since 1990..was originally a 6 banger...I bought it from a guy who was trying to make a 396 clone..had new paint and a glass cowl hood. paint hid a bunch of bondo and cancer...a long story short when i had time i didn't have $$$ and when I had $$$ i didn't have time..

has been extensively modified, t-tops off of an 80 berlineta...widdened the rear quarters 6 inchs outward...can fit a tire near 18" wide under the fender...since we wedged the back, we had to wedge the doors and front fenders as well...

we are currently working on the fire wall, they hacked the firewall and welded in a plate over it..we are going back with a heater only with the offset core...


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pics of the firewall

I had a local guy mod the front fenders to match up to the doors as well.

our next step after the firewall is to take it back down and reprimer everything, feather in the doors to paint and install the door gaskets so as to get the door to seal correctly then work on getting the rear quarters aligned corecttly to the doors...may take a while...

the mods so far are;

75 chrysler 9 1/4 inch aubrun limited slip 2.56 gears, full rebuild...with disk brakes
subframe connectors
PST body mounts, grade 8 bolts
full welded body
manual steering box
all new front suspension with PST upper and lower bushings
Olds wagon front rotor upgrade
small power brake booster/stainless brake lines and braided flex lines
2 - gph 110 fuel pumps with canister filters and return lines
remote mounted twin oil filters
pst motor mounts

.30 over 4 bolt 454, standard forged steel crank, full studs
fluiddamper
7/16 rods arp bolts
balanced
forged trw pistons 9.66 ratio...
open chamber oval port 781 heads stainless 2.3 intake 1.88 exhaust hardedned seats and guides with dual comp cams springs/retainers
roller rockers
comp cams 270/276 hyd roller
billet front cover
hamburger 10 quart oil pan
MSDAL Heiadapter kit and blaster coil
hedman headers
tremec tko 600
mclead bell housing

We had it trial fitted together and runing back in August to see how it behaves...the Tremec is a hell of a tranny...barely idleing in 5th at 1500 we were doing nearly 70...I nailed it doing 1500 in 3rd and smoked the rear tires and pinged the limiter at 4500rpms...

took it back down to try and get it looking good...also to install roll bar....

more to come......

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I like it, It has to be extremely wide though. And how did you strenghten the body for the T-Tops? or didnt you? I dont know if you need to or not but just wondering. How much money do you have into this beast so far... If you dont mind. Its cool though, keep up the good work.

 

We added a scab patchof metal the width of the rear section of the t-top to the underside of each of the seam areas. the body guy also added some formed metal inside of the roof/windsheild pillers in the front and added some metal to the outside of the front roof pillars on the interior side. I am also fabricating some frameconnectors that go from the bottom center of the front frame to either side of the trailing frame arms. (the trans ams had these braces, but they don't clear my headers...). when we did the trial build/run, I feared that we were going to have body flex problems because of the T-top. but we didn't. However I'm still contimplating installing a cage...or at least a rear bar.

The door, t-topand rear quarter work was done on a swap basis, built and installed several BBC & SBCengines and worked out mechanical problems in my body guys shop projects...(I rebuilt the 396 (I sleeved one cylinder and did a bearing/ ring job) and went through the t-400 that was in it and installed it into mybody guys 69 short wide show truck, he provided all the chrome...buit a 427, a 454 and a 400 for him, labor only he provided the parts....)
The front fender work ran $2000....but did require a lot of hand forming...

It's kinda been a money pit...but much of the labor was swap...the most costly by far was the TREMEC...but I just wasn't happy with an auto...

the axle is out of a 75 chrysler imperial disc brake rear, got it, the auburn unit and a rebuild kit for helping a guy build, convert and install a 454 BBC with an NV4500 5 speed into a 1 ton dual 4x4..

Worked at a salvage yard on weekends for the t-top and 2 sets of tops...

In outta pocket money I have probably $10,000 for partsI had to buy..I still need proabably $5,000 in parts...labor wise, who knows...

And it's slowly turning into a father son project. I get alot of help from my 21 year old son who's an aspiring body man and my 12 year old who's my head wrench runner...

 

Fire wall opening for heater box

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Next is rear inner fender well welding.....