dang thats sweet vall..its sure coming along quickly! can't wait to see it. gotta stop by sometime and check it out..would you need to do many mods to the jag coilovers to make em fit?

 

Jag coil overs sound perfect. Thats how gassers a supposed to be built. Out of other cars not out of cataloges. Great idea.

 

Nothing is a direct fit on a car like mine! Everything needs to be fabricated, but I can use Jag shocks just as they are with whatever mounts I can fabricate to put them between the axle and frame. I plan on using some prefabbed mounts from Speedway that have 5-6 holes vertically, so once I set the stance at the middle hole I can adjust it up or down in 1" incrments by moving the shock mount up or down.
I'm setting the engine on the engine stand this weekend and mocking up the "fat fender" Chevy fenderwell headers so I can measure them up to see how much frame reworking I need to do to clear the frame and get the engine in. As you might notice in the side pics the frame get prtetty wide as it meets the firewall. Almost 12" tall, and I'll probably have to trim away about half of that and box it in. Then once the engine and firewall are in I'll weld up a bolt-in brace that goes from the top of the firewall to the end of the frame horns to brace the car when it lands hard.

 

Thanks Damon! This one is a little of both new and used, but I hope to keep my budget build under $10k including the original purchase price, and paint. Hope to make this my first attempt at a complete paint job, but if I screw it up I'll have the guy who painted my Camaro fix my work later.
I wanted to use a donor straight axle up front, but with the narrow body I was stuck buying a new one and still had to chop it 5" to fit.

 

Well those are hard to come buy now days. But in the way your going about it is right in my mind. Make what ever you can buy only what you need.

 

Might be a change of plans on the shocks. Finding a Jag rearend that someone wants to separate the coilovers is tough! But I discovered that Toyota Tacoma and Tundra trucks use coilovers on their frontends!
Found a fairly new set of them locally for a very decent price. (got rears too!) If they'll hold up the front of a truck, they should work for the rear of my little Austin!

 

Pulled the old 8 hp flathead 4 cyl. and cut the firewall out. Stripped all the brackets off the frame and mocked up the headers to see if I need to disect the frame to clear the fenderwell headers. Looks like I might, but I'll wait until I drop the 327 in to see how much.
Made a trip to the U-Pull It for a Mazda PU truck steering box. They sit outside the frame, so that will help keep the engine clearances good! $35 is also way cheaper than a Vega box!

Old 4 banger:


Freshly cut firewall. Need to recess it too for engine setback:


Header mockup:

 

Lookin good. Do you know much about the stock Austins, like why they kicked the frame over to the side like that?

 

I've had a few friends who owned and built A40's, but those are the next generation after mine and have a regular frame with body bushing mounts. Really not sure why this generation chose to use a peripheral frame on the body. It's definitely stout, and has multiple crossmembers, and X members aound the tranny and back by the rear axle.
I'll be adding a couple more as the new engine/trans, and ladder bar suspension go in to hang everything. It will add some weight, but it's light enough to not be an issue.

 

Camaros been on hold while i found a DD, and now im gunna have a few things to do to that, 95 silverado 9 inches of lift, then its back to the 79 =]