project inspiration

[sciroccohp]

Throwing away a Rabbit shell may not be a big deal,

I am offended!

[Mopar 151w2]

You may own the exception! John got that car from his minister, it's the cleanest "native" shell i've seen. My late Dad, a "VW for Life" kind of guy, said at the time "Washed in Holy Water, every 3 days!!"

[Challenger392]

Ya this project is kinda a long term thing. I'm hoping to get a mustang that I have ready for next year as a learner car. As long as it not too rusty. A good throw away car to develop my fabrication, tuning, and driving skills before I attempt to make my challenger a race car. My vision for the Challenger is to eventually be a highly modified race car that is still barely street able. Though I'd like to run I in stock form (318, 3 speed auto, drum brakes, no sway bars) at least once to establish a (slow) benchmark, to be able to show progress from.

[Mopar 151w2]

Best as I can tell, the preimum for street legality starts at around $20000-. Operating cost rises significantly, as well, unless you change tires and engine tune from race to street.

[Mopar 151w2]

If you want to do something like Glenn's "Challenger", there is some pretty cool stuff around.
The whole show at http://www.showcars-bodyparts.com/info.html

The trouble with building up a car in stages, is that you end up cutting up/throwing away/selling off a couple of cars worth of parts on the way to the Ultimate.

This is a "Camaro" GT1 car, built on a Port City chassis, it could assume many identities with a re-skin

[Challenger392]

I think if I put a cage in it and do some good structural reinforcement I could have a good solid hill climb racer. Im not necisarrily looking to build the worlds fastest challenger or to post the fastest times. My main goal is to just have fun making my old car something truely unique in the muscle car would, where every one and his brother has a sub 10 second vintage drag car, I love the idea of having a race preped muscle car. Also I already have 2 dodge challengers and barely enough time for those so adding a full tube steel racer car to the mix would take time and effort away from all my other time investments (wife, work, 2 challengers, motorcycle, 2 winter vehicles). I think the first thing is to fix some small rust spots that formed under the vinyl top it used to have, then work from there.

[Mopar 151w2]

Nothing wrong with that plan! Mopar Action has a lot of info on whar you want to do, from their "Green Brick" buildup and other articles - like their junkyard disc brake conversion, and various structural upgrades. One of the vulnerabilities of the Mopar unibody is the lower floor/firewall seam - I know of at least 2 failed hillclimb projects from this issue. There is/was a brutally fast, W5 engined E body around here (Frank ??? - mostly a COM car) that was being patched after spot-weld failures - but the guy was talking about liltening to them "pop" in NASCAR Turn 1 at Loudon.
I've got engine stuff for you - the availability of stroker cranks for the LA engine has really revived them as a good performance engine - with one of the blocks I have stashed, the 4" stroker makes 416 c.i..

[Challenger392]

Rule 1: Never hillclimb a car you can't afford to write off! If its a family heirloom-or a numbers matching Plum Crazy 4 speed Hemi ragtop-find something else. As a matter of fact, a "learner car" isn't a bad idea to begin with. There are a few already proven cars out there for sale. It would shorten up the learning curve a bunch. When you finish with your project, you will already have seat time -and can concentrate on sorting the car out-and resell your 1st car. I know of a caged VW Golf that would fit the bill nicely...

Would this make a good "learner car"? It would need to have at least a clothsline bar added if not a full front roll bar. It would be pretty slow with that vw engine but that develops driver skill better anyways.

http://burlington.craigslist.org/cto/3303236919.html

[sdwarf36]

That thing would rock! Bet its a killer autocross car too.

[Rabbit Farmer]

Inexpensive....

http://burlington.craigslist.org/cto/3296694794.html