March Newsletter
February 2011 already and we’ve had news of another Christchurch earth quake, the news is devastating and they just don’t seem to be able to get a break down there. I guess all we can do from the outside is to offer any assistance/donations where possible.
Since our last update in August last year the race season has started and all the car shows, rod runs etc are in full swing and work has been busy with a huge variety of cars coming through the doors, from Formula First’s to Trans-Ams and a 1938 Buick to a 1966 Pontiac.
Gary and Tina Walker from Matamatas Quad-Stang is coming along nicely although probably not as fast as they would have liked due to my work load. The Vintage Air heater-box/AC unit has been installed and plumbed to the firewall. The fuel system is all but done with dual EFI fuel pumps, filter and custom surge tank all fabbed, mounted and plumbed in. The lines front to rear have been run and the new fuel sender unit has been modified as required. The custom twin 2.5inch exhaust system is finished, there was a lot of work in this with tight clearances around the 6 speed trans and wanting to run a decent size balance pipe. Also with the 5-link rear end and a low desired ride height getting the tailpipes, that size, right to the back was also a bit of a mission but they have come out great.
The Sparco seats have been mounted, this also was a bit of work as the customers wanted to get them as low as possible. Gary and Tina wanted a floor-mount handbrake between the seat and the console so we’ve done that also. We have converted the rear brakes to Wilwood Discs and up-spec’d the calipers to match the front calipers. And lastly we have just finished the handbrake cable mechanism to connect the floor mount lever to the disc rear-end. Again with large tailpipes and a low 5-link rear-end this proved to be a bit of a mission, but its done, with cable adjusters and ratio adjustments as required.
Next will be fitting a new engine plenum (air intake) that has just been released in Australia, it’s way cool as the attached pics show, so from there we will be using a twin throttle body then fabricate an air intake. Next we will be sorting through seat belt types and their respective anchorages and going through the rear suspension. This suspension was “bolted-in” (before the car came to us) as a kit from the States and is far from ideal, it would probably be fine for drag racing and running on nice smooth California highways but would be tragic on our NZ roads. We will be putting solid chassis spacers in where there are none and installing some more compliant arm bushings/rod-ends to cure this.
