BIG A

Sorry no pics today as there wasnt much to photograph. Got my diff back late today which meant I couldnt get it under the car and I got the steel for the chassis and started cutting it up to measure. Tack welded the rear chassis in place so I could get it squared away till next time.

more welding done today and got one of my rear rails tacked up will get some steel for the rest of the chassis tomorrow as I only have one more day to work on the ol girl I will have to pull finger and get some more of the major stuff done.

Welded up the front flares took some time to do as I had to wait for the metal to cool down before I could weld some more or the metal would shrink. Finally got my rear rails back from the engineer and got some 3mm steel and tack welded it up and got this little baby all sorted. Only got the other side to do tomorrow.

Send me a PM I think I will have to get them outa the rubbish bin but they are still good.

Cracked me up when I read that, it would have been a fairly long side exhaust then. The side exhaust will exit just before the rear wheel arch just in case you couldnt see the black felt pen I put on the side. Still waiting on my damn diff to get sortened, bloody engineer said today and now it will be ready thursday, bloody better be a good job if it is taking this long. GRRRR!!!

Used the same template for the flares on the front and they left heaps of room for when I modify the front.

Just updated the pix have managed to do a tinass on my flares for the rear and get them out of one piece of metal, skillfully crafted by hand and they look awesome(if I do say so myself) tacked on the back of the car.

Started trying to be a bit technical on the flares and was trying to get the overall shape worked out. Then decided to whip this baby up instead, tacked it in place instead of using the duct tape I had on it before. Chucked the rear hatch on to see how the whole things looked and almost creamed myself once I saw how good it came out. Even my dad was impressed and that says a lot considering the work he has done on his cars. If you look just over the back you will see his mini roadster.

I am using gx81 front struts and they will have strut bags attached at a later date when I can afford the air bag set up, so yes it is five stud pattern as depicted in the photos of the five stud wheels. I have left the strut towers as they are but have changed the inner wheel arch to accomodate the wheels, dont worry I have already checked this out and done a mock up of the front to get this sorted. I am not chnaging the front end as there is no need to, plus if I was going to do that I would make up a whole chassis instead of the firewall ball one that I am in the process of building. Trust me once you see what I am going to do with the engine bay you will be blown away as it will way different to anything that is currently in NZ and will hopefully bring in some awards when I have the old girl all finished. Just to let you know I have researched the hell out of what I am doing and all of the modifications and what I am doing is the easier way of doing it from what I had originally intended to do. I dont really want to take short cuts then I want get the quality that I am after, hence me doing a majority of the work and not paying someone else to do it for me. Thanks for some of your suggestions and ideas it is always good to see people interested in what I am doing and it is always hard to interperet someone elses ideas, you just need to go over some of the comments made in this post and you can see everyone has a different idea of doing things. Cheers. Big A

progress has slowed due to the engineer saying that it would take a day to narrow the diff, go back a day and a half later and the diff is still sitting in the same place I put it. Diff will be ready by tuesday/wednesday next week and I also have him making the outers of my chassis rails out of 3mm plate steel. I decided to go for a more flowing lines on the rear kick up section of the chassis so instead of making it out of rect section tube I have opted to get the sides plazma cut and then tig all four bits for extra strenght and looks.

Look magic no door handles or keyholes Found some nasty rust that had to be dealt with. Passengers side front wheel tubs half way done.

No need to be sorry I was just saying to my dad how people read what they want to read on the forums and dont read what has been put at the start of the post. You are not the first person to ask a question without fully reading the post.

These wheels are cool what I was originally going to do for my car. They are called Konig Netz you can get them in grey. black or chrome centres.

See above in regards to your comments on steering, clearance wise I am gonna have to modify the guards as the 20x10inch wheels only just squeeze under and the 18's will rub if I dont change the pitch in the arch. Maybe when I have finished I could go over to Auz and take it on the show circuit as I intend on doing that here when the car is complete.

I am actually cutting all of the floor our due to the fact that it has to much cancer to fix. I will be making up a rectangular tube chassis from the firewall back, so there is quite a bit of work involved. You obviously didnt read what mods I will be doing to the car as I will be putting in air suspension to get the body dropped nearly to the ground.

hopefully everyone likes the new pics. Nothing like a bit of car porn to get the blood pumping.

Have been very busy in the last three days. Cut out both sides of the rear end to get the ride and drop hieght sorted. These pics dont show the true dropped hieght but I will get a photo of that tomorrow so you can drool over it. Basically it leaves 40mm clearance between the bottom sill and the ground. In this pic I have welded up the drivers side front tub as I had to modify to get the ride hieght correct, wasnt low enough, damn those 18inch wheels. Currently waiting for my diff to come back from the engineers a little bit shorter than when it went in. Will update more pics tomorrow.

Ha ha had a funny start to my working week on the car, realised dad had got the wrong mags and then found he got the wrong lower arms for my suspension. I think he is losing it.

Well today has been my first day of two weeks working on the car in Wanganui and I have managed to cut the right front inner guard out to make room for the 18inch wheels. Took a look at the wheels and relised my dad had ordered the wrong ones, he got the chrome lip instead of the machined lip(Dork). Started cutting out the right rear tub but will have to finished it of tomorrow due to needing to put in some structural support before I go any further. Took out the diff which is going to Mike and his TA27 and got the ride hieght almost sorted before I had to pack up. Will post pics as soon as I download them off the camera. Pics as promised.

Just finished doing the second model showing the new front (keeping the front bumper as requested) and I havent gone into the same detail as I did with the first. The only thing left to do is put some guaze in the front opening and it is complete.

I have had so many people asking me about my car lately and I am waiting till the last two weeks of Jan 2010 to fly down to Wangavegas to do some more work on the old girl. I will post heaps of pics when I come back as I intend to get a shit load of work done while I am there. Possible looking at doing some 10 hour+ days to get a lot of the stuff done that I want to gewt done but it will be well worth it. Geez I am like an excited kid waiting for Xmas...how sad is that.

Counting down the days till I get to go and do some more work to the car in Wangavegas...only 6 more weeks. Just thought I better post up another pic I forgot I had. This is the dash that I have to try and fit in the car. Gonna be some cutting and moulding going on but it will all be covered in leather so you wont even know where it has been changed. (hopefully) In case you didnt know tha dash is out of a facelift Mazda 6

Is it definately locked in for the 16th as I missed last years one due to Kumeu being on at the same time?

Whens the next meet as I missed the last one due to holiday in Hawaii?

I would be keen on that, I did the karts out at Silverdale last weekend but my big weight slowed them down and my hips are still sore from trying to squeeze into those little seats. Do they have karts for giants?