SRT-8 Daytona Clone

[Indygenerallee]

Keep those pics coming Steve.. I like the boring pics!! 

[Stevearino]

Well I can stop pretending that the gas hole in the side of the car didn't bother me as much as it bothered everybody else. Never let it be said that peer pressure can't be a positive thing. I got to looking at it this morning and a gas line route dawned on me. Not ideal but better than a gas hole in the side of quarter panel. I decided to move it to the top of the quarter where it will be less offensive. To do this I will have to cut the filler neck as high as possible and run the fuel line through the inside of the trunk an back out the side of the wheel hole in front of the shock location. I had to cut out a mount for some electronic doohickey that was mounted right below the gas hole so I will have to relocate that and then come up with a removable shield to protect the gas filler line from anything that might get thrown into the trunk.

[Baldwinvette77]

HAHAHAHA, i was the same way with my grille  

so.. how long until you go back to the stock fuel door?   just kidding XD

OH and to be honest that does actually look really good there 

[Indygenerallee]

  I think that's for the best, won't break up the lines of the car, looks a lot better now! 

[Stevearino]

Well I hope everyone here had a wonderful Christmas. I had some other pics pertaining to the recently remounted gas filler but I figured I would wait till after Christmas to post. 
In moving the gas fill to the top of the quarter I had to compromise the trunk space in order to re route the fill tube to the forward mounted tank. I did this by first drilling my destination hole through the side wall of the inner wheel tub. I then took a wooden dowel and torqued the hole over so that the hose would not have to bend to get through. The silicone hose I used does not like bending at all. Tends to flatten out. I cut the steel fill tube as far down as I could so the silicone hose would gently arc into it.

[Stevearino]

Finally here is a picture of the complete hook up to the fill inlet. I had to segment the a curve in the existing steel fill tube because like I said the silicone tube did not want to bend very well. I ran the vapor recovery line up and over and through a rubber grommet into the vent line coming out of the tank. Right now with cutting the fill up as high as I could and getting the hose through the wheel tub as low as I could to transition into the tank tube everything is about level. One more reason to put a lot of front to rear rake in this car.
There is a neat piece that finishes out the trunk that will now have to be modified to make room for all of this stuff in the trunk.

[Bob T]

Good plan and execution  
Y'know, everytime I see my father in laws 2006 Porsche with the filler cap oddly mounted on the front fender side, I cant believe that for all the millions of development dollars spent that it still ended up there.

Great to see your car taking shape, thanks for the regular updates.

[Stevearino]

Good plan and execution 
Y'know, everytime I see my father in laws 2006 Porsche with the filler cap oddly mounted on the front fender side, I cant believe that for all the millions of development dollars spent that it still ended up there.

Great to see your car taking shape, thanks for the regular updates.

Thanks Bob. I definitely don't have the resources of Porshe but I do what I can.

[cdr]

looks very nice. 

[Baldwinvette77]

Man, fuel system and wiper system are complete, should be on the road and day now  if your plan is anything like mine, those are 2 of the last things on my list 

[Stevearino]

Man, fuel system and wiper system are complete, should be on the road and day now  if your plan is anything like mine, those are 2 of the last things on my list 

I currently have a ton of mechanical stuff to replace from the original collision the SRT was in so not so soon. Then I have to finish all of the closure work in and around the back of the car. Lot's to go.

[Baldwinvette77]

Man, fuel system and wiper system are complete, should be on the road and day now  if your plan is anything like mine, those are 2 of the last things on my list 

I currently have a ton of mechanical stuff to replace from the original collision the SRT was in so not so soon. Then I have to finish all of the closure work in and around the back of the car. Lot's to go.

I know... but it's fun to dream 

[Homerr]

Getting there!

[Stevearino]

Getting there!

[Stevearino]

When it came time to mend the inner wheel house to the body I decided to take a different route than would normally be done on a street car. I decided instead of steel tubs that I would crush panel it with .040 aluminum. This provides an easy custom closure.
First I installed a 1"x 1" flange on the spot weld flange of the inner wheel house. ( the pictures are looking rearward in the driver side rear wheel house)
Next I made up a steel pattern base with pre drilled rivet holes to provide a rigid base.
To this base I added my paper patterns out to the body to get the contour  over the curve.
The last picture in this series shows the completed pattern out of the car ready to transfer to the aluminum.

[Stevearino]

Copying the pattern on to a piece of .040 pre painted satin aluminum I made the finish crush panel.
While the pattern was taken tight to the body I turned the outer lip down to help the panel gap slightly away from the body and provide an area for a silicone bead.
Next I installed the crush panel applying silicone behind all riveted areas to prevent the panels from loosening  and  finally applying a bead between the panel and the outer body to secure it and provide a cushion between the panel and the body.
I repeated the process for the forward section of the wheel housing.

[Stevearino]

The LX chassis has plastic inner wheel house covers that protect the fuel lines and other things mounted in the wheel house from road debris. I wanted to adapt and reuse these covers so after slightly modifying them to pop inside of the 68 body I had to create an attachment to the outer body. I first made up an inner rim to fit the wheel opening. I bent a piece of .040  90 degrees and shaped it to fit inside the wheel opening. After it was shaped I put a 1/4" step in it to receive a flat vertical flange. Temporarily installing the plastic inner cover I made a paper pattern for the vertical flange. The last picture is of the completed 2 piece flange.

[Stevearino]

With the vertical flange temporarily installed I bent some sheet metal 90 degrees and made a pattern that would help me make a flange for the outer rim of the plastic cover to bolt to. The second picture is of the completed flange with 1/4 20 aluminum threaded inserts  in it to receive the bolts. The last two pictures are of the plastic wheel house cover installed. Instead of using the one way push in plastic clips I installed threaded aluminum inserts at the attachment points so that I could bolt this piece in.

[Indygenerallee]

Looks really good Steve, really like the fact you added the stock LX Charger inner fender back in there! Looks slick!!

[Baldwinvette77]

Nice, i was gonna do something similar too 

[Stevearino]

Well I finished up the right side wheel hole and I decided to get up off of the floor for a little bit. There are a number things I needed to work out relative to the hood. The first was locating the gas pistons and seeing if the ones that came on the LX would work . Using some 2"x 2" square stock I made to stand offs from the inner engine compartment. The 70 hood is much narrower than the LX hood so I had to bring the piston pick up points in about 4". I plated the ends of the 2x2 with 3/16th steel and tapped it .This allowed me to screw the pick up balls right in to the ends. The inner walls of the engine compartment were not very strong and wanted to give a little when I loaded the gas pistons while closing the hood so I mad some aluminum brackets to triangulate the stand offs. This did the trick pretty well. On the right side there were a few things I had to clearance to get the piston to lay down. In the picture with the hood frame down you can see how the piston lays in. The upper piston pick up point was cut off the hinge flange and tacked into place on the hood frame. Right now without the weight of the skin the frame wants to pop up so I think they will work well.

[Stevearino]

I was happy to be able to modify and re use the shock tower stiffening bar. I just had to cut the bottom of it down so that it would sit down deeper in the engine bay. I plated the ends with 3/16" steel and put some weld nuts on the top side so that I could bolt it from the bottom up. Once the fender is on this area won't be accessible to bolt from the top down as was stock.
The radiator overflow tank and the power steering reservoir presented some problems in their stock location. The radiator cap was going to hit the hood so I had to cut away the mounting brackets and fabricate new ones that would let me slide it down and inboard a bit. The fill cap on the power steering reservoir was going to be halfway under the left front fender so I moved it inboard a bit to clear.
The last picture shows how everything there relates to the edge of the hood frame.

[Baldwinvette77]

Ultra lightweight hood is it?  a little impractical, but it would be cool to have a plexiglass charger hood to display the engine bay... Mmmm straight out of a hotwheels collection 

[tan top]

 clever fabrication stuff going on , nice work 

[tsmithae]

I really like the finish of the wheel wells!