My #71 K&K Daytona race tribute

[Indygenerallee]

Well I figured I better start a thread on building my Daytona! I have been starting to work on the car even more these past three weeks and today I received my tires and rims, I also ordered a 10 point roll cage from S&W race cars and I will still have to pick up some extra tubing for the engine bay cage extension.
The rims are Wheel Vintiques 12 Series Bare Smoothie Wheel 15"x10" with a 4.5" backspacing and the tires are Cooper Cobra GT 275/60/15's I mounted a rim first and it cleared everything, mounted the tire on the rim (had to do the old starting fluid trick to get the bead seated!) and mounted it back on the spindle and installed the fender after removing the brace above the tire. All in all I am very happy with the way it looks, have to cut and flare the fender wheel opening now. going to weld in the other lug holes for the 4.75" bolt pattern and then have them blasted then powder coated gloss black. I also found a super cool plastic lettering place http://tredwearletters.com/ and they have the Goodyear billboards and I will run those as well.



IMAG1953 by

[url=https://flic.kr/p/p4Mc28]IMAG1952 by

[url=https://flic.kr/p/oMyjmY]IMAG1951 by

[url=https://flic.kr/p/p53oZR]IMAG1949 by

[url=https://flic.kr/p/p51tvA]IMAG1948 by

[Stevearino]

Bout time.

[hemi68charger]

... have to cut and flare the fender wheel opening now.

Whew.... I was hoping you'd say that. I have difficulties with the 15x8 Bart '72 Grand National with a 4.0" backspacing on the front of my Daytona. If I'm not careful, I rub the wheel lip molding........ Which, isn't good.......

[tan top]

    awesome build , you  have going on !!  , looking forward to seeing  more progress pictures & atuff  , as & when 

[Mike DC]

  
You may be able to get those tires under the fenders but that doesn't necessarily prove they clear.  See if you can move the steering and the suspension travel through their full ranges at the same time.  I'll betcha it doesn't clear the subframe rail behind the front suspension when the wheel is steered outwards.  



Truth is, the real NASCAR Daytonas were seriously altered make their lowered stance & huge tires possible.  The entire car was cut apart & reconstructed around the change. 

They basically opened the car up like a plastic model kit and re-mounted the roof/sides lower on the undercarriage.   When they were finished the floor & roof were a few inches closer together than stock.  The firewall was shorter in height.

They also built the raked stance into the body during all this.  The outer skin was nosed-down a few degrees while the undercarriage was still flat. 

[Indygenerallee]

Mike, yes I checked and they clear, I have studied every picture of every race Daytona I could find and I know quite a bit from researching and asking questions (been looking at all the things they have changed for over two years)

Well I got a little more done tonight I removed the inner fenders (friggin' nightmare when it's 100 degrees plus in the shop) I have to go buy several sawzall blades tomorrow and I am going to cut down the upper control arm mounts to the Nascar spec, also going to cut the firewall out and make a new one since the Nascar modified one was moved back about 3 inches due to presumably moving the engine and trans back for better weight distribution. Hopefully my cage comes this next week and I can start installing it. lots to do but if it were easy everyone would do it! (Also bought some killer vintage Nascar decals for it off Ebay just need 6 more of the Monroe shock decals!)   (also if anyone knows of any vintage style rear axle coolers and a set of A body hood hinges for sale let me know!)

IMAG1955 by

[url=https://flic.kr/p/p613co]IMAG1956 by

[Stevearino]

Here is a tool that can make the fender rolling process a little easier. The cheapest one is just $129.00. Also if you don't already know leave enough metal when you cut the radius so that when you stretch the edge there will be enough to reach out over the tire and ideally have about 1/2 " of metal to fold back under to create a soft edge.


http://search.eastwood.com/search?w=fender%20rolling%20tool

[Indygenerallee]

Steve, Yeah I have had my eye on buying one of those for a long time, I was just wondering how well it would work because that #71 has a huge flare at the top of the fender (not like the Owens built cars with a smaller flare) and I was not for sure if the metal would stretch that far, my plan was to cut vertical cuts on the top lip of the fender and then pull it out and then weld "pie" filler pieces in.

[TheAutoArchaeologist]

Looks like an awesome project.  If you do need any more pics of the original 71 car.  I was recently pushing it around, and I do mean pushing... after running it out of gas.





Ryan

[Indygenerallee]

Ryan, Yeah I could stare at that car all day!!   (although I am going with the first version with the fatter #71's and DAYTONA on the tail stripe need to find more pics of that car)

[Mike DC]

 
Some guys splice in the wheel lip arches of another vehicle's fenders to get them looking just right.  

I recall picking up somewhere that somebody tooled up a custom fender arch back in the day, and teams all over NASCAR were using them.  

Volvos from the 80s had a good entire wheel arch, although the actual size of the flare was minor:



Ford Thunderbirds from the 70s and 80s (both the boxy ones and the later smaller ones) all had bulged fenders around the wheels.  Might also make good donors.



And here's an import place custom-making steel flares to order:

http://www.zccjdm.com/catalog.php/azcarbum/dt93862/pd2109134/JDM__METAL_FENDER_FLARES__ROLLED_


If it was mine, I would probably end up custom-making them because I would want some semblance of the stock wheelwell shape to remain (at least visually).  I like the slightly squared-off shape better than the fully rounded ones on many old racers. 

[Stevearino]

Mike has some excellent ideas. If the flair is separate you can move it around until the placement looks right beating the fender out like they did in the old days or cutting pie shapes will require you to keep pulling the tire off and replacing it to size up your progress. When ever you decide to do this mod you should get the car on the floor and  cut yourself 4 ride height blocks and place them under the frame rail under the main body to the final rake angle you want the car to sit at We used to do this  when building front fenders for the Gen 4 cars. The suspension should be set up minus the springs (torsion bars unloaded in this case). With the caster/camber and final tread width established it will be easy to place the flairs where they will look the best.

[Highbanked Hauler]

  (Hopefully my cage comes this next week and I can start installing it.)

  You have a cage coming specifically for that body style ?

[Indygenerallee]

Thanks for all the added info Mike and Steve! (a guy can never learn enough!)  I had planned on sitting it at ride height before doing too much cutting because I could see that being a problem when I had just taped out the rough pattern of where to cut, I am going to cut enough to get the wheel at ride height and then go from there.

(Hopefully my cage comes this next week and I can start installing it.)

   You have a cage coming specifically for that body style ?

I bought a 10 point roll cage for a 69 Charger from S&W race cars, is it a true to form stock car cage? no, but I am still going to have functional doors (shaved) as I am far too big to crawl my ass through the window when I want to take a drive (6'8 300lbs)  I will buy more tube to make the front part of the cage where it goes through the firewall and welds to the knee bar and the 3 other longer bars that criss cross behind the driver going to the rear shock mounts that come through the floor.

[Daytona R/T SE]

 Some old faded memory tells me you're supposed to use pieces cut from the spare tire well of an "A" body trunk floor to make the fender arches or "flares".  

[Mike DC]

Mike has some excellent ideas. If the flair is separate you can move it around until the placement looks right beating the fender out like they did in the old days or cutting pie shapes will require you to keep pulling the tire off and replacing it to size up your progress. When ever you decide to do this mod you should get the car on the floor and  cut yourself 4 ride height blocks and place them under the frame rail under the main body to the final rake angle you want the car to sit at We used to do this  when building front fenders for the Gen 4 cars. The suspension should be set up minus the springs (torsion bars unloaded in this case). With the caster/camber and final tread width established it will be easy to place the flairs where they will look the best.

Some old faded memory tells me you're supposed to use pieces cut from the spare tire well of an "A" body trunk floor to make the fender arches or "flares"

Some more good thinking here too.
   

[Indygenerallee]

Well, I went and bought a couple fresh sawzall blades and went to work today, still need to remove the stock core support but I won't do that until I get some measurements tomorrow. will also make a template for the firewall (gotta love having a appliance store nearby figure a fridge box oughta be big enough!!)

IMAG1957 by

[url=https://flic.kr/p/oPcK2Q]IMAG1958 by

[Stevearino]

Before you know it you'll be cutting the rockers and dropping the body a couple of inches  
You know even if the doors are operable you can get the cage nearly faithful to the race version. In 69 when these cars were introduced they still had window regulators and operable glass so the door bars would be inboard of the inner door panel. Not that you would put them in permanently but you could dummy them to the door so that when closed they would appear correct but being attached to the door they would swing out with it. Then you could put some shaved door handle kits in and eliminate the outer door handle and cover it with a plate as per the real deal.

Here are some pictures of a racing simulator I built back in 1997. At the time simulators were cars that were hacked to bits with arcade games in them.I  wanted the car to look as real as possible inside to you can see what I did with the door bars in this picture. Your deal would be much easier as you would just have to attach them to the inner door itself.

[Indygenerallee]

Before you know it you'll be cutting the rockers and dropping the body a couple of inches

Steve, you know if I knew how much they were lowered I would go ahead and body drop it, nothing new to me as I have body dropped newer trucks when installing air bags.

Then you could put some shaved door handle kits in and eliminate the outer door handle and cover it with a plate as per the real deal.

I have already pulled the door handles and all internal rods, I am going to make aluminum plates and rivet them on the door where the handles went just like the real deal then route a cable inside the door forward so you just reach inside the front wheel well and pull the cable to open the door that's the way I always did emergency door releases on any truck door handles I shaved in case the battery died and the electric door poppers would not work.

[Stevearino]

Before you know it you'll be cutting the rockers and dropping the body a couple of inches

Steve, you know if I knew how much they were lowered I would go ahead and body drop it, nothing new to me as I have body dropped newer trucks when installing air bags.

Then you could put some shaved door handle kits in and eliminate the outer door handle and cover it with a plate as per the real deal.

I have already pulled the door handles and all internal rods, I am going to make aluminum plates and rivet them on the door where the handles went just like the real deal then route a cable inside the door forward so you just reach inside the front wheel well and pull the cable to open the door that's the way I always did emergency door releases on any truck door handles I shaved in case the battery died and the electric door poppers would not work.

Sounds like you are thinking of everything. I am sure Aero426 or somebody here has knowledge of exactly how low they were dropped. I think that might be essential to you getting the right look. That is something I had hoped to do with my project but that ain't gonna happen. It's all up to you  man.

[Indygenerallee]

Yeah very hard to tell in pictures of the actual race cars, need someone near one with a tape! I may be mistaken but werent the windshields laid back as well???

[Stevearino]

The windshields would have to fit the overall long template taken from the stock car so I don't think they would be laid back. Since they used stock glass if you laid  it back it would show up at the upper corners and down at the lower corners at the cowl. It would also create issues with the A post appearance which would snowball into issues with the vent windows.
I have heard that some cars were rolled down at the front of the hood pretty significantly though but I don't know how much.

[Indygenerallee]

Yeah I figured if a team had laid the a pillars back it would have been a lot of work for what was gained.

[Stevearino]

Also on the rear end cooler.You can easily fab up one yourself. Here is one that I fabricated for the Bobby Allison 74 Chevy Laguna I restored. It is simply a heater fan squirrel cage installed to take air in and drive it down over the cooler through a hole in the floor.

[Indygenerallee]

nice! may have to do that if I cannot find one!