SRT-8 Daytona Clone

[Stevearino]

Once I got the frame rails boxed in on the 68 with .060 steel it was time for the good stuff. Lowering it down to see how everything was going to fit.

[Stevearino]

Once I got the body down low enough I made the pinch weld on the 68 parallel with the bottom of the pinch weld on the 06. This allowed me to see what I had to do in the way of correcting my rough cut on at the door hinge post. I will first correct the angle the cut off  increasing amounts until the rear wheel hole looks visually correct.  I hate to leave it there but I won't get a chance to work on it again until the weekend.  I don't usually work on this project during the week as there are too many distractions but there was finally something to get excited about.

[Daytona R/T SE]

Once I got the body down low enough I made the pinch weld on the 68 parallel with the bottom of the pinch weld on the 06. This allowed me to see what I had to do in the way of correcting my rough cut on at the door hinge post. I will first correct the angle the cut off  increasing amounts until the rear wheel hole looks visually correct.  I hate to leave it there but I won't get a chance to work on it again until the weekend.  I don't usually work on this project during the week as there are too many distractions but there was finally something to get excited about.

[moparstuart]

you mean gordons whining and making the chase didnt keep you busy and distracted this week    


  Oh and fantastic work   

[Baldwinvette77]

OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD, You are such a tease, put the freaking body on AHHHH! 

[XS29L9B2]

beautifull project  i love your job

[tsmithae]

OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD, You are such a tease, put the freaking body on AHHHH! 

[Stevearino]

you mean gordons whining and making the chase didnt keep you busy and distracted this week   


  Real funny Stu. So funny I forgot to laugh.

OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD, You are such a tease, put the freaking body on AHHHH! 

  I'm HURRYING I"M HURRYING!!!

beautifull project  i love your job

  Thanks man.

[Highbanked Hauler]

 is the wheelbase going to be an issue ?

[Stevearino]

is the wheelbase going to be an issue ?

I will be altering the location of the wheel hole in the front fenders. With the larger wheels and tires and the added length of the Daytona nose the I am hoping the visual impact will be minimal. If this were a stock Charger I think one would have to consider a more extensive shortening of the 06 floor or perhaps moving the rear wheel hole back 1 1/2" and the front forward 1 1/2" to split the difference.  117" for the 68 . 120" for the 06.

[moparstuart]

 

[JB400]

I'd consider shortening the LX chassis.  I think if you move the front wheel arches forward, it'd make the nose look more stubby.

[Stevearino]

I'd consider shortening the LX chassis.  I think if you move the front wheel arches forward, it'd make the nose look more stubby.

That's more work than I am willing  to get into on this car. They shortened the Fast and Furious car nose almost 10" and while I can see the difference it is not immediately noticeable . I am going to try to sneak the body forward as much as I can to minimize the alteration. Saw the 68 someone did on another thread and He moved the front wheel hole 2 1/2" ahead and even on that car it doesn't look too bad.......... We'll see.

[moparstuart]

I'd consider shortening the LX chassis.  I think if you move the front wheel arches forward, it'd make the nose look more stubby.

That's more work than I am willing  to get into on this car. They shortened the Fast and Furious car nose almost 10" and while I can see the difference it is not immediately noticeable . I am going to try to sneak the body forward as much as I can to minimize the alteration. Saw the 68 someone did on another thread and He moved the front wheel hole 2 1/2" ahead and even on that car it doesn't look too bad.......... We'll see.

your a  master of metal , i'm sure in your hands it will turn out fantastic

[Mike DC]

I can understand the decision not to shorten the LX chassis.  Cutting & welding the metal isn't so bad but that job includes lining everything up perfectly, doing the wiring, the fluid lines, driveshaft, etc.  The whole old/new conversion remains way more in the realm of cosmetic-only metalwork if you don't mess with the length of the LX. 

But IMHO you oughtta consider splitting the some of the difference with the rear wheel location.  Having both axles moved by 1 or 2 inches would slide past the eye a lot better than one end stock and the other end moved all 3 inches.  And these cars already have quite a rear overhang.  If I was mine I would be wanting to put at least 1 of those 3 inches to the back, if not 1.5".   

At any rate, it pays to do some photoshopping of the final result from different angles.  In this day & age there is no excuse for not taking a good look at the end result until it's already built.

[Stevearino]

I can understand the decision not to shorten the LX chassis.  Cutting & welding the metal isn't so bad but that job includes lining everything up perfectly, doing the wiring, the fluid lines, driveshaft, etc.  The whole old/new conversion remains way more in the realm of cosmetic-only metalwork if you don't mess with the length of the LX. 

But IMHO you oughtta consider splitting the some of the difference with the rear wheel location.  Having both axles moved by 1 or 2 inches would slide past the eye a lot better than one end stock and the other end moved all 3 inches.  And these cars already have quite a rear overhang.  If I was mine I would be wanting to put at least 1 of those 3 inches to the back, if not 1.5".   

At any rate, it pays to do some photoshopping of the final result from different angles.  In this day & age there is no excuse for not taking a good look at the end result until it's already built.

This is the reason that I built the model car at the beginning of this post. I actually took a Daytona model and merged it with the chassis of a 2010 Dodge Challenger model to get an idea of what that split would look like. After shifting it back and forth the long nose actually absorbs the move better than the rear of the car. That extra 18"  in front really helps.

[djcarguy]

I'd consider shortening the LX chassis.  I think if you move the front wheel arches forward, it'd make the nose look more stubby.

That's more work than I am willing  to get into on this car. They shortened the Fast and Furious car nose almost 10" and while I can see the difference it is not immediately noticeable . I am going to try to sneak the body forward as much as I can to minimize the alteration. Saw the 68 someone did on another thread and He moved the front wheel hole 2 1/2" ahead and even on that car it doesn't look too bad.......... We'll see.

[Stevearino]

I'd consider shortening the LX chassis.  I think if you move the front wheel arches forward, it'd make the nose look more stubby.

That's more work than I am willing  to get into on this car. They shortened the Fast and Furious car nose almost 10" and while I can see the difference it is not immediately noticeable . I am going to try to sneak the body forward as much as I can to minimize the alteration. Saw the 68 someone did on another thread and He moved the front wheel hole 2 1/2" ahead and even on that car it doesn't look too bad.......... We'll see.

your a  master of metal , i'm sure in your hands it will turn out fantastic

Stu if you only knew of my capacity to screw things up.....

[djcarguy]

  I agree with steve the owner,builder of his custom Daytona..  Daytonas look good from allmost every angle, except direct at the side of the nose.the 70 charger fender has a lot of area or mass hanging in front of the wheel. then you add what a 18 inch nose hanging out in front of that. the direct side view is a little too long in the nose for me and it seems too look way too long an pointty with certin colors.  
well thats my    but it is his daytona and i wood say hes allready looked at an planned it as he made the model to scale to check out the visual impact.

    well heres to your plan ,i think it will look great with less mass and nose over hang.DJ    oh yeah shortten  the chassis is a giant pain an tons more than just cut an weld.

[Mike DC]

    
You're right Steve, I had totally forgotten at the model at the start of this thread.  And I agree the front end does absorb the extra wheelbase quite well.  Better than I would have expected on paper.  

I still wonder about shortening things though.  The overall car just seems so damn long with the stock Daytona nose setup.



Keeping the Daytona bodywork stock, and using all the extra 3" of LX wheelbase to reduce the front overhang  . . . I think you have come up with a very good idea here.  But I wonder if it is the best possible one.


The F&F car wasn't the best solution but I think they had a good handle on what needed fixing.  But their end result produced something I would never have expected - I think the REAR overhang looked a bit long on that car by the time the nose was shortened.  The wing, even shortened like it was, added a lot of visual weight behind the rear wheels.  Once that visual weight of the front overhang was reduced it left the rear overhang looking heavy IMHO.    




Have you considered splitting the LX's extra 3" of wheelbase more evenly between the front & rear ends, and then doing maybe half the reductions of the F&F car?  (like maybe taking 5-6" off the front fenders and the wing height?)

I'm just spitballing here.  But it seems like moving several things around in small amounts might work out a lot better than the F&F car's few major changes.  

[Stevearino]

Well I have officially run out of talent. Some limiting issues have cropped up with my little project and I am not very happy. Something I read on another thread about a 68 on an LX chassis reared it's ugly head. It was mentioned that the underdash AC unit had to land in a specific spot to have this whole thing come together. That is the real reason that the floor pan on that car was shortened 2 1/2 inches so the body could be shoved forward. The bigger issue is there isn't enough room for a wiper set up. And the worst part is the body is still 2 inches away from the bottom of the pinch weld.  I could clearance the bottom of the windshield bed but would give up the defroster doors and the wipers. Also at this time just short of putting a power bulge in the hood it just might not be possible to get the clearance needed for the 6.1 manifold. Should have know it was going too smoothly. Well I guess this thread will be going dark until I sort this out. Very disappointed indeed.

See you later for a while.
Stevearino

P.S. Mike DC  you have a lot of good ideas there for me  to consider once I figure out what I am going to do here.

[Mike DC]

Ouch.  

I just spent a few minutes looking at pics of 2nd-gen/LX Charger conversions on the net.  It looks like the cowl height of the LX is too tall for the 2nd-gen bodywork to sit over it.  All the conversions seem to involve the 68-70 bodywork sitting rather high up and some LX structure being visible down below the rocker panels.


Hmmm . . . .


If it was mine I would start looking at hacking out the offending LX stuff and building a new (vertically shorter) dashboard for it.  IMHO the LX dash always looks weird sticking up in a 2nd-gen body.  




Another idea would be to actually raise (stretch) the height of the entire 2nd-gen body a couple inches.  Cut things apart and fabricate some new metal into the sides of the 2nd-gen to make it vertically taller between the rocker panels and the cowl height.

I'm picturing a little bit of this in combination with other mods, rather than trying to cover the entire issue with this method.  For example there are two sets of bodylines along the sides of the car.  You could add 1" to each of the areas of sheetmetal in between them for 3" of height gain.

I'm partly suggesting this because the greenhouse area of a 2nd-gen has always looked a little tall in relation to the sides of the body in stock form IMHO.  Stretching out the height of the lower half of the car would change the car's proportions in a similar way to chopping down the roof height.  It might not look bad if done in moderation.  But it would be a shitload of custom bodywork to do.  

[Stevearino]

The easiest solution to the body height issue that others have used seems to be to build custom rockers that blend down to the pinch weld. If it is done right it doesn't look too bad but I was hoping to get it close enough to not have to do this. I agree about the dash but it's the old 10 lbs of s##t in a 5 lb bag. There is so much under dash stuff to be accomidated that even the custom dashes I have seen on these conversions look kind of horsey. That was one thing I had decided I would have to live with. Of all the issues with this deal the one that really has me bugged is the clearance for a wiper motor set up. It is the one thing that none of the threads goes into  at all or has any pictures of as to how this was handled. I thought I had that figured out but getting the body down closer to where I want it leaves no room for the mechanisms. I hate that this whole thing would turn on something that ridiculous. Engine yes.   Wheel base Yes.   But wiper motor? Come on.

[djcarguy]

they make some real small wiper motors to run 1 wiper each for the street rods an can be mounted top or bottom of windshield. just run 1 wiper so no mass arms and junk. just a idea,,an  maybee black or body color powder coat side pipes for mean look an help hide the rockers  could hide a few inches,,,  more old school than the model vision i guess,, just ideas.

    or rocker add ons that resembles the 70es cuda scales trim on rockers,, i always liked that cuda trim ..   this part is just a joke ya ready ,,,,u   sure,,,, jack body up hi ,,car up hi  add running boards alone rockers an big off road tires an have a 4x4 GENERAL LEE,,  just a idea ,,,---joke --to releif stress  an show ya it could look lots worse  my way,haha  4x4    no way..    Sure youll find a way to hide the little bit of rockers. 

[Mike DC]

 
Couldn't you could remote-mount the wiper motor somewhere and build a linkage flat enough to pull it off?  You might need to build the linkage mechanisms very strongly to take into account some of the forces on them but it seems do-able.

You could put a toothed gear sprocket on the wiper pivot right below the cowl sheetmetal and make the whole thing work as a rack & pinion.  That might get the whole mess down to just needing like an inch or two of vertical space directly below the wiper pivots, and everything else could be stretched off to some remote spot.  




At any rate it's probably time to start making some phone calls and see if you can pin down the way anyone else has fixed this problem.  Although I wouldn't be surprised to hear other builders saying, "Who cares about wipers?  Nobody drives this kind of car in the rain anyway!"