SRT-8 Daytona Clone

[Daytona R/T SE]

Car is looking good.

I need to keep my eyes open for a late model 4 door.

Never mind that. Just keep up the great work on that awesome blue beauty you have going right now.

Will do.

yeah you need another project   

Transmission in yet ?   

[Daytona Guy]

I'm sure after you're done with this one, you'll start mass production right? Put me down for one 

If this one ever gets finished and don't kill me in the process.

I would love to work along side of you. WOW - I would be a kid in candy store.

Dane

[moparstuart]

The aluminum foil around the wiring, is that just for welding spatter protection or would it protect the electronics like an external ground ??

It is just to keep grinding debris and minor weld spatter away from the harness. Something  we do at work when we need to turn a car around quick and don't want to do a complete tear down.




Nice hat Stu. Not as nice as mine but nice.

ok how about this one  , one for fluffy too

[Stevearino]

I'm sure after you're done with this one, you'll start mass production right? Put me down for one 

If this one ever gets finished and don't kill me in the process.

I would love to work along side of you. WOW - I would be a kid in candy store.

Dane

Wow. Considering the cars you have built that compliment is over the top. Thanks.



Stu, I have 4 cats so you are going to need a lot more foil.

[Highbanked Hauler]

The aluminum foil around the wiring, is that just for welding spatter protection or would it protect the electronics like an external ground ??

It is just to keep grinding debris and minor weld spatter away from the harness. Something  we do at work when we need to turn a car around quick and don't want to do a complete tear down.




Nice hat Stu. Not as nice as mine but nice.

ok how about this one  , one for fluffy too

     The cat doesn't look to happy there Stu.

[ramairthree]

Amazing.

I know you would still have the same vertical hurdles,
but if someone started with a salvage Challenger,
how much of the horizontal challengers would be resolved?

[472 R/T SE]

Impressive to say the least.  I'm sure you hear it all the time, you happen to be a very talented individual.

Have you tried contacting member?:  SRT-68

I'm thinking he's done at least 2 of these conversions.
   

[Stevearino]

Amazing.

I know you would still have the same vertical hurdles,
but if someone started with a salvage Challenger,
how much of the horizontal challengers would be resolved?

Virtually none. The wheel base is still longer. The door sill would probably be the only thing that would not  have to be filled in because of it being a 2 door model to start with. All of the HVAC and dash board issues would still be there. Those to me are some of the hardest to resolve because there is 20 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag in that area. Lots of custom work to fit all that stuff back under a shortened and lowered windshield bed.

The bottom line is the LX is a much bigger car than it appears to be at first glance. If you could get sheet metal for the whole car that was 5% bigger in scale probably most issues would disappear. Right now it's a fat lady in skinny jeans.

[Stevearino]

Impressive to say the least.  I'm sure you hear it all the time, you happen to be a very talented individual.

Have you tried contacting member?:  SRT-68

I'm thinking he's done at least 2 of these conversions.
   

Thanks for the compliment but no I haven't contacted him. I kind of like the challenge of figuring as much out myself as I can. Old habit of mine. Probably not the best idea but gives me a lot of satisfaction when I am done with something.Although I am not above looking at lurking about looking at pictures of other projects. His is one that I have studied. Everyone that I have seen has taken a slightly different approach.

[Mike DC]

The bottom line is the LX is a much bigger car than it appears to be at first glance. If you could get sheet metal for the whole car that was 5% bigger in scale probably most issues would disappear. Right now it's a fat lady in skinny jeans.

I have had that thought about most of the modern pony/muscle car variants.  They could build them to look a lot more like the old ones if they aimed for a slightly scaled-up version of the old ones.


More performance, less NVH, more comfort, better mileage, better aero, more crashworthiness . . . they just have to build a lot more car these days.  The fact that the curb weights are 1/3 ton heavier on the modern ones despite 30 years of weight-loss efforts is indicative of just how much more.

[Stevearino]

In my quest to get a look at all of the major fitment issues I decided to see what difficulties were waiting for me in the dash area.
The first issue was mounting the dash steel sub-frame. This mounts on the inner door jambs and on the console. With the old body in place it was no longer possible for me to access the mount points as they were now behind the 68 door jambs.  I drilled out some 1/4" holes on the left and right mounting flange and bolted some steel "T" nuts to the back side then welded them on the side nearest the main sub-frame. Once in place I cut along side of them. Once this was done I was able to unbolt them and I had two flanges that could be bolted to the 06 door jambs that allowed me to then bolt the sub-frame to the flanges and the console.  With some relief cuts on the top corners the sub frame went into place with out a fight.

[Stevearino]

Next it was time for the dash face. I was anxious to see how it would look. I resigned myself to the fact that if I was going to use the stock 06 dash I was going to have to customize the top of the dash to get it down in the car a little better. I cut the top of the dash completely off and will replace it with a much thinner piece of material. This took about 1" of height out of the dash gauge pod area and made the rest of the dash flat with the windshield bed. Although the dash pod is still a little high compared to the old school dash I am not unhappy with it. As of now I kind of like just fine. The real challenge is just ahead with the HVAC ducting and wiper mounting.

[JB400]

It looks pretty good with the dash in there with it cut down.  You might want to mock up a seat to see if you need to tilt it any, or raise/ lower it.  It'd stink if you got it looking right and not be able to get in it.

I assume you got the body to sit on the chassis the way you wanted it to

[Stevearino]

It looks pretty good with the dash in there with it cut down.   You might want to mock up a seat to see if you need to tilt it any, or raise/ lower it.  It'd stink if you got it looking right and not be able to get in it.

I assume you got the body to sit on the chassis the way you wanted it to

The dash sub-frame and the dash are located in the 06 stock mounting locations. It is not possible to rotate either up or down especially since the sub-frame mounts to the console in a fixed location. And yes the body is as low as it can go at this point.

[Baldwinvette77]

i cant begin to explain how awesome it is the read all this  i cant imagine what its like to actually do it 

[Stevearino]

i cant begin to explain how awesome it is the read all this  i cant imagine what its like to actually do it 

I don't have to tell you. You know. It's a very dirty job. But someone has to do it.

[djcarguy]

    glad its you doing that dirty job,haha not me..  its looking great in pix s on page 13 with front end an nose an wing on.. it inspiered me so i sent eee mail an figure on getting a nose cone soon,have my wing.wish i had some of ya heavy metal skills there,great work. that dash,cowl stuff looks like lots of fun,not.. all my best on all that custom fitting an fab.
     i  wood rig manual wiper on pass side ,make them work for joy of  riding in ya wingged wonder .  put on fake wipers an use lots of rain xxx stuff on glass??   well see no one posting an bugging ya for few days ,so i did?       latter dj dart guy     

[Stevearino]

     latter dj dart guy     
[/quote]
When we gonna see some Dartona pics?

[Mike DC]

             
Looking good.


Have you considered building up the middle & passenger side of the dashboard top?  Reducing the appearance of the driver side gauge "bulge" on top might help the LX dash look less visually obtrusive. 

You probably don't wanna raise things high enough to make the whole dash level across the top for driving visibility issues.  But I'm thinking a moderate change might look good. 

[Stevearino]

             
Looking good.


Have you considered building up the middle & passenger side of the dashboard top?  Reducing the appearance of the driver side gauge "bulge" on top might help the LX dash look less visually obtrusive. 

You probably don't wanna raise things high enough to make the whole dash level across the top for driving visibility issues.  But I'm thinking a moderate change might look good. 

Believe it or not Mike that idea had crossed my mind after looking at pictures of the stock 68 dash and noticing that they go up hill towards the driver quite a bit more than I had remembered. Right now if I built a new dash top to the place where this dash is trimmed the passenger side would be dead level from the base of the windshield bed. Certainly gives me more room to play than I had first thought I would have.

[Stevearino]

 With some of the dash questions resolved in my head it is time to put that aside and get back to mending the two cars together.The forward lower section of the rocker on the 06 was to fat as it was to allow the bottom of the 70 fender to wrap under and line up with the 68 rocker so I had to cut it out and make a new forward close out piece for the rocker out of .060 steel.

[Stevearino]

The cut that I made in the area of where the door post meets the new chassis was less than ideal so I had to take more .060 steel and fill the gap and weld the two area's together. Good news is that if this works out I will have a pattern to make this cut a little better for the next one. Next one..... That's a good one.

[Stevearino]

Well there is a big hole in the inner frame rail where I cut out the four door "B" pillar so that needed to be filled in.  More .060 steel bent up to cap this area and welded into place.
The problem with car projects is that there are two damn sides so every job has to happen twice. Now I have to do all of this again on the passenger side.

[C_stripes]

This whole project is amazing, and your metal work is second to none... I can't wait to see the finished project.

[FlatbackFanatic]