VetteThunder1

Long road ahead!

I have been following the Franken Sport thread and that inspired me to start this thread to share the progress with everyone here and get some input and ideas back as well. FrankenSport is an awesome project with great pics, very well done!

I really liked the idea of using a C2 dash in my C3. I am thinking that I am going to try and make a C2 dash out of Carbon Fiber and seeing how it goes.

At this point I am starting to put the car back together. To give a little background, I have a 1968 numbers matching big block coupe. My wife got it for me for a christmas present about 3 1/2 years ago. It was awesome! The color sucked (late 60's copper.. ewwwww who was doing shroomiess when they bought this car?).

So I brought it home and enjoyed driving it ocasionally, there were naturally a few problems, like it wouldn't idle below 2K, everything was loose, it didn't steer very well and the brakes barely worked. But I could set off car alarms in the parking garage at work when I started it up

At that point, I figured I would start fixing some of the problems. As I dug deeper and deeper into the car, I found that Bubba had been there before me. Some of the worse things were that one of the engine mounts had only 1 bolt holding it onto the block and some of the wiring under the dash was actually spliced with band-aids. Not to mention that Bubba did the paint job, lots of drips all over the body and lots of overspray!



As I continued to work on the car over the last 2 years I found that where the trans mount bolted to the frame was cracked and had been repaired at least 2 times in the past. There were also problems with extensive rust on the chassis in the rear, especially at the rear kick ups just behind the seats. That really gave me no choice, so I had to start looking into replacing the frame and while I was at it, I was going to get a new 5 or 6 speed trans and then I started looking into how much rebuilding the engine would cost I decided to get a new engine as well (anyone recognize the "While I am at it"). After crunching all the numbers I came up with a project plan and went to the CFO (also known as my wife) and she approved the project and so we were rolling....so to speak.

So after looking around and doing a ton of research I settled on a round tube frame with a narrowed rear from SRIII Motorsports. An all aluminum big block from Bill Mitchell and a Tremec TKO 600 built up to handle 800+ Horsepower from Keisler. I also went for Wilwood brakes and a cool parking brake solution from Precision Brakes.

New Engine, Transmission and Chassis.



Here is where I was last January.

Interior stripped, engine compartment stripped of all wiring and plumbing removed. Brakes and parking brakes removed.



Stripped! (have to stop parking in bad neighborhoods!)



So in May I started selling off various parts that I would not be re-using on Craig's List. I was lucky almost all the parts I was selling were bought by one guy, he even came over one Saturday to help me pull the body and haul away the old chassis and suspension and various other sundry bits and pieces.

The body is now off the chassis



Pulling the old chassis out



Stripping the old chassis



Hauling the old chassis and suspension away!



lots of rust on the rear of the frame. Really really bad deep rust.



Here was the rest of the suspension, lost more rust, and this was supposed to have been a So Cal/Arizona car. Hmmm....



Here is the completed chassis, I received it Tuesday, July 17, about 14 months after sending the first payment off to Mike at SRIII.



I have made a dolly with some casters to be able to move the body around to work on it.



I have to fix the problem with the rivet bumps under the nose.



And tub the rear to accomodate those monster 12" wide rear tires.



There is also some other problems with the body to fix mostly small repairs the body in general is in very good shape and appears not to have ever been in an accident. The birdcage is in very good condition with only minor rust.

Now I am in the process of figuring out exactly how I am going to strip the paint from the body. Anyone have any suggestions? I have done some with a razor blade but I also want to have the interior and underbody done so that the fiberglassing that has to be done has a good clean surfact to stick to. I was looking for a place that does media blasting preferably with lots of experience doing Vettes.

More to come!

Andrew

Eddie 70

Wow! That is going to make one fine ride when you get done. I would love to have one of those frames under mine too. They just looks like they would be so much more rigid and should make the car more solid and handle well. But I just don't want to let go of all the money at one time. For sure keep the pics coming because this is going to be one whale of a ride with the aluminum BB and OD tranny.

Gordonm

The SRIII chassis is one of the best. I spent a lot of time there on Friday at Carlisle. My brother in law has the black 67 at their booth. The chassis to me is hands down over the competition. You will have a fine ride when it is done. Keep the pictures coming.

'Bochawa72

WOW! I'm jealous! I'm thinking that's what I'm going to have to end up doing. And you thought that your old frame was bad? HA! Nice looking setup. Are you going C4 suspension all the way around or C5? Also can you get the suspension from SRT or didyou have to buy it elsewhere? Can't wait to see more pics!
-CR

spedaleden

SRIII is located in Rockford, Illinois. I am about hour from there. May have to check them out.

That frame is sweet.

Hadez

yeah...

I am curious also if you went with c4/c5 suspension or stayed with C3 stuff on that new chasis?

Also curious to see how it bolts up to the body if it really is a true no modifications replacement?

It looks like it has a bat wing mount for the differential? Are you usng a Dana type diff or is it some how modified to handle an earlier c3 diff?

I want have put too much $$$ into my new C3 suspension and so personally can't justify the new suspension parts so I would love a frame like this and be able to just swap all my C3 stuff over.

VetteThunder1

I went with the C5 front and C4 rear suspension and I got it all from SRIII, note the Dana44 rear ends are getting hard to gert and so they are going to be a bit $$$

Something else, the car had been drag raced quite a bit at some point and the frame was bowed front to back and a lot of the welds along the side frame rails were cracked. The cracks don't show up in the pics. It took Chris (the guy who bought my old chassis and I about 3.5 hours to pull the body off the old chassis and strip the old chassis. Only 1 of the 8 body mounts gave us any problems We were very lucky!

VetteThunder1

It is the C4 rear C5 front suspension set up. I will get more pics of the new chassis and you can see how nicely everything is done. I don't know if your area is the same as here in California carpedm but I suspect that you can sell your C3 stuff very easily and make back most if not all of the $$$ you spend on refurbishing your chassis.

I have done a test fit of my 68 body onto the new chassis and it looks like its a stright bolt on replacement. If I had gone with a Tremec t-56 I would have had some cutting of the trans tunnel to do to get the new trans to fit. The t-56 6 speed tranny is a LOT bigger then the TKO600 that I got.

Something else to note, the early 68's were actually much closer to the C2-1967 from the chassis point of view, the later 68's got a re-designed chassis that would be used for the 1969's and later cars. Its a bit difficult to tell the difference without removing the body. Mine was a late 68 so that makes things a lot easier.

78Vette-SA

Very cool!

I'm sure you found Mike at SRIII to be a great guy to deal with.

If I can help in anyway, just drop a note.

Joe..

VetteThunder1

Joe,

Yes Mike at SRIII was a really great guy to work with. I am sure I will be contacting you once I am ready to get the body onto the new frame, its gonna be a while

VetteThunder1

I didn't get much done today, however I did manage to get a broken bolt drilled out after about an hour or so. Bolt extractors went into the trash after 2 of them broke off in the process.

Here is a pic of the wiper door after I managed to get the broken piece out.



I just discovered Kontesi's Frame Off Thread I was debating weather or not to pull the front clip off to fix this gap in the firewall to birdcage



I also have to fix these cracks in the floor to firewall transition. Any opions? I was thinking that I will be needing to make a huge patch all the way across the floor.



Drivers side (Bubba has been here)



I have the next 2 weeks off so I will be getting a lot of work done (I hope)

More to follow

VetteThunder1

Here are a few inspirational pics...

New frame, pic of rear end its been narrowed by about 4"



That is to accomodate these monster meats The wheels and tires that I will be using to auto cross will be even wider, I really like the body lines of the shark and didn't want to have to put on fender flares



Here is a pic of the brakes I got, check out the cool parking brake arrangement, no more damned drum and shoes in the back, this saves me about 20 pounds of unsprung weight from both wheels.



Well thats about it for tonight. Gotta make dinner now and call it a day.

FRSTR90

Andrew
I am glad that you have decided to make this thread. I know I will definitely be spending hours looking at it!!

Z-man

Very nice!

How does that parking brake work? Any more pix from the inside in that area?

RunningMan373

I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. That car is gonna move and handle like a C6 and retain 100% of the looks of the '68/9. A winning proposition.

Jims79

thanks for a very interesting & informative thread, keep the updates coming everything looks great so far.
Can you tell us how much the new frame & everything that came w/it costs? Also I had good luck using paint stripper to get all the paint off. First put a tarp down on the drive way, roll the body out so the tarp is under the car to catch all the old paint & stripper. when the paints all off roll up the tarp & wash the body off w/the hose. You can do it all in one weekend. Ecklers sells the stripper by the gal or go to your local auto supply.

VetteThunder1

I actually have a spreadsheet and a Microsoft Project plan for the car, so the cost is accurate and very up to date. The cost so far is $47,830.30, not including the price of the car which was a little too much all things considered. At the time the car looked like a good deal because it was running and drivable, until I tried to stop looking into the brakes was part of the motivation to "dig deeper".

VetteThunder1

I will get you some pics of the parking brake and associated hardware later today.

Le shark81

Great project

Too bad to cover suche a beautiful frame with a body

GroundPounder

Great project
I'd like to see it once it's done. I'm near you.