1972 DRIFT CAMARO BUILD and Some Other Stuffz

[Mike Peters]

glad to see Camaro's taking over drifting! Wrecked Magazine is about to start up a Camaro drift car later this year

[Mike Peters]

Got some progress made tonight.

Cut rust out with the plasma, now to get it blasted, and start patching.



Also had to cut some access panels to get the front leaf braket's locknuts, which were just spinning inside the unibody. Finally got it out, check out this cutting edge technology right here. 40 Year old rusty nuts kept getting caught in my sockets though was kinda annoying





And here's where we're at. Not one bolt left on the unibody. Need to blast/prime this thing, kinda wanna dip it but don't know where to go.



Gotta lot of work ahead here. Movin' along slowly but surely.

[Mike Peters]

So said goodbye to the Camaro today for about a week. They said they wanted to wait till the weather was perfect to do everyting so I just dropped it and told them I wasn't in a hurry.



At the blasting place. Guy on the Tractor's name is Bubba. Bubba has a 1st, 2nd, AND 3rd gen camaro rotting away outside at his blasting place.




Bubba's office is an old school bus.



Bubba is my hero.

[Mike Peters]

Haven't updated this in a while.

So Bubba turned out to be a dumb lazy redneck. Bubba's employee does what Bubba says. Bubba told employee to prime car and not blast it. I noticed this, then got employee on video saying he didn't do anything but prime it, so now its in the middle of a legal dispute. Fun times.

In the meantime I pulled the S13 back in, and decided if I'm going to build it , at least I should make it where I fit in it. Had to notch the floorpans and transmission tunnel, and do a bunch of other stuff that is done. I'll post some pictures later.


If you're still reading this you're probably thinking a couple things:

- Mike is all over the place
- Mike is never going to get anything done

Probably accurate.

So two days ago my friend Jonathan showed me a Camaro he found while looking for his own project. Derrick was offered an e36 project to build for our friend Aaron for the upcoming Fabricated Motorsports 2011 Texas Drifting Series, both were in Dallas, and I have a two-car trailer.

So at 5am Sunday I got home. Got back to the shop around 3pm and this is what we got.





The guy I picked this Camaro up from was a ultra-nice guy. Check this out, he bought it to build for is SON IN LAW. Talk about awesome.

Story on the car was a friend of his located it after a local owner of a salvage yard died in Nowhereville, West Texas, an estate sale was had, and this Camaro was supposedly in a building he had for projects that were his own, and it just sat for about 20 years. It honestly has no rust on it. The guy told me over the phone that the 1st person who actually saw the car would buy it, and he was 100% honest. There is a little bit of bondo in some random places but the car is super solid. Its also a 70 so has the lower floorpans on the rear seat.

This will get me by since the other Camaro is tied up with the BS the sandblasting place tried to pull, so now I can just take them to court and use the legal system to give them the running into the ground they deserve on my time, since I'm in no hurry to get the Camaro back from them now.

Basically its like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhahJVkehUc

Anyways, heres the gameplan. Found out I'm super lucky and get to go to SEMA this year, as well as XDC Phoenix. So I'm going to attempt to do these things before SEMA.

-Finish the new LS1 S13 suspension, and fabrication, and attach all body parts to where it just needs a cage, and drivetrain. Push outside, install car cover.

-Strip parts off of Rx7 I picked up for donor engines for the Brat, then sell.

Post SEMA:
- Get Camaro to status of just needing a drivetrain and rollcage
- Build engine that runs on both rotors for the Brat


Want to get all this done by December, then I'll go from there depending on how much work I can do to earn some money between now and then. We've also got an e36 LS1 project for the 2011 Texas Series, and some other new stuff that will be popping up. My friend Jonathan also FINALLY got a project car, went with him tonight and we picked up an 85 mustang GT that is now chillin at the shop, gonna help him build that up, which I'm also excited about because I've always wanted to play with building up a Fox, and he is pretty excited about doing it. Plus its always fun to help one your friends get into cars.

On a side note, my new trailer tows AWESOME with the gooseneck and 3 axles.


So if you're still reading, heres what you're probably thinking now

-Mike is really all over the place
-Mike is never going to finish anything
-Don't mess with Texas.

[Bebop]

So if you're still reading, heres what you're probably thinking now

-Mike is really all over the place Check
-Mike is never going to finish anything Check
-Don't mess with Texas

[Mike Peters]

Thats what this guy thought too.

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[Mike Peters]

Been too lazy to update for a while.



Did that for a couple hours today, so heres the progress pics for today.





Made a time lapse album here that I just update every day I actually work on it. Kinda neat-o.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...9&l=f1112456da

Gonna be the nicest looking illegal drift car ever from 50'.

[Slapshotnerd]

So Bubba turned out to be a dumb lazy redneck.

..... with a name like Bubba, who woulda guessed!?!?!?!?!

[Justin Banner]

..... with a name like Bubba, who woulda guessed!?!?!?!?!

Hey, now, my boss' nickname is Bubba and is one of the hardest working guys in the shop.

[Mike Peters]

I listened to the AM station on my radio in my pickup most of the day.


Keep taking pics at the same angle, got a crappy time lapse going on, will be cool when car is done
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...9&l=f1112456da

Crappy white paint, works fine, reflects some light, I am happy.


I'm just doing the inside/interior white, outside will be blue but thats a ways away. Painting the cage and some stuff red, so I wanted to go ahead and paint the white so I could get everything while it was able to be gotten to.

[Faylman]

So I'm thinking about doing the same with my 1972 nova. I have little but some drifting experience and I was just wondering what parts did you upgrade and what parts did you make yourself and toatly change? Im also having a little problem with wheel hopping and wondered if you had a solution.

Great job on the car so far it looks great!

[Mike Peters]

Heres a pic of the death column all done up



And my sweet new repaint of the ugly nissan unfinished steel.



This is the look I'm going for in case you haven't figured it out.



Current progress, since last time I posted here we got the cage all in except the doorbars, which I'm doing last as I'm too lazy to climb over then till the car is near done, and there aren't enough double cheeseburgers in the world to change my mind on that, now I'm taking all the little bits and peices, cleaning them up and gonna start putting them back in after I re-paint the cage and interior. If you're wondering I painted it before hand so I could scuff it up and use it as a basecoat after the cage and everything was done, that way if there was anywhere difficult to get to it would already be painted.

[Coiloverkid]

finland is doin' it up! don't let them upstage you! hahah

[Mike Peters]

That car is total win.

I need to update this more often,
Here's an update for today, and about what else is going on with my shop space.

I've been doing this for a while, but Derrick and myself are gonna tag team a couple projects for some people, and do the shop thing, by appointment only. We made a Facebook page if you wanna check it out and/or keep track of the cars we're building and customer stuff. Our biggest thing right now is just doing drift knuckles and cages, and we have a LS1 swapped S13 we are redoing for a pretty cool guy who had another shop fail pretty bad at the swap. We're also building my car, the Brat, Jonathan has a 351 windsor Fox body we're playing with, my cousin has a 66 Belvedere, supercharged SRT8, and the coolest of the collection, Jeep Wagonner hunting truck. Derrick's projects include a LS powered E36 we're gonna start on soon, its an Aaron Losey consolidated project, his LS1 Miata, and 72 corolla. We've got some other cool stuff coming and going, if you wanna keep up, check it out by clicking this long colored underlined end of a run-on sentence.

Anyways, made motor mounts today, had to run to Houston for a large chunk of my day, so didn't get much done.

For those of you that don't know how cheap I am, instead of taking 3 minutes to cut some plate, I decided to re-use the plate from my old mounts. About 20 minutes of grinding got me this, haha.



Getting some seat-time on the chair at the Tig table, still trying to figure out which way works for me as far as adding filler. Just need to get a little more time playing with it, still have maybe an hour at most of actual welding time, but getting it kinda...





And whala! A 2011 Dodge Charger!



















Or motormounts.



Funny side story, after bolting motormounts on, Derrick observes as I absent mindedly try to pick the engine up to remove jackstand. Derrick quickly reminds me engine is now bolted to car. I crawl out of engine bay and pick up car with radiator support, haha.

Still got a LOT to do, mainly finishing this so I can start on the Camaro.

[waterboxerturbo]

fabin

Wow! great work on this car. Your welds look great, next to mine (see pic). This was my first serious MIG experience and I thought I was getting the hang of it till I saw yours.[IMG][IMG][/IMG][/IMG]