kit car builder march 2014
DESCRIPTION
MagazineTRANSCRIPT
March/April 2014 www.kitcarclub.com
Room With A View: Four
Seater ‘23 T-Bucket
Win a Cobra — Find a Cure!
Charity Fundraiser for a Shell Valley Replica
Get Raffle Tickets for This Meyers Manx — See p. 25
See Page 14
Call Today For a Dealer Near You
888.445.5226 USCATERHAM.com
Superformance LLC I 6 Autry Irvine CA 92618 I superformance.com I uscaterham.com I 949-900-1950
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COOL CARS COVER: Create Your Own GTM Supercar ············ 38
‘41 Willys “What If?” Replica ················· 46
Cobra Vacation Shell Valley ···················· 48
Joy Ride Superformance ························ 66
Hyperactive Hyper 8 Westfield ·············· 72
TECHNICAL MATTERS Jasper’s Power House ···························· 54
DEPARTMENTAL TRICK PICS: Light Saber Factory Five GTM ·············· 8 Barnyard Beauty T-bucket ················ 10 Surfin’ Feline ······································ 12
Throttle Steering Brave New World by Steve Temple, Editor ·· 6
FYI: All the Stuff That Fits! ····················· 14 Classic ‘Glass: Fun Hugger ······················ 64
Club Profiles and Listings ······················ 70
Shop Time By Jim Youngs, Editor Emeritus ········ 76 KCB Mall ·················································· 80 Sideview ·················································· 81
Contents page photo: Courtesy Superformance, http://www.superformance.com Cover photos: Factory Five Racing GTM at full chat by Steve Temple, Meyers Manx by Larry Weiner, Wintec T-Bucket by Steve Temple, Shell Valley Co-bra courtesy of Cullen McCann
KIT CAR BUILDER STAFF
Steve Temple, ................ Editor/Publisher
Larry Weiner .............................. Marketing
Deb Murphy, .......................... Art Direction
Tina Temple, .................. Maven of Morale
Ashley and Stellaphant, .............. Furballs
Jim Youngs, ...................... Editor Emeritus
The Usual Suspects (Contributors):
Harold Pace, Joe Greeves, Austin Price, Dan Burrill,
Juan LopezBonilla
Kit Car Builder Magazine is published bi-monthly by
SCT Communications, Inc. 1427 Sioux Trail Reno, NV 89521
All Rights Reserved
Free Subscription at www.kitcarclub.com
Editorial and Advertising inquires should be sent to
MARCH/APRIL 2014
“Change” means a lot of
things. It can be hard, good, quick, constant, inevitable—and all of the above, too.
With all the stuff happening here at Kit Car Builder Magazine, we fall into the latter category. That’s because we’re not just con-verting to a digital format, but al-so re-inventing this magazine, all to better serve you, dear reader.
Some of the changes you’ll see right away, such as receiving KCB magazine by email at no charge. And we kindly ask that you let your fellow kit builders and car enthusiasts know about our free subscription signup, available on our website (www. kitcarclub. com).
Other changes will become more apparent in upcoming is-sues, as we increase the number of pages and the breadth of our coverage. We’re truly excited about how much more content we can provide on a variety of levels by going to a digital format.
Granted, some readers have already expressed some regret about no longer being able to
hold a printed copy of KCB in their hands. And you can include us in the that group, too. We’re longtime magazine guys, and have found it a chal-lenge at times to make the transition to elec-tronic publishing.
But it’s hardly the first time that this old dog has had to learn new tricks. I recall the first time I tried out a digital camera a dec-ade or so ago (demon-strated to me by KCB’s former editor, Jim Youngs, ironically enough). I was leery of it, and wondered how it could ever re-place film. Yet virtual-ly all magazines, both printed and electronic now depend exclu-sively on digital pho-tos.
Think of other changes that you’ve gone through in recent years—the explosive growth of cell phones, flat-screen TVs, Facebook, Google, and auto-motive technology, to name just a few.
Rather than mourning the loss of the printed version of KCB, we’d ask you to be open to the dramatically enhanced potential of receiving an electronic maga-zine. No longer hampered by the limitations of ink-and-paper, we can be bigger and better than ev-er—more interactive, with streaming video, plus much more technical and visual detail, to
THROTTLE STEERING
A
BRAVE
NEW
WORLD
Welcome
to Your
New
Digital
KIT CAR
BUILDER
Magazine!
The Moment of TruthAfter all the effort and hours that went into prepping and painting this "Orangesicle" Cobra body, the intense concentration involved when mounting it back on the chassis is obvious. Fortunately, it all went smoothly, no nicks or scrapes.
the same level of care and attention in converting
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name just a few innovations in the works.
Yet we won’t forget our roots, as noted in this issue’s “Passing the Torch” column by the founder of KCB, Jim Youngs, who is now Editor Emeritus. A lifelong friend of mine and “editorial brother”, he was in-strumental in creating a maga-zine title with a loyal reader-ship. His skilled direction ena-bled KCB to race right by a marginal competitor (now no longer being published). He ful-ly supports our new endeavor, and will continue to have a voice here at KCB as long as he wishes. (When he handed over
the reins, I was emphatic that we weren’t going to let go of him.)
Many of you might recog-nize my byline already, having served as KCB’s marketing di-rector and freelance photojour-nalist since its inception. Over the last three decades I’ve pro-vided features to more than two dozen different automotive titles, and also was the Editor in charge of web content for Hot Rod, Car Craft, and Rod & Custom magazines. My back-ground also includes working as Director of Marketing at Shelby American, a rather col-orful period of my life that gave
me a whole new appreciation for all my fellow kit builders.
I should also note that we have another digital magazine, also available free. While Pen-tastar Power is intended pri-marily for Mopar fans, it has a wealth of appeal for car enthu-siasts in general. You can sign up for no charge at www.mrnorms.com.
So stick with us as these new projects roar into high gear. We’re at full throttle—join us for the ride of your life!
All the Best, Steve Temple, Editor
The Moment of Truth ter all the effort and hours that went into prepping and painting this "Orangesicle" Cobra body, the intense concentration
involved when mounting it back on the chassis is obvious. Fortunately, it all went smoothly, no nicks or scrapes. We’re giving
the same level of care and attention in converting Kit Car Builder to a digital magazine.
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Light Saber What do the letters on this GTM from Factory Five Racing really stand for? After encountering such otherworldly illumination, you might think something like “Glowing Time Machine.” We consider some other possibilities in this issue’s cover feature.
Photos by Steve Temple
Barnyard Beauty “Room with a view.” That’s our take on a revision of the classic ’23 T-bucket
kit. This rarified four-seater from Wintec lets you share all the fun with a few
friends, cruising down memory lane.
http://shop.wintecfabrication.com
Surfin’ Feline
Mixing metaphors here, the oft-imitated Meyers Manx was aptly named after a stub-tailed cat. Even more fitting is the Kick-Out, Bruce Meyers’ final design for the Manx, referring to a stylish move at end of a surfer’s ride. But the indefatiga-ble Bruce Meyers is still hanging ten, as he’ll be celebrating his dune buggy’s 50th anniversary with a full schedule of appearances all across the country. See www.Meyersmanx.com for details. Photos by Peter Borne
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W hat a great combina-tion—thanks to the efforts of the Ohio Cobra Club (OCC). Every year this group of 200-plus car enthusiasts, drawn together by their mutual in-terest in Cobras and charita-ble causes, donate their time and skills to build a custom Cobra replica vehicle and raf-fle it off to raise funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Central OH Chapter. To date, the OCC’s hard-working members have donated near-ly $830,000 to CFF.
Throughout the year the OCC organizes many events to raise money and have fun, all of which culminate in the London Cobra Show in London, Ohio. Held this year from June 19 to 22, it’s the largest of its kind in the country, with more than 200 Cobras attending, plus parades, a burnout contest, BBQ dinner, an auction, celebrity speak-ers, track days, and charity rides. And best of all, the awarding of a beautifully finished Cobra. (See hot links below to videos of previous shows.)
This year’s replica comes from Shell Valley (www.shellvalley.com), and boasts an array of goodies: a Ford Racing crate engine, displacing 306 cubic inches (302 bored .030 over), and rated
at 340hp, 350 lb/ft of torque. It’s backed by a T-5z transmis-sion and a Ford 9-inch rear-end with 3.55 gear
and limited slip. Paint is titanium silver with black stripes.
Raffle tickets are $20 each and can be pur-chased at the many shows and events that club members travel to, as well as purchasing them online at the London Cobra Show website: http://londoncobrashow.com
Links to video clips of previous London Cobra Shows: 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=1ZEJmnOogvQ 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=T-Y3xJQhuyY
Dick Smith’s 198 Cobra http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsr8XBSYCws
Win a Cobra—Find a Cure!
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G et your kicks in a Meyers Manx Kick-Out! And
here’s a shot at winning one by buying a raffle ticket. Note that this contest is only open to members of the Manx club, but joining is a simple matter.
The club is open to not only Manx owners, but also those who’d just like to own a Manx. Price of admission is $30, which gets you a sub-
scription to the club’s quar-terly color magazine. The raf-fle will be held on July 13, 2014 at the Big Bear Bash fun run event in Big Bear, CA (provided enough tickets have been sold). Tickets are $20 each, or an 11-pack for $200.
The raffle Manx shown here, with an estimated value of $35K, is probably worth
much more, since it’s loaded with all sorts of hot stuff, and built in part by Bruce Meyers. Rather than a traditional VW Type 1 engine, the Kick-Out S.S. runs a Subaru 2.5-liter mill, tuned by Outfront to de-liver 170 horses and 166 lb/ft of torque. Fitted in a short-ened VW chassis with Empi 4-wheel disc brakes, this engine is good for blasting from 0-60mph in 5.2 seconds, and a 1/4-mile spring of 14.2 sec-onds at 94 mph. Comforts in-clude PRP upholstered buck-ets that are fitted with seat heaters, lumbar supports and massagers. Aside from the Moon barefoot gas pedal, ste-reo and Speedhut gauges, the rest of cockpit is beach-blanket basic.
For more information on the Manx Club, raffle and up-coming tour, go to the source at http://meyersmanx.com
Meyers Manx Raffle
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Photos by
Larry Weiner
Coyote Blower Kit for Kit Cars
While the Roadrunner always eluded the Wiley Coyote in those classic cartoons, that surely wouldn’t have happened with boost from a Kenne Bell blower. The company has just released a new line of big, bad, billet Twin Screw Supercharger Kits for the popular 2011-’14 5.0 Coyote Mustang, GT and Boss 302 engines. These Mammoth Kits offer supercharger sizes (2.8, 3.6, 4.0, 4.2 and 4.7L) for any power level, from 650 to1800 hp, ei-ther stock or modified. Available in show polish or black satin, all kits come with a huge 4.5-inch Ram Air Pipe that can be easily modified for kit cars
and street rods. A larger optional 50+hp 168mm Throttle Body is also available. Contact: Kenne Bell by phone at (909) 941-6646, email [email protected], or the web:
AHA’s 35th “Fun Under the Sun” Show
W e’ve been covering the AHA (Association of Handcrafted Automobiles) since it’s hal-
cyon days at Knotts Berry Farm, and it has gone through as many changes as both Kit Car Builder magazine and the specialty car market in general. Space doesn’t permit recounting them all, but the latest one is a relocation to Sylmar, CA at the Nethercutt Museum on April 12, 2014.
“The A.H.A. has been committed to giving hobbyists, enthusiasts, and anyone who cares about great cars, a yearly outlet for their pas-sions, and we remain committed to this in our 35th year,” the club noted in its newsletter.
At the new venue, the Nethercutt Museum contains over 120 antique, vintage, and classic Automobiles, and when combined with the Nethercutt Collection just across the street, adds another 50 cars in a palatial setting. For more in-formation go to www.replicarclub.com. If you have any questions, please contact Dean Horn-bacher (951)780-9332, Dave Martin (818)597-8797 or you can email [email protected].
Getting All Hooked up—With
Hooker Headers
H ooker Headers New Builder Series is designed to help header fabricators
build their own custom exhaust systems. For GM LS engines, Hooker offers both 3/8” mild steel and investment-cast, stainless steel warp-resistant flanges. Proprietary 304 stainless steel merge collector with Hooker’s innovative internal attenuation spear is ideal for not only LS engine builders but a wide range of engine applications.
For more information contact call the Tech Line at 270/781-9741 or go online to www.hookerheaders.com
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Breathe Easier
I f you can imagine a custom intake system, now you can build it! The U-Build-It (UBI) kit from Airaid includes
everything you need to create a complete system, and all components are also available individually for maximum versatility. Whether you are doing an engine swap or have a custom application where space is tight, the Airaid UBI Intake System can be adapted to just about any applica-tion. Each UBI master kit and individual intake tubes are available in 3”, 3.5”, 4”, 5”, and 6” diameters. The roto-molded intake tubes feature multiple angles and straights that allow you to route the intake to any de-sired location in the engine compartment. The UBI system can be used as a stand-alone piece or com-bined with Airaid premium air filters. In addition, Airaid offers individual MAF adapters for popular applications, as well as Cold Air Dam Panels for select applications. Also carbon-fiber cold-air hat setup for carbureted engines is a new option. For more information, visit www.AIRAID.com or call 800-498-6951.
A rt Morrison Enterprises has introduced a highly sophisti-
cated and durable Multilink IRS (Independent Rear Suspension) that can be ordered as an option on the firm’s popular GT Sport chassis or installed in a wide va-riety of vehicles thanks to its unique “cradle” design. The Mor-rison Multilink IRS shares a de-sign lineage with a number of the world’s fastest exotic cars, and it features a rugged center section from Strange Engineering (S60 unit with 9-1/2" diam-eter ring gear) de-signed to handle sub-stantial horsepower. It provides important handling and ride ben-efits over older, fixed control-arm type of IRS setups and offers improved wheel ad-
justability. Available gear ratios range from 3.54 to 5.13, and the compact “package” design of the AME Multilink IRS allows it to accommodate brake systems with rotors up to 14.4" in diame-ter. It is available in track widths of 55.5", 57.5", 59.5" and 61.5" (wheel mounting surface-to-surface width). For additional information go to www.artmorrison.com, or call AME’s tech staff toll-free at 800-929-7188.
IRS Investigation
Bugnatti Pacific
I n a whimsical and dra-matic contrast to Ralph
Lauren's $40 million-dollar Bugatti Atlantic, you can get the Bugnatti Pacific kit for less than $14K!
Builder Terry Cook is now offering fiberglass bodies of the Pacific fast-back, both with and with-out the external "fin" run-ning down the top of the roof and fenders. Details: www.delahayeusa.com
Airaid Carbon-Fiber Cold-Air Hat for Carburetors
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T he Catfish is a new two-seat speedster from Bauer Lim-
ited Production. The foundation is a DOM tube-frame chassis, fit-ted with a composite body, and uses the 1990-2005 Miata as its single-car donor. The Mazda Mi-ata is the most-raced car in the world, which means that there are not only many donor cars available at great pricing, but also a large aftermarket from which to find performance parts and tech advice.
Why call it the Catfish? While the car designer was given the task to create a “Retro Mod” Brit-ish sports car with flowing lines and hints to the cars of the Fifties, he also happened to be looking at a picture of a catfish for inspira-tion. If you look closely, the wide mouth and catfish eyes are a dead giveaway. Build time is esti-mated to be a very short 100-150
hours, depending on modifications and ac-cess to help. This quick build time is aided by a frame that is made to literally drop on top of the engine/suspension/drivetrain once the Mi-ata unibody is removed (six to eight hours). The builder then simply plmbs and wires the car, reinstalls the steering and pedals and mounts the body-work. The entire kit is available partially pre-assembled, and in-cludes pre-drilled mounting holes in the aluminum paneling so assembly is a snap.
With a street weight of 1,550lbs and horsepower ranging from 90whp (stock 1990 Miata) to 265whp (Miata engine with turbo), sports car to supercar performance is available. For
those who think too much is nev-er enough, a V8 Ford or Chevy LSx package will be available soon. The first car is driving around the streets of Southern California now, and only a limited number will be available every year, guaranteeing that you’ll be the only kid on your block with a Catfish in your garage. For more information visit www.bauerltd.com. Pricing starts at $13,900.
A new member to the Bailey Cars’ North American family is Nova Scotia native David
Peters, a Canadian car collector who has pur-chased the Bailey 917. David is interested in step-ping up the horsepower and possibly competing in the future North American Le Mans Tribute Race Series that Bailey N.A. is currently working on in conjunction with Ted Wenz of Savannah Race Engineering, along with various clubs and tracks. Look for this event in late 2014. For more info, call 914/299-2965 or go to http://www.baileycarsnorthamerica.com
Fish Are Jumpin’!
Car Collector’s Bailey 917
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We noted the debut of the Candadian-built Toma-hawk in a previous issue, with a chassis designed
to accept a wide variety of powerplants. Now the Univer-sity of Sherbrooke is lending a hand in the study of the electric version. TM4 is the supplier of the motors and Gentec is the con-trols. Gentec in-stallsmost elec-tric circuits throughout the province of Que-bec, and will pro-vide technical support to Toma-hawk customers. The unveiling of the prototype will be in early March at the Quebec Inter-national Auto Show done by the mayor of Quebec city.
“We want the Tomahawk to be ‘builder friendly’ making it the easiest super car kit to build,” notes Dubuc’s Mike Kakogiannakis notes. The body comes ful-ly mounted and assembled on the chassis without any bodywork needed, saving hundreds of hours of labor and thousands of dollars on a paint job. Even the wind-shield and back glass come installed. The body comes in a choice of five standard colors, and custom colors are optional for a fee. Contact: Dubuc Super Light Car, phone 514/264-1359, email: [email protected], or web:
www.superlightcar.ca
Electrifying Dubuc Tomahawk
Acme Forms New Fiberglass Production Division
Acme Trailer Works now has a new fa-cility, Acme Composites, manufactur-
ing a wide variety of fiberglass products for commercial and industrial markets. After the supplier of the “Berrien Buggy by Ac-me” fiberglass products stopped operations at the end of last year, Acme forged ahead with its own fiberglass facility at the same site. This new company manufactures both fiberglass and carbon fiber products, as well as prototyping, pattern and tool mak-ing, serving all facets of the kit and com-mercial marketplace. Acme Car Company sells parts for air-cooled VW enthusiasts, as well as offers restoration and repair ser-vices for 1949 thru 1978 Volkswagens, and specialty vehicles. Custom fabrication and welding are also offered. See http://acmecarco.com or contact Dan Mickle, Di-rector of Marketing at 717/774-9450 or email [email protected]
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TIME IS RUNNING OUT
ON YOUR CHANCE TO WIN BRUCE MEYERS’ SUBARU-POWERED, 5-SPD KICK-OUT S.S. MANX
Picture yourself in this buggy!
WINNING IS EASY JOIN THE MANX CLUB AND BUY A RAFFLE TICKET
● $ 30 to join club (if you’re not already a member)
● $ 20 / raffle ticket (buy 10 and get one free)
● Maximum number of 6,000 tickets will be sold
● The Kick-Out S.S. Manx is valued at $ 35,000
● For any inquiries, contact: [email protected]
● Raffle will be held on 7/13/2014 at Big Bear Bash
● Entrants need not be present to win
MANX CLUB MEMBER BENEFITS
Register to attend Manx Club events (on both coasts) Purchase Raffle Tickets Access to Manx Club Forums Manx Club Quarterly Printed Newsletter Enjoy breakfast with Bruce and Winnie Meyers Club Membership Card
JOIN THE MANX CLUB TODAY FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN BRUCE MEYERS PERSONAL KICK-OUT S.S. MANX
For complete official rules and regulations, visit the club’s website
www.manxclub.com
Factory Five Racing’s prez Dave Smith admits that he
might be getting a touch of cabin fever from the long, cold winter. Or maybe he’s got a case of Spring fever instead. Either way, he’d like to make it easier for more people to get started building their own Factory Fives projects before Summer, so he’s rolling out one of the coolest (or hot-test?) specials the company has ever offered!
Order either a MK4 Road-ster or Type 65 Coupe, and get a free set of wheels and tires. FFR has put together 10 sets of its best-selling 17″ Halibrand Wheels (17″x 9″ front and 17″x
10.5″ rear) with some serious performance rubber, mounted, balanced, and sent to you ready to bolt onto your chassis.
As any car enthusiast can attest, there’s something magi-cal about brand-new aluminum wheels and that smell of fresh tires. But even more enticing is the idea of getting more than $2,000 worth of fun as well, and with this
special you don’t have to go to the trouble of bringing your wheels to you local tire shop for mounting and balancing. FFR has only 10 sets available to the first customers to place orders, so don’t wait until the snow melts! www.factoryfive.com
FFR’s Free Wheel-and-Tire Special
L ightweight dune buggies are a natural fit with EV technology, and the latest version that
we’ve come across is a joint project between Green Cycle Design and Harris Composites. The
electric system operates at 130 volts maximum, using an AC-50 motor with regenerative braking and a 100 amp-hour lithium battery pack. Project-ed range is range is as much as 80 miles, Green
Cycle’s Ken Clayton claims, and free-way speeds are possible as well. Lee Harris laid up the body, based on a for-mer Allison Dune Buggy body fitted on a 1975 VW chassis, with some mods to the hood and fuel tank for battery stor-age. “I drove this buggy with a gas mo-tor and now the electric motor,” notes Clayton. “The electric motor kicked the gas motor in acceleration and is very quiet.” http:www.greencycledesigngroup.com
Peddling a Green Cycle
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Harris Composites announces its en-
trance into the custom component car industry with the launch of its newest division, Coffin Nose Customs. This new company began manu-facturing its Coffin Nose Speedster in late 2013 after purchasing molds from Speedster Classic Designs. Based on the iconic 1936 Cord 810, the Coffin Nose Speed-ster is designed from the ground up as a 21st century homage to Gor-don Buehrig’s deco masterpiece. How did this neo-retro version come about?
“I’ve been fascinat-ed with deco-era cars ever since I saw a pic-
ture of a Duesenberg at age two, notes Lee Har-ris, owner and founder of Harris Composites. “Speedster Classics did a great job prototyping the Coffin Nose and I feel fortunate to be able to play a part in bring-ing this legendary de-sign to a new genera-tion of drivers.”
Based just outside Lexington, Virginia, Cof-fin Nose Customs and Harris Composites pro-duce automobiles in a massive, century-old former textile factory. “We have been building and restoring historic planes, trains, automo-biles, military vehicles, and even carousels here for years,” Harris adds.
“So the Coffin Nose is a welcome addition to our lineup. I’m always looking for interesting projects, so the chance to produce a modern reincarnation of one of my all-time favorite cars was an opportunity I couldn’t resist.”
The Coffin Nose Speedster is built on its own custom designed 2 x 4” box-steel frame with four-wheel inde-pendent Heidts suspen-sion. Features include: tilt-forward Coffin Nose hood, custom pop-up
headlight mechanisms, custom convertible top, custom windshield frame, Wilwood brakes, suicide doors, spacious trunk, and single piece body with integrated fenders. A removable hardtop is under devel-opment. Rolling units are available under $30,000 while turn-key models start around $100,000. For more in-formation, call 540/460-2436, or visit www. CoffinNoseCustoms.com
On the Nose
For nearly 40 years, Lingenfelter Performance Engineering has been known for delivering high
horsepower for high-end, street-driven cars, cus-tomizing 1,000-, 1,200- and 1,500-horsepower en-gines to customers' specifications. Now, Lingenfelter
is expanding its standard crate en-gine line with a powerful 900hp engine that will be an off-the-shelf, stocked product. "We have never before offered a
crate engine combination with this much horsepow-er," Linfenfelter’s Mike Copeland points out. "For this engine, we've used a 3.6L Kenne Bell Super-charger, which delivers much more horsepower po-tential for an engine that's been engineered to relia-bly stand up to these power levels."
The new 900hp Lingenfelter Performance Engi-neering crate engine is fitted with a forged crank-shaft, pistons and rods for maximum performance and durability. It also features GM LS9 heads with Lingenfelter's proprietary CNC porting program for improved airflow at GT22 camshaft. Call 260/724-2552 or visit www.lingenfelter.com.
Lingenfelter 900hp Crate Engines
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Dates for Carlisle Import & Kit Nationals
A New Finish on Finish Line
The Finish Line Accessories family thanks eve-ryone for celebrating the company’s recent
grand re-opening. “We loved spending time with some old friends and meeting so many new ones,” notes Jackie Riobe of Finish Line. “To those of you that came out to support us, we sincerely appreciate you sharing that special day with us.” Finish Line Accessories also expressed thanks to its business partners, vendors and Co-bra Joe Productions for joining the company in support and helping make the re-opening event a great success.
FinishLineAccessories.com offers a complete line of parts and accessories for Cobra repli-cas. This company prides itself on same-day ship-ping, customer friendliness, and the largest selec-tion of in-stock inventory in the country. And if you are looking for a product that is not in Finish Line’s catalog or on its website, the staff will be glad to find it for you! You can order toll free in the U.S. at (888) 436-9113 or at (954) 436-9101. http://finishlineaccessories.com
W ith the 40th Anniversary of Carlisle Events ongoing in 2014 and music fans across the
country celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beatles coming to the states, it's only fitting that the Carlisle Import & Kit Nationals do a little British Invasion celebration of its own. This year's event, May 16-18 at the Carlisle PA Fair-grounds, highlights British cars as a showcase, plus hosts live music and the rest of the automo-tive world as part of this amazing international automotive celebration. What makes the weekend event so popular is the compelling combination of kit and import cars, the largest of its type in the country. And to cre-ate a festival atmosphere, Carlisle hosts live mu-sic, a special passport program where guests traverse the grounds to view the show cars, have a special booklet stamped, then earn prizes, all for doing what they’d plan on doing anyway—enjoying the displays. This weekend is also popu-lar because it hosts multiple free seminars with industry experts, so it’s a great place for car clubs to gather and share automotive passions. The kits on display include replicas of Shelby Cobras, Porsche Speedster and Spyder, and ever-popular dune buggies. More information is available via www.CarlisleEvents.com
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It started with an IDEA to offer a kit car like no other. As im-
plied by the company acronym “Individually Designed and Engi-neered Automobile,” it’s not a replica, but instead means build-ing your own real car, the way you want it. Conceived by owner Jamie Dunst, the approach is to
provide enthusiast builders with a high-quality frame assembly constructed of 1 ¾” DOM (Drawn Over Mandrel) steel tubing, com-bined with a variety of readily available suspension compo-nents. Then just add a drivetrain from a list of compatible choices to build your car, your way. Rear wheel drive, front wheel drive, all
wheel drive, independent rear, four link—whatever you need to build your roadster, hot rod, de-sert runner, drag racer, road rac-er, or other vehicle you have in mind. To start your project, spark your imagination at www.ideamotorcars.com .
The Right IDEA
Go With the Flow
A variety of Champion Low Profile Series fans are available from Maradyne High Perfor-
mance Fans to increase engine cooling, horse-power and A/C cooling at idle. Available in 7-inch to 16-inch fan sizes – all with a depth of 3.19 inches or less – the Champion Series offers a low profile, push-pull fan in a quiet, reversible S-blade design that eliminates vibration contact and in-creases airflow. The fans feature sealed motors
that are IP68-certified dustproof and water-proof. For more infor-mation and dimensional drawings, call Maradyne at 800/403-7953 or visit www.maradyneHP.com.
BMW ZGT Rebody
Those high-energy guys at Reaction Re-search are hard at work on a new ZGT re-
body kit for a BMW Z3 donor. The first two production molds are complete as work contin-ues on the rest of the car. Plug work is expected to be complete by the end of March, and the prototype will go to paint sometime in April. The kit is being designed for a quick, no-cutting, no-welding installation, and selling for a sub-$10k price. Call 480/229-1831 or email [email protected]
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M id America Motorworks is calling all Volkswagens to
attend a Sweet 16 birthday par-ty! The company’s Funfest for VWs is turning 16 and is pulling out all the stops for the celebra-tion. Set for June 6-8, 2014, Fun-fest will once again welcome thousands of Volkswagens—both air-cooled and water-cooled, plus a variety of VW-based kits—along with their en-thusiastic owners as they con-verge on Mid America Motor-works' corporate campus in Eff-ingham, Ill., some 90 miles east from St. Louis, to celebrate the hobby.
“I can’t wait for June to ar-rive, because I know it means I’ll get to spend the weekend with a few thousand of my closest friends,” enthuses Mike Yager, Chief Cheerleader and founder of Mid America Motorworks. “How fitting that we’re celebrat-ing a sweet 16, the year that most of us received our licenses
and start-ed driv-ing that first car, which for many was a VW!”
One of the premier VW cele-brations in the country, Funfest for Air-Cooled VW welcomes enthusi-asts from all over the world. The weekend kicks off with the Fri-day Night Fun Run, taking par-ticipants on a scenic drive be-fore an impromptu parade where locals greet the VW crowd. Music, food and a VW car show follow at the Downtown Party around the Effingham Courthouse square.
Guests can look forward to all new expert seminars, low-speed slaloms, special VW dis-plays, a swap meet, a Saturday concert and much more. VW Bus parking and camping will once
again be front and center on the show field, along with special parking for all water cooled Volkswagens. All registered guests will be eligible for "Celebrity Choice" fun judging, where our VW industry celebs select Volkswagens that best portray the hobby.
Enthusiasts can register in advance for Funfest for Air-Cooled VW 2014 at http://registration.funfestacvw.com/default.aspx or by calling 866/350-4539. Visit the website or our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/aircooledvws, for up to date
VW Funfest
A fter 30 years of making the T Car, Swallow and TG Sports, Alternative Cars Ltd of New
Zealand has decided that that it’s time to relax and enjoy smelling the roses. The size of the NZ market and the distance from the UK, Europe, and US markets means that this business is still to re-alize its full potential. Assets of the company in-clude molds and jigs with full sets of procedures and manuals for the manufacture of chassis and body for the TG Sports, an MG TF replica. Full in-formation on the vehicles is available on
www.sportscars.net.nz and contact can be made by email to: [email protected]
For Sale: MG TF Replica Company Assets
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Caterham Cars and its icon-ic Seven will be officially
sold in the USA with a new US distributor, Superformance. Primarily known for its Cobra replicas and GT40s, Superfor-mance is now offering several variants of the Seven. In-creased American interest in the legendary British sportscar was sparked earlier this year, when X Factor celeb-rity Simon Cowell took deliv-ery of a Seven CSR 260 at his home in Los Angeles. Super-formance will stock primarily the high-power incarnations of the car, which have tradition-ally been more popular in the American market. Caterham says a top-level CSR with a 260hp, 2.3-liter four-cylinder Ford engine can hit 60 mph in a fierce 3.1 seconds. We can't wait to see these Caterhams on our streets. The range of models will also include the Seven 480 and the new Seven 620R, which will top the US line-up initially. Sevens will be shipped to the USA in part-built form and sold as rolling chassis via Superformance’s nationwide dealer network for customers to then complete the build personally.
In other news, Superfor-mance is also offering a Holley Terminator EFI Systems on its Cobra replicas, with unique features not found in any oth-er street EFI system. These include throttle-body technol-ogy that is currently used in every NASCAR Sprint Cup Se-ries car. Installation requires no computer experience. Simply bolt it on, use the in-cluded handheld tuner to an-swer a few multiple-choice questions and let the Termina-tor EFI take control, and the system self-tunes as you drive. The system is also upgradable to complete laptop control without the need to purchase another elec-tronic control unit.
Shown here is a Su-performance Cobra fit-ted with Ford Racing’s 460ci Boss Block, the biggest small-block Windsor crate engine
ever, the Z460. With 575 horsepower and 575 lb/ft of torque, Z460 packs a pump-gas punch on both the street and on the track. The founda-tion of Z460 is the legendary Ford Racing Boss block topped off with high port/high flow Z-Heads. Premium components from the best aftermarket companies are used through-out the engine, such as SCAT’s forged steel crankshaft and H-beam connecting rods, forged Mahle pistons and Clevite bearings. Every Ford Racing Z460 engine is hand assem-bled in the U.S. with perfor-mance clearances.
Superformance and Caterham Join Forces
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Trucks have generally been only a small seg-
ment of the kit market, and off-road rigs less so. But Fran Hall of Race Car Repli-cas is out to change out all that with his new RCR HT2 in the works. Drawing on his expertise with an impressive array of racey replicas and unique high-performance designs, this trophy-style truck is designed to have a 120" wheelbase and meas-ure 80" wide. For handling rugged terrain, the alumi-num monocoque and tubular chassis boasts 16" wheel travel and a 4-wheel inde-pendent, 2" DOM suspension arms with full rod ends. The 2WD mid-engine setup uses either Corvette C5 or C6 drivetrain. Other features include Tilton pedals with brake bias, quick-disconnect
steering wheel, a full 2" tub-ular roll-cage structure, and spare wheel mount. While the HT2 is intended for of-froading, with quick-disconnect swaybars to max-imize articulation on rough grades, a street-legal version is planned as well. http://www.race-car-replicas.com
Off-Road Runner Riveting Subject
Hanson Rivet has a new
threaded insert installation tool. The RNHT Hand Threaded Insert Tool is a uniquely designed device to install blind threaded inserts (also known as riv-et-nuts). This tool is simple to oper-ate and works well in limited space applications. It also uses standard socket head cap screws as man-drels. The RNHT tools are sold in durable carrying case kits that in-clude 8-32 through 3/8-16 or M4 through M8 thread set-ups. Great for low-volume users including sheet metal shops, kit builders, and automotive general repair. Hanson Rivet stocks a variety of threaded inserts to compliment the RNHT tool and a large selection of all types of rivets and installation tools and machines. www.hansonrivet.com.
The Weavers cordially invite everyone to attend their 21st An-nual Homecoming, to be held May
9 and 10, 2014. Looking forward to seeing all their “Unique Fami-ly” of Cobras and rods, they will be following last year’s schedule. For those who arrive on Thurs-day, there will be a gathering at Top O’ The River for fellowship and dinner. The Unique Home-coming will be held at the shop on Friday from 8:00 am until 3:00 pm, and refreshments and lunch will be provided. On Saturday
morning there will be a meeting Noccalula Falls for a cruise and stop along the way for lunch. Then a return to Gadsden, to take time to rest and relax then meet for Mexican food and drinks. En-try forms must be completed by April 1, 2014. If you have any questions, call 256/546-3708 or 256/546-2395 or email [email protected]
Upcoming Unique Motorcars Open House
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British-Built BMW
Rebody
The Bertini GT 25, a bolt-on fiberglass con-version kit for BMW Z3, is in its final stages
of development, and scheduled to debut in early May at the Stoneleigh show in the U.K. Only the body panels are replaced, while the factory doors, sills and roof remain. All interior and run-ning gear are also retained from original Z3.
Designed by Anthony Cherry, he says his in-spiration came from some of his favorite cars: Jaguar E and F type, TVR, BMW Z8, Aston Mar-tin, Maserati and AC Cobra. While the Z3 has a large range of engines, from 1.8L to a 3.2L straight six, V8 conversions have also been done for BMW Z3s using GM’s LS en-gine. www.BertiniGT25.com
Regal Roadsters
builds the first "Battlebird Tribute" car based upon one of only three original 1957 Ford Thunderbirds that changed racing history at Daytona. Now you can build your own car that repli-cates the most rare of all Thun-derbirds.
Complete bodies and retrofit body packages are now availa-ble to convert any original Ford or replica Thunderbird.
Call Chuck at Regal Road-sters 608-273-4141 or email [email protected] for more details.
Regal Roadsters Are Battle Ready
CRACKING THE CODEWhat it Takes to Translate a GTM Into a Supercar
CRACKING THE CODE What it Takes to Translate a GTM Into a Supercar
By Steve Temple
Photos by Steve Temple
W hile some kit builders prefer to follow the
instruction manual, others throw it out and
follow their own instincts instead. That’s the
case with Steve Knecht and his Factory Five
Racing’s GTM. While it’s a fine exotic right out of the box, he
couldn’t leave well enough alone, and added an astonishing level
of customization. So much so, that we gave his beautiful buildup
the “Editor’s Choice” award at last year’s Factory Five event in
Huntington Beach, CA. (So maybe “GTM” stands for “Gee That’s
Magnificent!” Well, read on and you’ll see there’s another possi-
ble meaning as well.)
Why did we take so long to feature such a stellar ride? Well, we had to wait for the planets to line up, and finally arranged for
a shoot on an uncompleted stretch of freeway west of Bak-ersfield, California. It was well worth the wait, as you’ll see. The effort that went into this project is extraordinary, and will likely give other kit build-ers some inspiration for embel-lishing their own rides.
Beginning at the Beginning
First, though, a bit of back-ground on Knecht, and how he honed his fabrication skills. A California native, he has always been interested in anything that goes. He started young, building go-karts, mini bikes
and anything else he could ride. In high school he bought the family 1970 VW Beetle. That’s where all that go-kart work paid off, as he converted the bug into one hot street car ahead of the Cal-look craze. This practice of drawing on ear-ly experiences would bode well for later projects.
After high school Steve went to work as a tune-up me-chanic at a local dealership, and then moved on to working as a diesel mechanic. At 23 years old, Steve decided he was tired of working for someone else and wanted to have his own
business. Using the experience of building his own hot-rod VW, he opened Volks Works, a VW repair and fabrication shop. The Cal-look VW phenomenon was in full swing in the early Eighties, and Steve and his crew turned out some of the VW show cars of the era. While hardly a high-end exotic like the GTM shown here, customiz-ing a Beetle was a good training ground for a far more challeng-ing endeavor, as many other kit builders can likely attest.
Over the next five years, Steve accumulated many car show awards and magazine fea-
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tures with the vehicles that he built for his customers. Even-tually, he decided that he liked building cars more than man-aging a business, so he closed Volks Works to pursue his personal passions on a smaller scale through T&S Designs. In the late Eighties, he got in-volved in the car audio scene, and got hooked on stereo com-petitions, while still building cars as well.
During this time Steve married his longtime sweet-heart Teri. Starting a family
while working on one car at a time can be kind of tough, so Ste-ve realized that he need-ed to expand his skills and started doing computer-aided design (CAD) for his car projects. An oppor-tunity came along to do
some CAD work for a knee-brace company using a $500K Silicon Graphics system. Talk about a kid in a candy store! This would prove to be a pivot-al moment in the development of his customizing skills, be-cause behind that computer was access to a full CNC ma-chine shop. Steve’s design and fabrication capabilities expand-ed exponentially. Making knee braces is certainly a worthy en-deavor and provided a good living, but it just didn’t fill that creative need. So his after-hours car projects continued unabated. Which brings us to the stunning GTM you see here.
For the last 20 years Steve has been doing work on the side for Frank Hinmon, who has a fine collection of classics, kustoms and street rods. About four years ago he said, “Hey Steve, there’s a new kit car I want to build.” Easier said than done, of course, but Steve had already built a couple MGTD replicas and a Sebring kit car in the past. Even so, with the ec-lectic taste Frank has in cars, Steve was a little hesitant about taking on GTM.
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Lightning Strikes Fortunately there was some-
one building a GTM in Bakers-field at the time and Frank took Steve over to look at it. The sec-ond Steve saw it, he knew that it was going to become the fulfill-ment of a lifelong passion, since he had always wanted to build a car from scratch. He felt that no matter how cool you make an existing car look, it’s still just a modified car. There’s nothing like the feeling of accomplish-ment of assembling an entire car—not to mention taking it to an even higher level of finish.
Frank had only two condi-tions: “You can’t paint it blue or pink.” Okay fair, enough. There are plenty of other cool hues to pick from on the color wheel. So
Steve and Frank struck a deal. Steve would bring his years of building experience and a full machine shop to the build the GTM, as long as Frank would write the checks. In retrospect Frank got the best end of the deal because while there is probably nearly $50K total in-vestment in this car, compare that to four years of long nights, weekends and weeks of vaca-tion time. Easily 4000 hours. But no complaints. After all, Steve would finally be able to indulge his automotive impulses to an unprecedented degree—and then some.
Let the Build Begin
The GTM kit arrived on April of 2009, but Frank had been
busy long before,
doing what he does best (finding the
best deals, since he’s in the real estate business by trade). He purchased a salvaged 2004 Z06 Corvette for $7500, and found a company that would remove all the parts we needed for the build and keep the rest of the donor car in trade for the la-bor.
The engine only had 17K miles on it, but was stripped down to the long block so high-flow heads and cam could be installed. Frank also found a low-mileage G50 gearbox for $3500. With all the major com-ponents ready and waiting
when the kit arrived, assembly to the “go-kart stage” went pret-ty fast (note how all those early experiences can add up).
All the suspension parts were fully disassembled, smoothed and powder-coated chrome metallic, and the alumi-num panels powder coated Ar-gento Grey after drilling and fit-ting. Chassis detail went to the extreme, with features such as every bolt measuring 1/4 inch or more being drilled and tapped so a custom billet nut cap could be secured with a SS button-head screw. The same button heads hold on all the alu-minum panels. After the suspen-sion work, engine, transmission and exhaust were installed, the chassis was taken to Ted Harri-son of Quick Racing Products
Easier said than done, of course, but Steve had already built a couple MGTD replicas and a Se-bring kit car in the past. Even so, with the eclectic taste Frank has in cars, Steve was a little hesitant about taking on GTM.
Body Building
Meanwhile, Steve was busy making the body look just the way he likes them, smooth and curvy. It had been briefly installed on the chassis to trim all the mov-ing parts, ensuring that every-thing fit, and to make the modifi-cations that could be done only with the body mounted. Steve thought the tilting front end was pretty cool, but didn’t think he
had the skill to make it open and close or fit the
way he wanted, so he determined that the only way to get the look he wanted was to fabricate a sin-gle-piece front end and hood.
Another area that he felt need-ed addressing was around the door windows, especially in the A-pillar area. So he fabricated a set of window frames for the glass to seal into. The door frames re-quired the rear-quarter window area to be reshaped to continue the flowing lines. So he fabricated some fully functional, fresh-air scoops to fill the gap behind the doors. Speaking of scoops, Steve had also fabricated one for the roof after lowering it one inch to allow a larger air flow into the en-gine. But his original scoop design just didn’t do it for him. Out came the Sawzall and a
Factory Five roof scoop went in instead.
Since Steve and Frank’s vision for the car was to be a street su-percar, and the factory vents in front of the front tires and behind the rear tires looked more at home on race cars, they decided to fill them in. Also, the front nose opening was deemed too big so it was reshaped smaller. The air in-takes behind the doors were deemed too small so they were enlarged.
Neither Frank nor Steve thought the taillights or head-lights were up to the level of fin-ish they were trying to achieve, so Steve designed and built some custom headlight buckets that
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included angel eyes and LED ac-cent lights. Tail lights were cus-tom fabricated to use all LEDs.
The exhaust was routed out to the custom openings in the lower corner of the body. The license plate opening was re-shaped to tie in with the tail-lights. The stock diffuser was a little too aggressive so it was cut down and fit “into” instead of “onto” the body. Any respectable supercar needs a wing and front spoiler so those were also cus-tom fabricated to finish off the look.
Interior Design With most of the major bod-
ywork done, it was time to move inside. Since they opted to put in the C5 instrument panel, a cus-tom dash with a working glove box was required. Three differ-ent versions were tried before choosing the current model. Ste-ve’s tenure with car audio came in handy for designing and fabri-cating a custom interior that would hold a 1000-watt sound and AV system.
That meant fabricating cus-tom door panels to incorporate door pulls and JL Audio six-inch mids and one-inch tweeters. And also designing and building
a sealed enclosure for the eight-inch JL audio subwoofer that re-sides in the center console. The center console also holds all the LED switches, Pioneer double Din head unit and RFID pushbutton starter. At the back of the console is another cubby for assorted items such as clean-ing supplies.
All interior panels are made of .030-inch aluminum, covered in Landau foam and red, gray or black leather. They all clip in and can be removed. Custom roll bar covers were fabricated and covered in gray vinyl to comple-ment the gray velour headliner.
With most of the fabrication was done it was time to remove the entire interior and pull the body off the chassis for final bodywork and paint. For paint-ing, the body was put back on the sanding buck. The doors, front hood and engine lid were hung. Steve sprayed on one coat of sealer and two coats of the red base coat, and then three coats of the red pearl coat inside and out, plus two coats of clear. Everything was color sanded to 600 grit and then the doors hood and engine lid were hung in their respective holes.
Next, the graphics were laid out and sprayed. At that point everything was pulled back apart so the graphics could be continued through the door openings and everything would be sprayed with two more coats of clear, inside and out. After a couple weeks, everything was color sanded to 1000 grit, then 2000, cut with a cutting com-pound and finished up with a polishing compound. The body was then reinstalled on the fin-ished chassis.
Details, Details With the body safely back on
the chassis it was time for final assembly. This is the most fun part of the build for Steve. It's also when the laws of physics no longer apply. Fresh paint can cause a tool that was simply dropped on the other side of the shop to magically bounce and fly horizontally. Is it anti-gravity or magnetism?
The entire interior was lined with a layer of thermal protect-ed Hush Mat. Then all the interi-or pieces were reinstalled. Doors hung, hood fitted and en-gine lid attached. When in-stalling the glass, Steve discov-ered that the rear window just
didn’t fit the con-tour of the car quite right so a piece of polycarbonate was cut and fit. Billet grills were designed and fabricated to fill all the openings in the car. After everything was on the car and the ride height set, it became apparent
SOURCE: Factory Five Racing (508) 291-3443 http: www.factoryfive.com
that if the car was to be driven at the level that looked the cool-est, a front end lift was going to be needed just to get out of the driveway. So back to the com-puter and Steve designed a lift system that could smoothly lift the nose two inches in about three seconds flat.
Further details were added at the time of assembly like Blue LEDs in all the grille open-ings under the hood and engine bay. An engine cover from V Raptor provided the starting point for a custom air cleaner cover to be fabricated that ties in with the side scoops to pro-vide fresh air to the engine.
Believe it or not, all of the preceding description is actual-ly a “Readers Digest” version of what went into this car. “Like most projects, once you start modifying one thing, it leads to ten others and so on,” Steve ad-mits. “But that was the thrill of building this car. There were no boundaries. It was always my dream to be able to build a Su-per Car from scratch just the way I wanted, without having to worry about budgets, customer expectations, timelines or any of the other factors that limit creativity.”
But more important than an example of personal expression is the personal connection in-volved. “I also have to take a minute to thank my dad Clifford Knecht,” Steve notes. “He has supported all my goofy ideas since before I bought my first car from him all those years ago. He was always there when I needed something done. Be-cause of this car I was able to spend many hours with my dad
that I wouldn’t have had if not for this pro-ject.”
In addition, “I also have to thank my wife Teri who was always support-ive and ready with a sandwich or anything.” Lastly, another bonus this build has brought to his life is meeting some of the best people through the GTM forums.
“It was so great to feel like part of a build team,” he adds. “I have friends all over the world that were in the same trench-es as me. We worked as a team to defeat the challenges each of us was trying to overcome. It was just one more thing that enhanced the en-tire build experi-ence.”
So besides “Gee That’s Mag-nificent”, Knecht’s spectac-ular GTM also stands for some-thing else—“Great Team Members!”
“W hat if the Stone Woods Cook iconic 1941 Willy’s
gasser had not been restored and put in a museum? Instead, what if that car had been put in a barn and forgotten since its 1961 Indy win at the Nationals. What would it look like? What would the condition of the body be?”
“Before answering those questions, I must tell you that I always loved that Stone Woods Cook car,” relates Bryan Mar-shall. “I loved the lettering, the light blue paint and the look.”
So how did he go about rec-reating it? “I started out by de-veloping a book of all of the pic-tures I could find of the car, then building a model of the car and
looking for the right parts,” he notes. “I traded for the body and frame and went to Billy Price of Outlaw Fabrication in Jefferson-ville, Indiana for the build.”
In October of 2012 Marshall showed him his book, model, and budget, and parts and “the what if” became “what next?”
“I kept telling the guys at Outlaw that I was going to paint the car with a four-inch brush when we got the build done,” says. “As the body and frame got closer and my parts research slowed, I started to practice with a hot-glue gun on cardboard to mimic welds. I wanted to make welds and patch panels in the fiberglass body, in order to fool people into thinking they were look-ing at a rusty, patched, metal car.”
Marshall used lots of thinner and that four-inch paint brush with aluminum-colored paint
READERS RIDES
Willys “What-If” Replica
46
for the base coat. He learned from the work on cardboard that if you apply it in swirls it looks like machine sanding marks. Then primer, then the blue topcoat and start sanding.
“When the right look ap-peared I detailed it with rust and paint blemishes with acryl-ic paint,” he reveals. “For the last step I sprayed the whole car in satin clear, and used WD40 for wax, as it gives it a finished sheen.” The result?
“My car buddies called it hillbilly steel—‘cuz it ain’t real!” But would it pass muster with seasoned street rodders? After Bob Lathery of Jeffersonville, Indiana lettered and striped the body, Marshall debuted the car
at NSRA Nationals in Louisville on August 13th.
“It seemed to work, as many ‘car guys’ argued with me as to it being a real metal body,” he laughs. “So our ‘what if’ was realized when many of the hot rodders were taking pictures and saying, ‘What the Hell?’ So what if we fooled our bud-dies? We say hillbilly steel. It ain’t real but it’s real cool!”
Contributed by Juan Lopez Bonilla,, www.kentuckycobraclub.com
Willys “What-If” Replica
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Having a Wonderful Time—Don’t You Wish You Were Here? As told by Cullen McCann
Photos by Steve Link and Randy Walker
I bought my Cobra replica as a bare frame and raw body in January 2008 at Shell Valley headquarters in Nebraska, and purchased the parts and pieces di-rectly from the company as time and money provided. I worked on it for a couple years, then took a couple years off, distracted by other projects, and then a couple years ago got back on it heavily. I built the entire car myself in my workshop except for the paint and body of the fiberglass and the engine short block. All other work was done
READERS RIDES
COBRA VACATION
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COBRA VACATION
myself over the time span of about five years, including wir-ing, assembly, sheet-metal work, component fitment and assem-bly, interior, etc.
The build scheme is intended to be inspired by a vintage rac-ing theme, yet with some design liberties to enhance perfor-mance, handling, comfort and modern graphic twists, such as the 17-inch wheels, Windsor motor, and braking upgrades.
The other specifics of the car are fairly straightforward with the Shell Valley kit. Front sus-pension is a tubular Mustang II front end (strut rod eliminated), with rack-and-pinion manual steering.
The motor was a core pur-chased locally and built up from scratch by Brand Racing Engines
here in Mustang Oklahoma. The block is a ‘69 model, high-nickel 351 Windsor stroked to about 397 inches, thanks to a 392 stroker crank, along with a little overbore. It has a solid roll-er cam, Scat crank, and Brodix Track 1 heads with 2.08/1.60 valves. The intake is an Edelbrock Super Victor with a Quick Fuel 750 mechanical carb, regulator and pump. I use a “turkey pan” on it for aesthetics, but it probably provides mini-mal heat block or cold-air isola-tion.
Of course when it comes to kit cars there are no rules, but some will note that the car is a “big-block” bodied Cobra with a Windsor motor in it. The turkey pans were also unique to the big-block motors, even though the
mill that I chose was more com-monly found on small-block Co-bras “back in the day.”
It’s cooled by Shell Valley’s aluminum radiator and has nev-er even acted like it wanted to get too hot. I have a very high-volume Flexalite shrouded elec-tric fan with programmable temp control and automatic shutoff on it, and a coolant-based thermostat (not a temp probe in the radiator fins).
Also under the hood is Can-ton Oil Pan, Melling HV oil pump, and Lakewood scatter shield. The transmission is a wide-ratio 4-speed Toploader, mated to a 3.73 gear in a Ford 9-inch, nar-rowed to fit the desired track width.
Rear suspension is handled via a triangulated 4-link with
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Shell Valley adjustable length link arms. The rear differential is a Ford Trac-lock, and it has 31-spline Currie axles. The wheels are 17-inch Vintique Wheels, and Shell Valley provid-ed OEM-based 4-wheel discs and QA1 Coilover shocks.
The interior is strictly Shell Valley’s black vinyl seats and carpet. I covered the dash my-self and fitted it with Autometer “Cobra” gauges to get a look that was affordable and also fairly consistent with the period gaug-es. The steering column is from Ididit, also available through Shell Valley, and fitted to it a 15-inch wood-trimmed wheel.
The paint and body was pre-pared by Paul McCann at Barely Street Legal Street Rods, here in Oklahoma City. The paint is a color-matched custom mix from DuPont to match PPG’s Guard-
man Blue with bright white roundels, black pinstriping and a satin-black “nose stripe.” The nose stripe was inspired by the FIA original team race cars, and was selected to give the car a racing theme that was not as common as the traditional rac-ing stripes.
The car is very rigid and handles great. When Brand Rac-ing built the engine, it made 460 horses on the engine dyno, and since the car theoretically weighs only around 2300 pounds, it’s very quick. I had a 5.0 Mustang (actually several of them) that ran 12s in the quar-ter with 375 to 400 horse and 3400 pounds, so by powers of deduction the car is very fast and that motor still pulls at sev-en grand. The rear tires meas-ure 335/35R17, with 285/40R17 on the front, and I’m currently running Kumho Ecsta, which seemed to strike a nice balance between performance and cost on the street car.
As for future plans, someday I might change to fuel injection, but I’m not sure about that. I’m also considering a front sway bar, “NASCAR style” but it seems to handle quite well without it.
Larger brakes are on the list as well. Shell Valley offers a larger front rotor that I’m anxious to try as well, although its seems to stop pretty good now anyway.
I have several other projects in the works, including an origi-nal authentic Sunbeam Tiger, a 1971 Bill Stroppe Baja early Bronco, another street/trail 1969 early Bronco and my ‘67 Chevy Nova that I’ve had since high school. As for the Cobra, I’m just thrilled to enjoy it and drive it whenever I can. It’s like a mini-vacation every time I get behind the wheel and stomp the throttle.
Also, a bit about me. I am 37 years old, married with two kids in Yukon, Oklahoma. I work for a large architecture firm in Okla-homa City. My father and I were Cobra fans and I have my father to thank for my appreciation for the car. Most important, I have my wife Britney to thank for supporting a childhood dream coming true. Cullen McCann Yukon, Oklahoma http://www.shellvalley.com
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To demonstrate using Jasper’s reman drivetrain
components in a kit project, the company’s associates installed one of its 375hp Ford 351W engines
in a Cobra replica. The mill pumps out 400 lb/ft of torque at 4100 rpm, spins JE Flat Top pistons, and is topped with Trick Flow heads and an Edelbrock Performer manifold. The engine is mated to a Jasper Rich-
mond 5-speed trannie, backed by a Jasper 8.8-inch, 3.27:1 rearend.
By Steve Temple Photos by Steve Temple and Courtesy Jasper
O ne obvious truth about all kit projects is the need for a drivetrain. After all,
most kits come without an en-gine and transmission. But not just any old lump will do. You spend a lot of time and money getting your car on the road, and you don’t want to get stuck by the side of the road due to mal-functioning mill or troublesome trannie.
That’s where Jasper comes in with a wide range of options. Since 1942, this company has been offering remanufactured engines and transmissions that meet or exceed factory specs. And now more recently has in-troduced performance packages and an Authentic Custom Drivetrain Division. While the latter should be of particular in-terest to replica kit builders looking for a period-correct en-gine or transmission, we’ll first focus on the company’s remanu-factured (reman) products, and then cover Jasper’s special pro-gram for more performance and authenticity.
Rebuilt Versus Reman
First off, what’s the differ-ence between remanufactured
engines (or transmissions) and rebuilt or used engines (or transmissions)? There’s often some confusion about rebuilt versus remans. In the early days of the kit industry, used or re-built engines and transmission were fairly common, whether for a new project vehicle or re-powering an existing one. That’s not so much the case these days, as evidenced by the popularity of new crate engines. But you don’t have to go to that extra ex-pense for virtually all-new com-ponents, and still can get a drivetrain with a full warranty.
For the sake of clarity, as Jas-per notes, used engines are typi-cally pulled directly from a vehi-cle, usually in a junkyard, with-out any cleaning or inspection.
The mileage might be high and the level of maintenance low, possibly “a pig in a poke”, as the old saying goes (referring to a low-quality item concealed in a bag).
A rebuilt drivetrain is a step above a used engine, as it in-volves cleaning, inspecting and replacing worn-out parts. But some serviceable parts might be re-used if they’re still within the manufacturer’s wear limits, and the drivetrain’s overall quality can vary with the skill of the re-builder.
A reman, however, is a differ-ent deal, in that it makes the drivetrain as close to new as possible, with most wearable parts automatically replaced by Jasper’s experienced technicians
DRIVETRAIN SERIES
55
(note accompanying photos on how they handle a Ford 302). They carefully inspect all core material, verifying that it meets original equipment specs and tolerances. New replacement parts are made with the same production processes as original equipment. And best of all, Jas-per’s reman drivetrains are cov-ered by a nationwide warranty.
To get an idea the scope of this company’s experience, it handles remans for enormous volumes of drivetrain compo-nents (about 57,000 gasoline engines per year, along with 68,000 transmissions and 9,500 differentials). So you’re dealing with technicians who are very familiar with just about every
type of drivetrain a kit builder might need.
Upgrading to a Jasper Authentic Custom Drivetrain
Upstairs from this massive operation is a newer, limited-volume (350 to 400 units per unit) area devoted to rescuing treasured, collectible power-plants (plus transmissions and
differentials) from the brink of oblivion. Called the Authentic Custom Engine Division, it’s staffed by veteran technicians who have an appreciation for the pride and satisfaction that accompanies classic and collect-ible car ownership, and pains-takingly bring back drivetrains from a near-death state.
Jasper’s main shop floor is a sizable operation covering 367,000 square feet in Jasper, Indiana, with more than 1500 employees.
While Jasper is well known for
its remanufactured engines,
the number of the company’s
reman transmissions actually
exceeds them in total volume
56
The process consists of a numbers-matching build, original paint, testing and, (for an up-charge), valuable documentation of the reman-ufacturing process. That way, should a premium-grade Co-bra replica or other collecti-ble car ever be sold, the own-er can prove the lineage and meticulous care that has gone into the project, preserving its value. This optional documenta-tion package lists in exhaus-tive detail the bill of materi-als, specifications, dynamom-eter reports and detailed in-process information, includ-ing photos. In other words, just about anything you would like to know about your en-gine as it goes through the company’s extensive and pre-cise steps. This information is available 24/7 via a web page, or can also be e-mailed during the hand-building procedures. We should note, however, that for high-performance en-gines, the warranty differs somewhat in miles and years of coverage, but the point is, whether it’s a basic Ford 302 or a 427 side-oiler, Jasper has you covered. Which is a good thing to know, considering all the time, money and effort that goes into a buildup. :
Need a Ford 9-inch or other rearend for your kit project? Jasper has a wide selection of remans available.
When an engine such as this Ford 302 arrives at Jasper for remanufactur-ing, the first step is disassembly.
All internal components are thoroughly degreased and then cleaned in a hot tank.
57
Here’s the rusty block before treatment. And how it looks after getting cleaned up.
A deck plate braces the block during cylinder honing. The valvetrain is carefully reassembled by hand.
Either reman pistons, or new ones if they don’t meet spec, are re-installed into the cylinder bores.
All reman engines are tested after assembly to ensure they’re operating within factory standards.
58
Magnafluxing reveals any cracks or casting flaws. The rotating assemblies are checked to make sure
they meet or exceed factory specs.
Once this 302 passed with flying colors, it’s bagged and secured to a shipping pallet.
SOURCE:
Jasper Engines and
Transmissions
www.jasperengines.com
59
Special Care for Really Special Engines
All engines going through Jasper’s Authentic Custom Drivetrain division are thoroughly documented and dyno tested.
A couple flights of stairs above the main shop area is Jasper’s Authentic Custom Drivetrains & Perfor-
mance Division, where veteran technicians care-fully restore and remanufacture older drivetrain
The condition of the engines when they arrive at Jasper varies, with some looking to-tally beyond repair. Inset: Careful documentation ensures that all parts of a classic engine are accounted for, and recorded for posterity.
A metal tag bolted to the heads and block stays on tight during tank cleaning in a heated chemical degreaser, so all the components are numbers match-ing.
Special Care for Really Special Engines
If specific bolts and fasteners can be reused, they are kept in a steel basket with the engine for a thorough cleaning. If new, re-placement parts are made in the same production processes as original equipment. Testing is performed to manufacturer specifications and original pro-duction standards.
Magnafluxing (magnetic particle inspection) reveals any cracks or flaws in the casting of the blocks.
Valve seats and guides are ma-chined to exact specifications, or replaced to assure correct valve alignment and seating and optimum engine perfor-mance.
Every head is resurfaced to exact di-mensional tolerances and the surface finish is carefully monitored for proper sealing with the block.
Cylinders are bored and torque-plate honed to exact specifica-tions. This eliminates cylinder distortion after the head is bolt-ed and torqued to the block, which can otherwise result in engine blow-by.
Crankshafts are machined to precise tolerances, with no odd size bearings or journals, and thrust surfaces are micro-polished for smooth engine operation and reduced thrust-bearing wear. After machining, oil holes are chamfered to improve lubrication.
Jasper tests every reman engine with recorded inspections of tempera-tures, oil pressure, vacuum and compression, and also black-light in-spected to verify there are no oil leaks.
61
Cylinder surface finish and size are closely monitored for accuracy and consistency, in order to ensure smooth piston travel and engine perfor-mance. The block-to-head mat-ing surface is closely inspect-ed as well, and resurfaced as required for proper seating of the gasket.
All of the components that arrived with the engine are kept together in a tray on a designated cart.
The owner of this 427 Chevy was on hand for pushing the start button on the dyno
panel to fire up his ’67 427 Chevy. Inset: Dyno numbers and powerband curves document the engine’s output. While the horsepower num-bers are slightly less than original (due to the camshaft selection to suit driving preferences), but torque numbers are higher.
Connecting rods are gauged to within a half a thousandth inches, and machined to the standard diameter of original equipment, and also checked for bend and twist.
Align-honing the main saddle bores of the block.
Assembly of all engines are handled by ASE-certified technicians, and quality is backed by SPC (Statistical Process Control, basically a measurement of consistency). For most passenger cars and light-duty trucks, the parts and la-bor warranty is three years and 100,000 miles, whichever comes first. But a class 2 engine (indicating higher perfor-mance) has a one-year warranty or 16,000 miles parts, and six-months/8,000 miles on labor coverage.
62
By Harold Pace
Photos courtesy Chris Herr and
Geoff Hacker
The explosive popularity of the Myers Manx in the 1960s caused many fiberglass entre-preneurs to produce their own take on the dune buggy concept. Leo Lyons was a long-time car guy who had built one-off cars with Kustom Kings George and Sam Barris, and wrenched on race cars with his bud Dan Gur-ney. In 1968 he introduced the Fun Hugger, a ‘glass-bodied buggy built on a full-length VW chassis.
“I was at a race in the 1960s,” recalls Lyons, “when they brought out some dune buggies to show them off. A friend of mine asked me why they had to shorten the chassis. It made more sense just to build the body to fit a standard frame.” (Ironically enough, a few years ago Bruce Meyers came out with his own full-length ver-
sion of his much-copied Manx.) Lyons was soon in the buggy business, building Fun Huggers at Leo Lyons Equipment in San Bernardino, California.
The styling was fresh and distinctive, not a splashed-off copy of a Manx, and featured a sweeping wraparound tail. “I designed it myself,” explains Ly-ons. “I couldn’t afford to pay someone else.” The body was also more involved than most buggies, molded from a num-ber of panels that were bonded together to form a stiffer and lighter unit than most one-piece molded bodies.
The Fun Hug-ger was designed to be easier to as-semble than bug-gies that required a shortened floor pan. The $395 “A” Kit was the cheap-est version, and
included only the basic body. The “B” Kit added an integrated windshield/roll bar assembly and the mounting hardware. The pricier “C” and “D” Kits add-ed side panels and an engine cover. One price advantage to the five-passenger Fun Hugger was the ability to use stock VW seats front and rear, since most buggies required aftermarket bucket seats. VW headlights, taillights and wiper assembly were also used.
Lyons offered numerous
Fun Hugger
A Buggy With a Difference
64
options, including a rear roll bar, two roof designs and 14 solid and metalflake colors. Lyons re-calls that he sold about 200 Fun Huggers from 1969 to 1970, be-fore their market demand de-clined. “People just stopped buy-ing them,” Lyons recalls. Noting one possible reason, “I got start-ed late on the fad.”
A RARE SURVIVOR
While the Fun Hugger is no longer in production, it would not be forgotten. Six years ago Chris Herr was looking for a fes-tive car to play with both on and off-road. He had looked at Manx-style and Berry Mini-T buggies, but when he spotted a flamed Fun Hugger on eBay he fell in love. “I had never seen anything like it,” says Herr. As a man with a family he also appreciated the utility of having a back seat. “It was a true four-seater, and the sprung VW seats were more comfortable than most buggy seats.”
The buggy was very clean, with a nice blue flame job in front. Herr made a few changes, including cutting the top back for more ventilation and fabri-cating diamond-plate side co-vers to keep the body sides free of dust and grime. “The sides
were originally fiberglass, but they were always dirty so I made new reshaped metal sides that keep it cleaner,” he ex-plains. His family also put the roof rack to use carrying coolers and supplies.
The buggy runs a stock 1600 VW and has been very reliable, so Herr has confined his repair work to repainting the interior and replacing the carpet. The Fun Hugger has had lots of use over the years. Herr’s extended family of siblings and in-laws owns a number of other buggies and modified VWs, and have made numerous day trips as a group. To see a pack of buggies fly by in rural Indiana would have to get some attention!
Herr and Lyons were recent-ly introduced by Geoff Hacker of
Forgotten Fiberglass fame (www.ForgottenFiberglass.com), a fascinating web site devoted to older kit cars. Hacker had hunted down Lyons after buying a radical custom Mercury that Lyons had built in the late 1950s with Kustomizers George and Sam Barris. Hacker was pleas-antly surprised to find that Ly-ons had tried his hand in the kit car biz, and an internet search turned up Herr and his Fun Hug-ger. Thanks to Hacker we were able to come up with some his-tory on one of the pioneers of the buggy era, and a surviving example in excellent condition. If any readers know of other fea-ture-worthy classic ‘glass out there, let us know.
65
As told by John Masick
M y love for cars started as a child, and as I got
older helped my father maintain his cars both
mechanically and in appearance. They had
glasspack mufflers, moon hubcaps, and other
classic parts and pieces, and the cars were always clean and
waxed.
JOY RIDES From Corvettes to a Cobra
y love for cars started as a child, and as I got
older helped my father maintain his cars both
mechanically and in appearance. They had
glasspack mufflers, moon hubcaps, and other
classic parts and pieces, and the cars were always clean and
About 1960 we had a neigh-bor with a Corvette who wanted me to keep it clean and waxed. I would drive it to my house and get very excited to do a great job on it,and when it was done, I was allowed to put some miles on it as part of my “pay” for my work on it. I would do this ser-vice a couple of times each year and I could not wait for the next time. My love for sports cars had begun.
I went to college and was scheduled to graduate in May of 1968 and had plans to buy a Co-bra when I got out of school and had a job. However, I got drafted in January of 1968, and went to Vietnam. When I finally re-turned home, I finished my edu-cation, but AC Cobras were no
68
longer made and I was afraid to buy a car that was no longer made, plus they were a little over $7000 at that time. So I bought a 1971 Corvette 454, as it was only about $5500. I kept that car for 33 years until someone talked me out of it.
I have sold industrial air compressors for most of my working life. One day I sold a unit to Glaser’s body shop and I noticed they had sev-eral “old” cars that they had restored and looked like new. I mentioned to Aaron Gla-ser that I had always wanted an AC Cobra. He asked if I knew Terry Riebel, owner of The Dreamcar Company, Inc., as he builds and services AC Cobras. I called and later met Terry and his wife, Julie. We had a great conversation and looked at his Cobra. He then asked if I knew Woodsey in southern Illinois. Terry said he had a Superfor-
mance replica for sale. I soon called Woodsey and set a time to meet. As soon as I saw it I could not resist buying it. I was the color I always wanted, white stripe and it never had an engine in it. It was brand new!
The net effect—Terry, his wife Julie and I went back to Woodsy’s place, I bought the Cobra and we trailered it back to Louisville.
There was a lot of discus-
sion on the engine and I lis-tened to Terry’s comments and experience. I then bought a 302ci Ford engine from Perfor-mance Engineering, which was stroked to 331ci and equipped with a 750 Quick Fuel Carbure-tor. It was dyno tested at a little over 500 horses and I heard it run before it was installed in my Cobra. Terry then installed the engine, with a little help from me, and my dream came true.
Photos: Juan Lopez-Bonilla Kentucky Cobra Club http://www.kentuckycobraclub.com Builders: www.superformance.com www.thedreamcarcompany.com
69
CLUB PROFILE
The Kentucky Cobra Club had its first Snakes n’ Eggs gathering of the 2014 Season, marking 11th Season of KCC. A total of 30 plus members showed up, even in the cold February weather, with a few replisnakes, Mus-tangs, Porsches and civilian cars. In
discussing the upcoming events of the 2014 Season, here’s one in the works:
A trip out of state to visit our Brothers and Sisters of the North Ala-bama Cobra Club, hence the following words, paraphrased from The Wizard of Oz (with a bit of twisting):
“You’re Not In Kentucky Anymore”
This would be their first cruise out of Kentucky—hopefully with no tornados—heading to Florence, Ala-bama on April 25-27 April. We have been invited to visit by fellow mem-
bers in north Alabama. The planning is well along and the adrenaline is already flowing. Nope, you don’t need a passport, but they are Southern, even more so than Kentucky, so plan to bring a smile. Get 2014 started on the right foot, use all eight cylinders, and carve your initials into the club-house wall. Twisting another yet fa-mous line, this one from Kilroy in WWII, “KCC was here!”
For more info, check out: http://www.kentuckycobraclub.com
Snake ‘N Eggs
Real Folks Having Real
Fun at the Kentucky
Cobra Club
89 FIA Registry Dave McDuffie 5 Beaufain Dr. Sumter, SC 29150 Assoc. of Handcrafted Au-tomobiles Mike Dresbach 17520 High Country Cr. Gavilan Hills, CA 92570 909/657-0422 www.replicarclub.com Arizona Kit Car Club Dan Tideman, Pres. www.akcc.biz Avenger/Valkyrie Registry Ben Scheller 402 South St. Berlin, PA 15530
814/267-3748 Aztec 7 Registry Chris Guenther 6230 Quay St. Arvada, CO 80003 Capital Area Cobra Club Wash. DC, MD & VA www.capitalareacobraclub.com Chicagoland Replicar Reg-istry http://www.chicagolandreplicarassociation.com Club Cobra Brent Mills 414 Lybarger St. NE
Olympia, WA 98506 www.clubcobra.com Deep South Cobra Club www.dscc.us Devin Registry www.devinspecial.com Georgia Kit Car Assoc. David Boatright 2560 S. Hairston Rd. Decatur, GA 30035 404/981-4143 Glen Pray Cord Group 2011 S. Cedar St. Broken Arrow, OK 74012 918/251-3500 [email protected]
Grand Touring Sports Car Assoc. Earl Harper 42501 Malbeck Dr. Sterling Heights, MI 48314 586/731-1842 www.gtsca.com Gateway Cobra Club of St. Louis Chuck Grbcich, [email protected] Mark Earls, [email protected] www.gatewaycobraclub.com
70
Great Lakes Cobra Club Terry Anway 810/397-8476 Greater St. Louis Kit Car Club Dan Doerer 314/576-5856 http://clubs.hemmings.com/frameset.cfm?club=gslkcc GTO Replica Register www.GTORR.com Handcrafted Automobiles of Minnesota David Gageby 20120 Hillside Dr. Cocoran, MN 55374 612/416-2212 Houston Kit Car Club Jorge Matias 17718 Windy Point Dr. Spring, TX 77379 Jacksonville Replicar Club Mike McManus 8091 Pierre Dr. Jacksonville, FL 32210 904/781-2210 Kansas Kit Kar Klub Jay Scovell P.O. Box 160 405 N. Osage Edna, KS 67342 620/922-7325 Kelmark GT/Karma/Magnum GT Forum kelmarkgt.com Kentucky Cobra Club Juan Lopez-Bonilla 2432 Crittenden Dr., Ste 201 Louisville, KY 40217 502/635-5711 www.kentuckycobraclub.com
Kentuckiana Hot Wheels Terry Brown 14305 Wooland Ridge Dr. Louisville, KY 40245 502/245-6346 Kellison Registry [email protected]
Kellison Web Page www.kellisoncars.com Lake Snakes Cobra Club (Northern Ohio) www.lakesnakescobra.com Manta Enthusiasts Group David Savage www.mantacars.com [email protected] Mid-America Cobra Club P.O. Box 11202 Shawnee Mission, KS 66207 www.midamericacobra.org Mile High Cobra Club Al Bockman [email protected] www.milehicobraclub.com MGTD Replica Club http://www.tdreplica.com The Manx Club www.manxclub.com New Jersey Replicar Club http://njreplicar-club.proboards.com/index.cgi Nevada Replicar Assoc. Jeff Wenger 8635 W. Sahara Ave. #614 Las Vegas, NV 89117 702/617-3300 www.nvreplicar.com Northeast Ohio Kit Car Club Paul Dicola 655 Atwod Dr. Talmadge, OH 44278 216/633-6554
Northern California Kit Car Club James Wagner 650/341-0211 www.nckcc.com Ohio Valley Kit Car Club Dennis Motter 634 Stoneharbor Ln. Maineville, OH 45039 513/683-3790 Ohio Cobra Club Bill Dyer 614/348-0689 www.ohiocobraclub.com Oklahoma Kit Car Club - Tulsa www.oklahomakitcarclub.vpweb.com Rocky Mountain Hand-crafted Automobiles Chris Guenther 303/425-6807 [email protected] Sebring/Cimbria Kit Car Club Joseph Domanico 6 Dixie Dr. Bel Air, MD 21014 South Florida Cobra Regis-try 3593 SW 173rd Ter. Miramar, FL 33029 954/436-9101 Squire SS-100 Club Art Stahl 11826 S. 51st. St. Phoenix, AZ 85044 480/893-9451 [email protected]
Speedster Owners www.speedsterowners.com Spyder Owners www.spyderowners.com Superformance Owners Group www.secondstrike.com The Mera Registry Rodney Dickman 10227 Caddy Ln. Caledonia, WI 53108 Western Pennsylvania Specialty Car Club Anthony Menzietti 11725 Althea Dr. Pittsburgh, PA 15235 412/243-7540 The Bug Club www.the-bug-club.com Deserter Owners Group Bob Elliott [email protected] www.deserterownersgroup.org National Sterling Owners Assoc. www.nationalsterling.org
EDITOR’S NOTE: Please send club news, photos, and website addresses to: [email protected]
71
An Amped-up
Super Seven,
Swedish Style
H ere’s a new level of Super Seven, called the Hyper 8. The car started
out as a Westfield SE replica, which is about 15 percent small-er than today’s Westfield SEiW. It is also 15 percent lighter, which is significant, as you will understand after reading the fol-lowing.
A good friend of mine want-ed to create a Seven which took advantage of the development of the Seven concept made by Mal-lock [a race car builder in the U.K.—Ed.] in their fantastically fast Clubman cars. (Obviously minus the aerodynamical fea-tures and the slick tires.) His
name is Stefan Mumm, and he began designing and building the Hyper 8. After a while his Clubman racing took too much time from building the Hyper 8 and that is when I took over to finish the car. I also added some ideas of my own, which Stefan and I had very vivid discussions about. Somehow we always came out with solutions combin-
ing our sometimes rather imagi-nary ideas.
The clubman cars are re-engineered Sevens with lots of development in order to make them fast, really fast. The Hyper 8 is a reverse-engineered Club-man. I couldn’t find a Seven which was built like that, despite the obvious advantage of doing so.
The engine is moved as far back as physically possible (190 mm) and moved slightly to the right, since I sit on the left side while driving. This makes ad-justing corner weight easier. The engine is also a structural part of the chassis. Since it is in the car, why not use the rigidity of the engine to improve frame rigidi-ty? Also, a solidly mounted en-gine will not rock back and forth, a very important, but
READERS RIDES HYPERACTIVE HYPER 8
72
overlooked way to improve the handling of a car.
The front suspension is heavily modified, with inboard dampers working via fulcrums and pushrods, providing 100 percent linear spring character-istics. Using pushrods also ena-bles adjustment of corner weight without messing up the spring rate. The springs are pre-loaded and there is zero droop, resulting in very precise control of camber during heavy corner-ing.
The steering rack is relocat-ed from in front of the wheel center to behind, which has sev-eral advantages. A major one is easier adjustment of Ackerman angle, a very important way to enable change of how the car will steer into corners. Moving the steering rack backwards al-so improves weight distribu-
tion. The steering rack is a be-
spoke Titan rack with the exact measures to give zero bumpsteer. It is also tighter than any modified Escort rack, usually used in Seven cars. The feel of a car’s steering is utterly important and with this totally lash-free unit, you can feel even the slightest tendency of tire slip and correct it even before you start skid-ding.
The rear is a live axle. That might sound a bit old-school, but by using a Mumford link, the roll cen-ter is extremely low. This is a very important part of the “Clubman concept.” A very
low roll center on a live axle eliminates the need of a limited slip unit. Limited slip units in-terfere with the handling of a car, since locked-up rear wheels creates understeer, or oversteer if you use too much power exit-ing a corner. And an open differ-ential will not affect the chassis dynamics.
The Hyper 8 has almost 200 bhp and weighs 615 kilos, with me in it. Exiting corners with the pedal to the metal is totally hassle free. It just rockets away, leaving surprised competitors behind.
The original four-link rear-end has been elongated from a mere 150 mm to 800 mm in or-der to minimize roll steer. Some people prefer a bit of roll steer, I don’t. The four-link’s mounting points are adjustable in order to enable TAM, if it would be nec-essary. (TAM = Trailing Arm Magic). None of the above men-tioned advantages are achieva-ble with an individual rear sus-pension.
The parking brake is usually exactly where your elbow wants to go while changing gears. It is also in the way when you want to reach the driveshaft. So the
HYPERACTIVE HYPER 8
73
Hyper 8 has an electrical park-ing brake, which also moves weight backwards. The motor itself weighs in at 500 grams which is less than a normal parking brake lever. Thanks to the lack of a lever, the cover over the driveshaft is now easy to remove.
The body is easily detacha-ble. It can be done by one per-son, since the main body weighs in under 10 kilos. The scuttle is fixed with only two Dzus quick fasteners with “Mickey Mouse ears” (like a wing nut.) Very use-ful if you need quick access to the electrical system.
The bonnet, scuttle and main body use only Mickey Mouse fas-teners, so the car can be un-dressed in about two minutes, without using tools. Serviceabil-ity is a big advantage on a race track where time is of an es-sence. The detachable body makes the car very serviceable. The body has been widened 80 mm in order to make room for the very long four-link arms.
The nose cone has a built-in frame which forces air through the radiator, instead of having that frame mounted around the radiator. The bottom of the nose cone is cut out to prevent air from being pushed underneath the car.
The bottom of the car is com-pletely flush. It is even riveted with countersunk rivets. The engine has been raised slightly in the chassis to allow for the flush floor. The floor covers the entire underbody, providing less turbulence under the car. The result is stability even at 200 kph. The floor is 25 mm wider than the body, creating a “splitter” that is usually not al-lowed in certain racing series. But technically it is not a split-ter, since it is the car’s floor, which just happens to be a bit wider than the body. The split-ter prevents air from seeping in under the car, and also helps to create stability at high speeds.
The car was built with one very particular mindset. (Save weight. Whatever you do, save weight.) It weighs in at 545 ki-los, which is rather OK consider-ing the iron engine block and iron gearbox casing.
On the first track test it pulled 1.4 G in flat corners and was absolutely rocketing out of corners, thanks to the Mumford link. The best thing is that the Hyper 8 is road legal.
Kind Regards, Peter Ma rup Oxie, Sweden website: http://hyper8.se
Hyper 8 Tech Specs:
Westfield SE chassis heavi-
ly modified.
Ford Focus ST 170 engine with Suzuki GSX throttle
body
Megasquirt ECU
Quaife Rocket dogbox
TTY Superlight flywheel with aluminum clutch hous-
ing
Sintered clutch, hydraulical-
ly managed
Wilwood floor-mounted
pedals with balance bar.
Radtech radiator
Ford Escort live axle with
Mumford link and four-link.
Siltech billet aluminum up-
rights
Widetrack front suspension
with pushrod suspension.
Protech aluminium dampers
Aurora race spec rose joints. (No rubber joints an-
ywhere.)
Titan steering rack
Snap-Off quick-release with
Momo suede steering wheel
Electric parking brake
Fully detatchable body
Schroth harness
Yokohama 048 SS tires,
185/60R13
Carbon silencer (3.5 kilos)
74
By Jim Youngs, Editor Emeritus
A fter founding Kit Car Builder Magazine more than a dozen years ago, it’s time for me to take a break. I’ve earned my retirement many times over, so I’m turning over the reins to some-body that I trust to take good care of this labor of love.
Your new Editor Steve Temple and I go back nearly 30 years as friends and coworkers, and have even traded maga-zine jobs more than once during that
SHOP TIME
PASSING
THE
TORCH
Some Thoughts
on Leaving the
Editor’s Chair of
Kit Car Builder
time. We have each written and photographed for the other in Editor and freelancer capacities and are once again kind of swapping roles.
Our friendship and working relationship actually predates the kit car subject matter as we both arrived here, in a sense, by water. That is to say we both got our editorial feet wet in the boating world. My first magazine job was at Trailer Boats Magazine in 1974 and about 1986, after a memorable press luncheon at the Miami Boat Show where I met Steve, we hired him away from Sea magazine.
I suppose the big “why” question of this latest change deserves an answer. Answering that requires a look back to a period before the founding of Kit Car Builder. This story is really more about an editorial partnership be-tween Steve and myself in reporting on handcrafted cars for the past 23 years, ever since Steve took the helm of Petersen’s Kit Car magazine in July 1991. My first free-lance story for him appeared in the following (September 1991) issue.
I guess the bottom-line answer to the above ques-tion is that Queen Bee (an affectionate nickname be-stowed by Steve) and I have reached a point in our lives where we want to join the parade of the 10,000 baby boomers a day easing into retirement. As we’ve learned from our friends in this same state, you be-come much busier than when you punched the time clock (though I’ve never actually had 9-to-5 employ-ment). The “busy” apparently comes with doing some very rewarding activities that you never really had the time or energy to accomplish while employed full time. Which will include some writing and photography of cool stuff, but devoid of the administrative aspects of
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filling pages in a magazine. So, the rest of the history of
this Temple/Youngs kit car part-nership, which ultimately led to my 12+ years at the helm of Kit Car Builder magazine, continued with me freelancing a lot for Ste-ve during his five-year stint at KC. His departure to work for the creator of the Cobra himself, Carroll Shelby, coincided with Carolyn’s job transfer back to SoCal (from Colorado). I got the job opportunity then to sit in the still-warm Editor’s chair at Kit Car, to guide that magazine for about five years, through three publishing company ownership changes and the demise of Kit Car Illustrated magazine. Then I was unceremoniously “discharged,” or whatever word the Source Interlink brass used when they informed me that my services were no longer re-quired.
As I ruminated about what might come next with regard to how I could earn some income,
apparently word of my departure spread quick-ly through our little cor-ner of the au-tomotive world. Dan Campbell, then owner of PISA Corp., a kit manu-facturing company, called to say he could use some help with a new book-
publishing venture he’d started. He needed someone to edit a new Kit Car Buyer’s Guide, plus he had an idea for a national kit car club. Thus, the National Kit Car Club and its “newsletter,” Kit Car Builder was born.
Considering that only one kit car magazine was covering the
hobby at the time, with a rather dim bulb of an editor at its wheel, this unexpected oppor-tunity seemed like a natural challenge to me. But starting a magazine from scratch and tak-ing on a venerable title like KC backed by a giant publishing and distribution machine like Source Interlink seemed rather daunting for under-financed ne-ophytes like us. We’d have to be clever and deliver something that a huge, sluggish corpora-tion couldn’t.
The clever part of that equa-tion came about rather inno-cently on our part, but proved to be instrumental in our success. As long as our “newsletter” re-mained as the voice of a club, we didn’t pose much competition to KC, so the publisher allowed us to advertise in the magazine and even rent their subscriber list several times “to promote the club.” In effect we snuck in the back door of the big doghouse.
So, by the time we an-
Jim and Carolyn Youngs founded Kit Car Builder more than a dozen years ago. She earned the title of “Queen Bee” from your new editor for all her hard work and great humor in presiding over this publication.
Posing in the KCB booth at the Carlisle kit show in 2008 (from right to left): Jim and Carolyn Youngs, Steve and Tina Temple, (on their honey-moon, no less!), and Carolyn’s sister Judy.
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nounced that Kit Car Builder magazine was going into nation-al newsstand distribution (August 2003 issue) we had enough traction and a reasona-ble number of subscribers to place KC on notice that we were serious and here to compete. What we offered from the get-go that they couldn’t was a much better product—all-color, all the time, plus better-quality paper and great photography and writ-ing from knowledgeable industry vets.
It took several years for us to see a negative impact on our competitor, but we put a large dent in their operation even as they followed our lead of pro-ducing an all-color magazine.
So frustrated by the inability to compete, then-editor Eric Geisert of KC even resorted to writing his 2006 swan-song edi-torial with veiled character as-sassinations toward me person-ally. Though he didn’t use my name, (which narrowly protect-ed him from some litigation for defamation), he referred to someone spreading rumors of KC’s demise as “…ravings from lunatics, drunks, or both.” and “…a tired old crank with a chip on his shoulder.” Okay, maybe he got the “crank” description cor-rect, though I was a lot younger then. But as you’ll see, those “rumors” actually turned out to be true.
Upper managers also unsuc-cessfully attempted to hamstring manufacturers by trying to get them to give KC “exclusives” to keep us from beating them to the punch. That didn’t work either and by March 2009, after prop-ping up a trifecta of brain-dead
editors, they threw in the towel and closed down a magazine that had been in continu-ous operation for 28 years.
I could have retired right then and there, having accomplished my personal vendetta for Source letting me go. But I didn’t, choos-ing instead to be the only voice for the kit car hobby, a role that Steve Temple has de-cided to continue with an exciting new digital format. As my person-al story demonstrates, change isn’t always easy, but can lead to some really good things, and this new approach bodes well for providing even better coverage of the kit market. And I plan to still be involved as my time and your new editor allows.
Well, that’s the fascinating backstory of a very fun time in my career. Producing Kit Car Builder was certainly a labor of love. I’ve said it many times be-fore, that for a journalist to start and manage his own magazine is just about the best experience possible.
I also must give credit where credit is due and we couldn’t have achieved the success we enjoyed without the contribution of some very talented guys. Not the least of which is someone with whom I’ve shared a load of laughs, a memorable trip to Eng-land, buckets of beer, lots of bowls of chicken corn chowder at Carlisle, tales of Carroll Shelby (and other colorful miscreants), and whose name appears as the
Editor of this new digital ven-ture.
I also have to give a shout out to some awesome freelancers who’ve been contributing im-pressive words and photos for us for most of the last 23 years—Harold Pace, Dan Burrill, Joe Greeves, and Iain Ayre.
Steve encouraged me to re-late some of the tales of kit car fun and adventure here, but I got a little carried away with KCB history. So the wild stories of the “stimulated leather bra,” along with false accusations of unto-ward behavior by me toward a photo model, the unfair editorial treatment of Factory Five Racing, the 3:00 a.m. phone call inform-ing me of a Lambo that wouldn’t be ready for a photo shoot, the exposed untrue Native Ameri-cans building kit cars story, and other such craziness will have to wait for another time. But I’m sure Steve will be giving this “tired old crank” some editorial space in upcoming issues.
Relaxing at a later Carlisle show (from left to
right): Harold Pace (a longtime contributor
and friend), Steve Temple and Jim Youngs.
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Countach and Chupacabra Bodies & Tube Frame
Chassis for all Mid-Engine Cars
KCB MALL / KCB MALL / KCB MALL / KCB MALL / KCB MALL / KCB
“Orange is the new black,” growls Batman. (Or maybe the Joker got the
better of him and repainted the Batmobile in clown orange.)
Got a weird or funny photo to share? Please email it to [email protected] and we’ll come
up with a caption if you don’t have one... Photo by Steve Temple
