New Project? I do believe so...
Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2013 9:14
Guess I felt the need for 70's cool, because I made the deal today on Travis's 1976 RX-5 Cosmo. Yeap, ole school mang. The idea here is to come out with something low, cool, screaming 70's boulevard racer. It needs to be fast, shiny, and eye catching.
Now Travis has already got this thing running with a 6-port 13B, Dellorto carby,FC 5-speed, and even an aluminum flywheel and clutch. Starts right up and I believe you could tool around town all day in it. He threw a roto-molded fuel cell in it and a new pump, filter and regulator to keep the carb fed. So mechanically, the car is fine. It will likely get a new LSD and possibly custom rear brake hats/rotors (the rear rotors are almost impossible to find) with Wilwood single piston calipers in the rear and Wilwood Dynalite or similar calipers in the front with again custom hats. There is a possibility that I will add fuel injection and a turbo setup to make it a 6-port turbo instead of the carby NA. The fact that I have a lot of the needed parts laying around make that more likely than not
The body is pretty straight. Its got a little damage in the drivers fender edge where the door obviously got into it, a little rust here and there, but for the most part is amazingly straight for its age. The chrome even looks good!
The interior is, well, beat. The door panels are shot (shocker) and the carpet, seats, and dash are not much better.
So obviously, the interior needs attention. I am thinking Roll Cage to start. Yeap, definitely a nice, tight fitting roll cage. Then replace the current living room quality carpet with lightweight medium grey carpet. Hey, gotta keep it civilized! The rear seats, assuming I keep them, will probably get recovered in a deep red/maroon vinyl, something that screams 70's cool. For front seats, I am hoping to find an old set of Cobra Clubmans or similar thats "period correct", or something cool looking that fits.
The body will get repainted in white. Probably not the "bone" off-white it is now. I am thinking something more... 70's cool! Lay down a pure white single stage base layer- probably PPG Concept- wet sand it down then lay down a intermediate clear with pearl and medium flake along and maybe rally stripes. Not sure on color choice for those, probably jet black but sublime green pearl would seriously pop against pure white metalflake pearl. Once all the detail work is done, wet sand again then shoot it with the finish clear, then sand and buff. Really going for that 70's boulevard custom look in the paint. Have all the chrome polished up, find a set of the fender mounted mirrors, and this bad boy will come to life!
I dig the aluminum wheels already on the car, so will likely just leave those alone and maybe pick up a set of the classic Enkeis for track use.
The suspension has a cool DIY coilover setup already in the front, so other than just tuning it will likely leave it alone initially. I would like to end up with a set of custom valved dampers, fabricated suspension links and possibly a-arms, and who knows what else...
I will post pics after I pick the car up, and might even actually follow through on a build thread for once and post things up as I do them.
Now Travis has already got this thing running with a 6-port 13B, Dellorto carby,FC 5-speed, and even an aluminum flywheel and clutch. Starts right up and I believe you could tool around town all day in it. He threw a roto-molded fuel cell in it and a new pump, filter and regulator to keep the carb fed. So mechanically, the car is fine. It will likely get a new LSD and possibly custom rear brake hats/rotors (the rear rotors are almost impossible to find) with Wilwood single piston calipers in the rear and Wilwood Dynalite or similar calipers in the front with again custom hats. There is a possibility that I will add fuel injection and a turbo setup to make it a 6-port turbo instead of the carby NA. The fact that I have a lot of the needed parts laying around make that more likely than not
The body is pretty straight. Its got a little damage in the drivers fender edge where the door obviously got into it, a little rust here and there, but for the most part is amazingly straight for its age. The chrome even looks good!
The interior is, well, beat. The door panels are shot (shocker) and the carpet, seats, and dash are not much better.
So obviously, the interior needs attention. I am thinking Roll Cage to start. Yeap, definitely a nice, tight fitting roll cage. Then replace the current living room quality carpet with lightweight medium grey carpet. Hey, gotta keep it civilized! The rear seats, assuming I keep them, will probably get recovered in a deep red/maroon vinyl, something that screams 70's cool. For front seats, I am hoping to find an old set of Cobra Clubmans or similar thats "period correct", or something cool looking that fits.
The body will get repainted in white. Probably not the "bone" off-white it is now. I am thinking something more... 70's cool! Lay down a pure white single stage base layer- probably PPG Concept- wet sand it down then lay down a intermediate clear with pearl and medium flake along and maybe rally stripes. Not sure on color choice for those, probably jet black but sublime green pearl would seriously pop against pure white metalflake pearl. Once all the detail work is done, wet sand again then shoot it with the finish clear, then sand and buff. Really going for that 70's boulevard custom look in the paint. Have all the chrome polished up, find a set of the fender mounted mirrors, and this bad boy will come to life!
I dig the aluminum wheels already on the car, so will likely just leave those alone and maybe pick up a set of the classic Enkeis for track use.
The suspension has a cool DIY coilover setup already in the front, so other than just tuning it will likely leave it alone initially. I would like to end up with a set of custom valved dampers, fabricated suspension links and possibly a-arms, and who knows what else...
I will post pics after I pick the car up, and might even actually follow through on a build thread for once and post things up as I do them.
