progress as of this evening. Looks great! Not all the joints are welded. Still need NASCAR bars & subframes. Would require a lot of thrashing to get ready though
http://www.vilipend.com/~frrax/interior

Other items I completed previously but never posted about
coilovers and DA's http://www.vilipend.com/~frrax/suspension/.../CMC_010?full=1
rear springs and panhard bar http://www.vilipend.com/~frrax/suspension/.../CMC_022?full=1
!headlight mod and hood pins http://www.vilipend.com/~frrax/CMC-27-06/C.../CMC_008?full=1

It's looking great. I really want to build a track car (dedicated)..... One of these days.

I've been wanting to do this for a LONG TIME. Years.
Even though mine isn't finished all I can say is DO IT!
I'm finally satisfying that desire I've had for so long.
There are a number of things I'm going to tweak and change in the future as I've learned a lot along the way but I think its worth it!
I'm already pondering what my next build will be, anything from a 2nd Gen to a FFR MarkIII

Man I can't wait to turn my car into a decidcated track car when I can afford to open track and maybe then road race. Looks really nice. There's something beautiful about a clean, gutted all bsuiness interior. For me at least I'd have a tone of fun just building the car. I'd like to do a FFR project myself one day.

I'm jealous... of all of you... man... I'm not gonna have a bank account in the black for many years to come...

Morgan, I'm not sure I follow what you did with your headlight and covers?

Morgan: Congrats on the car coming together. Wish mine had the cage going in it. Are you building it yourself or out of a kit? Looks good so far!


Not an easy thing to do, but it's definitely a learning experience and you finally understand what racers before you meant when they said they had to make sacrifices.

I went to my first track day in July and put a good amount on the credit card to get there. I'm about in the black again, don't make that mistake. Save up a lot more then you think you'll need, because once it turns into a track/race car, everything is $50-100. It sucks to have to drink Busch Light and eat frozen pizzas a lot. It doesn't happen overnight, but watching it come together is a damn cool deal.

If you don't have the money to do it yourself, see if other people need help. I can't afford to run Mid-America, so I'm going to go try to help out. Even if you're not running, it's still fun.

ummmm, I removed them..... Nothing yet, I haven't decided how I'm finally going to attach them. I would like to weld them on but I don't want to paint. I could rivet them on but I'm not a fan of how that looks. I would just leave them open or tape them over for the next weekend or so until I decide.

looks good man!

I had the same dilema ...

I wound up riveting them on with aluminum backing strips.

It doesn't look too bad if you get the rivet heads color matched.

I drink Milwaukee's Best Ice and eat Ramon Noodles. Same concept.

Morgan - I just did the headlight mod a couple of weeks ago on my 95. I literally sat in the garage and stared at the car to figure out what to do. I couldn't think of anything at first so left it for a week thinking about it.

What I ended up doing was buying an aluminum strip and making two short pieces per headlight side. On each side, I drilled holes through the aluminum and through the hood and threaded bolts through them to attach the headlight cover to the hood. When I was done, I painted the heads of the bolts the color of the car.

My real motivation in going this way was to keep with my theme on the car - I can return it to a street-legal state to pass PA state inspections in less than one day. I have the headlight assemblies, motors and mounting hardware stored in a convenient spot for quick re-installation.

I can take some pictures if you like.

I did the same thing, only used white headed pop rivets ...

http://www.vilipend.com/~frrax/album48/AIC..._2005_57?full=1

I too considered welding, but the cover is so thin, it would warp, badly. and then, like you said, I would have to paint it.

Also, if the caar gets pumped and one of those covers gets bent, I replace the cover by drilling out the rivets and replacing. Rewelding and then repainting in not user friendly.

Another avenue I considered was building some sort of bracketry to hold them up. Too much weight.

I'm glad I did...sometimes Naw really I've had so much time messing around with mine that it is a chore sometimes. But the spending time in the garage with my son creating our own monster is a blast. But I think its time I drive the mutha for real its been over a year. We are buttoning it up now,although one more track day missed this week...last one (fingers crossed) It was a beautiful moment the engine came to life me and the boy were borderline tears of joy and relief. Man he was fired up

Its looking real good Morgan thanks for the peek! I was thinking maybe a C4 vette next. Its a good hobby to have a car under construction in the garage when you want to tinker.

We must all be very logical as we followed almost the exact same thought process & options.
I thought of brackets as well. Now that I see your pics I suppose it doesn't look as bad as I thought. Kinda gives it a mean edge to it. Maybe I will go that route. How thick of aluminum backing did you use? I have some 24ga stuff I may try. Now if I polish the rivet heads instead of painting them.....

Yes, once the headlight/rotating assembly is removed, there is nothing under there to mount anything to.

I used 1/8 x 2 aluminum strip I got from Home Depot ...

Interestingly enough, there is a very nice "lip" on the hood tht I contured the aluminum strip to fit snug against. This gave it some nice laeral strength.

I couldn't have done it with out cleckos

Also, if you notice, I aligned the rivets up to follow the top edge of the headlight door and not go straight across. I think it helps it "blend" better.

Except for those at the corners ....

more progress

Looks great!

Man that's red! What kind of roll bar padding is that? Something about it looks unusual.

dunno what kind. its from the local speed shop. It has the 'offset' padding where its thicker on the side opposite the side, so the seams facing the camera are about 1/2 as thick as the side facing the driver.

dunno what kind. its from the local speed shop. It has the 'offset' padding where its thicker on the side opposite the side, so the seams facing the camera are about 1/2 as thick as the side facing the driver.

I was gonna go black w/ the cage but decided that would have been more work in masking etc, I was tired of working on it when it came to that point.... so red it is

I know that padding. Also know my new CMC car is real GREEN everywhere!