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CP66's 66 CP Solo II Notchback or "Racing, the Disease"

63K views 506 replies 54 participants last post by  CP66 
#1 ·
I was inspired by this thread: http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/track/1081554-autocross-primer.html to become active with this forum since I've been a member since I believe '09 and have a grand total of 6 posts to my name!

Long time lurker 6th or 7th time poster. It was recommended in another thread after posting the following photo that I start a build thread. I'm hesitant to do so as it would show the world how little I've gotten accomplished on a project started over 15 years ago.


Just a little background; I started autocrossing in '77 with a nice 66 coupe that was primarily a street car. As things go it slowly became a gutted out race only project that by then was being regularly raced in Texas Region events along with several trips to Nationals in Salina and Topeka until I decided to build a new tub with a proper cage into which I would transfer the suspension/driveline into once the body and cage were completed.

As often happens with a slowly evolving project scope creep set in and I decided to go to a coilover 3 link style rear suspension and ultimately hoped to find someone to help me build a front suspension more conducive to dicing the cones than the factory front suspension on the car. Although I had lowered the A-arms and tried various springs, swaybars, etc. the truth was that the factory based suspension just wasn't going to take me to the next level. Since I am not an engineer and could not find someone able to design, build and install the "ultimate" front suspension for me, the project languished for several years.

During this time I moved to the Indianapolis area and thought “Hey cool! The racing capital of the world should allow me to find someone to get my project back on track!” I found that to be a not quite accurate statement but before I could start moving forward again life kicked in and back burner’d the project yet again. Fast forward to about 6 years ago and I had just discovered Ride Tech and after talking to them decided that they had exactly what I was looking for.

So for the past several years UPS and Fedex have been making fairly regular deliveries and the pile of boxes eventually hid the “racecar”out of sight out of mind neatly at the back of the shop. Recently when another project stalled due to lack of fundage and the “honey do” list had been largely vacated I felt it time to inventory and sort the boxes of parts, dust off the racecar and make it a point to have it operational at least to the point it could move under its own power by January 1 2017.

So here it will come to pass; I will attempt to stay the course with planned work sessions on the car and photographic updates of my “progress” as it happens. I’ll warn you right now though that I am no fabricating genius and some of my “skills”are rusty at best. If you happen to see something you don’t agree with or have a better idea during the course of the next several months by all means speak up!
 
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#203 ·
It all comes down to routing and clearance. It's too late to raise the floor pan and no clean way to route past the rearend. At this point the wheels are in motion, welding has commenced (in other words it's too late to return the stuff I've purchased even if a better solution presented itself).

I've been working on our Fox convertible and it's about back together so I'll be hitting the racecar project hard and heavy in another couple of weeks. I'm really looking forward to getting this thing under power again. I reviewed an old vhs tape of on track action with my original car and DAYUM was it fun. I forgot about it's ability to raise the left front tire about an inch off the ground as it crossed the finish line in a couple of the vids!
 
#204 · (Edited)
Finally found the weather in my favor over the weekend and painted the under carriage and the engine bay. Due to many factors it didn't turn out as well as I'd liked so I'm going to paint the engine bay one more time and then move onto the trunk and interior. Hopefully those areas won't require any touching up and then I can start putting it together! I used the same color gray as the primer but it's shiny. Not much different than before I painted it, but I'll add some pics later.

If you squint you can see some shine.
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#206 ·
Finally! Not much change visually other than the flat gray primer is now glossy gray acrylic enamel. My gun tune and technique have both improved since I sprayed the bottom although there may end up being a spot or two that "should" be touched up I'm calling it good. My next posts should be chronicling the reassembly assuming I can remember where all the parts go.
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#216 ·
Starting to plumb the front brakes tonight; first thing is to setup the front brake lines so I know where to route the hard lines to. Plenty of clearance at lock:
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Wheels straight forward:
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Still on the rotisserie:
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I had planned on just getting it on the suspension then putting tires and wheels on it then loading it onto the lift to get the rotisserie out of the way but it's so much easier to flip it around fitting the components and then running the fluid lines this way.

I will be routing the brake lines, fuel line, accusump line and battery cables. After that I'll probably get it up on the lift and then the real fun begins; setting the engine and trans, making sure the headers fit properly before sending them out for coating, trans lines, trans cooler, etc.

Man I'm loving this after all these years! 😁
 
#219 ·
And some more progress:
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Fuel line going in. Yes, thru the cockpit, yes, the rules allow it. It's one piece from bulkhead to bulkhead, I've had problems with vapor lock in the past so it's routing thru here.
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Once it's installed, I'll probably be wrapping it with black A/C insulation for abrasion protection and temp isolation.
 
#225 ·
I've always been a big proponent of the automatic in autocross as it's one less thing to do. Lately I've noticed some of the heavier hitters at the national level are coming around as well. Personally I've had both in my last car and I'm faster with the automatic. Full disclosure; I'm a big believer in left foot braking so one less pedal to deal with works for me, even in my daily driver.
 
#232 · (Edited)
I'm still working on the fuel line and am looking at slightly different routing than shown. I have a mental block about it though because I'm trying to keep the number of bends to a minimum. I know it shouldn't be an issue especially using half inch fuel line but I've fixated on minimum bends.

When the exhaust is complete it will exit right in front of and below the right side "scoop" chrome in front of the back wheel, I expect it to be no louder than the 3"inch Flowmaster exhaust on the last car that dumped right in front of the rear axle and should actually be a little quieter than that one. Yes it's probably going to be a little warmer even with the required shielding but I'm only in the car a few minutes per run.

Man I'm loving this!
 
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