What little custom touches have you done to your cars?

[bobcowan]

Lets see. Quite a few small things that make me happy. Here's a short list off the top of my head, in no particular order.

1. Screens on the front wheel wells kinda like those pictured above. That really helps keep the foot boxes cool.

2. Welded in a drive shaft safety loop.

3. Made a polished billit alum hosing for a gauge warning light and shift light LED under the mirror


4. Trying to keep the oil at the proper temp has been a challange. On a cold day on the highway, it was tough to get it above 140* or so. But I need the cooler on the track. So I tapped directly into the pan and installed a seperate electric pump. When the oil's hot I flip the switch and it cools off. On the street I leave, and it gets to normal operating temp regardless of air temp.

Here you can see the pump on the left frame rail


5. I used red powdercoat on polished aluminum to make "red chrome". Looks good on a lot of trim and enigine parts.

6. I have an 8 stack EFI system - 4 seperate throttle bodies. Like Webers, getting the throttle bodies balanced is a very delicate procedure. It has to be exactly right at all throttle levels, or it just doesn't feel right. I'v been struggeling with this issue for a while. At the moment, I'm completly re-engineering the linkage and throttle cable connections for greater accuracy. Not overly difficult, but tedious and time consuming.

7. I made a left foot rest out of angle iron, muffler clamp, and some rubber padding.

8. Fed my valve cover breathers through an air/oil seprater, and down to a single tank. I had to make the connections for the valve covers, and make a bracket for the seperater tank.

9. Modified Cobra Earls dropped trunk kit to fit with IRS and a sway bar from VPM. That was actually pretty easy.

10. Remote mounted the oil pressure sender so it would be insulated from engine viobrations.

12. Built a diffuser plate for the hood scoop opening. That was actually worth about 6-8 mph on the top end.


13. Use SS mesh and plywood edge trim to make a screen cover for the radiater.

14. Made the brake and clutch pedals easily adjustable for height. I used an adjustable brake push rod, and made adjustable return stops for both.

That's about all I can think of at the moment.

[Excaliber]

Actually I find the "little things" more interesting than the big things.

Like the hole drilled in the inside of cockpit interior to access the rear spark plug. I did that mode and was kind of surprised to see someone else figured that out and did it as well.

I've tried a bunch of different cup holders, like the front of a tennis shoe stuck under the leading edge of the front seat. Then use the heel portion to hold your drink. Works OK, but it's not great, maybe you need just the right tennis shoe? I finally just gave up and went to Walmart and bought one of those engine hump organizers with cup holders. Totally non original, I hide it in the trunk if I'm at a cruise in. Works out nice though, I like having a place to put my coffee in the morning, throw my wallet in or just a general catch all.

[madmaxx]

The billet remote clutch reservoirs are currently listed in the for sale section of this forumn. They are pretty but pricey.

If you just want to stop the leaking, take your old one off and take the resvoir off the base, clean everything, then get some SEALALL and apply to the o-ring between the reservoir and base, reinstall reservoir, tighten clamp, let dry, reinstall. You will not have anymore leaks and seal all is acceptable for brake fluid.

[Buzz]

Louvered hood vents - not so much for engine cooling, but to protect underhood components from excessive heat, particularly when parked after a long drive. Not exactly an original touch but period correct as at least one original car had hood vents. More importantly to me - they really work!

[*13*]

I like em!

Originally Posted by Buzz

Louvered hood vents - not so much for engine cooling, but to protect underhood components from excessive heat, particularly when parked after a long drive. Not exactly an original touch but period correct as at least one original car had hood vents. More importantly to me - they really work!

[cobrajeff]

I can't leave anything alone - I've always got some crazy idea how I could "improve" my stuff....

I'll break these down to things I did during the build, and then things I modified later. I have added a bunch of pics to Gallery, so you can see some details and alternate views there.
For starters, I knew I was going to put a Cleveland in my FIA, and I knew I wanted it to breath through 427-style side pipes. Fortunately, I made about three trips to New Britain during the cars construction. Early on I determined that some frame mods would be required to accomdate my side pipes through the body:




The outer frame rail had to be cut back, and unique braces added.







I planned to open track the car, so I took it to my old friend Stu Galbraith at Weldcraft Welding to have the tunnel brace modified, a forward leg added to the roll bar (I originally ordered the car from ERA with a 427-style rear-braced roll bar specified), and side impact braces (copied off Frannie Kress's Cobra) added in:







I'm pretty sure the finished product added a lot of stiffness, and it helps insure that I step high enough over the side braces that I clear the hot pipes, too.

I also copied Fran's racing mirror mounts on the windscreen:



Since I used a rivet-on 427 style hood scoop (I liked the looks better than the FIA-unique scoop), I had to make my own scoop insert...



And I finished off the inside of the oil cooler scoop with aluminium, so the raw 'glass doesn't show up:



That's enough for now. Will post later with other mods.

regards,

Jeff

[Snakebit]

Custom drive shaft hoop
Wire looms on valve covers
Remote oil filter bracket
Tail light bulb reflectors
Weber linkage
Windshield miror brackets
Bypass hose on dual outlet Weber manifold

Everything else was supplied by ERA.

[Blas]

Starting to see some nice stuff here...

CobraJeff, your windshield appears to have a substantial amount of additional rake to it...is that just the photo?

Dwight...Maglight Flashlight? I bet you used it for the filler and cap?

As to the vent screen in the front wheel-wells...Could I have seen it on one of the CSX Fiberglass replica cars maybe?

[MFE III]

Trying to keep the oil at the proper temp has been a challange. On a cold day on the highway, it was tough to get it above 140* or so. But I need the cooler on the track. So I tapped directly into the pan and installed a seperate electric pump. When the oil's hot I flip the switch and it cools off. On the street I leave, and it gets to normal operating temp regardless of air temp.

Bobcowan:
that's a very interesting alternative to running a thermostat for the cooler. For me, it would be much easier plumbing to run a line up one frame rail through the pump, cooler then back to the oil filter adapter plate on the other side of the motor.
What kind of pump did you use?

[Excaliber]

Kei, CSX8000 from Hawaii, but the car "lives" on the mainland, also run's a hood vent. I think it's mostly to get rid of some engine cockpit heat (351W out to 427 cid). Last I heard Kei had over 70,000 miles on that car (Roush motor). Blew a head gasket at about that mileage, never heard back what the cause was...

[Dwight]

I made a aluminum reservoir for my master brake cyclinder out of a piece of 2" aluminum conduit and a Mag Lite.
Dwight

[PHM]

A bunch of stuff but mainly an Custom Billet air cleaner, billet oil breathers and radiator cap. Also the billet wing nuts for the air cleaner.







Check out my Gallery

[PANAVIA]

Little In Car Dealies. --

1976 Jaguar XJS rotary headlight switch moved to left side of collumn.
1960's industrial military on-off switches for fog lights and fans (found at surplus store)
ignition switch moved to center of dash like SB/289 car
MGA british horn push for horn button
Downward fake Tubes removed from bottom of dash to tunnel
XM Radio cradle and Sony Remote





Small Metal tabs welded on back of lower front bumper hoop for Marchal fog lamps
Lucas Glass Lights for front signals

[Buzz]

Great looking car Steve!

[Dan Stryffeler]

A lot of modifications to the original suspension were made, but the main custom touches were the valve covers and overflow tank.

For the valve covers, I machined up my own patterns and had aluminum castings made, then machined the raw castings for final fit and finish; two piece units w/no mounting flange - socket head cap screws bolt down through the side wall and then the top plate bolts down to seal everything up.

Ended up using the valve cover patterns one more time to cast up a set of covers for my 66 Mustang, so I recouped a little bit of effort, but I don't think I'll ever try something like this again. The Ford logo was probably the most difficult part to make; drew out the logo on a sheet of rubber that was glued to a block of wood and cut it out with a razor knife, then sandblasted the wood and bandsawed out the logo... little cleanup work to the piece then had it cast in aluminum and worked the heck out of that to get the final pattern.

Too much like work, and if I wanted to work I would get a real job

For the tank, I bought a standard big block overflow tank from Dove and cut the bottom off, then machined up a new small block thermostat cover and welded it all back together.

All I really wanted to do was kinda replicate the look of the air cleaner cover, but stupidity takes real committment!

- Dan

[cobrajeff]

Dan - those valve covers are beautiful! Nice job!

Hyde and Blas -

IIRC (it was over 12 years ago), I think that I slotted the holes in the windshield frame a bit more to get some extra "rake" to the windshiled.



That did, however, present some problems when I went to install my convertible top. I had to cut and modify the top bows to get the top to fit with the raked windshield.



Never have completed the unique side curtains I started to make.

Couple more mods I did during the build:

I sectioned the foot-boxes in order to make room for the 351C:



I think I took nearly two inches out on each side, so that I had room for the headers.

I also made some custom steel valve covers, stripping some stock 351C covers, having additional breathers welded on, and then having them plated cad gold to match my Canton "T" pan. I would have like to put taller "R" Model breather tubes on it, but, with valve cover spacers to clear the roller rockers, I didn't think I had hood clearance for them.



In this pic, you can also see my "big-block" expansion tank that I modified to fit my Cleveland, and the remote oil-filter adapter that I modified to fit on the left cylinder head.

Then there were wheels - I ordered my FIA style Halibrands from Phil Schmidt - two 8.0" for the front, two 10.0" for the rear, and one 5.0" for the spare.





I painted in the GoodYear lettering on all of the tires, and painted on a blue stripe to make them look like BlueStreaks. The lettering and painted stripes held up pretty good, but, since I never got around to a front end alignment, I tore up the front tires in less than 1,000 miles (the rear ones were suffering from lead-foot-itis, I think). The Gatorbacks were hard as rocks, and didn't provide much traction. I replaced them with BFG Euro T/A's, and was able to increase the tire size significantly - going from 225/60x15 on front to 265/50x15, and the rear from 255/60x15 to 305/50x15.

Jeff

[Dan Stryffeler]

Jeff - thanks for the compliment, was happy with the outcome (other than the weight - they are HEAVY!)

Here are the semi-finished covers before the engine went in... was thinking about going with a black krinkle finish but went with plain grey (should have done the black...)

Also was fooling around with a gates-style belt system but couldn't get the courage to try it out in the real world - thought it would be too much weight on the water pump and alternator bushings (still have the pulleys we made stored in a box though, so maybe one day... or remake from aluminum instead of steel blanks).

- Dan

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[KVenom]

I created these billet wing mirrors that are a big hit.
[IMG]
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[Blas]

KVenom,
Really nice. I saw them at the London event on a few cars...killer design and execution. Really filled a need...

[D-CEL]

Well lets see:
Rebuilt the fuel system:
• All -8 stainless hard line from the pick-up to the fire wall
• Aeromotive ORB-08 fuel pump
Rebuilt ignition system:
• Fully redundant MSD HVC6 boxes and coils
• Cockpit selectable
Rebuilt brake system:
• Dual Manual Wilwood master cylinders (1/2 and 7/8) on 60deg mount with balance bar and a cockpit adjuster.
• Changed pedal ratio to 6.5-1
• Firewall mounted remote reservoirs, stainless hard lined
• Wilwood billet front hubs
• Superlite 6R calipers
• 12.75x1.25 rotors with alum. Hats
Deans exhaust mod:
• Stainless steel specialties 3” mufflers