The whole IMSA body is from Doug at the Fiero Warehouse. He also sells just the wing. The grille is from an 84 and I just modified it to fit.
i like it a lot i figured the grill was from an 84 i mght have to see what hes got i tried getting in contact with him over the summer but hes never there.
Real quick update....I am leaving for Arizona tomorrow and will be back on Friday so Friday will be a major prep day. I'll be painting the entire weekend so there should be lots of pics to follow. On another note, I have made a decision on the wheels. I have contacted Boze Forged and they are going to make my wheels. The rears are going to be 17x11 and the fronts are going to be 17x8. I am also looking into having the rivets anodized in gold for the older style BBS look.
The ones in the picture are $530.00 each for the 17x11 in the 5x100 bolt pattern. The other style which is exactly the same minus the rivets is $495.00 per wheel.
Since I just got back into town after a business trip, I focused on one of the parts that had to be made from scratch. I removed the vinyl trim around the windshield and made the windshield hold downs tonight. Here is what I started with.....aluminum stock:
A little shaping: And installed for a test fit. I plan to replace the windshield, clean up and paint where the vinyl trim normally goes, and delete the trim all together. It should look pretty clean when completed.
Today, I continued my painting of the car after all that damned turkey The first thing was to lay a nice coat of primer over the front end and then wetsand it to make sure everything looked ok. I then sprayed a line of silver right below the moulding line and continued this all the way around the front end.
Once that had dried, I masked over the silver with the proper width tape to create the silver stripe and also masked off the upper portion to spray the black.
Once that had dried, I masked the bottom and sprayed the white on top.
After removing the masking tape, the silver stripe could be seen.
I will tell you it is a pain in the A$$ to move the car back and forth between garages to do bodywork in one and paint in the other. Fortunately, the rest of the paint for the front end is all airbrushing so I can do that where it sits and I am working on that right now and will post pictures later on tonight.
One more quick update. I layed down the pinstriping for the red stripe. The warp in the center is where the front end goes to a point. When I took the photo, it gives the illusion of a crooked line but the line is very straight.
I then masked the rest of the area and airbrushed the red stripe.
And the final result. Starting to look like my goal
Real quick update....I am leaving for Arizona tomorrow and will be back on Friday so Friday will be a major prep day. I'll be painting the entire weekend so there should be lots of pics to follow. On another note, I have made a decision on the wheels. I have contacted Boze Forged and they are going to make my wheels. The rears are going to be 17x11 and the fronts are going to be 17x8. I am also looking into having the rivets anodized in gold for the older style BBS look.
Why not go with 18s ? They'll have more cool factor.
Why not go with 18s ? They'll have more cool factor.
Funny you should mention that......I actually just got done discussing this with another member. The IMSA body has a really low rear wheel well arch. By going to 17" wheels and low profile tires, I am barely going to clear the fender wells. I did not want to have to cut the rear wheel well openings wider although most people do that. If I go anything larger than 17", the car will be undrivable. The stock 15" tire is about 24" and the wheel and tire size that I am looking at is 25.6" so I am pretty close to the stock height. This also allows me to lower the car a little without issue.
Funny you should mention that....The stock 15" tire is about 24" and the wheel and tire size that I am looking at is 25.6" so I am pretty close to the stock height. This also allows me to lower the car a little without issue.
For what it is worth, my IMSA uses 25.5" in the rear as well with a 16" rim. 17" and 18" wheels look good, but are not necessary. Infact I think it will look better with the 17" than the 18" . Then again my chassis ride height is 3 5/8" in the rear so the rear tire is pushed up in to the wheel well pretty good. I'm surprised you didn't try to find a Jongbloed street clone and paint the centers gold.
It is really looking good! Good job and keep up the great work.
Funny you should mention that......I actually just got done discussing this with another member. The IMSA body has a really low rear wheel well arch. By going to 17" wheels and low profile tires, I am barely going to clear the fender wells. I did not want to have to cut the rear wheel well openings wider although most people do that. If I go anything larger than 17", the car will be undrivable. The stock 15" tire is about 24" and the wheel and tire size that I am looking at is 25.6" so I am pretty close to the stock height. This also allows me to lower the car a little without issue.
Can you get the wheels made so that they tuck behind the bodywork? That way you don't need to worry so much about wheel diameter & hitting the bodywork. I've got 18x10 rims with Pirelli p275/35 zr-18 and they measure almost 25.5" diameter. You can even go wider & not much taller with 30 series rubber. .
[This message has been edited by Amida (edited 11-29-2008).]
A couple more things that are going on right now. I layed the stencils for the logos on the front end. I am using more modern sponsor names to mix the old and the new
Here are the stencils layed out
And 90% completed
I am just waiting for the orange to dry on the K&N logo and then I will finish airbrushing that and install the hood later tonight.
Here is the car with the hood mounted. The top picture is a little dark but the second shows a little better. I had to custom mix the orange for the K&N logo so it is taking a long time to dry so don't pay attention to the white sticker on the fender
I am clearcoating the entire car in one spray so that is why all of the panels look dull right now.
I just thought of something funny......hopefully, GM doesn't go under otherwise its back to the paint booth
[This message has been edited by IMSA GT (edited 12-01-2008).]
Almost done with prepping the rear portion of the car for paint. Today, I continued my mod of the back decklid by starting on the matching side vents. I bought a new 84 grille from Fiero Store and hacked it up
I then measured and cut the vent louvers out.
Here is the trial fit
And the fit after bending some temporary sheet metal and fitting the metal to the vent with rivets.
The next step will be to use the proper thickness of sheet metal, adhere it to the vents using 8115 adhesive, and blend the vents in to match the decklid.
I am more and more impressed each time I check this thread. It stinks to think I may never get to see it in person. Who knows, maybe I'll take a trip to the west coast some day and bring my entire family (that means the IMSA). We'll call it a family vacation... yea.. that's it.. A family vacation.
I am more and more impressed each time I check this thread. It stinks to think I may never get to see it in person. Who knows, maybe I'll take a trip to the west coast some day and bring my entire family (that means the IMSA). We'll call it a family vacation... yea.. that's it.. A family vacation.
I may take a trip myself towards you especially with the G.A.S tour happening in 2010.....even though the tour ends 20 minutes from my house at Rockaway Beach
My house is one of the stops. I'm about 12 miles south of Route 50. I am planning on hosting some type of cookout or something. I will most likely drive some of it as well, but getting time off work is the main issue.
I need to change gears here for a minute. One of the major features that is missing from the "street" version of the car are lower parts of the rear quarter panels. I think they make an incredible difference in the look of the car so I have to fab some up.
I had to take a break because I am in the process of painting 2 Harley Davidson bikes for a couple of co-workers. Both are doing complete rebuilds so I am painting all of the individual parts separately.
Tomorrow is an all paint day for me. I should have the entire car done and the logos sprayed by the end of the afternoon. Hopefully, my windshield removal tool shows up and I can remove my old windshield and really clean up the area around the glass since I am deleting the windshield vinyl trim piece. It will be a long day....stay tuned
Just finishing up removing all the weatherstrip from the doors and masking everything. Looking forward to driving over and showing it to you when I'm done.
Right now, the lower portion of black is drying. Later, I will be doing the white on top as well as the red molding and the logos. Here are a couple of pics of the door jamb and lower intake.
More to come later
[This message has been edited by IMSA GT (edited 12-26-2008).]
Well, needless to say, it was a pain in the ass day today. The black paint took a few more hours to dry than usual, my windshield removal tool showed up half way through the paint job, and the windshield took about an hour to remove and another hour to clean up all the excess adhesive.
Tomorrow afternoon, I will continue the painting and post more updates.
The first thing was to lay a nice coat of primer over the front end and then wetsand it to make sure everything looked ok. I then sprayed a line of silver right below the moulding line and continued this all the way around the front end.
