Late model stock car conversion to road race

A couple of years ago I picked up an ex Nascar Autozone Elite Series late model stock car roller for a song. It has the Fivestar composite Monte Carlo body with CF Hood and roof. It just sat until recently when I realized I had most everything to put it together.

Also laying around the shop was a nice fresh small block chevy with Brodix aluminum heads, a DART block, comp roller cam. A nice dry sump motor with Callies crank and Carillo rods that makes a very understressed 525 HP. I also had a TEX racing T101 Nascar type road race 4 speed built by DEI. The car came with a road race Winters Quick change with Detroit Locker.

My Car builder, Woody at Bemco Fab in Deland, reworked the front clip a bit to make it better for road racing and installed a Woodwood rack, Sweet spindles, 5x5 hubs, a C&R Nascar Radiator. He put in new aluminum interior, guages, pedals, a three link rear suspension with a watts link and an ex Nascar cup 22 gal ATL cell. We moved the drysump tank and battery to the right side and will install a 10# automatic Nascar extinguisher over the fuel cell as well as a 5# unit in the cockpit on the right side. Looking for some good used Penske adjustable shocks on Ebay, and will install some used/rebuilt Nascar Brembo brakes with Brembo 13" rotors. I picked up some nearly new Bassett lightweight inertia steel wheels that weigh 19# for 25 bucks a piece. I found a good triple disc quartermaster 7.25" clutch at a steal. The tranny is geared to use first gear in the slower corners (geared like second gear in most tranny's) so in effect it is like having a five speed gear box. The Tex tranny's provide for clutchless upshifts and hunts the next gear like nothing you've ever shifted.

The car will weigh about 2500# minus the driver and with an honest 525 HP on tap will hit 180 MPH at Daytona and should lap around 1:58.

The body is getting painted like the Smokey Yunick Chevelle from 1966. Black/Gold. It should be back tomorrow.

We will probably race it a couple of times in the V8 StockCar Series and then sell it to finance another project. In fact, a couple of folks are already very interested in it.

I will have about 17 K in it completely refurbished, while to many that isn't exactly "grassroots" racing, for this amount of speed it is hard to beat. A commercially built similar car by one of the well known stock car builders would be about 68-70 K.

I had a Howe perimeter chassis I picked up for $200 for a while, but never the money to buy all the parts needed to even get it to the roller stage at that time. Wish I had that thing now...

racerfink wrote: I had a Howe perimeter chassis I picked up for $200 for a while, but never the money to buy all the parts needed to even get it to the roller stage at that time. Wish I had that thing now...

Usually the Howe cars are the best for conversion

Nice project - that's a hell of a lot of racecar for the money.

Bosco, your cars rock, are you bringing this one to the 24?

I'd say that's exactly grassroots . Very cool.

Maybe a contender for the Ultimate Track Car Challenge?

aussiesmg wrote: Bosco, your cars rock, are you bringing this one to the 24?

I was thinkin' of bringing the 2011 Howe Camaro, but GRM has sold out the exp tickets. Maybe if they let me.

The Camaro is a Howe/Bemco tube frame with carb LS1. The new motor will make about 575 HP and the car weighs about 2450# minus driver. It is quite QUICK.

looks like a great project!

Grassroots? Absolutely! Looks awesome. I second the UTCC invite (not that it counts for much).

Hope to spend some time in the Vette this year

Butch Kummer (Atl. Region SCCA) is an acquaintance of mine, and says you can't go faster for cheaper. I think it's an old short track chassis, and he runs in GTA. He let Tim drive it once..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YKUBfLlyqs

friedgreencorrado wrote: Butch Kummer (Atl. Region SCCA) is an acquaintance of mine, and says you can't go faster for cheaper. I think it's an old short track chassis, and he runs in GTA. He let Tim drive it once.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YKUBfLlyqs

$25K for that... gawd I want in

I had dreams of converting this to road course use. Never got to it. I really wish I had it now. Hell I wish I had my old shop now.

thats cool that they are using off the shelf bodies from arp and five star..... lotsa cheap left turning chassis out there... be fun.

wonder what the exact process is of converting a car to turn left into one to go right and left...do the clips need re thinking.. things like that.

LOVE! You win the how much fun can you have contest.

BARNCA wrote: wonder what the exact process is of converting a car to turn left into one to go right and left...do the clips need re thinking.. things like that.

Depends on the car. The one I was going to do the chase was not staggered so all it was going to take was.

Make sure all springs and shocks were the same side to side.

Replace the left housing and axle of the 9" quick change rear end to match the right side.

Remove shims in the front left suspension where the A arms bolted.

If you have an offset chassis to start with it gets a lot more complicated.

The car came with all the parts to do it I just never got to it. I was going to put a 4age with a t50 in it for starters. Figured it would make a fun track toy that I would have been in to for alot less than $5k

http://www.dimand-racing.com/2011photos.html

Here's a link to a friend of mines web site. He has road raced a Port City chassis for a number of years in SCCA GT1 as well as a couple of other racing series. He even won his class in his first pro race at Mosport some years ago in the rain yet!

While it is certainly easier to start with a perimeter chassis car and convert to road race one of the faster GT-1 cars in the V8 StockCar series has been Jeff Emery's offset Port City chassis. The car has also won a number of SCCA national races and set a bunch of track records.

Emery's crew chief Fred Strube re-works the front end geometry, gets the proper camber by changing the spindles and A frames, changes to a splined Nascar type sway bar. Redistribute as much weight to the right side as possible to get a near 50/50 balance.

Some use cambered rear axles up to 1.5 degrees negative, however our experience in solid axle high powered cars is that straight up rears work just as well.

We like about 550 to 600 pound springs in the front and 250-300 in the rear. If you go with a splitter and wing you will need to increase the spring rate a bit.

Quick change rear ends work well up until you start exceeding about 600 HP, then they start needing a lot more maintenance. Most using motors above that number start seeing the need to go to the 9" Ford type Nascar rear ends that can handle 900 HP.

I went the reverse route- a straight up Troyer modified (that was used @Watkins Glen) to an offset car. Cut off the front clip and mounted a Stock Car Products(chevelle) clip at an 8 inch offset. The car was very competitive for a number of years. I always preferred using the 9" rear- the quickchange had way too much drag for my liking.

always thought bout this, or a legends car.

The thread is awesome . . .

Roundy-Round cars here in SC/NC go for a song (think $10-17K runners + elbow grease). I don't think you can get the same amount of $$$/performance anywhere else. 500 hp, sub 3000 lbs, aftermarket and swap meet goods galore . . .

If I had the space and a trailer, I would be ALL over one in a hearbeat!!

Thanks for sharing. . . I must now resist the urge to search the local stock car ads.