We love all our project cars equally–or at least that's what we tell ourselves.
All projects require a significant amount of our time, money and energy to complete (or make us realize it’s time to move on), but some seem to stick in our minds longer than others.
What are some projects that you're the proudest of–the ones you’ll never forget?
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NickD
MegaDork
12/21/21 4:18 p.m.
Oh, it's the supercharged Miata I built in my garage without a lift or really any power tools. It started life as a bone-stock 1990, and now it's got a '99-'00 1.8L swap with a Track Dog Rotrex supercharger kit and makes 245whp, a 6-speed swap with a 3.63:1 Torsen, crazy Xida coilovers, Wilwood front brakes, 15x9 wheels with 245-width tires. It's a mean SOB that frightens me a little, scares a lot of co-drivers and passengers, got me my literal 15 minutes of internet fame on YouTube, and is kind of locally famous. The only thing I personally haven't done on the car was the dyno-tuning. I built the engine, regeared the rearend, installed the blower kit, everything.
Tom1200
UltraDork
12/21/21 4:25 p.m.
This is the one isn't a whole car but the engine cowling on my F500.
I made it out of aluminum using simple tools (HF shrinker, stretcher & bending brake). It's kind of ugly but I managed to make something that fits. I suck at fabrication and usually give up, but my fabricator pal managed to coach me through the hard bits like the mounts. It took me ages to do, something like 40-50hrs, but I managed to actually finish it.
This car started as a tired out old 400,000 km euro car that had major rust issues and ready to be parted out. The suspension, brakes, engine, trans and interior were all cooked but that single stage red paint still had some life in it. I spent a year on my back in my little garage cutting out the rot in the rocker panels, floor pans and everywhere else and replaced everything else to get it where it is today. It's still a bit ratty on the outside (lots of patina) but is easily handles 30 minute sessions on track and drives home afterwards. The replacement drivetrain also has 400,000 km and handles the abuse fine.
The day it arrived on cut springs and blown out shocks
This past summer at Mosport (Big_D from the forum in the right seat)
I really need to start a build thread for it as the project is never done.
Personal projects?
Building a Ford 9" rear-end that fits where a Mazda 7" went, weighs only 30lb more, uses the stock driveshaft and e-brake cables and wheels, and retains the Watts link. And I redid the Watts geometry for a better roll center.
I'm cooking up something cooler.
Thinking about it, the projects I'm most proud of aren't my own...
So not to most peoples taste. But I touched, massaged, built and fabricated almost every single piece on this car to an extent that I have never done before.
It's like picking a favorite kid. But since I was able to sell the Locost and I'll never be able to sell this one, I'm going to say this beastie.
Built from a bare shell in my garage. Built the whole thing on jackstands. Built the engine. Did a bunch of new engineering including developing the suspension from scratch and a whole bunch of skid plates. Painted it at home - including the stripes. Ran the Targa Newfoundland as a novice and was responsible for the whole thing from logistics to driving. Then converted it to a V8, ran the Targa again, almost won it, put in a bigger engine, developed a new suspension, did cool aero stuff, converted it back into a street car. It's been underway 15 years at least and this morning I was planning new modifications to the homebrew analog race gauge cluster that will involve more development from scratch.
As the kids say...
How it started.
How it's going.
That would be my AE92, a ton of work, tuning and fabrication and a lot of rare parts have gone into that over the years, the car punches well above its weight and might've taken a national autocross championship if it had been finished earlier / didn't later get lumped into big classes with big-money high-tech boost buggies and stripped and caged race cars (although I have beaten some stripped and caged race cars with it):
Currently getting the body restored on it.
LS swap. 6 speed swap. Turbocharged. 14" 6 piston brakes in the front 14" 4 piston in the back. 19x10 wheels w/ 305s all the way around. I can't pull the grin off my face when behind the wheel. Coming up on 20 years of ownership.
This thing. From swapping the 3.5 in on my own from a parts car and swapping dash harnesses and electronics, up sizing the brakes, putting a turbo on it, designing the plate to mount the CF mirrors, and being responsible for over 200,000kms of (mostly) enjoyment behind the wheel, majority of that in a modified state.
And still LOTS of ideas going forward as time and money allow.
I bought this for $125
I built the car I always wanted to build, the way I always wanted to build it. Up to that point none of my friends or my Dad would let me do things my way. It was particularly satisfying when it worked
I won every race I finished in this car, and when the owner of my home track wanted to run the All Canadian nationals but didn't have a ride I loaned it to him. He won the national and called me afterward. How much for the car? Name your price.
I'll be proud of this until I die:
I bought a non-running Ford Probe with 267,000 miles on it for $520 and managed to tart it up enough to win the 2020 DriveAutoX National Championship in their Sport Compact class, got invited to UMI's King of the Mountain 2.0 in August of 2020, and won my way into the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational at COTA in November of 2020.
jmc14
HalfDork
12/21/21 6:46 p.m.
I've built a few cars from scratch. I've enjoyed building each one. This is my last build and it's one of my favorites. I'm not sure "proud" is how I would describe how I feel. Thankful that I'm able to build.
I created the body (inspired by the 1963 Cheetah race car), built the frame to accept C4 Corvette suspension. I've driven it quite a bit. Always a lot of fun.
I'm building a new one right now. This is a pic of the frame under construction. I'm using a freshly built LS with Tremec TKX 5 speed. I also want to do a coupe version.
mdshaw
HalfDork
12/21/21 7:06 p.m.
The '76 CVCC - 11.3:1 D16Z6, Si cable trans, BCR coilovers, rear discs, custom Hy-Tuf axles.
Not sure...
Probably the trailerparkcet...
buzzboy
SuperDork
12/21/21 8:30 p.m.
Not a car project, but a surfboard restoration.
Guy found this thing in somebody's backyard, full of water, many bad old fixes. So I cut out the bad parts and old repairs(i like the blue blob repair)
and replaced them with new parts. Then refinished it all with an acid smear, pinlines and gloss&polish
Rodan
SuperDork
12/21/21 10:36 p.m.
Today, like Keith and Nick, # 1 is our NA Miata... from stock to not. The only things done by others' hands are alignments, dyno tuning and tire mounting. Ten years and counting, and more to come...
For a long time, though, it was this Mustang, the first new car I ever bought. It was stock for about 45 minutes. Lots of trophies from both cars shows and drag racing, but the most satisfying was winning Car Craft's Real Street Eliminator in '92.
One of my favorite memories of the 5.0 was the time I got a call from Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords that they wanted to shoot the car for a feature the following week. I decided the car needed a little more "show", so over that weekend, we pulled the engine and repainted the engine compartment and under the hood, continuing the LeMans stripes on the underside of the hood and down the firewall. We also painted the engine and some underhood parts to match. Engine went back in on Sunday, and the car was at the photo shoot first thing Monday morning.
Ah, the crazy E36 M3 you do when you're young...
In reply to Rodan :
I'd love to read that.
Personal is the SBC RX-7 I made with a couple buddies after one of them told us about this thing called the $2007 challenge. It took us a couple months but afterward we looked at each other and said we figured we could do another in a weekend. Man... when that thing ran down the road the first time, put together with nuthin but some gumption and metal strut... Man
Tom1200
UltraDork
12/21/21 11:16 p.m.
In reply to wearymicrobe :
That's super cool.
Seeing what other people have done I feel silly saying this, but the Dung Beetle was my favorite and as a car [art] project the one I'm proudest of. Frustration and tragedy re-built with junk and duct tape into the car I've had the most fun with.
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