The race car was set up as an intermediate (1.5 mi) oval car, the left side wheelbase was 1.5" shorter than the right (RS). The RS was about 1.5" shorter than the Chevelle, with different A arms on the left side(LS) I evened up the two wheelbases on the race car.

When I was looking for a car all I was looking for was a Nascar Cup car 110" wheelbase as opposed to a Busch/Nationwide car at 105" wheelbase. I had no idea how well it would fit. I had never even seen a real Nascar in person as Nascar and the 'truckarm' chassis is not raced up here. I was expecting to have to modify the cage to some (maybe large) degree to get the body to fit.

I had to cut the body within an inch of its life and several times when I lifted it up I thought the body was just going to implode and fold up into a big pile of scrap (post 66), it was REALLY flimsey. I got the body to fit with no modifications to the original Nascar cage at all other than removal of the huge door bars and some inner bars to allow a passenger seat. Its amazing how well the body fits that chassis you'd think the chassis was made for a 68-72 Chevelle. I lucked out there.

Im keeping the stock Chevelle door panels I want to keep it as period correct as I can. There is probably 20 hrs shortening the dash sheetmetal (pics below) just rearward of the defroster vents to get the angle right on the dash face and meet up with the race car crossbar below the gauges so I could still use the stock dash pad and make it look right (if you can follow that lol )
It would have been WAY easier to make a dash out of all sheetmetal no dash pad. And I decided to go with old school black face gauges as opposed to silver or carbon face for a more old school look. Im not worried about the cracked dash....gives it flavor.

That looks good!! Im surprised how much the chassis have changes from the days of winston till now.

What are you running for a trans, a Mack Quad-box with two hurst shifters? :lolhit:

Testing out different shift levers?

Project is coming along sweet. :drink:

Chassis and rollcage the same as mine until 2007 with COT. Chassis/suspension still the same today well other than changing to a big bar front end in 05 ish. By all accounts my chassis is considered faster than a COT as it has a lower CG heh heh!...... Just in the last few yrs have the lap records posted by my old school chassis been bettered by the COT.

Mack quad box haha! That thing had an 800+ hp SB2 and a Jerico clutchless trans in it when it raced, pretty wild/exotic in anyones book. I send to North Carolina and get "Nascar 23deg motor mounts" Bolt up a plain jane carbed 350 mock up motor out of my boat and a street T-10 trans with a Hurst shifter. Shifter ends up dead centre in the cutout hole in the trans tunnel, no tunnel mods nessesary.... unreal.

in the end want it to look something like this Nova but a Chevelle obviously.......and dont think it will be done as fast as Hot Duck's Camaro......http://www.rekz.info/11gd.jpghttp://www.rekz.info/10dh.jpghttp://www.rekz.info/09ht.jpghttp://www.rekz.info/09ax.jpghttp://www.rekz.info/09jh.jpghttp://www.rekz.info/09bh.jpg

glad to see you are using the interior panels. one of the things I really liked back when I was working on the Trans Am car was that we had to use 10 (I think) parts of the real car. we had to have a factory windshield set at the original angle and the roof panel had to match the real car shape and size. we used tail lights, grille parts, etc for the rest of the parts so you ended up with a car that really did look like the production car just hot rodded. I hate the bodies of the COT car. a bunch of stickers does not make the car "stock". the Chevelle is looking great, looks like it just rolled off the trailer in the early '70's

Thanks, Im going to use the stock door panels in the back too, I have cover it with something and after a bit of trimming they will bolt right on. The car will be a track car but eventually I want to hook up lights & wipers just enough to get it street legal for the odd cruise night and blast around. Was it your Trans Am car? what year was that?

wasnt my car. I spend my life as poor slave labor so my budget doesnt allow for something at that level. that car we ran was a Protofab chassis in Corvette trim. we won the Detroit Gran Prix in 1989 much to the dislike of Chevy as they were showcasing the Barretta bodies with V6 power and they did not want us there with a Corvette and V8 power. of course after we wore out the 6's and won the race and the only still running Barretta was back in 4th or 5th we were heros. I would drive your Chevelle on the street any day. I used to have a '76 Trans Am with a 13:1 400 and 4 speed that I drove around with open headers. every time we saw a cop I would push in the clutch, kill the engine and coast till I got far enough past them then go again. of course that was many years ago. as they say "the older I get the faster I was".

Been following this project from the get go and its coming out insane! Any updates?