I thought I would start posting up some pics of my AP6 Valiant Project. This car has been in my ownership twice now, I started on it many years ago and had to sell it off when my Mum downsized (I had it stored in her garage). Around a year later, I bought it back.
The first time around it was going to be a 4 Link half chassis car with Frame connectors to house a W8 Engine I had at the time. Life changed, I met my now fiance and it went onto the back burner and was put into storage, (along with a bunch of other Valiant stuff).
I was selling a 318 short, and a gentleman by the name of Tim came around to my Mum's house to look at it. The AP6 was stored there, we got to talking about it and I told him I had nowhere to store and wasn't sure where I was going to put it etc. He offered to buy it, we struck a deal and a week or two later, off she went.



I toyed around with a couple of Wagons and another sedan, moved house a couple of times and had to lose all but one of the cars. The biggest problem was, I unknowingly kept the worst one. It was rusty in all the wrong places and needed a donor car to fix, or become a donor car itself. It became the latter.

I stayed in touch with Tim, and talked him into selling me the AP6 back, I knew it's faults and there was to be no surprises, plus the price was right.
Below are some pics of how It was when I bought it back (Basically as I sold it to Tim really)









First of all, I must say I envy those people who can make a plan for a build and stick to it. It's not been something I have been particually good at. The general plan is:
360 & 904
9" with 35 spline axles 5.37:1 rear
15 x 4 & 15 x 10" wheels
30 x 9" rear slick
Full roll cage
A lot of custom billet parts

I work two jobs and have a young family, so progress has been, and will continue to be slow.

I started on this project around 18 months ago

After some deliberation I decided a set of factory rails were going back into the rear, more so just incase I ever decided I wanted to convert it back to a street car. At this stage I was only looking at running the car in Super Street, but more on that later.

So with that, it was time to get busy with the grinder and drill and get a pair of rear rails out of a donor car I had. I also sourced another floor pan.



I got the rails onto a set of stands and proceeded to brace it up





















The donor floor could have been better, but I won't be using all of it.



So the next job was to get the rear rails into the car. With the help of my friend Steve I cut the end of the donor rails ready to install them. Before that could happen I had to drill out the spot welds and removed the rear floor.







So this is what the boot floor looked like before it came out. The spare wheel well was actually pretty solid.

















So Steve and I juggled the rear rails, got them up onto stands and level and with a few adjustments, got them tacked into place. I would have liked the join to have been a little nicer, but I guess once it is all finish welded and ground back, no one is going to notice. I also put a 1.6mm thich sheet behind the join to add a little strength. In all reality, the rails aren't going to be as relied on previously for strength, due to the extra tubing that will be going in.















At this point in time, I was using a 28"-11.5"/15 ET Street as a dummy tyre on my 15 x 10" Rod Lites.

You will notice the project will tend to jump around a little early on, it has all taken place over a period of many, many months, sometimes with no progress over a few months.

With any luck, I will someday get a R5/P7 engine I have in Pennsylvania shipped over. At this time in the story, the friend of mine whom I purchased it off fell from height and injured his back. It was enough to require surgery and keep him off his feet for quite a while.

So I got talking to my friend Con and between us, we started throwing together some parts to put together a 360. At the time Con was working at Synergy Race Engines in Rowville and did some of the block machining. The block I used was the first 360 I ever bought (I was 14, I am 36 now), so I have had it with me a while. It wasn't perfect, It was missing a couple of caps, and needed an engine mount repair. We did some late nights and got the basics done, and had to put a sleeve in the number one cylinder to correct some bad machining. We re-sized some fully floating factory rods, and fitted them with ARP bolts. The 360 Truck heads were fitted with guide inserts for some Ferrera Stainless valves and finally finish honed the bored for the Speedpro pistons we got. The 360 crank was sent out and index ground and linished. At this stage the engine still needed a line bore/hone and have the block decked.

Some more time went by, and Con moved to Adelaide and took my engine over there. He continued to engines after hours under his Pro Race Engines business name and sent my block to Chris Miltons for the final machining so he could get the short together. He was also working at Outlaw Speed Shop at the time and we sourced the parts required to complete the short.









So at this stage the basic plan with the engine was as follows:

360 +0.030"
Floating factory rods with ARP bolts
360 Crank
Speedpro HCP116 Hyperuetectic pistons
Crane Cams F248 Solid flat tappet camshaft
Mellings standard volume pump
Hamburger Aluminium Drag pan
Rollmaster Timing Chain

360 Truck Heads
2.02"/1.60" Ferrera Stainless Valves 11/32" stem
Edelbrock Air Gap Intake
HEI Ignition

After about 12 months in Adelaide, Con came back to Melbourne.

At this stage, I wasn't get a lot of work done, work was busy, and so was the family side of things. A friend of mine suggested I use a corner of his shop in the hope I would get things moving along a little more.



Those observant followers will notice I have removed the to outer sections of the floor and the 2" x 3" frame connectors and crossmember. At this stage I was still unsure as to what rear suspension I was going to run. I had a set of Ladder Bars, but also had some 4 Link bracket designs up my sleeve, along with some ideas and aims to manufacture a Caltrac type system. As always, I was over thinking everything. So I cut off the factory seat brackets and cleaned up the inside of the sills. the car sat there for a little while......

Next I started on the Frame connectors (which was something else I deliberated over for quie some time), I went with a 2" x 3" RHS with a 3mm wall.







Not the greatest pics unfortunately (I have misplaced a bunch of them), these pics show determining where the main hoop was going to go.

Unfortunately, my health took a bit of a dive and I wasn't terribly motivated to work on the car for a few months. A couple of months ago I got the bug again and started designing parts and started on the slow manufacturing process. It's slow because it is basically governed by what spare time I have at the time (which usually = Very Little!)

I did however find the time to start on some items, the first being my leaf spring boxes





I then welded them together, here they are prior to grinding





I am sure some of you are wondering, why there are two sets of holes? At this stage, I am sticking with a factory spring. Down the track I will be upgrading to a Calvert Split Mono leaf spring with a Chevy S-10 (25") front segment. This are made out of 6mm thick steel sheet.







Some more recent fabrication, I have started to box up the factory crossmember with 3mm sheet and started to welding in the frame connectors and braces that the roll cage will weld too. In the last pic you will notice the absence of the centre of the cross member. This will be replaced with a 1 3/4" 4130 tubular cross member that will bolt in. That is to come.

This post brings us up to date so far. As you can see in the pics, the frame connectors and rear rails have been trimmed for fitting on the rear spring boxes. As of Thursday just gone, I have the spring boxes partially welded in. I am going to TIG weld the external welds, as I think that MIG welds generally look ghastly. Next week I will get the trans crossmember in and do the final welding on what has been installed so far.









Next on the list is to finish adding the 4130 tubing braces etc as per the sfi specs I have. Following that I will install the adjustable upper shock mount and the base of the 4130 tubing in the rear of the car. I have a few other trick parts to go into the car, so stay tuned.

I didn't get a chance to do anything over the weekend due to some Wedding planning stuff that I apparently had to be there for. But I was able to put in a couple of hours in today and start laying out where some of the tubing is going to go.



A X brace still needs to go in between the frame connectors, I have to take in some more 1" od 4130 tubing to get that done. I also need to finish the trans mount as well. I am hoping to get some more done on Thursday.

I CNC machined a set of flanges to use for my tubular crossmember and fitted them up to a 1 3/4" 4130 tube that I had bent up some time ago. Below is the dummy fitting





At that stage I had no idea where the trans was going to sit, so I sat a 318 block and 904 into the engine bay so I can get an idea of where things are going to be. I could see if my crossmember would work out of if I had to cut and bend something else. I can also see how much room I had for the pipes and collectors as well.







I found that the crossmember dropped down far more than required, my buddy Con suggested I rotate it 90 degrees, rather than make a new one, which should work out well.

In the next pic you will notice some more tubing has started to go in. The seat supports still need to be fitted, along with some of the final bracing around the spring boxes. Once they are all welded in, the work on the roll cage with begin.

Some changes to the engine combination have changed. It was initially going to be a basic 360 with a F248 solid fat tappet camshaft, 11:1 compression with an Air Gap manifold and a 950 holley.

Well, I got a really good deal on a set of KB191 domed pistons, so we upped the ante with the camshaft, upgraded the rods from factory rods to Scat 4340 I Beam rods and I picked up an M1 single plane. The plenum on the M1 intakes isn't the greatest, so I will be doing some minor mods before Con @ Pro Race Engines ports it for me.

interesting mods to the manifold. should be interesting to see the final result

That s a lot of work just to show of your cnc skills...

no, seriously ,it looks good

Keep up the good work alan, you have a massive job ahead of you, but you are making good progress. I admire people like yourself who can take on these projects and finish them off. I know I couldn't.

Good luck man. rob.

Great looking work

wow,looks like a V8 Supercar!

Looking forward.

Man, that`s a lot of work but lookin damn good..............

That's likely the most thorough documentation of a project I've ever seen. Kind of amusing to a US guy to see all the RH/LH details for RHD.
I'm wondering about your driveshaft loop: assume it will attach to the X-brace.

You have completely lost your mind! Not that we are opposed to that is these circles, not at all.

Keep up the good work. Very impressive project.

Progress has been a little slow. Getting on with some of the more fidly jobs that take a lot of time up





I want to have the lower half of the cage section welded in in the next couple of weeks. Then the dash bar and lower front legs of the cage will go in. Then I will get the basis for the rear of the chassis in.

I have the main hoop bent up already, just have the do the roof/A pillar bars and the dash bar etc.

I am really wondering why I started in the first place, but too far in to stop now!

I have been tinkering away, progress has been slow, but I got married a few weeks ago, so that kinda ate up into my garage time.

Dude, that is great looking home built race car I look at the chassis you've made and I want to see a four or five speed manual trans with a clutch in it so it will buck and snort leaving the line carrying the front tires about one inch off the ground YEEHAW

hell of an effort Al . especially part timing it .
are you sure your only running SuperStreet ?
looks like bigger plans afoot

Tex

U sir, are my hero. Good lookin build.

Awesome fab work!

Where did you get those light duty screw jacks? I've been looking for some like that forever..

The screw jacks are quite easily purchased here in OZ Jesse, most part suppliers stock them here. They do come in really handy.

Tex, I only want to do the major parts of the chassis once, so I am very much over doing it. Down the road this car will see a R5/P7 engine or something boosted. I am trying to convince a buddy of mine to drop his 572 B1 engine into it when he puts a single turbo on it down the road.

That is some beautiful fabrication, extensive and intensive.

With that much fab, why did you stay with leaf springs, instead of a ladder bar/ four link set up?

Class rules required standard suspension and I like a challenge! lol

that fab work is top notch ? for you i see a ton of 4 doors for australia on you tube racing videos right side drive so i know there from there, do thay make 2 door cars or are thay rare

In a Valiant, there was basically only 3 variants in a 2 door coupe/Hardtop

VH-CM Charger


VF-VG Hardtop (68-69 Dodge with different s/m)




VH/CH - VJ/CJ Hardtop



Most Valiants in Oz are 4 doors, there aren't a lot of two doors around.

My fab work top notch? For a first attempt at this kind of level of stuff, I am doing ok I guess. I am learning a whole lot along the way and hopefully my TIG welding will look better by the time I finish!

wow thats what im talking about nice pictures