I will try to post periodic updates here as the project progresses. For those that do not know me, I am a 29 year old fellow in Dallas-Fort Worth that has had this Barracuda for 11 years or so. It was a daily driver for a while, my Wife and I dated in this car and in August of 2014 I took the car [voluntarily] off of the road to restore it.

It lived its life as a 318/904 car, factory FY1 Lemon Twist car with the black stripe. It had some drag racing time on it with the rebuilt 318 Warlock1 and I did [my first rebuild]. I nearly quit driving the car completely because I was tired of it, I had a highly modified Wrangler that I built from stock and the Barracuda was slow and just plain tired. When I decided to start my Master's, I needed a new daily, either the Wrangler went or the Barracuda did. The Barracuda won. From there I tore the car down completely and have been doing all of the work, with the exception of body/paint, from within my standard 2 car garage. It's cumbersome, but it works.

Since 8/2014 I started the project as a Hemi swap with a 6 speed, which rapidly turned into a restoration and repaint. In that time I have started a new career, started and finished an MBA, bought a house and became a Dad…I have been busy! Needless to say, the project is behind its original schedule. Today, 12/2016, here is where I stand…


So let's get into the car:

- Rebuilt 5.7L Hemi, comp cam, TTI headers, standalone ECU
- T56 magnum 6speed manual transmission with the conversion parts from SST
- 8-3/4" rear, 3.91s Dr. Diff shafts, Wilwood 12.2" 4-piston discs
- Hotchkis front end
- Borgeson steering box w/Coleman 1.5:1 quickener
- Wilwood 12.9" 6-piston front discs
- Vintage Air Conversion
- Painless Harness
- Tanks Inc EFI tank
- American Racing 17s and 18s


Obligatory "BEFORE" photo




DISASSEMBLY
















The car had typical rust issues in the “Tee” section, trunk floor, etc. All of which has either been treated and topcoated, or replaced entirely.

To help stiffen things up, the car was given a US Car Tool chassis kit

I smoothed out the engine bay and epoxy primed it, soon after the Hemi was dropped in for mock-up.





Soon after, the sawzall met the car to make room for the T56 Magnum. Keeping torsion bars requires pretty significant reinforcement to that area to ensure structural integrity.







I did some high level blocking on the car to see what I had to work with. The car had been painted yellow many, many times!





The trunk was in need of serious work. I replace the floor, trunk extensions, tank supports and the rear rails completely.



The interior was treated to epoxy primer, single stage Lemon Twist, topcoated with tinted RaptorLiner [bedliner] for noise reduction, heat reduction and some durability in the trunk.

After working on my back for hours, under the car, I surrendered when it came time to coat the bottom of the car. I made up a <$100 tip-over rig out of wood…it worked very well!





The bottom of the car had Eastwood rust encapsulator sprayed in every crevice and rail hole I could get to. It was then sprayed with the rust encapsulator and topcoated with Lizard Skin ceramic coating. I also took this time to spray the bottom of the roof with the stuff has well, to help keep my melon from cooking in the Summer. Here you can see the modifications I made to the chassis, front and rear torque boxes, subframe connectors and the completely new forward member between the front rail and torsion bar crossmember. I did not care much for all of the 90° load paths up there. That crossmember will help take some load out of the rocker and redirect it through the new subframe connectors. I hope that it will help keep the doors/gaps more consistent and the car more rigid over time.



Fast forwarding a little more, the car was fitted with a 70-71 AMD deck lid [which fit terrible], Goodmark front fenders, an AMD door skin and an AMD header panel. I also took the opportunity to add a ‘Cuda rear valance and ‘Cuda hood to the car. Oh, and I did fork out a few more bucks for all new AMD door hinges as well, a seemingly small investment can help the car hold its lines and feel more solid [to me], with those in place.







Two years after taking it off of the road, it went to the body shop. [Ward’s in Krum, TX]. While the car was out, I could finally get the garage clean enough to rebuild the engine.

Valve springs were swapped with PAC racing springs


I was able to get all of the accessories together before assembly, then got after it!




***VIDEO***
[img]http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c298/goodysgota72/th_IMG_0254.mp4[/img]

I sprayed the engine with single stage acrylic enamel Hemi Orange after epoxy primer.

I finish assembled the engine and trans together and had it setup on the powdercoated K-frame.





with the drivetrain and powertrain together, the car progressed at the body shop behind the scenes.













…and that is where I am up to!

Nice....

That's awesome Mike! Once you get it home, and start reassembly, you should do a time lapse video like you did with the engine assembly. That would be cool. I noticed in the tear down pics that you have a 2 spd wiper motor. Will you have to change to a 3 spd set up for the wiper motor to be clear of the back of the intake? I'm having to convert the wipers to 3 spd on my Duster because the 2 spd motor wouldn't clear. One guy actually said I should just heat the intake since it's plastic....and cave it in to get clearance! Whadda maroon....lol. Looking forward to seeing it progress, and it looks really good.

That's the way they should be done...
I explained the plywood jig you built to my Dad thinking he may want to steal that idea for the Duster...
You're proof that nice cars can be built by the owner in his 2 car garage.

I thought about the timelapse, that would take quite an effort each time i get out in the garage to mess with something!

I have not gotten to mock up the wiper motor along with the engine in the. I don't suspect it will be an issue, however.

It worked very well and was a one-man operation. When I first tipped it, I had two buddies help slow it down as I thought it may hit the "tipping point" and want to GO. It didn't, it went over very smoothly, to my surprise.

The wood is now making up the ramp to my shed.

Dang. I didn't realize how much work you've done in such a short time till I saw all of your work compiled into one thread. I feel like a dog with his tail between his legs for sending my car to a shop. Nice work! Hopefully, our paths cross some day.

Thanks! "Short time" is all relative, it feels like it has drug on for far too long. Now that the finish painted car is coming home, I will feel much better putting parts on the car for the last time.

The biggest project to date that I have done has been the Formula car, this one is far more intimidating and has exercised a lot of my prior knowledge that I have built up over the years. Through formal training such as my UTI training and becoming a ASE and BMW master technician. Building the Wrangler which taught me general custom suspension/steering work, axle regearing, welding, fabrication. The Formula car which taught me project management, keeping things progressing while other areas are stalled, EFI wiring/tuning, custom suspension, etc....it all contributes to this project being as successful as it has been so far. So far I will easily be $35k into the build and the only labor I have paid is for paint [and well worth it]. I couldn't imagine the financial hit it would be to farm this out!

Lately I have been going back and forth with SpeedHut gauges working through artwork proofs.

base cluster [exchange the voltmeter for an AFR gauge in your head]

Other pictures

Wow! Great progress and awesome job!
Pat

Let the games begin.

I can! Lol.

Finally got some parts from the laser cutter that I was able to get on the car. This bracket started with a rough concept in Solidworks.




From there I printed the concept in 1:1 and built a rough prototype off the drill press.



Once I honed in on the dimensions I was able to send off the DXF and have it cut out of 1/2" mild steel. I also used this same mount to provide a spot to anchor a torque strap. I've been wanting to avoid a solid driver's side motor mount but struggled to find a clean torque strap mounting location. 3 bolts to the head via 1/2" steel ought to do it.




Mounted up

Looks nice Mike. Are you using a Jeep pump or the GM version with less pressure? I bet if you could make up a different version of the same bracket with a PS delete pulley to sell at a more affordable price than what's out, you could sell a few.

This is a Ford version, with less pressure.