SRT-8 Daytona Clone

[Montreal Wing Car]

Sorry about your loss... I'm gonna call my Dad today.
As for your suspension, he's what I got for my 2010 Charger R/T : http://www.thesuspensionsource.com/street-edge-coilover-kit-05-10-dodge-charger-2wd/

Cheapest coilover setup, gives you ajustability to fine-tune your stance and reasonable comfort.
There are more complete/expensive setups (BC Racing is very good) but StreetEdge is recognized as the best bang for the buck on LX Forums...

Keep up the good work!

Ben

[Stevearino]

Sorry about your loss... I'm gonna call my Dad today.
As for your suspension, he's what I got for my 2010 Charger R/T : http://www.thesuspensionsource.com/street-edge-coilover-kit-05-10-dodge-charger-2wd/

Cheapest coilover setup, gives you ajustability to fine-tune your stance and reasonable comfort.
There are more complete/expensive setups (BC Racing is very good) but StreetEdge is recognized as the best bang for the buck on LX Forums...

Keep up the good work!

Ben

Wow. What a great price. I wish I had this info about a month ago before I bought the springs. I had been looking to buy coil overs but I could not justify spending $1,200.00 since I was only going to lower the front and  all the kits I looked at were a package deal for all four corners of the car. For now I will keep the lowering springs and see how they work out but it is great to have this info if I need to go back and change things up . Thanks again for the link.

[Dave Kanofsky]

just been catching up on your thread !!  awww noo    sorry to hear about your dad !! .....

Me too, Prayers for your family and all of his family and friends.

His legacy certainly lives on in you.  Great work on that car!

[Montreal Wing Car]

Sorry about your loss... I'm gonna call my Dad today.
As for your suspension, he's what I got for my 2010 Charger R/T : http://www.thesuspensionsource.com/street-edge-coilover-kit-05-10-dodge-charger-2wd/

Cheapest coilover setup, gives you ajustability to fine-tune your stance and reasonable comfort.
There are more complete/expensive setups (BC Racing is very good) but StreetEdge is recognized as the best bang for the buck on LX Forums...

Keep up the good work!

Ben

Wow. What a great price. I wish I had this info about a month ago before I bought the springs. I had been looking to buy coil overs but I could not justify spending $1,200.00 since I was only going to lower the front and  all the kits I looked at were a package deal for all four corners of the car. For now I will keep the lowering springs and see how they work out but it is great to have this info if I need to go back and change things up . Thanks again for the link.

lxforums.com is a great place for infos on late-models, great bunch of people! You can PM me if you need more info on late-models, I dab in both also, just not on the same car, like you!

Ben

[Stevearino]

I promised myself I would not get distracted by anything that did not have to do with getting the car back on the ground and able to move under it's own power because at that point I can get the NC state inspector back out to start the operational title process going which could take 6 months. However I had a major "DUH" moment the other day. One of the things that has really upset me about this build that I had resigned myself to accept was the appearance of the rocker area. Since the car was down as far on the chassis as I could get it this initially left me with a 3" pinch weld that I was desperate to reduce. It really screwed up the side profile of the car. I managed to reduce it to 2 inches by cutting it flush on the bottom of the LX inner frame rail. I figured I would have to use some paint tricks to hide what was still too big looking for me. Much as I hate re doing something that I have already spent a lot of time on I never the less took a cutting wheel and cut the remainder of the pinch weld off and then removed the bottom of the LX inside frame rail. I added back some.060 steel to re mend the bottom of the rocker to the inner frame rail wall. This only pushed the pinch weld in 2 more inches inboard but the result was pretty dramatic.  I have only done the front half of the left side rocker but I am pretty excited with the results so far. It is kind of hard to see in the picture so I drew a diagram of what I ended up doing.

[cdr]

lookin great 

[Indygenerallee]

Nice execution!!

[Charger-Bodie]

I approve. Very nicely done.

[tsmithae]

Brilliant! 

[472 R/T SE]

Yep, that's zackly how I would have done it. 

Amazing craftsmanship sir!   

[tan top]

nice work 

[Mike DC]

   
That looks great.  But will it be a structural concern?  Reducing the height of the rocker boxes doesn't sound like the best thing to do, engineering wise.    Seems like it might hurt the stiffness of the chassis noticeably. 

[Budnicks]

Looks good   , you've come as far, keep it up, I can't wait to see the running driving & then the finished product & smokey Burn-out video to come  soon I would think if it's all welded back together properly it should be plenty strong, good luck

[Stevearino]

Thanks for the continued thumbs up guys. I keeps me moving forward.

   
That looks great.  But will it be a structural concern?  Reducing the height of the rocker boxes doesn't sound like the best thing to do, engineering wise.    Seems like it might hurt the stiffness of the chassis noticeably. 

It is something I worried about early on but a friend of mine who has a lot more experience in these things pointed out that the outer frame rails on the LX play a more minor roll in the structure of the car that would be first assumed . It turns out that the very tall and very wide steel box that is the trans tunnel on this car is where most of the strength is. He assured me that if I was careful to mend the outer rails back together sufficiently that there would be no net effect. We will see.
Not saying it was correct but I took a very close look at what was done on the 68 done by West Coast customs and they ended up removing the entire LX frame rails and even cutting into the outer floor boards to mend their  68 rockers to the car.  I also looked at a 69 Road Runner done by West Coast Restorations out of Florida and it appears the did something similar to what I have done here. I just couldn't figure out from their available pictures of the build just how until now.

[Mike DC]

     
Yeah, I had forgotten how much of a backbone-type design the LX has with that big trans tunnel. 

If there is some loss from cutting the rockers then I imagine it wouldn't be a really structural safety issue so much as just a loss of rigidity.  The old 2nd-gen's rocker boxes aren't small and the area will still have a far amount of steel in total.  If there is any bothersome loss then you could also raise the height of the bottom door sills a couple inches to make up for it.   

[Stevearino]

     
Yeah, I had forgotten how much of a backbone-type design the LX has with that big trans tunnel. 

If there is some loss from cutting the rockers then I imagine it wouldn't be a really structural safety issue so much as just a loss of rigidity.  The old 2nd-gen's rocker boxes aren't small and the area will still have a far amount of steel in total.  If there is any bothersome loss then you could also raise the height of the bottom door sills a couple inches to make up for it.   

I have already added a vertical piece of .060 between the inner frame upper pinch weld flange and the 68 upper pinch weld flange that ties in to the the bottom of the rocker so I am hoping that suffices as a substitute for any other losses.  I know this is stupid but I am more concerned that it look like a Gen 2 and get rid of the fat look of the LX than anything else. I don't want it to look like the orange 68-70 version of the mash up .No offense to the builders but it reminds me of a Ball Park frank. They plump when you cook them.

[Baldwinvette77]

Nice rockers 

[cdr]

     
Yeah, I had forgotten how much of a backbone-type design the LX has with that big trans tunnel. 

If there is some loss from cutting the rockers then I imagine it wouldn't be a really structural safety issue so much as just a loss of rigidity.  The old 2nd-gen's rocker boxes aren't small and the area will still have a far amount of steel in total.  If there is any bothersome loss then you could also raise the height of the bottom door sills a couple inches to make up for it.   

I have already added a vertical piece of .060 between the inner frame upper pinch weld flange and the 68 upper pinch weld flange that ties in to the the bottom of the rocker so I am hoping that suffices as a substitute for any other losses.  I know this is stupid but I am more concerned that it look like a Gen 2 and get rid of the fat look of the LX than anything else. I don't want it to look like the orange 68-70 version of the mash up .No offense to the builders but it reminds me of a Ball Park frank. They plump when you cook them.

  i agree !!,,,,,,,,,,,They plump when you cook them. 

[Mike DC]

I know this is stupid but I am more concerned that it look like a Gen 2 and get rid of the fat look of the LX than anything else. I don't want it to look like the orange 68-70 version of the mash up .No offense to the builders but it reminds me of a Ball Park frank. They plump when you cook them.

Not stupid at all. 

In fact I would be much more drawn to doing this kind of conversion myself if it could be made to look enough like the old car.  But as we've discussed earlier, the old car is just a smaller item all around.

   

[Stevearino]

Well I am super happy about the way the left side rocker came out. You can see the dramatic difference from the picture of the right side which still has to be re worked.  Also I got the front springs changed out and all of the broken or missing suspension components put back. Inching along. Just inching along.

[tsmithae]

Wow, that's even more drastic of a change than I expected, and most definitely for the better! 

[remta1]

Looking great mate keep up the pics

[Stevearino]

 Well I did not feel like laying on the floor and cutting the other rocker yet so I decided to put the last of the mechanical stuff together. I got the AC condenser this week and that was the final piece to close up the system. All I lack now is the fluids. I have to deal with the rocker before I drop it back down though.
One of the final things to deal with on the hood frame before I mate it with the skin was to re engineer the 06 latch mechanism to work with this hood. I had to boost it out 5" away from it's normal mount position on the radiator core support. Once the spacer was made and installed the latch mechanism was positioned with the catch engaged.
From there I welded in some 5/8" .049 square stock front to back on either side of the mechanism. I then bent some offset tabs out of .125 material to bolt to the catch. I then welded the tabs to the 5/8" stock.  Since the latch is 5" forward of the normal mount point I had to run some 3/8"tube to bolt from the latch to the frame rail to solidify the whole mess.  I am pretty happy with the way the whole thing works.

[71_Charger_R/T]

Wow Steve!  I really enjoy watching this thread! (Very sorry to read of the loss of your Dad!) I'm sure you made him proud with the talents you carry on from his teaching!  Very clever workmanship you do! It's like a treat every time you post new progress.   

[70Sbird]

As always, keep up the good Fab work and the pictures!