1930s Era Champ Car - new project

What valve cover?

 

I started the rear half of the body this week. It will have a head rest - I have seen photographic evidence of headrests on cars as early as 1934.




I was going to use a Whippett style grille but I think I will use a track nose instead.





OleDon, The crossflow head is an extremely rare prototype. It was never put into production. I hope to make it look old with a lot of copper and brass tubing and fittings, reminiscent of an old Duesenberg straight 8 factory "crate" racing motor. I want to mount a dummy "crab" style flat distributor cap off the front of one of the cam towers with old style 7 mm orange plug wire and Rajo clips on the spark plugs. (Note: Does anybody have a worn out crab style cap they would like to donate?)




Junkiegene, OK F-100 it is.

beaulieu, Tail buck:


nexxussian, An outboard bearing will be attached to the hoop that holds the box.



HemiRambler, It was nice to see you again. I was musing to my wife that I so wished I had known the likes of you and Littleman when I was growing up - you are so creative and "good people". You did lose valuable 'style points' for not bringing your FED Top Fueler to Thompson. Maybe next year you can bring the fueler and I'll have The Last Logghe Altered front-halved and run with the Gunslingers circuit cars.


Peace,
Greg

 

And motor mounts. W/ biscuits. Prior to being swiss-cheesed.

An "old-timey" looking oil pan sump too.

 

Nice bucks and sheetmetal work.

 

Greg, Thanks ever so much for the compliment, but I think you may have it backwards. I can only imagine how much more fun growing up would have been if I could have had YOUR influence back then. It's guys like you that inspire guys like me. You most definitely have your &*^% together. For the guys who haven't studied Greg's Willys coupe (or any of his stuff for that matter) do yourself a favor and go look at it real REAL close. His stuff is typically the nicest engineered stuff you'll find. Greg does it in a nice subtle way - most people never even notice the genius that he hides so well in his designs. I am a fan of subtle genius and as such I am inspired by your work.

Now BACK to BUSINESS!!!! If you would, send me your address - I may have what you need for that dizzy.

 

It's almost to the point where you can sit in it a make your most convincing car noises.

 

what rear end did you use?
and what front?
i was looking into doing this or a SportRod type build but i would like the front and rear axles close to the same track as possible...
i have even thought of going to Posie's for a front superbell type and gasp! a sprinter rear end from Speedway...
48 inch width front Pin to pin is as wide as i have seen and most rears hub to hub are at least 56"- am i missing something about the balance here- would spindles push out the track a few more inches?

 

lookin good , smart mock up

 

very very cool..I like the buck of the driver as well..haha gives a visual of the phrase..hole in the head..haha Very nice fabrication man...

 

Fiorano,
I used a '56 Ford pickup front axle.
Narrowed 6".
Perforated.
spring pads removed.

The rear end is a 9" Ford roundback from an '81 Bronco.

I may graft on a quick-change center section for the look - except it will be all but hidden by the rear bellypan.

The stance looks "about right" to me.

Cshabang, The driver buck is left over from a suit of armor I started building several years ago. Cute little devil, aint I?

 

cool thanks for that
its the rear that i am having trouble matching to an "off the shelf" front end from like speedway or Posie's why would i go this way- because i think its safer

 

We took the new champ car to its first show. My wife also entered the Willys and the race car. The race car won "The Most Radical Ride" award and the judges told us later the champ car would have won "Best Unfinished" award had it been entered instead of "display only".

Side Note: I usually don't enter car shows but my neighbor is the pastor of the church that sponsored this one and he asked me to come. He also wheels my drag RPU.

 

Since I plan to drive it on the street I made up this stainless steel baffle to hush it down a little. The cross sectional area of all the drilled holes is a little over one square inch. More can be added if desired.

Exhaust is 4" OD.

 

really inspirational stuff!

 

I built a buck to make the nosepiece:



I used pieces of an extra pair of fenders from my '46 custom pickup push truck to shape the nose:

 

Very nice...its fun following your progress..thanks

 

I want one.... Nice work it looks great.

 

you do some really nice work , that intake manifold is cool , keep the pictures coming

 

awsome work! I feel ashamed i took the easy route and used fiberglass for my nose & tail. Keep it going...debut in the spring?

Paul

 

GREAT WORK! Be sure to keep us up to date, and let me know if you need anything!

J Shaw

 

Thanks Mr. Shaw. Actually, I had planned to stop and see you last month as we passed thru Cinncy on the way to the Bowling Green Goodguys event but I didn't have my #$%* together enough to ask intelligent questions nor did I have my list of desired parts compiled. As work progersses I will form such a list, which I'm sure is bound to grow.

 

Good deal..

 

Fantastic work. This is going to be way cool!

 

I did a little more work on the nosepiece. The fender sections from a '46 truck were so hard I could not work them, so I built a roaring brush fire and threw them in for a few hours. That annealed the steel so I can start to stretch and shrink them. Here is how far I got in an hour:

 

Lookin Good!

 

People like you make this look easy!
I'm so in love with this car I can't wait to see more.

 

Thank you Mike. Look easy? Well, I figured out a long time ago that building cars was just a series of simple steps stacked together in a logical sequence so that one ends up with a car. The hardest aspect for me is to just persevere until the job gets finished.

By the way, I love the roadster in your avatar.

Recently I found this neat magnesium center section at a local scrap yard. It was erroneously tossed into a bin of scrap aluminium castings and I was able to buy it for scrap (aluminum) value. What I would like to do is marry it to my 9" roundback rear end housing to give me the strength of a niner and the look of a quickie. Can anybody identify the manufacturer? I would like to find a used / used up rear end cover for it but I don't know whose to look for. The single most distinguishing feature to me is the absence of a twelvth hole on the axle flange near the change gear case. If I have to I'll hog a rear end cover out of a billet of aluminum but the thought of a billet piece on this car makes me shudder.

Any ideas? Halibrand? Winters? Other?

 

I'm gonna say Halibrand 301? Love your build!

 

Oh, and that is repairable if you want a real quickchange

 

I was afraid someone was going to tell me that - I band sawed it up this morning.