I've always liked the simple look of early Speedsters, and I wanted to build something that captured the essence of an early teens Speedster. I had a Chevy 2.4L (LD9 version of the Quad 4) engine in a 97 Cavalier with 90K miles on it that was basically worthless because it had a bad trans-axle. So I decided to try and build a Speedster using the 2.4L. Just to make sure it would look OK, I decided to start with a model first. From there my kids and I just jumped in and started building. Many times we would actually take measurements from the model and scale them up to keep the somewhat proportions correct. Some things, such as the pie crust slicks, were changed to keep within budget. I couldn't come up with an affordable (Next to free) adapter to run a rear wheel drive transmission behind the Quad 4 engine, so I built one. I started with the bellhousing portion of the aforementioned bad trans-axle and bult an aluminum plate to connect that to a T5 out of a Mustang. I couldn't get anybody to cash in on machine work favors, so I ended up using a drill press.
My wife and I took it to Rukkus in Vegas last month. We ended up putting 150 miles on it in Vegas, and I’ve put probably the same on it running around town.
I decided that I liked the look of the barrel, but the 20 gallon barrels I had would be a bit big for a gas tank. So I opted to turn it into a trunk. I opted to go with 1/4 elliptical springs in the rear with the springs flipped over to let it sit a little lower. It seemed to go better that coil-overs, that and I was fresh out of coil-overs.
The Jalopy Journal
