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  #51  
Old 08-05-2011, 03:25 PM
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heinke heinke is offline
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Default RE: chassis progress

Shawn: I love to have people over for garage tours. Just let me know when.

MetalShaping forum members: For that matter, I'll extend the invite to others. If you're going to be in East SF bay area, just drop me an email: jandjheinke@gmail.com if you'd like to check out the C5GTO project.

Brad: Great question on SOHC rationale. Short answer: for this particular engine/application, while there's benefits, the costs of conversion far outweigh them so I'm doing it for other reasons. For other engines/applications (e.g. where every bit of HP/ft lb torque are desired), it might be worth it.

Longer answer: I'm a big fan of DOHC/SOHC. In my opinion, it's a superior design for internal combustion engines. But for an engine originally built with pushrods/rocker arms, converting it to DOHC/SOHC usually has so many constraints/limitations that it's almost impossible to get full value of OHC. So, it's a game of tradeoffs.

I have a Shelby Cobra replica that has a small blk Ford converted to SOHC. I've been driving it this way for 15 years and haven't regretted it a bit. I don't think it makes much (or maybe no) more horsepower than with pushrods/rockers but I think it makes a more torque. It feels that way to me anyway. I've given rides to other people that have asked what kind of big block does this car have. You just get that feeling when the seat back presses your back sides.

So back to the C5GTO Ferrari and why SOHC. When I started the project, I intended to make the Chevy LS engine I'd purchased look similar to original Ferrari motor in the more visible places. A 90 degree V8 won't look like a 60 degree V12, but if the top sides look similar, it's a nice touch.

I was going to convert the EFI from the plastic monstrosity to Weber carburetor like (injectors hidden in fuel bowls) units and convert to SOHC similar to original Ferrari motor. I had my friend (Peter Aardema - you've likely read stories about him in Hot Rod and similar magazines) start making the SOHC conversion. Pete's a busy guy so the project moved along at a slow pace. Then I priced out the EFI part of it and got a $5K sticker shock.

When I looked around, I found the Magnuson supercharger was also about $5K (with all the EFI built in). I could add-on 125-150 HP by using it for the same cost as other EFI conversion. I'm as much of a HP freak as OHC fan. The polished Magnuson unit looked great, it used same belt as engine accessories, and it fit under GTO hood without issue. So I went that way.

With the supercharger decision, I'd now lost half my rationale (no way it looks Ferrari) for doing SOHC conversion. But I'd already started SOHC project and well, it's just cool. And I'm sure I'll pick up some torque out of it but I'm guessing with 550+ HP in 2900 lb. car I really won't notice the torque difference. True be told, I'll probably be hanging on for dear life.

So as Paul Harvey used to say, "... Now you know the rest of the story".
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  #52  
Old 12-24-2011, 03:44 PM
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heinke heinke is offline
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Default Quick update - Oh the joy of dealing with government…

Bottom line, I was able to get California license plates/pink slip for C5GTO, but what a hassle and huge expense which in my opinion is totally beyond reason. Certainly the state of California isn’t encouraging people to innovate and build custom automobiles.


This update might border off topic but given this is under “Automotive Projects” section, it will be relevant to people building “Specially Constructed Vehicles” (SPCN) that they plan to license and drive. If you live in CA and will be registering a hand built car in future then maybe this information will help you to know what you’re getting into. If you don’t live in CA (and already feel the government overly intrudes on your life and collects too much of your money in taxes) you might want to skip reading this because it will likely raise your blood pressure to dangerous levels.


So the wonderful state of CA gives us ordinary citizens a pinhole sized opening called SB100 to register home built cars without having to meet the latest and greatest vehicle emissions requirements (i.e. catalytic converters, air pumps, charcoal vapor canisters, etc.). I won’t go into all the details but bottom line, 500 cars a year are allowed an exemption to new car emissions requirements and can be registered as SPCN if they meet emissions requirements for the year of vehicle the car looks like. So a 1962 Ferrari in the case of C5GTO. This all sounds good until you really experience the full registration process and expenses.


Again, I won’t go into all the details (PM me if you want to know) but it took me 3 trips to CA DMV, loading the car onto a trailer 5 separate times to transport it for various inspections, and many phone calls/emails to arrange for inspections. I’m a very organized person and none of this running around was caused by foreseeable errors on my part.


If the hassle and time wasted wasn’t enough, I had to pay just shy of $2,000 in fees and taxes to CA DMV for a total tax/fee expense to state/local government of about $3,300. Again, I won’t go into all the detail but there is a double taxation (effectively about 19% tax rate in SF bay area) for SPCN type registrations. It’s no wonder politician approval ratings are at all time lows and going down. I rate them right there with the mob in terms of ability to extort money with no other recourse for citizens.
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  #53  
Old 12-25-2011, 08:31 AM
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Kerry Pinkerton Kerry Pinkerton is offline
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That really sucks Joel! Did you have to go through a different process than the street rodders take? I'd think if the California street rodders had to go through that much hassle and expense we'd have heard about it.
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  #54  
Old 12-25-2011, 01:24 PM
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Superleggera Superleggera is offline
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Hey Joel. Glad to hear you got it through and done correctly -- never fun dealing with California DMV and the paperwork/taxes involved to be actually legal. It's why many cars are running illegal VIN#s/paperwork (not from chassis originally attached to), out-of-state plates or just trip permits for road use when needed.

Just a reminder for those in California, on Monday January 2nd get in line early at the DMV to try and get one of the 500 "allocations". If not -- you will have to wait another year. I know of a few people/shops that will be doing so already.
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  #55  
Old 12-25-2011, 02:21 PM
Overkill Overkill is offline
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Joel,

Glad you got through the maze. Interesting part of dealing with the Dept. of Motor Vehicles here in CA, is you talk to 5 people, you'll get 5 different answers.

Not that you are ever going to sell your creation, but I did own an SPCN vehicle once. They put the year down as 00, not meaning yr 2000, meaning no year was assigned. Each time the vehicle sold, you had to go through all the crap again. It was a 1932 Ford PU put on a Willy's 4x4 chassis with a Chevy motor - what a pain in the ass. Fortunately the motor was early enough, I didn't have to go through putting smog equipment on it.

Without the help of a DMV employee that belongs to our car club, I might have never made it through the maze. It meant towing the truck to a DMV office several cities away, but at least he knew what he was doing, as compared to the first gal I talked to. Sold the truck to a guy in TX, and he had no problems there. He used it as an advertising piece for his dry good store.
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  #56  
Old 12-27-2011, 03:47 PM
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Default CA SPCN registration

Kerry: it's the same process for street rods as well. In fact there were 3 guys on Jan 1, 2011 in front of me in line at DMV that were all there to register their street rods. I suspect street rodders just have more ways to skirt the laws and so we don't hear that much backlash. I'm guessing the numbers of pink slips out there on the black market help them avoid the SPCN process. There's got to be a lot more '32 Ford pink slips available than '62 Ferrari.

John: all the DMV people I talked to during this were consistent. They all asked for more money for some additional tax or fee The thing DMV does now is register SPCNs as the model year when first registered, so 2011 in my case. The reason they do this is so that I have to pay the maximum Vehicle License Fee when I renew it next year and so on. The government bean counters really have figured out how to maximize the taxes/fees they can collect.


So the only good thing I figured out during this is that you can get through the registration process before a car is "complete". I thought at the beginning of 2011, I would surely have the car done before the year was over. Well, as many of you have found out, it's just not possible to predict the schedule on a home built car project. When November rolled around and the car was still no where close, I almost gave up hope of getting it through registration before my SB100 exemption expired (they only give out 500 and these are only good for calendar year issued). I figured I had nothing to lose by trying it with a partially completed car (didn't have windshield or doors on car). The partially completed car was the least of the issues that made this process so painful. Go figure.
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  #57  
Old 12-27-2011, 11:27 PM
Michael Michael is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kerry Pinkerton View Post
That really sucks Joel! Did you have to go through a different process than the street rodders take? I'd think if the California street rodders had to go through that much hassle and expense we'd have heard about it.
The streetrodders do and have. editor Brian B spent big bucks and tons of time and never did get a roadster tagged in CA finally sold it to a person in a state with better ,saner laws.
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  #58  
Old 02-08-2012, 04:24 PM
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heinke heinke is offline
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Default Back to metal shaping

Now that I have the registration gauntlet behind me, it’s back to metal shaping

I pulled the body back off the chassis in preparation for fabricating and installing the aluminum panels in the interior. I made a design decision earlier in the project to have the car’s interior be bare aluminum.
Unlike the original GTO, I don’t plan to paint over it and I don’t want it to be just plain, flat aluminum sheet. For panels at the seat bottom level, I decided to emboss the aluminum with a diamond pattern. For panels more at eye level, I decided to use a diagonal pleat (tuck and roll style) pattern. I chose to make the diagonal pleats at the same angle as the diamond facets to promote visual flow between lower and upper panels.
The most logical place to resume the interior paneling was the rear wheel “tub” area. I thought about making traditional half circle wheel tubs but decided against it. By shaping/raising the metal in the rear tire area, I could angle panels from the body/chassis sub-structure down to the floor and get adequate tire clearance.




I raised the sheet about 4 inches with e-wheel (in area circled with red marker) prior to doing bead roll work. While bead rolling the inset and diagonal pleats did lower the shaping somewhat, the panel still has a fair amount of shape in it.




Then the artist side of me started to get active. I decided to emboss a stallion and place it on the floor area where it would be visible through rear window. I could find small images of the stallion but nothing that would be big enough to be seen well from cars exterior. So I used a projector to “blow up” the image size (including shield) to about 18 inches. I then traced it onto a piece of aluminum.






At this size it was fairly straight forward to emboss the shield and stallion with the bead roller. I made a punch from an old screw and punched in the highlights (nose, eyes, neckline, etc.). All in all, it came out better than I expected.




I plan to bead roll (lower) a section in the middle of the floor the shape of the shield and then attach this piece with button head screws. … more to come (and pictures) when I get to that area.
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  #59  
Old 03-05-2012, 03:50 PM
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Default More progress pics

The aluminum paneling for trunk area is now in place.





The round area sticking up is where a 2.5 inch pipe connects the external fuel cap with the fuel cell.

Next up is the area behind front seats...
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  #60  
Old 03-12-2012, 03:51 PM
baldthreads baldthreads is offline
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great car and top work. how do you get the alloy back into shape after all that bead rolling
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