Finale Roadster Build Thread (Page 3/5) jstricker MAR 25, 02:08 PM Jake, Ahhh, now I understand. To be honest, I really don't expect those supports to be any problem at all. You can see the pictures of the supports along the tunnel. This picture is actually of the belt retractor mounted but you can see how high up the B pillar we came with the support. It wraps around on the bottom right up to the edge of the seat belt mounting bolt. In this picture you can see how high we came up with the plating on the back of the console. It worked out so that the ECM mounts just between the plates and we just put some slots in it so it slides in. The rear plating going up the firewall is solidly welded to the plating on each side of the tunnel so that's all one piece and the rocker reinforcements are nearly directly tied into the B pillar supports. I really can't imagine them breaking out barring a major collision or some other trauma. reapermedic, The picture does look like that. It's my entirely new suspension design for a drag race only car. Drag racers don't turn corners anyway. (it's just an optical illusion from the camera angle) Joe & Dratts, Weight wise, I'm sure that we did NOT lose any weight in the subframe after the reinforcements. We may have even gained a few pounds. There will probably be slightly less overall total weight because we don't have the roof and rear quarter body panels and, of course, no rear window. The torsional rigidity amazes me. First off, as far as simple bowing, we reinforced everything before we cut the roof, of course. When we did cut it, we cut the windshield header first and to my amazement, when we got to the end of the cut the car did not bow enough to bind the sawzall blade. We then put three tractor front end weights (90 pounds each) on each floorboard, driver and passenger side, and my hired man got in on the driver's side (the two of us probably weigh 425# or so) and I got into the passenger side and we jumped up and down. We could not measure any bowing flex whatsoever. I was happy with that part, but was a bit concerned like you about the torsional rigidity. We noticed that when we put it on the lift that often one of the 4 arms would always be lose. Just enough that a 1/16" piece of paneling would take up the slack, but not tight. When we had it painted, the painter set the car up about 24" on jackstands to paint under the nose, rockers, and rear valance and one of his stands was always lose to the point they had to go get door shims and shim it to keep it from rocking when he was using a tack rag and such. I was pleasantly surprised by how rigid it turned out. If there are any more questions, yell out. I'm mostly just trying to post the "broad stroke pictures" but if you have anything specific you see that you're curious about I'll be happy to try to respond. John Stricker quote Originally posted by Jake_Dragon: I was talking about the supports welded in to the rockers and the fuel tank tunnel. jstricker MAR 26, 08:48 AM Well, I'm going to try this again since I just completed a post and my ISP decided to take a dump and lost it all. I'm going to get into some Finale/Fino specific chassis modifications. The biggest things are with the front and rear of the chassis. At the rear, all of the bumper honeycomb and structure with the exception of the main beam needs to be removed. The main beam needs to stay because that is what the rear body mounts actually attach to. In the front, there needs to be some trimming of the sheet metal in the area under the headlight buckets. The metal needs to be trimmed on the side, and front, after all of the front bumper honeycomb and other miscellaneous brackets are removed. This picture will show a good view of what needs to be trimmed. You can see that the front needs to be trimmed back, even beyond in areas where the crossmember in front of the radiator support mounts. The side needs to be trimmed straight off. This shows how the front needs to be trimmed back. If the front frame rails aren't trimmed as pictured, they will hit the headlight openings of the Finale front clip. One more shot to give an idea of the trimming required. About this time, Archie called and said the first Roadster body was out of the molds. We discussed shipping the kit and since I had a Crash/Fire/Rescue class to attend in Des Moines in a couple of weeks, and that's almost 1/2 way to Chicago for me, I decided to just pick up the kit myself. There's always something interesting to look at in Archie's shop. This was back before he had moved into his new shop and, in fact, he was in the process of negotiations to buy his new building that he's in now at that time. There are always a few Fino's and Finale's sitting around. The area above used to be completely full of Fino and Finale parts This was before Archie sold the GT4T And a Lambo kit in the shop for some work. I always thought I'd like to do one of these, but I don't think so. Look at how the cowl of the kit overhangs the master cylinder, A/C, and all that stuff. Wouldn't THAT be a treat to work on? John Stricker jstricker MAR 29, 11:23 PM I was trying to decide which way to go next but since we have a member here that's building a Finale right now, and he asked for some body mounting information, I think that's the way I'm going to go. I decided after looking at the decklid that it needed "something". In searching some street rod parts, I found these: The are actually hood side vents for, IIRC, a '34 Ford street rod. I called and got the dimensions and decided they'd fit. They are billet aluminum, polished. Since we're putting a TPI Small block in there, we needed to modify the decklid to accomodate the TPI on the inside. The passenger side needs the most relief as it has to clear the TPI unit and Throttle Body. From this To this You can see the pour foam in the cut out which was glassed over. We also had to cut out the inner Rear Deck Panel where the new grates were going to be mounted because they were made to mount in thin sheet metal and two layers for glass panels were far too thick. The end result after all the modifications including foaming, but before final glassing: With the rear clip mounted on either the Fino or Finale, there is a very large gap between the bodywork and the rear trunk ledge. On the copper Finale, we closed it up fairly well so it looks nice, but it took some of the opening away with the shelf we made to close it. As you can see, the rear clip already uses a substantial amount of that area anyway, so I wanted to do this differently. We covered the rear of the chassis with mold release film as well as the inside of the rear clip. We made temporary structures inside out of cardboard and then filled that area with pour foam. After a little trimming and filling and shaping, here's what the insert looks like. This will fill the area in between the rear deck and the trunk when we do final assembly. We also took this time to cut out the side scoops. Again, the Fein Sander is our friend and it's MUCH easier with the clip off than on. Try to be VERY SMOOTH when cutting here because every little nick shows up in this area. The vents draw the attention of the eye and they need to look good. That's it for tonight. I'm going to be gone for the weekend working races so hopefully more on Monday. John Stricker northeastfiero MAR 30, 04:00 AM Hi John, your build is looking fantastic a great eye for detail. Do you have any more pictures of how and where you mount the various body parts. I have stripped off all of the body pannels, I used the photos you posted to cut the front and have test fitted the front clip I could just do with a few more photos and bits of advice on what was easy and what was hard. Thanks again Carl jstricker MAR 30, 08:36 AM You can either leave the front hood vents closed or cut them open. If you open them up, follow the guide marks molded into both the top and bottom skins. The marks look nothing alike and just to look at it you'd think it was screwed up on alignment, but they do line up when they're cut out. You can also see the pour foam between the skins. I like to pour the foam in then cover it with tape so that it expands firmly between the two skins and adheres well. You then have a solid surface to glass over instead of an open hole. I had also decided early on that I'd have shaved door handles on this car as well so the Door Handle recess on the door skin had to be filled. Again, this was done with pour foam, then glassed, the filled and sanded. One thing to remember when using pour foam under glass is that the foam will out-gas for quite some time (actually weeks) so you should leave a way for the gas to escape. We try to do that by leaving holes on the back side, covered with tape while the foam is poured and setting up, then the tape removed to give the gas a route to escape from. I've seen examples of serious delaminations if there is not path for the gas to escape. You also have to cut out the opening and glass in the license plate recess in the back of the car. Always remember the more care you take NOW, when you're glassing, the less sanding you'll have to do later on, and you'll have plenty to do under the best of circumstances. Everybody makes mistakes, this was one of mine. I decided to close those little "decorative" holes in the door skin and the front fender because they served no purpose. Archie told me he didn't think that would work, but I knew better. When the car was together, and panels adjusted, the door wouldn't open fully without that area hitting the fender so, out came the sander, the foam and glass came back out, and it was back to the way it came out of the molds. On the first Finale we decided to leave the "UK Style" license recess alone but on this car I wanted the lower valance smooth so we filled, sanded, and glassed that area as well. I also decided that on this car I wanted to use late model Camaro tail lights. They're relatively inexpensive, you can get some bizzare things from the aftermarket if you want, and they looked to be simpler to install than the Bonneville lights we used in the first car. Well, they were no easier to install, but they look different. We made a paper template of the opening on a car in the junkyard then transferred that to the Finale body and the Fein sander made short work of the opening. Of course this was just the beginning because we had to fill the openings above the lights, reshape the inset at the rear of the car so that it flowed well into the light area, and build the recess in the light area, but it showed that the lights would fit and not hit anything in the inside of the car. John Stricker jstricker MAR 30, 08:40 AM Make sure you don't mount the front clip too low. If you do, the hood will not close properly against the gasket. We made that mistake on the first Finale. Mount your doors up fairly early and use them for a guide, but don't actually align things to them precisely because the doors can be moved around quite a bit, front and rear, and even in and out with spacers. The rear clips are usually pretty simple to mount up, it's the rockers, doors, and front end that is more problematic to really get precise. When you bond ANYTHING together with fiberglass tape or matte, make sure there is no air under your bond or it WILL crack right through the paint. You can't just cover screw holes and other imperfections with filler or micro without some glass over it because it will crack there as well. Other than that, the pictures will all be in this thread, eventually. John Stricker quote Originally posted by northeastfiero: Hi John, your build is looking fantastic a great eye for detail. Do you have any more pictures of how and where you mount the various body parts. I have stripped off all of the body pannels, I used the photos you posted to cut the front and have test fitted the front clip I could just do with a few more photos and bits of advice on what was easy and what was hard. Thanks again Carl DanFiero APR 01, 12:34 PM Bump for some very good and in interesting information!! jstricker APR 04, 08:47 AM Yep, I was away working races for the weekend and in that thought I have a question............... Why is it when you leave for two days and come back you find you're at LEAST 3 days behind in everything? If someone could answer and solve that little problem I'd really be grateful. The conversion has been well documented in other threads but we did use the 12" Corvette brake swap pretty much as outlined by Bubbajoe, for the most part. Other than locating the caliper brackets and we, too, had rotors with a bevel in them so the concentric rings weren't wide enough as drawn in his plans, there were no surprises. We also used the 'Vette Master Cylinder. The knuckles and other pieces were powder coated and the calipers themselves were painted with red caliper paint. OK, back to the bodywork. In order to seal off the trunk compartment from the engine compartment we needed to extend the reinforcements over as far as possible to the edge of the decklid. We did that with simple foam blocks cut to size, floxed in place, and then glassed over. This will lay directly on the existing, stock trunk seal. I also wanted the panel recesses in the rear quarter to flow properly into the tail lights. After cutting the opening for the lights, I started filling the existing recess with micro. The openings had to be cut into the decklid to install the vents. We used our handy-dandy Fein tool for this. The vents came with precise templates including markings for the screw holes. These were transferred to masking tape covered area to be cut. The vents cost something like $200 but they really set the decklid off. John Stricker Although this doesn't look like a big deal, it makes a world of difference in the flow of the body. The Camaro tail lights are not flat on the edges, particularly the top. They go in and out and round a-bout. IOW, they needed a recess to fit into like the Camaros have. To do that I added 1" foam to the back side of the cutout and floxed, clamped, and held it in place to match the curve. You can also see that the upper body slots have also been filled with pour foam and are waiting to be glassed. Clamps are taken off, foam is trimmed, and we're ready to glass over the edge leaving us a 3/4" to 1" lip around the inside of the tail light cutout. quote Originally posted by DanFiero: Bump for some very good and in interesting information!! RustyFormula APR 04, 10:12 AM quote Originally posted by jstricker: Where did you get the black seat belts? jstricker APR 04, 05:42 PM The black belts and the actuator we got along with the seats from a wrecked Pontiac Solstice. I don't believe they would work with the stock Fiero mounting points and the actuator is completely different. John Stricker quote Originally posted by RustyFormula: Where did you get the black seat belts?