Cheating The Reaper

**Darren West** · 08-02-2014 08:02

looking good mate

**legendlives** · 08-02-2014 20:11

Thanks for the positive comments. It's not the first chassis I've built as I've been building race cars professionally for the past 30+ years.
I promised my wife when my last race car got sold that I wouldn't build another one, but the virus has been multiplying for the past 5 years to a point I couldn't resist it.
TBH it would probably be cheaper to get a new wife!
Big thanks to my boss (Steve), daughters Marie & Eleanor, and son-in-laws Brian & Darren for helping and buying bits for pressies etc.

**ROCKIN WOLEY** · 08-02-2014 20:23

Nice to see a mk 1 being saved and in such profesional way.
When you say race cars what kind ?

Jeff

**legendlives** · 08-02-2014 22:09

Originally Posted by ROCKIN WOLEY

Nice to see a mk 1 being saved and in such profesional way.
When you say race cars what kind ?

Jeff

I've built circuit-race saloon cars, classic and sports cars.
Drag race doorslammers.
Rally cars.
Been involved in professional restorations and produced one or two concours winning cars.
And a few Hot Rods.
Probably the majority of work I've done has been designing/manufacturing components (both from an engineering standpoint), and bespoke laminate work.
My last personal project was a street-legal Escort that ran 9's in full street trim.

**legendlives** · 15-02-2014 08:57

Haven't been able to do much recently as the fab shop has been overwhelmed for work, and as that's what I do for a living it's taken a great deal of my time.
This last week I've plumbed up a drift car and a 60's Mustang, built coolant and dump tanks for a rail dragster, modified an alloy rad for a circuit car, built isolation blocks to bypass an abs system, welded up cylinder heads on a Suzuki 500 twin 2-stroke racer and made hoses for fuel, turbo, brake and clutch systems.

Todays work on the Escort was just fabricating the rear crossmsmber for the cockpit part of the chassis. The hoops were made from 13mm square box bent around a 4" tube.
The 13mm box was a bit corroded, but as my local steel supplier only wanted $15 (£7.50) for a 6 metre length I thought I'd go for it!
First photo shows the fabricated hoops, and the capped off inner ends of the outrigger sections:

Then all welded together. For some reason the camera angle does not make the hoops look parallel (they are!):

The forward hoop will be joined into the trans-tunnel with more of the 13mm box.
I now have all of the chassis components (main rails, outriggers, crossmembers, bulkhead frame and rear chassis kick-ups) ready to assemble into one complete chassis.

**20vT_pop** · 15-02-2014 10:57

I'll be watching this one, any pic's of your previous work I love the race car fabbing etc

John

**legendlives** · 22-02-2014 01:19

Still not much happening in the fabrication department, but I have done some engine stuff.
Engine is a 302 Cleveland - really popular here in NZ - which will be force fed by either turbo or blower.
Heads are 2v 302 (great heads if you want to up the compression of a 351). The valves are huge and don't need any increase in size, but I thought they could do with a polish and a seat job. Seats are now around 2mm wide with back-cut at 30 degrees:

Picked up these great old 'Erson' valve covers for $45 (£23):

They probably won't be chrome when they're fitted, but more of that later.......

Current plan for a carb is this 750VS Holley. I bought 3 (this and 2 600's) for $150, sold the 2 600's for $180, so this carb owes me -$30!

It's definitely too big as a NA carb, but ideal for a blown application. If I go with the blow-through turbo idea I'll convert this to mechanical secondaries.

Apart from big-end bearings and rings I now have all of the engine parts. I bought three engines and a load of Cleveland parts, flogged off what I didn't need and ended up with a mint standard bore block, mint stock crank, new cam, chain & lifters (came in a complete motor I bought for $100!). Nice 2v heads, unmarked rocker gear, good pushrods etc. Should be a really strong motor when it's together.

**hardtop** · 22-02-2014 17:24

Looking great, you might want to consider upgrade the valves though, the original multi groove valves have a habit of dropping or the heads falling off

**mygasser** · 22-02-2014 19:50

we built a cleveland with multi groove valves a few years back. it broke a valve through the keeper grooves and destroyed the motor, all for a set of valves. even stock replacements will be better than used.

**legendlives** · 22-02-2014 20:50

Blimey.
Thanks for the heads-up guys.
Never built a Cleveland before (done Windsors, FE's, 385's but never a Cleveland).
Shame I've put so much effort into those valves......