I talked to Juan yesterday and he said he had all the metal work done. He replaced the trunk pans, the dutchman panel, patched the drivers floor, and filled a ton of holes in the firewall, including the bullet hole in the drivers door.
As clean as my car looked and as old as the paint was, he still found a lot more rust and bondo in it. I went all over that car with a magnet and never found any indication that there was any bondo in the car at all, so I was shocked. But he said he cut it all out and welded in new steel where ever he found it and it was looking good.
Unfortunately the shop is an hour and a half from my house, so I've only been up there once.
All that had been done to that point is he had a guy sand blast some rust areas around the rear window and the guy blasted my 1/4 windows!!! I couldn't believe it, I had specifically told him to be careful around the 1/4s, because that was the only glass I needed to reuse!@#$%^^&&!!! Not sure how to far to press it on the windows, he talked about trying to buff it out, but I know that won't work. I have a friend, the one that referred me to this painter that said he has an extra set he would give me, so it should be ok.
Juan said the car is all in primer now and needs another skim coat or two and some longboarding to get it straight enough to paint, and he'll be able to drop it off. It should take another 3-4 weeks due to other work he has going on.
Thats fine with me, because I've still got a lot of work to do getting my drivetrain ready. I got my 5.7 to Inertia Motorsports shop, my friend Stu was helping me with the motor, because I have no experience with the new hemi's and he's probably got more then anyone in the industry. He built the first stroker Gen III hemi's and has his motors power some of the fastest Ram trucks and LX cars in the country.
I had planned on running it stock, but Stu had some used cams and gave me a stock 6.1 SRT cam (there is no problem re-using roller cams and lifters, etc.) and degree'd it in, advancing quite a bit with an offset bushing so it wouldn't loose any bottom end. That mans a master on the Bridgeport.
Anyway, we pull the heads off the junkyard motor I got and found out the short block was toast. It had some banged up pistons and water/rust in one cylinder too. I had already repaired a broken valve springs damage to the other head. It bent a valve and damaged the guide. So Stu helped me out with those parts and showed me how to install the guide and lap in the new valve.
So after all this work my shortblock needs rebuilt. What to do..... Stu said he just got in some motor cores returned for the strokers he ships out, and maybe there's a good one that I can trade him. Stu to the rescue! again.
So I start swapping parts and Stu says, ya know I've got a better cam for you, try this one. It's one of his own custom cams, a Spartan, used of course, but in perfect shape. It will give me much better power all across the curve. Great, so I install it without a second thought and then ask him, whats the specs on it. He says its propritary, but its got 214/218 duration and something in the .55x lift. He says it will put 350-360 HP and 360-370 TQ to the rear wheels!! Holy crap, I didn't plan on that, this is going to be my daily driver. He said "just try to keep your foot out of it" Ya right.
I also got my Weldtech alum oil pan from Paintshop 101. Its awesome, and comes with the pickup for $395. Thats like $50 less then anyone else. They had it on display, so it was even polished, sweet. I'll get some pics up of the motor soon.
So thats where I'm at. Still need to order my harness, I was hoping to somehow reuse the factory harness, but I'm not up to making it work, not nearly enough time available to figure that out. If anyone knows of someone that makes a conversion harness cheaper then Squires, please clue me in.
