1977 Corvette Pro Touring

This is the car I'm working on. A 77 Corvette done in pro touring style.

The car has a custom built rear coil over suspension with modified trailing arms, aldan eagle adjustable shocks and custom heim jointed camber rods.

The car has ACI L88 flares and an effect paint by Standox called Montecarlo Magic.

The engine is a souped up 355 small block and the trans is an ordinary TH350.

The car has been completely redone, up to the last nut and bolt and is presently in the final stages of the build.

Here are a lot of pics.

Looking good!

A lot of work in that car, but it looks awesome. I bet it sounds as good as it looks. :nuts:

I don't know, it's not running yet :blush:

The oil system is not completely closed yet, the oil temp gauge (mechanical) needs to go into the probe and for that I need to finish the gauge console.

I'm doing it in carbon fiber but I'm waiting on the plate to get here, also I'm going to add a lokar shift indicator thing, I hate how cheap the stock indicator looks and mine is shot anyway. The Lokar thing looks the business.

V-Twin said:

I don't know, it's not running yet :blush:

The oil system is not completely closed yet, the oil temp gauge (mechanical) needs to go into the probe and for that I need to finish the gauge console.

I'm doing it in carbon fiber but I'm waiting on the plate to get here, also I'm going to add a lokar shift indicator thing, I hate how cheap the stock indicator looks and mine is shot anyway. The Lokar thing looks the business.

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In the 13 years I had my shark the absolute LONGEST it was down, was 6-7 months....while I modded the steering, foorwell, wiring, and tons of other crap....LONG LIST...

that was 01-02 some time.....

I really like how it turned out

Did you end up trimming the air box?

I think I might try to make one out of aluminum but I can't find anyone that will cnc plasma cut it for me, and I don't know if theres much clearance with the stock hood.

No, I added a spacer under it (1") and it fits just fine.

Today I did a couple of small things, I added a filter to the power steering return, I moved the coil inside the cockpit and used a mallory firewall feed through to close up an unused wiring harness hole, killing 2 birds with one stone.

The sway bar I installed in the rear was powdercoated but it must have been china crap :chinese: or the metal was not treated (phosphate washed) as the coating came off very easily. It had a scrape and a flake already so I removed it, wire wheeled all the powdercoating off and dropped it off @ the platers, today I put it back in.

I mounted the autometer speedo & tach, the aluminium plates were CNC punched and copied from a design (wasn't it BBSharks?) They fit realy snug in there. I did add some additional brackets on the bottom, the stockers are held there so it was just a matter of working some strips of alu with the sheet metal brake, drilling some holes and presto.











Now, the next problem is the center console and the shifter plate. I have alu plates here that fit but I'd rather redo it in real carbon fiber. I'm going to order some this week if I can find someone who has it for a good price (2.5mm thick for 1m^2 ran around 700 euros a couple of weeks ago!!!)

Í don't like the stock shift indicator either and mine doesn't look good so I'd need a new one. I'm thinking about adding a lokar indicator/shifter boot/bezel (since I won't have an ash tray, rear defog switch or any of that stuff, just 2 window switches and they won't be the stockers either because I want backlit ones)

This:

When I first saw the title of this thread I thought bad things were ahead but that car looks...




...AWESOME! When you get her runnin' you need to post up a vid, I bet she sounds sweet!:thumbs:

SmokeyVette said:

When I first saw the title of this thread I thought bad things were ahead but that car looks...

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Why? Is pro touring usually considered a bad thing? I like the pro touring theme on old cars a lot, wheels, suspension, brakes.

Thanks or the compliment :bump:

I haven't seen a pro touring car that didn't look decent

Smokey vette this is pro touring

http://www.lateral-g.net/members/

V-Twin, thats a nice clean car. You gonna enjoy it when it's done.
Yellow73sb, lateral-g is a site I check into once in a while too just to see whats new, not many Corvettes there tho, this site should fill that gap

Got more done

Installed some of those alu diff crossmember bushing plates and swapped out the thin square plates on the camber bracket for some thicker laser cut stainless steel ones.



Added a screen filter to the power steering return



and installed a custom made vac. reservoir



Still have to shorten the 2 stainless lines you see there. They are for the washer fluid and the hoses are on there for testing purposes.

Sorry if I offended, you see, I'm of the "old school" train of thought where the rims shouldn't be any bigger than 16". The only "pro-touring" cars I've seen were old cars with tricked out suspensions and ungodly large wheels that kinda make the car look like a ricer or a one of those "donks". The car in this thread was very tastefully done. It seems as if every upgrade or modification has an intended purpose other than looking cool. It just seems rare to see a car like that and I intended that as a good thing.:thumbs:

Oh, I wasn't offended. I was just wondering if you thought pro touring was a bad thing

Even if you don't like some, or all of it...just say so. I won't be offended. Different strokes for different folks.

There's hardly any tire choices in 16", especially when it comes to big meats.

Here's a pic of one of Marcks front wheels, which are 16". The tire sidewall height is a little on the small side for a rear tire, it would take a more meaty tire to fill it up real good. Still, the 16" rim looks awesome.

Some more work done!

I added led lights to the speedo & tach cluster for directional indicators. I'll also add some on the bottom for high and low beam.

I replaced all the small bulbs in the gauge sockets and for the marker lights with small led bulbs.









Also had the tank surround blasted and I painted it with a roller using POR15 silver. Came out better than expected, especially considering how rusty and dirty it was before.







I also made excellent progress with the center console. The aluminium shifter and center console plate are both finished, I'm going to coat them with wrinkle paint and then I can install it all and be done with it. Finished up most of the wiring of the gauges and warning lights (leds next to gauges) today.
I got some modern backlit window switches to do away with those ugly stock ones that tend to crap out on me also. Hopefully some pics of that stuff later on.

Hard to tell where you're at, but by the looks of what you're working on now...you should be almost finished and ready to roll..no?

SmokinBBC said:

Hard to tell where you're at, but by the looks of what you're working on now...you should be almost finished and ready to roll..no?

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hey where's that "I agree" smiley ???

Sure looks like the '77 is almost done.:beer:

Very nicely done.

Yeah, doing the final loose ends that remain. Mostly interior stuff, building the center and main gauge clusters, heater controls, wiring harnesses and stuff.

Still have to install the fuel tank (was waiting on that tank surround) and hook up the feed line (already done, just hook up and go) and finish the headlights. I have the new spreader bar all prepped to go, I stripped it and then sprayed it with zinc primer, followed by a bunch of layers of paint, and then some undercoating and stone chip. That thing will never rust again. Just waiting on some balmy weather to epoxy it in place. It's just a tad too cold here still.

Last thing before engine start is getting 2 120* an fittings, somehow I forgot to order them for the power steering return lines to connect at the cooler. Without them the power steering system is obviously open and I won't be able to start the engine as the serpentine belt wraps the crank, water pump and power steering pump.

Installed the tank surround today. What a PITA that thing is, you have to wrestle it in place because it's tight between the frame rails. Ugh! And wrestling the tank, straps and crossmember is no fun either. It does look a whole lot cleaner and you can't look behind the tank when opening the lid. That's what bugged me when I didn't have it in there, it looked as if the tank was installed incorrectly





I also bolted up my C5 master cylinder. I like it a 100 times better than the cast iron truck MC I had in there (or a stock one for that matter), this gives it a clean modern look and it weighs a whole lot less also. The flared ends are metric flare (an inverse of the normal inverted flare) so I guess a new flare tool is on order.





For the rest it was a matter of wiring, more wiring...and even more wiring. Gets kind of tedious after a while, but the bumpers are on and the lights are now actually working :0