I have seen a few other go through the inside for the trans mount, but never to the back, which should tie everything together nice for you.

I have to say, I am glad your getting the bill for the work and not me!! I bet its going to be a pretty penny. In the end you will have a car that is good for anything you throw at it though!

Keep us posted.

 

LOL yeah it's not cheap but I couldn't be happier with the work and the car is truly going to be something special I think.

And yeah I've seen the trans mount done several different ways here, but most require some type of bracing below the floor plan which I don't want, especially as low as my car already is and may even run it a little lower. The negative is of course the bars running right above the floor pan but I'm willing to live with that, plus the way they are tying that all in together like that I should have one STIFF car!!!!!! I think the way he did it is a pretty elegant solution and is really simple and clean.

 

This is one of the best projects I've seen on this board!
Can't wait to see it finished, and to hear your impresions!

 

I agree you do NOT want the crossbar under the car. That is why I racked my brain with coming up with a solution to eliminate the crossmember on my solid rear setups. It make a WORLD of difference in ground clearance and make the whole job a LOT cleaner looking.

These car are super stiff to begin with and even without everything tied together like you have it, I have no problem with the car twisting and coming up super square on the launches. They are truely a great platform to start a racing car from. I suspect that many will be showing up on the strip in the future with their prices where they are and now with the option to beef up the rears.

Keep us posted.

 

as well. I think you'll start seeing more C4's at the strip in the next few years. They are getting so cheap that I think people can afford to tear em' up a little more to make em' more into drag cars. Here in BG, I almost NEVER see another C4 at the strip, it's very rare. See a few C5's here and there and lots of C3's, but not too many C4's. Hopefully more folks will see what you/I/others have done on here and get out there!!!!!!!

I've been wanting to drag race BAD since I was 16. Got to go a little in high school but my car sucked, plus I couldn't afford to fix it. Then my career got started and really just didn't have the time. Now things have settled somewhat and I'm back in BG so the strip is 15 min away. So I've been waiting a long time to have some fun! Once I started breaking those spindles I just got so fed up because I was wanting to race SO BAD - it just took the wind right out of me and I said SCREW THIS!

Like you, I plan on getting my family involved when they are old enough (got a 4 yr old son, 2 yr old girl, and a newborn boy ) and I expect one day some of them will be driving this car down the strip - how will that be? So if you look at like that, the project really isn't that expensive.

Or maybe that's just how I rationalize it?

 

Thanks! I think my chassis guys are doing a great job.

And I can't wait either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Can't agree with you more.....

To tell you the truth, I was thinking about running the bars like yours, but in the trans tunnel. But then I thought it will be easier (less work ) to run it from frame to frame inside the car. But I never thought to run it inside the car and outside it looks like it wouldn't work anyways.
Keep it up....looking very very nice!!!

 

Added some much better pics of tranny crossmember and its mounting system. Also added a few new pics of up underneath the car so you can see fuel cell and one of the battery trays more easily.

I think the roll cage should be almost completely done by end of next week and then hopefully we'll just have some of the little extras to do and then try to get this thing running!

 

WOW.
I am about to finish a full roll cage I am doing myself in my '89.
I can really appreciate the kind of work your fabricator is doing.

My dream was to connect the front frame with the rear frame like you have done.

Where does the forward end of the bar that hugs the trans tunnel go to?

 

Yeah they are doing a GREAT job I think.

Both of the bars run straight from the rear, then along the tunnel, and then where you see the tranny plate they begin to move diagonally toward the footwell area - this is where a lot of the strength in these cars (and most cars because of crash protection I guess) is. I would say about 6" or so in front of the recessed area where the footwell speakers are at. If you look at the next to last picture on the 1st page, look just to the right of the shifter and you can kind of see where it connects.

-edit- Paul see this pic: http://home.insightbb.com/~kevin.ale...r/IMG_1273.JPG

 

Oh wow!
Are you going to tie in the A-pillar down bars to that one?

Will you be building a sub-floor?

*edit: this is my A-pillar bar
http://temp.corvetteforum.net/c4/89p...llcage_007.jpg

 

Damn strong looking... your builder is doing top-notch work for certain!

 

Actually we just talked about that today - the A-pillar down bars will go to the dash crossbar you see, then additional bars will go down from the dash crossbar down to the footwells. They said they have been doing a lot of their cars like that lately and they feel it's stronger than just having the one bar going all the way from the front back to the main hoop.

Are you talking about making a new floor pan? If so, no, not sure why you would want to do that?

 

Yeah, I was just curious if you were going to leave the tube exposed.
Is there any fitment issue with feet or shoes or anything like that with that bar traversing where it does?

It's good to see outside-the-box thinking being applied to our C4's.

 

Wow ! You are an ambitious fellow. Nice job; can't wait to see the final product.

 

Does your builder know something about your driving that we don't.
I sure wouldn't want to be driving the street car next to you if you got out of shape.Great job .The Titanic should have been built so well.

 

OK yeah I thought maybe that is what you meant. Once I'm done doing dynamat and recarpeting I don't think you'll even know the bars are there. On the floorpan area I'll probably just use some really thick dynamat (or something) to kind of bring the "perceived" floor level up higher to get closer to the bar height.

We haven't done a test fit with me in the car but as you can see the bars are very, very close to the floor so I don't think it will be a problem. The passenger side I could care less - on the driver's side the only concern I have is with the clutch, but I don't clutch with my heel on the floor (does anyone?) so no real problem there. The only problem I could see is with a really long drive but that probably won't be happening now.

Once we get the seats fit I'll post my impressions of the bar placement but I don't "think" it's gonna be an issue at all.

Well this all started with broken wheel spindles, guess it just kind of grew. :o

LOL, on the first page I have a link to his website. He builds everything like a tank. (thankfully)

 

Got some great pics today, I'm pumped!!!!!!!!

I've been putting all pics in the first post on page 1 but I've just got too many now so I'll put all pics on 1st page and also in this post.

Roll cage is DONE!!!!!! See first page for more roll cage pics but here are some more - note the bar running across windshield header - sunvisors still work!!!! Also you can see the bars running down A-pillar and the top of custom dash:





Here's the custom dash they are building - it's still being mocked up, especially the "hood" for the gages, but they have already exceeded my expectations - note how it perfectly matches the curvature of passenger side door panel and then flattens out as it comes across to the driver, again couldn't be happier with it:













Steering column mount - kind of funny, they used leftover 4 link brackets!!!! Looks cool:





Test fit of my new Cobra Misano seats - covering is leather, frame back is carbon fiber:












Here's a bunch of different angles on the custom dash:











Gauges - Autometer Ultralites - note the small shift light in between tach and speedo - the rest of the gauges will go below, to the right and left of steering column:





Dash pics - dash is out of car right now and I'm having it covered in semi-leather material to match seats:





Door bars:

 

I am enjoying this thread, but man I wish you went with a high mile C4 to do this too. Your car was one of my favorite's the way it looked. I dont recogize it anymore.


Goodluck with your project!

 

LOL well my car had 75K and was already HIGHLY modified - pretty much nothing was stock, interior was pretty tired, Fbody motor, 95 PCM, heads/cam/headers/gears, the wiring is a mess already because of the custom stereo (also no rear carpet was there or rear plastic after I removed the stereo), etc etc, the list goes on.

If my car had been a low mile, unmodified mint car (like the 93 I'm buying tomorrow - though it is slightly modified) I would never have done it so I agree with your sentiment. My car is in really good shape but far from mint so I don't feel like I'm chopping up a trailer queen. I would indeed have a problem doing that.

Trust me, when it's put back together, I think you'll have changed your mind. From the outside, other than the dish on the rear wheels, it's gonna look exactly the same - you won't even know it's had this done.