Project Valkyrie

Thanks for the encouragement everyone, and for the engine rebuilding tips, Steve. I've sent those off to Keith, as I know he'll appreciate the info.

The car was in pretty good shape, being somewhere in the neighborhood of a 6/10 car. As we worked through the body prep, we found two layers of paint (three on the hood), including the original frost white, as well as a more pearl paint which had been spayed on maybe 10-12 years ago. The pearl was yellowing, but it was in overall good condition.

Despite the car's overall good looks, the paint was hiding a multitude of sins underneath. It had taken a pretty good hit in the front end some years ago, and had quite a bit of bondo and body work in the left front, hood, and radiator support brace. The areas behind the front wheels have taken a lot of hits as well, mostly from the oversized tires on the car rubbing when turned to full lock. Front tires are GR50-15's mounted on 9 inch rims....Converted, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of a 265/50-15, which is quite a bit bigger than stock. The car also had almost 2 degrees negative camber, which caused rubbing on the spring and control arm.

The team of nine women spent nearly 450 hours of sanding and filling, and 3 go-rounds of primer for the body. The hood was by far the biggest problem. Damage from the accident, as well as years of hood slamming had weakened the last 8-10 inch section of the front to the point of needing major rework, welding and fill to shore up. The hood only received its first coat of primer over the weekend, and will need at least two more skim coats and guidecoats to be ready for paint. Since this will be a track/show car, we made the decision to prepare a second hood, which will be done at one of our girl's shops in Texas over the summer.

The car was originally a 4-speed Go Pack car, but the previous owner was into conversions to automatics, and he installed a TorqFlite some time back. We're changing it back to manual, converting to hydraulic clutch, and are looking at a 5-speed Tremec. Rear gear is a 355. We're also planning on converting the rear drums to disk, and replacing the entire brake system. Open to ideas on street and track tire sizes, shocks, and brake systems.









Edited by vnmsss - Apr/06/2015 at 11:43am

I've been busy reading many of the posts here on the Forum. You guys are a wealth of information, and since my learning curve is virtually vertical on this project, the build threads, tech articles, and simply pragmatic advice are greatly appreciated.

The car received its first coat of paint today, and will be going through the various coats, sandings and stages over the next 5-6 days. In the meantime, I'm on the fast track to securing parts for the next stage of the rebuild. Looking for any advice or guidance on:

Brake: Four wheel disc
Shocks: Upgrade recommendations
Control arms
Wheel tire recommendations for the street and for on-track

I'd like to put together a "package" in terms of the suspension and brakes. I believe suspension and brakes are interdependent, and it would be ill advised to just start throwing things on the car. I had actually even thought about just leaving the whole thing along until we can drive it and put it through its paces, but the time constraints demand that we at least upgrade the brakes and install new shocks before taking on the road for Power Tour. Advice, feedback and thoughts welcome. Thanks!!!

Here are a few pics from the shop last week:



Nan Gelhard from Summit Racing (parts procurement) and Christina Kwan (Kwan International), our social media director couldn't join us in the shop for the build, so we decided to bring them along in our own way. Nan and Christina go everywhere with us.








Edited by vnmsss - Apr/06/2015 at 10:34pm

Hey Karen. Great to see this project finally getting going. We met briefly at sears pt a few years ago and you told me you had just gotten the AMX. I'll offer a suggestion on the trans. I have a tremec tko 500 in my street Javelin. In my road race Javelin I went with an Astro Performance A5. Its a T5 trans with beefed up internals. I prefer the A5. It is 25 lbs lighter then the tremec. Its physically smaller than the tremec and it shifts better IMO. One thing about the tremec though is that it has multiple places you can put the shifter. Other than that I think the T5 wins. Gforce makes a beefed up T5 as well.

Can't wait to see the track videos!

Karen,

As far as brakes and suspension I suggest you consider looking at the systems that Control Freak Suspensions has to offer for AMC. Al and his crew have developed some very nice options. We have used them on several builds and have found the quality and design to be top notch.

http://www.freakride.com/

Ken

Karen,

By all means talk to Al Kami at Control Freak. Be sure to explain your project as I think it would catch his interest. There are a number of advantages to their suspension design that I think would benefit your project. With CF in Winter Springs and the car being in Tampa it would a short trip to pick up parts. I did visit your project web site and I think it is great. Keep up the great work and pass along a big thumbs up to your team.

Ken


Edited by pit crew - Apr/07/2015 at 11:05am