Toy's Toy! Chris's awesome 356C/930 Hotrod

[JTR70]

You would almost have to be living under rock if you're not already familiar with Chris Toy's now very famous Black 356C coupe with full 930 Turbo drivetrain. When this Hotrod really became public several years ago I contact Chris directly. I found him to be an extremely nice and helpful man willing to share any knowledge and details about his Awesome creation. During our discussion he said he would send me a CD with a few show photos from Dana point and a bunch of progress shots during its build. I just remembered I had it and thought I'd share them; with Chris's blessing of course. Thanks Chris! I'll try to give as many details as I can from memory.


As you can see the large 930 turbo gear box is fitted along with a new tubular sub-frame. Appearantly they were being conservative and trying to preserve as much of the orginal rear seat pan as they could.


Eventually it was determined that the rest of the pan was going to have to come out. Looks axle shaft angle mock-ups here and trial fitment for some side runner lengths for the subframe.

[JTR70]

Same shot as above just a better angle on "whats doing" with that new side runner for the sub-chassis




Trick custom pivot points and tubular control arms. The arms look like headers. The guys fabricating this stuff where pretty good!!

[JTR70]

Cool looking hubs and rotors. I believe they are Wilwoods. Axles run a few degrees forward. Typical for these retro-fits and perfectly fine for the CV's.



Getting the shocks mounted and set here.

A really nice detailed shot of those trick tubular control arms!

Upper shock mounts and sub-frame complete. Nice looking gusseted mounts!

[JTR70]

Skipping ahead just a bit, here is the new back seat area being closed up along with being outfitted with its various components it would house. Chris wanted the creature comfrots of A/C so the evaporator/blower housing was mounted back here. Being Turbo you want to cool the intake charge for max HP. The massive stock intercooler was a complete no go and would never fit within the confines of this stock body. An alternative to an intercooler is a water/methane injection system which solved the problem. A new custom made reserve tank for this new stand-in system is mounted here next to the A/C unit.

New "seat pan" closing panels mounted here. What a beautiful piece of engineering! I can certainly appreciate all the time and planning it took to make this car happen!

Up next plumbing and wiring this monster!

[JTR70]

Now for the monumental task of plumbing and wiring this thing!


A tremendious amount of hours had to have been spent just planning, routing then probably rerouting these lines.





Alot more stuff than that old push-rod motor required...

[JTR70]

Lets not forget about the front; Check this out!

Just look at all those relays!

New system was run in tandem with the original.





Twin pusher and puller fans in front of an oil cooler and probably a condenser for the A/C.

[JTR70]

Everything sure buttoned up nice and clean in the end.

[JTR70]

The Motor!



Still hard to believe they shoehorned this thing in there with the remaining plumbing.

I do remember Chris telling me a major concern was the proximity of the turbo to the tail skin of the car. Paint blistering was a real threat. I believe some heat shields were fabricated for protection.

[JTR70]

Lots of Dynamat for a quiet and temperate cabin.

[JTR70]

Some extra width was added to the rear quarters to get those extra wide meats under there without a fender flare.

The final result just looked fantastic!

Custom guages probably from North Hollywood Speedo. Love that matching retro boost guage!





Liked the way they chromed the headlight housing versus the original mat-silver finish. That black paint job is really something else! You can see for miles in that reflection!

[JTR70]

A few more show photos of this beautiful and incredible custom car.



They really did a nice job widening those rear quaters. They are wider but still retain all the stock contours. I really like the shape of these fenders!

What a motor to have under your decklid, But from the past photos; it was not an easy journey!





This truely is the definition of a Bad ass 356! A special thanks again to Chris Toy for sending these to me! Justin

[roy mawbey]

Justin,

You have done a very nice job of putting all that info onto your site. I remember Chris putting up some photos of his car. For sure that was some job to do and he has made a very fine job of it.

I have wondered if the handling with the added weight made the car oversteer somewhat, but never heard anything on how it performed on the road.

Interesting story.

Cheers

Roy

[JTR70]

Hey Roy, Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the presentation. According to Chris the car handled extremely poorly and it scared him a few times going into some turns. Where it shined was of course pure straightline acceleration. So its Basically a drag strip car now. Thanks again! Justin

[tonycoke]

I was driving down the road one day and saw a black 356 at a shop, behind a fence 50 yards off the road. I still don't know how I saw it, but went back to check it out. It turns out it was this car. I didn't get to pop the hood, but I got to crawl around under it. I can't believe how much stuff was crammed up under it lol.
The guy at the shop said they were fixing a tuning issue or something and the car was being sold. Then a tow truck pulled up to take it away.

Totally weird!

[JTR70]

Hey Tony,

I'll bet it was amazing in person! They really shoehorned alot of systems into this little car. I am very surprised that Chris sold it.
Justin