Some light weight mods to my 356 restoration

[AMP]

Maybe this should be in the regular 356 forum as its not really outlaw body mod type work. I didn't want to do anything to the car that could not easily be undone. Just could not leave it original either.
Here are a few of the things I have done. Hope to be on the road in a couple of weeks.

Did this stuff due to the simple compulsion to do it, the admiration for similar work on cars I have seen and because its impossible to just leave it alone.

Boxed in the trailing arms and put together an adjustable sway bar with 3 settings. The bar is a littler bigger than the stock bar also. It's set in bearings that have misalignment capability and the bushing in the trailing arm is solid.

No animals were harmed nor any 356's mangled, spindled mutilated in the execution of these mods.

[AMP]

After reading all the bad experiences of new mufflers not fitting I went with saving an original. Also this one is the exact same type that came on my car and it has the right Date stamp for those interested in that. It should get me by till I can build a facsimile of the original in stainless. Also have to integrate heat at some point but now leaning to gas heat.

Of note: the flanges were not flat but a file cured that. They were not unlike the flanges of a solex carburetor where the nuts were over tightened. Probably common on a lot of mufflers that leak.

Kidding about the date stamp - it wasn't actually the right year

There were some dents that to remove would have required more serious surgery so I elected to leave some in place for character. The muffler is now pretty solid and sounds good too.

[AMP]

Dual electric pumps with only one running at a time - on board spare. Switch in dash where sun roof switch would go (would trade the dual pumps for the sun roof )

[AMP]

Formed aluminum gas pedal.

(This one alone worth approximately 14.3 HP)

[AMP]

Formed aluminum air filter housings.

Stainless fuel lines.

[AMP]

Back on the road soon.

[DG58INNM]

Oh come on, everybody knows an aluminum go pedal won't possibly ne t you more than 13.9 hp. Holy hyperbole Batman!

And apparently its so light it floats upside down. Good job.....

[JTR70]

Ashely, Really trick and well thought out modifications! I really like the way you do things!! Please tell us more about the custom torsion bar;who is it made by? On the choice of its three positions how does it equate to the stock offerings? Example: does the shortest lever arm position(stiffest) equate to an original 19mm Carrera bar? The mount clamps alone are a work of art! Nice tig welding on your gusseted control arms as well.

Your fuel delivery system looks great as well! I Like the rubber insulated base plate and the nicely fabricated lines across the back of the fanshroud. Did you press the custom air filter caps or are they CNC'd?

Really like the milled out alloy block which nicely mimics the factory sunroof switch! Your Steering wheel looks like its smaller diameter as well?
Alot of great nicely executed custom touches here Ashely! Nice work!!!!
Thank you for sharing them!!
Justin

[Restomod]

Very cool mods, where did you get the swaybar? Did you just use mild steel tube to box the trailing arms? Glad to see anouther NC guy to!
Thanks for the update.

[AMP]

Thanks for the nice compliments!

The sway bar: my friend Gary Schroeder at http://schroedersteering.com/HomePage.html makes bars and arms. Look in the section on stock car racing - rear bars and rear arms. The arm is his standard rear aluminum arm. Thay come with the spline end finished and are extra long. I cut it off and added the stainless plates with adjustment holes and the little bit of milling for detail.

The bar is 18mm so there are no settings that replicate the original 16mm bar.

I chose the holes based on the very short and not desirable drop link. The middle hole makes the arm very similar in length to the stock arm and gives the best ( least ) angle for the drop link.
Adjusting to the shorter hole or longer hole will increase or decrease roll resistance somewhat but the angle put into the drop link with that change affects that too. I thought about attaching a longer drop link to the top arm but elected to go with the stock location. Going to the top arm would be better. In reality I will probable never move the adjustment from the middle hole. Probably couldn't tell the difference if I did move it!

Not aparent in the picture is an aluminum spacer between the arm and the bearing to keep the bar centered and not allow any lateral slop. The angular misalignment capability of the bearings keeps out bind when there is flex in the body - in theory! How much flex there is; who knows! I am sure there is some but probably not too much.

I made the bearing housings from flat stock and tubing for the bearing housing. The bearings are retained with spiral locks. Te bearings also have a lip seal and port for grease thus the grease fitting. They could have been made using 1 x 2 rectangular tubing and a piece of tubing. The choice of bar diameters was also influenced by bearing size. Any larger bar size over 19mm and the stock holes would not have worked (as it was the tubes had to be scalloped and socket head cap screws used in these parts in order to fit). But I see no reason to go over 19mm.

The finish on all the parts is manganese phosphate base with spray and bake satin black Teflon on top.

Anyway Schroeder can make the bars to custom lengths and diameters. They make very nice parts and are good folks to work with.

[AMP]

Ashely, Really trick and well thought out modifications! I really like the way you do things!! Please tell us more about the custom torsion bar;who is it made by? On the choice of its three positions how does it equate to the stock offerings? Example: does the shortest lever arm position(stiffest) equate to an original 19mm Carrera bar? The mount clamps alone are a work of art! Nice tig welding on your gusseted control arms as well.

Your fuel delivery system looks great as well! I Like the rubber insulated base plate and the nicely fabricated lines across the back of the fanshroud. Did you press the custom air filter caps or are they CNC'd?

Really like the milled out alloy block which nicely mimics the factory sunroof switch! Your Steering wheel looks like its smaller diameter as well?
Alot of great nicely executed custom touches here Ashely! Nice work!!!!
Thank you for sharing them!!
Justin

Thanks Justin, much appreciated!

The air filter housings are made from .065" 3003 aluminum using a form block. The tops have the extra operation to add the step. I made the spring catches from thin stainless. Te aluminum is black anodized and the stainless is sateen black Teflon.

My good friend Joe Cavaleigri made some like them for a project car and I liked the look. I don't have any pics yet of the finished engine but I tried for only black and silver ( aluminum) with black hardware on black and silver hardware on aluminum. There is some small amount of brass on the carburetors and i let that slide. The red wires were extra! The grey fan shroud a concession to the original.

I read where lots of folks had those pumps fail. The factory has a pluming diagram on line and they call for a bypass to keep flow thru the pump for cooling. I added that feature but still went with an extra pump. I put an office in the return line so as not to affect the fuel pressure. Made up some stainless lines for this system and used a ton of clamps! Hopefully it will be reliable.






For the steering wheel, first I kept the original wheel in storage. I bought a C wheel and a mid year 911 SC wheel which is one with the diameter that I like. I cut the center out of each wheel and, well the pictures tell the story. After cutting the center out of the C wheel i tumbled it on ceramic media for the satin finish. The biggest challenge was replacing the rubber as the rubber is cast on the rim and the rim is not necessarily in the center of the rubber. I ended up casting new rubber on the rim and sanding to shape. Then sent it to an outfit in Texas who did the covering in leather.

[AMP]

Very cool mods, where did you get the swaybar? Did you just use mild steel tube to box the trailing arms? Glad to see anouther NC guy to!
Thanks for the update.

Thanks!

For the trailing arms I made a paper pattern, cut them from 4130 sheet and with my press, using a simple die made from two pieces of angle iron and a piece of round bar stock, formed the parts. I think I used .040 sheet. I did make a set from tubing but its a lot more work than starting with flat stock.

I checked the arms for factory spec before and after.

[AMP]

Oh come on, everybody knows an aluminum go pedal won't possibly ne t you more than 13.9 hp. Holy hyperbole Batman!

And apparently its so light it floats upside down. Good job.....

If it's not good for more than 14 its coming out of the car!

Thanks for the compliment!

[JTR70]

Thanks for the info on the sway-bar Ashely! I may have to pick your brain later on this subject once I start getting closer to installing mine. You sure seem to know your stuff. The custom wheel turned out great! Alot of work for sure but the end result speaks for itself. I see you stepped up to the deluxe combo guage that North hollywood offers; I always liked that unit! The fuel pumps and that beautiful stainless plumping are amazing! By the looks of that nicely fabbed brake line running against the wall I assume you have also upgraded to a dual master cylinder? If so which did you use? Thanks again! Great stuff!
Justin

[AMP]

Very cool mods, where did you get the swaybar? Did you just use mild steel tube to box the trailing arms? Glad to see anouther NC guy to!
Thanks for the update.

Just noticed - where in NC are you? I am in Davidson. There are150 or more 356 owners in the state and there are no get-togethers or if there are I haven't heard about them.