Looks awesome! Totally jealous of the rust situation on that car. Be sure to wear gloves when using those spot weld cutters, I got this awesome wound on my finger from one of those once, looked like I had a zipper

Paul

Hey! Do you still have any of the green interior left?
Among my herd is a 73 EMS that could use some interior bits. Door panels especially, but I'll also take carpets, seat covers and rear panels...

What's up w/ 3 Bright Yellow 73s on the list all of a sudden??

DrewP, GOLFGURU and I each have one...any more out there?


john

8(

No interior left, it was pretty trashed and sun-damaged, I held onto it for a little while but didn't seem like anyone needed any of it. I really liked the green, it was so terrible that it was actually attractive.

Best,
Drew

Wow,3- 73 s,cool....Hey John,does your 73 ems have d jet?? JOE

GOLFGURU wrote::luck: Wow,3- 73 s,cool....Hey John,does your 73 ems have d jet?? JOE

Not any more! I have the Super sidedrafts on it now. Waaayyy ,more reliable!
That said, a well tuned D-Jet system w/ headers can really rip!

Drew, I feel the same way! Something about the glaring yellow and the mellowing green. It still has the original 96-style seats w/ the EMS headrest inserts and a funky blue windsheild...

WOW..I had a 73 BMW bavaria and replaced the shitty zenith carbs with webers and ended up tearing the rear differential off the mounts... one too many wholeshots...I hear you on that header...Got a k&n filter,now all I need is to uncork that puppy...FYI If you can find a good upolstery guy,they might be able to help you with your interior projects...joe

Got a lot more done since I put photos up last week - roof V braces are done, side impact is done, 1 of the 2 rear stay V braces are done, brother David is making some of the corner reinforcements for the upper corners of the windscreen now.

The roof V reinforcements are bent upwards about 2/3rds of the way back for some extra helmet clearance, they have about 0.25" clearance to the roof skin, and the side impact X's have about the same clearance from the inside of the door skins with the factory side-impact beam removed.

Starting welding today, and see where we get. The whole cage is going to be TIG'd. I am going to try to get the main and halo hoops in and welded without punching holes in the sills to drop it down and see where I get with it. Some is going to be welded with the hoops out of the car and some with it in, I will photo it as I go to see what works and what doesn't to give an idea of the progression, but till then:

wow, thats really coming together quickly, looking great!

Thanks, we're pretty happy with progress too. It's a couple things combined helping get a lot done:

1) My fiancee has been out of town for a month and is gone another month teaching Norwegian in MN.

2) My brother didn't find summer job and is hanging out at my place and working on the car with me.

3) He is an awesome fabricator.

4) We are working on it during the work day at the shop, things are kind of slow right now, so almost all day is going to working on the car.

Best,
Drew

Not many updates because we've been working pretty tirelessly on the cage! All 6 mounting points are welded in now, only major structural members left are the rear V-stays to brace the center of the main hoop, and we're making gussets now. I think it will all be fab'd and welded in end of the day tomorrow. Still need to brace the front downstays in, that'll probably just be an 'X' connecting the stays to the front spring towers, but I don't want to dive into those till I have at least a dummy motor in the engine compartment to make sure I don't run out of space.



Rear main stays fit pretty nicely:











We decided to try to get the tops of the roof joints without punching holes in the sills to drop the feed down into (not that I think this isn't a great way to do it, we just figured we could get the main hoop out and back in without them, turns out it worked pretty well....)

Cut the tacks for the front A-pillar stays, but leave the halo and roof supports tacked in place:






Fitted pieces removed from halo and main hoop:






Roof reinforcement junction:







Halo tacks to main hoop:





The halo and main hoop pivot forward enough to drop down out of the way and remove completely from the car, we welded the joints out of the car completely on the bench, and then put it back in the car to attach the forward stays, which put the whole thing back in position:














Some acrobatics:








And all back in!












Brother David made us a beveling dimple die, so we can have speed holes in everything just like the big boys!
















More tomorrow, now it's bed time.

Great job, its gonna come together quickly the rate you guys are going. You might be track testing by the end of the month.

Wow, the welds really look top notch, TIGing inside a chassis is not for the beginner.

Got the cage basically finished over the weekend:

Rear V-stays in and welded
All 4 door X gussets and welded
A-pillar gussets front & back welded
B-pillar gussets front & back welded

It's startin' to look like a race car!

We wished after the fact that we had slanted the tops and bottoms of the A-pillar gussets so that when viewed from the front there weren't such akward spaces at the top and bottom of the piece of sheet, but I think it won't look quite as bad when it's all painted, and it looks better with the rear pieces in place.

Still needs shoulder harness tube and another cross-member to mount the seat to, but I don't have sear rails yet so those will wait till the seating is fixtured, and going to add an X to tie the middle corners of the front downstays into the front shock towers, but need to get a mockup 16v engine in the engine compartment to make sure it isn't going to hit anything, so that's this week's project is make the mounts and modify the firewall and add the front cross-bracing.

Im gonna send a few cars out to you, can you put cages in all of em and send em back?

Nice job!

The next time you come to New Hampshire I've got a day's worth of work for you.

If your girlfriend ends up in Minnesota over the winter you should have her take the car with her. When the temps drop below zero all you have to do is hit the sound deadening tar with a hammer and it will pop right off.

Any thoughts on adding a bar between the main hoop feet? I always feel a little more comfortable if there is something tying the two sides of the car together across the bottom. The X should probably do wonders but a lower bar is nice low weight :-)