'73 Vega GT All Aluminum Wildcat 355 Project

Contents:
Page 1: Engine Block prep
Page 2: Head mods
Page 3: Induction/Exhaust
Page 4: Engine Assembly
Page 5: Front Suspension Mods
Page 6: Rear Suspension/Weight Transfer Mods
Page 7: Rust Repair and Undercarriage prep
Page 8: Frame Rail fabrication/Unibody support
Page 9: Body Mods
Page 10: Transmission Mods
Page 11: T5 Rebuild
Page 12: BMW Radiator Swap

My project started life as a D&D Fabrications Buick 215 V8 Vega conversion. The documentation goes back to '78. It was owned by a body shop guy who didn't drive it much. I bought it as a feckless youth and used it as a daily driver through two Minnesota winters. Kinda stupid but we didn't have much money back then. As you can see from my pic here's what the Vega looked like when I started. It looks a little worse right now because I've got half of it apart for modification. I'll be using this page to document the modifications I've made and will be making. My ultimate goal is to drive it in the Targa Newfoundland . I hope my successes and mistakes are helpful to some other motorheads out there.

The body work is working out great. Here's a preview. Details on page 9:

The 'Cuda lights turned out really bitchin'. Since going to the CarCraft Summer Nats I've decided to run cold air intake from the marker lights in the front. Those two round holes right there. I think that will look bitchin'.

Here's a quick segway... Look what I found in the Hawaiian jungle on a recent trip: A WILDCAT 355! WOW! I couldn't believe it when I came across it. It's a pretty rare version of the SBB and to find it in the jungle was a r eal treat...

I figured I should add a couple other pix of me. First is a pic of us dorks working on our project cars in Winter. In this pic it was about -15ºF outside in the middle of January. NASTY! The second is a good pic of me welding on my buddies project: Grassroots Motorsports $2009 Challenge Car . Fun project. Learn more about the Grassroots Challenge here .

_________________________________________________________________________________

Wildcat 5.0 Aluminum Tribute (actually a stoker Rover/Buick Hybrid)

After I bought this Vega I really got into the aluminum Buick V8s. Since '96 I have researched and planned on a larger capacity version. I never thought I'd manage to actually do it until I discovered that Rover had started producing cross-bolted four bolt main versions of the Rover/Buick small-block.

The weak part for these blocks was the cylinders slipping in the casting... interupted

_________________________________________________________________________________

OK after all is said and done. I'm actually having the block resleeved afterall. I woke from a nightmare that my pins (discribed in detail below) fell out and chewed up the pistons. Then the pieces got all tied up with the other parts and it just went to shit. SO, after I woke with a start and dried the tears from my eyes, I bought some flanged sleeves from Westwood Cylinder Liners in UK:

Westwood Cylinder Liners: Rover V8

I've decided to go ahead an have these pushed in. It's an expensive proposition but with this process all the potential cylinder problems. Cracking behind the sleeves are no longer a problem and no more sleeves slipping. It also allows your machine shop is able to mill the block a few thou lower than the sleeves for better cylinder sealing... I'll post the final cost as it comes. The liners came to $609 shipped from UK.

A bit out of order but since we are on the subject of recent acquisitions: I found a listing for this single plane Harcourt intake for my project on the Triumph Rover Spares website. I was lucky enough to speak with the proprietor Ian Wilson. It was great to speak with him. TRS has done really well in recent Tarmac Targa Rally competitions resently including an overall win and 5th in the 2006 Adelaide Classic Tarmac Rally. NOT a Porsche WAY hotter! TR7 with ROVER beef. HOT! Go to their website and read all about them. Thanks TRS!!!

_________________________________________________________________________________

For the sake of archiving my process here's what I started doing first. I ended up having the block sleeved with flanged liners. I didn't go with my solution outlined bellow:

I learned a solution from a friend of mine that often works on one-of-a-kind diesel engines. The trick is to pin the cylinders with a short soft stainless steel socket head cap screw.

First you drill a hole at the bottom of the cylinder, through the liner and block, near the bottom of the stroke. There is no water jacket here.

Here is a couple pix of the screw protruding into the cylinder. Then you just grind it off and have the cylinder bored out as usual.

The engine is bored 0.040 over and I'm using Ford 255 V8 pistons sized to 0.060 over.

Here's a pic. The final bore works out to 3.74". That's 0.010 less than the stock 300 bore of 3.75".

Here's what the final bore looks like after machining, and another shot of the socket head cap screw inplace on the block...

Since the later Rover blocks have a main bearing size of 2.5" the Buick 300 crank drops in with minimal changes. The crank I bought needed to be undersized 0.010. Because there are no aftermarket oversize bearings for the 4.0/4.6, I opted for oversized Buick 300 main bearings. They are slightly bigger in diameter than the stock Rover 4.0/4.6 main bearings, so the block needed to be bored out 0.022". That worked out well because it gave me the oportunity to allign hone the block! I'll post more pix of the finished block when I get a chance. Here's a pic of the finished align honed block. (Since I started this page a number of companies supply OS bearings now including D&D Fabrications )