Page 1 : Intro
Page 2 : Updates Page
Page 3 : Exterior
Page 4 : Interior
Page 5 : Audio
Page 6 : Engine
Page 7 : Drivetrain
Page 8 : Chassis/Suspension
Page 9 : Videos!!!
Page 10 : GRAND THEFT AUTO VIC TRIBUTE
Page 11 : PhotoShop Plans That Could Be
Page 12 : Family & Friend�s Cars
Page 13 : Summary Info
Page XX : My other car, a 73 Celica track car!!

02/21/08
Finished the brake upgrade in the front. Everything went pretty smooth, scored a free set of stainless lines from my roommate, and it all feels and stops well.

01/26/08
I finished cleaning up the spindles, painted them in high temp Ford Blue, and installed the new Timken hubs. I also pressed the new ball joints into the lower A-arms, and did a quick mock up of the front suspension for some cool pics, ENJOY!

01/25/08
I got some "new" control arms for brake upgrade in the front. I still have to clean, paint, and assemble the spindles, but for now I have cleaned and restored the upper and low control arm and installed new polyurethane bushings from Energy Suspensions. The control arms are from a 95 Vic.

10/12/07
I put some new Tokico HP Blue shocks on the Vic in preparation for a race weekend on the 19-20th of October. These replaced my QA1 shocks in the front and my age old generic air shocks in the rear. I took some pics of the QA1s with the new Tokicos so that I could compare them.

04/04/07
I have started working for free track time! Later this year I am going to be taking the Vic on some open track weekends at VIR and Summit Point. So in preparation I've got a lot to do. First up I moved my battery to the trunk. This moved my center of gravity down and back, which is a total plus for turning.

First step in lowering and improving my suspension. New front springs. My old springs were factory 440lb/in springs. The new ones are over double that at 925lb/in. Install was pretty strait fowared, no tricks or hard parts. And the result was 1-1/8" lower ride height. Exterior result pictures can be seen HERE!

A few weeks ago I finaly replaced my rear springs with a set that matches the new front ones....well almost. I was hoping for a 1" drop like I got in the front, but I did not get any drop. I got 225lb/in 14" springs for the rear. Again a direct replacement since they are also double pig-tailed. With the amount of compression and the springs rate if I had gotten the 175lb/in 14" springs I would have gotten a 1" drop, so for a little rake one could get the 200lb/in 14" springs. I've got a little more than I wanted, but for now it will do. No exterior pics as the ride height did not change from my last photo spreee.

The wet tail pipe is from diff fluid coming out of the axle vent....doing the entire interstate clover at 70mph+ will do that.

A few weeks ago I did some rust repair on my frame. I think it turned out great. You can see how much I had to remove, was quite a bit. However this is the only just of any consequence on my car. I bothered me that it was so severe yet so centralized.

Before:


After:

Well I got anxious and installed them now. So here are the frame stiffeners installed on my Vic. The install comes with some bad news though. No not the rust on the frame, I was planning on fixing that soon, but on the passenger side when I went to install the stiffener is was off by ��. I investigated a little more and then I remembered, when we did the engine swap I noticed a piece of plywood used as a spacer in the body mount on the very front of the driver side (this was there before we bought the car in 1992). Putting 2 and 2 together, this means that my frame is bent. My alignment is good, so no worries there, it�s just that I�m not going to do a frame off restoration on a bent frame. So the sad decision that I am forced to make today is that this Vic will not be my Sleepin� Beast of forever. I guess I�ll have fun with it until I�m ready to do the real restoration on a whole new box-body Vic. )-;

Here are some pics of something else I picked up at the junk yard. These are frame stiffeners that go diagonally from the frame member under the motor to the section behind the front wheels. Some cleaning and fresh aluminum paint and they�re as good as new. I�ll give the paint a few days to dry and on they go. The paint I have is high temp paint and it takes a while to completely dry.

Page 1 : Intro
Page 2 : Updates Page
Page 3 : Exterior
Page 4 : Interior
Page 5 : Audio
Page 6 : Engine
Page 7 : Drivetrain
Page 8 : Chassis/Suspension
Page 9 : Videos!!!
Page 10 : GRAND THEFT AUTO VIC TRIBUTE
Page 11 : PhotoShop Plans That Could Be
Page 12 : Family & Friend�s Cars
Page 13 : Summary Info
Page XX : My other car, a 73 Celica track car!!