Finally committed to a direction for my '74 project that makes the most sense for what I think will be the most fun, and makes the most sense for the car as it sits- going to make it a full spec stage rally car. Initially I didn't want to do anything with it that required a full permanent roll cage, but after sitting with it for a while I'm convinced that a street legal rally car is the way to get the most fun out of this car.
If I build it to ARA spec I can also use it for hill climb events here in Colorado (and who knows maybe Pikes Peak someday) as well as snow/ice events and rallycross, so it should be pretty versatile and give me year-round fun.
I'd love to get some advice from any of you have built track cars (or especially rally/hill climb cars) on roll cages, which is the most critical thing at the moment. I'm going to get some quotes today from some local shops for having them just do the entire thing, but I've also found a couple pre-fab weld kits out there that could be promising but I'd love to get some actual first-hand feedback on them before I go that route. There's two that look like they could work, one from Autopower (sold by Evasive) and one from Safety Devices (sold by stable energies). Curious if anyone has used either of these kits and has feedback on the fit/quality as well as FIA 253 compliance? I'll get specs and answers from the vendors before ordering obviously, but haven't found much in the way of actual reviews on these. Also open to other options if they're out there, let me know!
My other option is to finally buy a bender and just build one myself, but the time commitment there doesn't really make sense for me.
I'll probably make this a bit of a build thread as I get going, but for now here's some of the current progress which should help ease any worries about me chopping up a clean car for this.
Car was a bit of a rust bucket when I got it, and had already been chopped for a hacky fiberglass widebody conversion. I've done all the structural rust repair and quite a bit of reinforcements/bracing. Still some cosmetic fixes and actual body work left to do, which is a part of the equation here.
Engine was solid though and had been rebuilt by a reputable shop here, and I did a full EFI conversion about 6 months ago. I got a rebuilt 915 and brand new clutch/flywheel (didn't opt for the LSD at the time, oops) and a rennline shifter which I don't love yet (hopefully it breaks in a bit with driving). Finished doing the elephant racing coilover conversion in the rear and still running the torsion bars in the front.
So it's at a point now where I can either dump a bunch of money into to making it a nice street car (paint/body/interior) or I can dump a bunch of money into it and make it a race car. By my math I should get about 1.5x more smiles/$ by doing a race car... we'll see how that pans out.
