Here is the picture I posted in General Pinto Talk of the Cosworth Pinto. The nose is put together now and I'm hoping to finish all the work on the tub before rhino-lining the interior and trunk. The project has slowed again with our daughter getting married in June (translation: little time, less money), so I'm looking forward to July. The second picture shows one of the new Minilites I just got, bolted onto the rear axle. I had Minilite make the center holes no larger than necessary (2.5 inches) to clear the floating axle hubs. I think it looks great. Getting those Minilites took from September last year until this month, too long a story for now.
Paul (Cossiepinto)
PS I have no stock in B.S. Levy's business, except that of an admiring reader, but you really should give him a read. His four books relate the life of a young man who gets caught up in the early years of sports car racing in the U.S., and are related to the reader in an historically accurate setting, with the young man and his friends/family mixed in. You'll not regret reading these books, nor anything Levy writes. He's a true writer with the experience to back it up, and writes like he'd be "bench racing" with you over a beer. Here's his website: http://lastopenroad.com/
Hey there, this looks like my lifetime project. (time wise that is!) Well im definatly glad your keeping at it. Cant wait to see that cossie engine running. Yno i thought about getting that done for my car waaaay back about 10 years ago. Such a cool setup. Then i priced it at the Ford dealer for about $7500. Not even including the hotrod shortblock for another 2000. Game over for me. Still though it ought to be a wild setup when your done.
Cant Wait!
Lets see more if you can swing it!
Thanks, it's been a long project. I had even put the thing away for a year or two off and on. Lately, though, I've had a little more time and $ to get some things done. I've done so many do-overs that I've singlehandedly kept ebay in business selling new/old stuff! My latest and most expensive purchase, other than the engine, was the Quaife dog box. It was the last "big" lump I had yet to buy. Now that's done, and it's just a matter of time before I get the last little bit of welding done inside the tub, then it's off to the rhino-liner, back home, wiring, drivetrain, tires, paint, and glass. It doesn't take long if you say it fast, but it seems to take awhile when all you have is a rare weekend, coupled with a kitchen pass for the whole day, a rare combination, indeed.
Ok, here are a couple of new ones: one is the side of the car. The fuel cell obviously doesn't go there; it's just there to get it off the floor while I was working inside the trunk. The other is of the right rear hub. You can see the mini-quickchange rear end under there if you look closely enough.
The picture of the engine is when I had it in mockup, so I could run the oil lines, etc. You can see the dry sump tank in the foreground.
I have to shrink some more pics down to 100KB size before I can post any more, but I'll work on it.
Paul/Cossiepinto
PS Hey, 71'er, that's a nice ride. By the way, what size tires are those front and rear?
Hey looks like were somwhat in the same boat LOL! My project was to only take "6 months"! Told everyone i know that. Then when it was about 2 years into it, my current boss asked me "so when do you think youll be done?" I told him "bout 6 months, Tops!" Well that was 3 years ago HAHA! SO 6 years later im still dinking with it. About 3 weeks ago, I went to actually run the dam engine , fill the transmission with fluid, time it, and adjust the carb a bit. ("Im going to drive this dam thing!!!" I thought....) Well after running it for about 5 min i shut it off to go get some trans fluid and before i could get out the door, the asst manager came a knocken. "its too loud and you shouldnt be working on it bla bla bla etc etc. DAAAMM! Sigh... OOook sorry.... :(
So yet another hurdle in the never ending saga of "lets keep robert from driving his project car"
To actually answer a question that you did ask, The current tires on the pic is 205 50 15 front and 225 60 15 rear. I thought id have a tought time fitting the fronts, then when the wheel wells swallowed the tires i went "crap"
(Hated them. They'd look good if they didnt have that nasty rim lip protector and if i could lower the front about 2". But cant cause of the headers and deep sump pan. Oh well) So i eventually got some new ones that i havent put on yet. 205 60 15 front and 245 60 15 rear TA radials. It will be tight in the rear but well see what i have to do.
And on a last note, the second biggest hurdle im facing is to get a $320 Cowl hood for the car. I lowered the engine almost 1.5" but still didnt get me enough room to run a regular drop air cleaner. Ive tried everything i can think of. The dam Air Gap Edelbrock is nearly as high as the victor jr. So i gained some room on the bottom, but lost more at the top! LOL. Anyone local need a perfect stock hood?? ;D
Sorry to bogart your thread, i just get going when i start talking about it LOL. When i get my photoshop reinstalled ill get some resized pics up as well.
You do incredible work, cant wait to see it together!
Quote from: cossiepinto on April 20, 2009, 06:52:01 PMYou can see the mini-quickchange rear end under there if you look closely enough.
That's a real nice looking setup. What brand/make is that rear axle assembly? And are you going to need thse multiple leaf rear springs? Have you considered a single leaf spring arrangement?
The rearend is a mini-quickchange from Speedway Engineering. I wanted a floating axle rearend and found they made them for the 8-inch rear, but wound up buying the quickchange for only a few hundred dollars more. I know it's going to sing with the straight cut spur gears out back, but so will the straight cut gear transmission, and everyone likes stereo, so what the heck?
I bought the rear leaf springs from Landrum Spring a few years ago, and although the picture doesn't show it (not installed) I put a big sway bar on the back as well. It's going to be pretty tail-happy with the big bar, I bet, so I put a slightly bigger one on front to try to tighten it back up. This sway bar size/spring rate stuff is all theory at this point, and I'm sure I'll need to tune on it some once it can motivate on its own.
And 71'er, don't worry about "bogarting" this thread. I'm gleening every bit of info I can from guys who are ahead of me on tire sizes and stuff.
Oh by the way, the front end is Heidt's tube stuff in the "stock" configuration, with Koni shocks I got from Walsh a few years back, springs that'll hold the thing up until I get the engine back in (then I'll decide what I need), Wilwood's new spindles that use GM-style (ptooey!) brake caliper bolt up flanges, fabricated caliper brackets for the Wilwood Dynalite calipers, 11.75 rotors and the Speedway hubs. That was a mouthful!
On the Wilwood spindles, seriously, if you are doing ANY fabrication for larger than standard rotors on custom hubs, anything that you can't get over-the-counter parts or kits for, check out those spindles. They have a 2-inch drop, but the best thing is the caliper brackets bolt up only in one plane, so you can adjust for different rotor thicknesses, etc. I only wish Wilwood would have had them out earlier! Check them out at Wilwood.com (and no, I'm not a Wilwood rep, I just am tickled to death about them!).
you answered everythign i was thinking last night while looking at this post.. was thinking what the hell did he put in there, and where do i get some of that.! :lol:
thats gunna be one sick pinto :o
Oh man, what a setup, excellent work, best wishes. I wanted to comment on your timeline - about it taking so long. I bought my wagon last June. Now, we're getting close to a year. How much have I completed? Well, the more I dig in, the longer it takes. Now I am doing stuff I did not dream of doing, but hey, I love it. I'd call it about 35% done at this point.
My wife looked at me about two weeks ago, and asked "so, when do you think it will be on the road"? I chuckled, and said "next year". "Next year?", she asked, puzzled. I said "yup - still have a lot to do." I guess I lied when I brought it home and told her that it would take a little fixing up....and now it's going to end up a full blown restoration. She does NOT understand.... :rolleye:
Can't help myself. Like I said, I love it. ;)
Chris
Paul ,
I've always been a patient man, but This car and project gives me a Real case of "Stimulus".
Cossie Stimulus, when you know the moment's right! :D
Pintosopher
Ok, popbumper, you'll have to work on that Pinto for about 16 more years to beat my record! Go ahead, everyone, have a good laugh. Heck, I have to laugh just to stay sane about it myself. When I first started this project, it was with '74 trunk model/blown 2.0 liter I bought from a repo-lot dealer here for $80.00! The first thing I did was register it so I could be sure I had a clear title.
Then the work began. I was on a 5-year timeline, planned on using an Esslinger-type 2 liter OHC engine, but lusted after the Cosworth-developed BDA engine. The prices for one of those was starting even then to get out of reach, but I waited for just the right opportunity to come along in the way of a "retired" Formula Atlantic engine or something like that.
The opportunity never materialized, or if it did, I was not able to take advantage (translation: not enough cash on hand), but on a trip to California to pick up the vintage Pinto racer (see the attachment), I happened by Cosworth in Torrance. They were just then buttoning up the YB Cosworth for a sprint car customer. It was love at first sight!
A year or two later and I had one, in kit form, sitting in my shop. Well you know the rest of the story, since it's much like the ones we've all had: no end to the neat things to do to this pedestrian little car, enough racing heritage to make parts surprisingly available and cheap, if you know where to look, the endless apologies to friends and coworkers (and spouses), when you admit to them that you're working on a freaking PINTO! "You mean the blow-up car? hahahaha!" Yeah, yeah!
And as popbumper said, the inevitable question from the Office of Management and Budget; "Sooooo, what are you gonna do with it when your'e finished? Or ARE you ever gonna finish?"
Fill in your own Pinto color, body style, engine type, etc. and you can finish my story!
Pssst, what we know but can't admit, even to ourselves is this: We're NEVER gonna finish it, even if it's driven daily!
cossie you as well as so many here are just inspirations to the rest of us who are thinking "what the hell am i going to do now?" What do i need now? so on an so forth. we see your work and are re-motivated to get back to our own cars and continue that long trying process of making the dream a reality. Thanks =) keep at it. and cant wait to hear that you have it on the road and or track. Ive been workin on my wagon for three years now and ive barely scratched the surface with so much already to do.
Pssst, what we know but can't admit, even to ourselves is this: We're NEVER gonna finish it, even if it's driven daily!
[/quote]
In my best YODA voice: "There is no finish, only begin or don't begin"
Chris
This is a good thread for all of us that are always in the middle of something on our pintos. it is amazing all the stuff we do that we didn't plan on. for me it is replacing the motor. Ok plus a lot of other little stuff like wiring and new gauges and , and, and, .........................
But i wouldn't trrade it for the world as it keeps me as sane as a Pinto owner can be....
I agree. its been a long run but there is only a beginning, never an end, soon as you think your done another Idea hits you like a mack truck. but thats fine by me.
Thanks for the nice words bobcat and others. Yeah, it's nice to belong to a community that's as enthusiastic about the Pinto (and Bobcat) as we are, for varying reasons, to be sure, but enthusiastic nontheless.
Like I said, when you tell your friends, family, or coworkers (I'd suggest witholding your Pinto secret if you're interviewing for a job or for a mate, at least at first!) and they react the way they do, it reminds me of this saying: "From the outside looking in, it's hard to understand, and from the inside looking out, it's hard to explain."
I'll try to keep updates coming in, hopefully they won't be just babysteps or too much detail. At least with this crowd I won't have to explain the motivation!
Paul/Cossiepinto
PS Oh, by the way, I have a 1975 Ford Parts Manual set (Text and Illustrations) I would like to send to someone, anyone, in the group who is working on a '75. The books have outlived their usefulness to me, so I'd like to pass them on, FREE of charge, to anyone who will pay the shipping. They weigh almost 10 pounds, so USPS Flat Rate Box shipping is $10.35 to anywhere in the continental U.S.
Anyone interested, email me at paulramsey@suddenlink.net and let me know how to get it to you, first come, first served! You can mail me a check or something.
Paul my project is nowher near as involved as yours, and it will never be completed.
Thanks for the manuals, they will help me with my stock project.
Leonard
P.S.
Yes, that is a Galpin Ford/Sepulveda California logo. Actually it was painted on. I saw that Pinto race at Laguna Seca back in 1972. The 2.5 Trans Am cars raced on Saturday in support of the Can Am cars on Sunday. I was in the pits and took pictures of the Pinto, as well as a B Sedan Pinto that day. (You can see more pics of this and the B Sedan car in Pintosopher's gallery...I sent him the pics awhile back and he posted them.) The Trans Am Pinto ran 9th after cutting a tire when it went off in the rain, pitted, and came back on the track a lap down, but it was fun to see how well it was going. Years later, in my search for a Pinto project, I found that very car. It was owned by a David Boyd in North Hollywood, who found it lying dormant at Shankle Engineering, I believe. He raced other cars as well and didn't have time to run the Pinto, but he didn't want to see it deteriorate any more from lack of use.
I bought it with the idea of racing in vintage racing, but it had not caught on very well yet in Texas, so after a couple of years, I sold it to John Ed Smith of Knoxville, Tennessee. He is campaigning it still, I think. That picture I posted is actually from when the car was at Road Atlanta and driven by the famous B.S. Levy. If you don't know who he is, check him out..he's one of the best motorsports journalists/novel writers ever! Buy and read all four of his novels, starting with The Last Open Road. You'll love them! B.S. Levy is a self-proclaimed "ride mooch", who co-drove the Pinto that day. That picture is in one of Levy's books. It caught my eye, so I emailed him, and he confirmed that he'd teamed up with Ed Smith for that drive and won their class that day in the rain.
Anyway, the car was driven/owned by George Cheyne (now deceased) when new and he got lots of help from some folks who would read as the "who's who" in historic racing today: Dave Bean (West Coast Lotus, etc dealer), Red LeGrand (Legrand Racing cars - sports racers and formula cars), and Lee Dykstra (Ford GT-40 suspension designer), to name a few, and all under the umbrella of the famous Galpin Ford. After SCCA folded the 2.5 Trans Am tent in 1972, the Pinto went on to run in IMSA Baby Grand with some success. Lots of history there!
Leonard, your books are on their way. I dropped them off at the post office less than an hour after we spoke on Saturday. Enjoy!
Paul/Cossiepinto
Paul I received the manuals today at about 1:30. Thank you very moutch I will send the $$$ tomorrow.
Thank you for the reply to my question on the blue Pinto.
I would like to see more photos of your cossiepinto!
Thank you.
Leonard