Project PT-57 By Hot Rod Jim's

I hope its alright to post our new project here. We needed a new work truck, we figured this would be a lot more fun than buying a new one. Here are the renderings of the PT-57.



We’re going the Pro-Touring route since this truck will become a daily driver for us. The truck will have all C4 Corvette Suspension, Air Ride with a cantilever rear suspension for added rear towing capabilities. LQ4 and 4L80E will power the PT-57 and C6Z06 brakes wheels and tires will let us put the power to the ground and put a stop to any load we’re pulling. Of course we’ll also have Heat, AC and some nice leather bucket seats from a 04 GTO so we can ride comfortably.

This is the link to a larger image if you want to see the details put into the rendering from Ben from Hermance Design
http://www.hotrodjim.com/immages/projects/in_progress/57_truck/rendering/l-1.jpg

I'll start posting more as our build progresses.

Thanks  
www.hotrodjim.com

Reminds me of a P-40 fighter plane.

 

That's the main source of insperation for this build. My grandfather was big into the military restoration so We had a lot of inspiration from him. This is a photo of my 57 150, The Black Widow, I sold a little while back. Morgan, the attractive young lady, is wearing my Flying Tigers jacket I inherited from my grandfather. I was the only one big enough to fit into it and my grandmother knew I would wear it and not try to make a monument out of it and just wear it.




Truck updates, Like a said up top I sold the 57 Chevy and started ordering parts and plugging bits into the computer so I can get the frame designed.

   

Some of the specific parts that have come in.

LS1 Custom cam from Thunder Racing with a custom torque converter.



these are the setup tires. The big ones are 345/35/R19's for the back and the little ones are 275/40/R18's for the front. I put them like this because some people have never seen this size meat before.

 

All the air ride goodies.  Air Ride's kits are so complete its scary some times. You can also see the side by side comparison of the front bags to the rear. With the extra length we'll be able to use our cantilever system and give the bag a mechanical advantage so we can pull trailers with no extra effort or soften them up and ride on air.  

   

The 4L80 transmission. we're planning some special bits for this one to make it a little more fun to throw around.  



For headers we take the C5 corvette headers from American Racing Headers and modify them to clear the transmissions. These are in a TriFive chassis but the clearance's are the same all around.

 


Click any of the photos to link to the larger ones


I'll post more as we move along on this project.
Thanks  
www.hotrodjim.com

More Updates
From 13, May, 2009

The Grill is going together nicely, we’ve taken out all the teeth, welded up the seams and slicked them off with marine tex. We’ve welded in holders on the back so we can start shaping the cross hare supports for the front.

 

Jim’s been shaping some exhaust tubing for our hood “Exhaust” These will be our heat ducts for the engine compartment and look like the old plane exhausts.



We’ve found the mother lode of body gods, Terry is in his late 50 and has been doing body work since he was 14. He’s been kind enough to take time out (and escape from his wife) to teach Billy and I tricks to body work. But despite being an old guy he’s up on the latest body world technology too. Front fenders are done and un warped thanks to Terry’s welding tricks. I’ve also rented him a space in the back of the shop where he can do other projects for guys he knows. We’ve also been getting a lesson on how much uni-body suck but that’s another story.



Exhaust Question’s
He’s the dilemma, the car will have LQ4 6.0 with a cam (274/274 .556 lift and 112+4 LSA) Long tube headers, 2.5” stainless mandrel bent tubing, TIG’d together, with a X pipe. There will be the turn outs in front of the X on a remote for “fun time” but my problem is what kind of song to I want the tail pipes to sing. I heard a ZR1 the other day with Borla mufflers and it sounded rowdy and all kinds of evil but at the same time I keep thinking go with the flow master 50 series. Their more reserved with a rumble of “I’m not stock” to them. I’ve got a set of both right now, Borla for a C5 race car I’m specing out and some Flow Master 50’s going on a 57 hardtop I’m doing too. What are the preferences of our members and why.



From 5, June, 2009

We’ve been rat killing down here and upgrading the shop. New toys and some reorganization move the welding table and getting some of the old Jigs out of the way. We’ve also been researching several parts and dealers.
New Band Saw



The Big News is that we will be going to SEMA this year and the truck with us. Part 2 we’ve also been invited to the Optima Batter Street Car Invitational’s with the PT-57. That presents a bit of a problem. See, I’m competitive by nature so the original plan of a good driving trailer pulling truck is going to need some modification to make the truck capable of running with the toys going out there. So we’re permanently halting the Meteor Project (Dad’s 57 Hardtop) and sacking some of its goodies for the Truck project. The LS7 we had for sale if you missed it. We’re going to be upgrading to a TKO600 or Magnum T56. LQ4 is going to transform into a 408 Stroker and several other upgrades to the chassis and suspension.

Cough cough, carbon fiber half shafts and drive shafts, cough cough.

As for the truck we’ve just about gotten the dash sorted out and hood vents are starting to come together. We’re building a new Jig table to make this project even easier and better so stay tuned.

The Hood Vents (Sorry but my good camera was gone so I took these on my Phone)

   

The Dash

   

Thanks Again
Russell
Hot Rod Jim's  
www.hotrodjim.com

Looks like everything is coming together nicely.  

Thanks, It’s a start. We’re building a new Jig table for the larger cars right now. We manufacture a frame for the 55-57 Chevys so it has its own jig but most of the time our custom frames are for small hot rod size cars so the old jig table that was only 12’ long, 4’ wide with a solid plate front to back and just wasn’t cutting it anymore. We’re doing the truck right now but we have a 67 GTO lined up next and then a C6 conversion to a 55 Chevy. The new table is much lower with no steel plate in the floor and a little longer at 200” and 70” wide. This will make mocking up these bigger wider cars much easier and nailing out the CG points will be cake. Of course I’ve spent almost a full week chasing .1 degrees here and there, weld, pull, shrink, and repeat. I’m almost done then we get to see this truck come together quickly.

Thanks
Russell  
www.hotrodjim.com

We have the new table finished. I spend 3 days tweaking and heat shrinking to make sure the welding from attaching the legs made the table square and level. Plus this metal is not that great from the factory so compensating for that as well. Got the cab up today the bead will be up on the table tomorrow with the rear fender and the big wheels.

Big change, after tweaking and playing with the C4 bits and pieces plus I started looking at widening the rear end to get some better wheel scrub radius. I was going to need 4” wider rear and the C4 hubs still have almost no scrub angle. From what I can tell it’s .25 degrees maybe, I almost thing there was something under the caliper at one point. Plus the brakes and on and on I’ve decided to just run the C5/6 goodies. I had 3-4 complete suspensions out back, I need to test the C5/c6 differential adapter we’ve built and it’ll be a whole lot easier to set up right. Pfadt sway bars only need to be shortened a little and bow-chick-a-bow-wow we’ve got fun. You can see the Solidworks drawings, this makes life so much easier.

As you can see a lot of the simplicity originally planned went out the window with our SEMA invite, oh well.

Potential project changes, TKO600 or T56 Magnum, Stroke out the LQ4 and a bump to the compression. Carbon fiber goodies here and there to include a carbon fiber driveshaft for reduced rotating mass.

I’d also like to thank Air Ride Technologies for sponsoring by upgrading our Shockwaves to the I.S. Internal Ride Height Sensors. One less thing to mount, more accurate, and lighter once you consider all the pushrods nuts and bolts used to prevent binding on the old ones. I’ll get some photos up when I get them back.

Solid Works Updates

   

   



PT-57 on the New Jig

   

   
www.hotrodjim.com

You guys got left out of the loop, sorry about that.

Changes
STS Twin Turbo System
T56 – Six speed manual
Coil over shocks - PFADT
Bigger the planed sway bars
And fun seats, lol.

 

 

 

HUGE thanks to Pfadt Racing for all their help.  Computer models, custom parts, theory vs. practical application on some ideas, they been nothing but helpful. Their shocks and swaybars up top going onto our truck.

More computer models but you’ll all see, it won’t tank more than 2 weeks to have this custom frame all knocked out and TIGed as well. Some of the steering arms I’ve designed to get the perfect Ackerman angle despite the longer wheel base and narrowed track. You can see in the photos, this is why I love the laser. I had them cut key ways into the parts so they all nested. I only used a scotch bright pad on a angle grinder and took the little scale from the laser off the surface taped it together with the hammer and TIGed it out.  We also got a full copy of Suspension Analyzer and I got to spend some time nailing out the suspension geometry so we should have some real fun when we start throwing her around the track.

   

   

   

   

   


Mmm Turbo, What we’re doing with the STS system is running the turbos out behind the rear axle and eliminate the muffler. Then run the boost back up to the front of the car and back into the motor.  The side pipes will then be hooked to the waist gate so when we hit full boost the side pipes will kick open and start blowing flames.



-Russell  
www.hotrodjim.com

Hope the build is going well. Run into any problems yet?  

Its coming well, we're getting the parts we need slower than I would like but I can't complain. The help we're gotten in the form of 3D models from the suppliers has sped things up considerably.

Update Aug 14, 2009

The first batch of Laser Cut Parts are here for the PT-57's frame.  You can see that the frame is designed with keys and center reinforcements to take the loading from the suspension and spread them out across the frame preventing deflection or flexing at the frame rail without making it crazy heavy.  With the interlocking frame pieces I weld the interlocking centers from the insides and tack them real heavy all over.  I was thinking of fully welding them but I warped one even after it had 5 C clamps holding it to the table.  The second one shown here was much easier with the heavy tacks. Got it all clamped together then started tacking the other side once I got all the individual parts tacked to both sides I didn’t have any problems and you can see she’s strait as an arrow.  

   

   

   

   

The Corbeau Forza seats got here Monday. I’m going to put them in my roadster for now and then into the truck if I can’t get a set of the  FX1’s. We plan on dyeing the seats silver and embroidering rivets into them to look like old aluminum bomber seats.



Suspension came back from Southern Powder Coating in Lockhart Texas. We left the ball joints in because I’m waiting on Aaron with Pfadt to get his first batch of their aftermarket upper ball joints in then I’ll swap them out but for now and mockup these will be fine. The C6 diff up on the table in place and I’ll get the suspension back to the hubs and we’ll get this chassis rolling ASAP.



-Russell
Hot Rod Jim’s
http://www.hotrodjim.com  
www.hotrodjim.com

Russel you better watch that Corbeau seat. I may come by and pick it up for a nice office chair.  

to late, I couldn't wait to play with it and I had a few hour of free time today so I put it in a 32 ford roadster that was abandon and is now mine. I'll get some pics tomorrow.

-Russell  
www.hotrodjim.com

Dang it on the chair, look forward to seeing your next set of photos.  

I forgot to post this last batch, I just pulled this from my old post.

Rear frame main rails are knocked out, that’s these parts.

   

 

The Front batch of laser parts came in, see the erector set frame on the table. I’ve tabbed and keyed everything to make them interlocking, they’re dropping together like a kids jig saw puzzle. That means all my geometry and angles I spent all that time working out with Solidworks and suspension analyzer will be duplicated in real life in a repeatable fashion.

   

   

   

   
www.hotrodjim.com

Update Aug 29, 2009

A little side by side for the guys who can't see it.

   

Brake and Clutch Pedals, Wilwood is now making this freaking cute little master cylinder with optional remote tank. Cool thing is this little bad boy has a 1.125” bore. So a pair for the brake system and one for the clutch, I’m aiming for a dual disk clutch and so the slave will need a little more fluid to disengage both clutches. I’m making a model to make designing the pedal system easier.

 

Turbos, Turbos, Turbos!
I can’t say enough good things about the guys at STS Turbos right now. Rick spent a day or 2 on the phone with me working out the specifics of the turbo and the design and placing of parts for optimal power. Next he went through the trouble to sort out there universal kit and pull out all the parts we didn’t need for our build and adjusted the price accordingly then specked out and supplied a cam specifically for our build. We’ll be pushing 6-7 PSI on 9.4:1 for the race making an easy 500+ HP. Considering I’m ditching the electronic cutouts and mufflers the only weight gain to the truck is the inner cooler and the compressed air piping. I’ll get more info up when our system gets here.  
www.hotrodjim.com