This sled is definitely going to be a long term project. I picked up a pretty rough tunnel, so it was a perfect candidate for a race sled. I don't have any pictures of the tunnel when I got it, but it was torn right up. At some point in the past, there was new aluminum welded to fix the gashes. They did a decent job welding it in place, but even that plate was torn right up. If you look at the pictures below, that was after I re-skinned the top of the tunnel. I used a piece both on top and below.
The belly pan was partially gone, and it turns out the pipes I want to run won't fit in the belly pan. I ended up just cutting away most of it, and will run it as is with the pipes coming out the side. I need to figure out a way to mount the hood with no bellypan. I do have some ideas, but I'll have to play around.
With the hood, I started off with one that didn't look too bad, but was actually pretty rough. In the first picture below, I was already starting the work. The area under the headlight actually had cardboard sandwiched inbetween the fiberglass. I had to cut most of it away and re-glass it all. I ended up filling the windshield mounts as well as the air breather went. I want it to look like a proper race sled, and this way it'll match my 340 F/A oval sled.
I still need to pick up quite a few parts for the sled, but I am really excited. I've got a 440 F/A top end that ported and a nice set of pipes. I need to have a crank rebuilt and I'll assemble the engine. The other big modification is I want to run a jackshaft. I'm not entirely sure how I want to do it, but I may end up using the drive assembly off a GPX or something. Not too sure. Any suggestions?
These two pictures will give you an idea how it will look with the engine and pipes mounted.
