'80 Lemans Tear Down

Well,

Like a couple other guys on here, I bought a car with the plan of just building a a motor and transmission, dropping it in and having some fun. One thing leads to another and before you know it, you're in deep. Well, about a year and a half later and here's the direction the fun has taken.

First thought was, "I wonder how hard it would be to get this Landau top off of this thing?" It snowballed from there...

Then went the front clip, then the body. The car was so rust free, other than the frame, I felt that I had to get that cleaned up. That's where it's at now...

The top wasn't bad, I just really didn't like it on the car. It would have always bugged me so it had to come off. The plan is to get the frame blasted and painted.

So far I have a 12 bolt housing out of a '70 Chevelle that I plan to put in it. I'm going to get it narrowed slightly and have c-clip eliminator type Ford ends welded on. I also called Moser and got a set of their g body lower control arm brackets to weld on in place of the a body ones. Someone had already removed the brackets so that will work out well.

The motor is going to be a big Pontiac. Not sure if I'll start with a 455 or stroke a 400 block. Either way it will be 460+ CI. The plan is to eventually be about 650 horse power. So far that's all that has gone into planning for the motor.

adam6640 said:

That looks 10 times better w/o the landau top MY opinion they never should of made em, have you thought of a different nose the 81 is more areodynamic and kinda resembles a 78 firebird keep us posted & with photos, cool car !

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I agree about the top. I don't regret one bit that I took the plunge and tore into it. Just gotta pick up all of the parts to finish it off as a hardtop car now. I did almost pick up an '81 front bumper for it a while ago. That ended up on Bonnewagon's car. I thought it might get messy with wiring going to 4 headlights

It's really hard to even picture the car now as the same car that I brought home. It would have been quite the "sleeper" as it was...