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  
-Russell

Hot Rod Jim's
Building cars that handle
www.hotrodjim.com

Thats a pretty cool retro project you got going on. Look forward on some build photos.  

It'll be a lot of fun. My grand father 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 grand mother knew I would wear it and not try to make a monument out of 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  
-Russell

Hot Rod Jim's
Building cars that handle
www.hotrodjim.com

I'm new here that is one COOL project. I own a 1971 F100 that I hope to do a restomod on soon.  

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  
-Russell

Hot Rod Jim's
Building cars that handle
www.hotrodjim.com

Your Hood Vent photos are pretty good for a iPhone. I have one to and I know that sometimes you always dont get the best quality pictures with it.  

Well, not and iPhone (I'm putting way to much money into cars for one of those) but a cell phone none the less.

We've got the truck and I'm working on acquiring a C5 corvette for a race car and so our customers can do a little side by side comparison in the c5 and I have a full time race car so I can really get some serious seat time in. I always end up selling the shop cars after I get comfortable in them, then get out of practices when I'm building the other cars. The Truck will compete in the Optima Battery Street Car Invitationals so it won't be a slouch by any stretch of the imagination.

-Russell  
-Russell

Hot Rod Jim's
Building cars that handle
www.hotrodjim.com

Well , I'm impressed. Welcome Jimbo, looks like I've got someone else to slap around some shop talk. You must have mastered the art of downloading photos. geez a computer savy guy and customiser all mixed in one , how rear is that. it takes me most of all my brainpower to focus on just on project. I guess that comes with baldness, blindness and muscle weakness, oh I guess old age doesn't help.  

When I glanced at your post about taking the photo I thought it said iPhone or maybe I wanted it to. Either way its a nice shot with a phone.  

Thanks but I'm 23 so being computer savvy comes with the territory. Dad starting the shop but when we started moving on to advanced chassis design I really started steeping up around here and this last January Jim turned everything over to me. I just realized I was suckered   .

I'll try to keep the updates coming.

Thanks again  
-Russell

Hot Rod Jim's
Building cars that handle
www.hotrodjim.com

Welcome to my world, now your really going to fry those brain cells, you thought computing was enough, now your going to feel the pressure. The good thing is you've got a great start.  Now lets get some close-ups of that sheet metal work and welding techniques to make sure the master has taught you well.
 Now PAYNEY, take note and learn, we'll get you on the straight and narrow yet, even though you will have the worlds first Classic truck full of baby seats and a bed full of nappies ( diappers). Just goes to show how experienced I am .......is that dieppers......diapars..........dippars...............hell I don't know..................WHATS THAT HONEY......I can't her you..........I'm stuck under the truck and can't get up.........................Can you get me a beer..........Hang on ..make it a BUNDY and Dry.  

Sorry hoss, no wife, no girl friend, and no kids unless you count my little brother but he's my partner here at the shop so I don't know if I can call him a kid. We're only 13 months apart.  I still let Jim and Terry (Family friend and awesome body guy) so the sheet metal work.  Welding, chassis fab and project engineering are my specialties.  I'm good at making them do this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOlrL35jg8Q&feature=channel_page
and this too when I'm off
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqWyz2b475Q&feature=channel_page  
-Russell

Hot Rod Jim's
Building cars that handle
www.hotrodjim.com

Love the 360 from your skid out on the second video. Looks like you did it on purpose...well almost.  

I tried to save it but that white concrete had never, NEVER, been rained on and only 2-3 months old. Lots of white powder in the areas that were untouched. In the video you can see the dust at the start of the spin then when I realized it was going around and I couldn't save it I just turned in and punched it let it go around and run with it then you see tire smoke.

trying to counter steer out of it
 
-Russell

Hot Rod Jim's
Building cars that handle
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

   

   
-Russell

Hot Rod Jim's
Building cars that handle
www.hotrodjim.com