Healey Sports Cars

I got the car off of ebay with a SBC and TH-400 in the car... An absolute blast to drive, handles like a dream and drives my z06 under the table as long as your careful with it... The car weighs 1456 lbs, iron headed 283 bored .50 over to make it a 290. I believe someone posted about this car earlier when it was for sale on ebay. Anyways, after driving the piss out of the car, I wanted to update it and as someone else said, do something for the aesthetics of the car. Here goes nothing...
In goes a built LS6 from a Z06 corvette, backed by a 200-4r transmission for the overdrive gearing. I drove all the way from Memphis to Omaha, Nebraska to pick up one of the few remaining Thomas Denner hoods and it's getting fixed and re-gelcoated as we speak. Engine will fit under the bonnet, side pipes are gone, exhaust will be under the car. Car will be red with new black interior, you'll like the console and shifter I promise. Engine controlled by FAST XFI, Touch screen will be installed also in the console to monitor engine, etc... I had it lying around from a previous project. I'll update as best I can but a lot done for now.
First pic is a quick video, you can click on to hear the car....














A lot more to follow, heres a previous one I was building.... a total basket case that was more rust and bondo than car but built the frame work for what I'm doing now.

also, brakes will be wildwood fronts with the big drums remaining in the back, master cylinder will probably get dropped down some into the driver footwell, but there is tons of room and it will be up high where it won't be noticed.

So, here you are out in the backyard, casually undertaking a project that most people would need a fully equipped workshop and many months to get done. Respect.... and with a glamorous supervisor...
In its eBay listing, the car looked like a candidate for the uglybug ball, but in your pics it looks, or that should be looked, a lot better. Do agree though that the scoop and sidepipes did nothing for it.
Surprised you're using the 200R4, wouldn't have thought it would handle the torque?
And, your new front-end with no vents, you reckon the cooling will be OK... well...

Look forward to seeing it go along.
Thankyou for posting.

Ivor

This looks really interesting and that Denner bonnet is a unique piece. Have to share Ivor's concerns about the airflow, though. Should be a lot of fun. Please keep us posted.

I'm kind of partial to the 200-4r, I have one in my blown 69 Camaro and it's been a fantastic piece. Once the TV cable is adjusted properly it's good to go. I'll have my core rebuilt to hold the horsepower and the core only cost me 100 bucks locally so I can't really complain to much. I doubt the lack of hood vents will be a problem, there are no wheel wells on the car, so the sides right by where both exhausts will go down will be open to airflow minus the wheel stuff in the way. even with the iron headed SBC in the car before it always ran cool as long as I didn't forget to turn the fan switch on... This time it will be controlled via theromostat switch through the FAST setup. A lot more to follow, I'm going to get some sheet steel today to do some fab work on the gas tank, the old one was good but I want to maximize some of the space I have a little better and open up the area behind the driver a little bit better... More to follow.

Nice Yenko stripes!

Not much to report, although I got my wiring harness in today and I'm getting that all mocked up and ready to go. It should look good when it's all done. The old brake pad for the front is pictured here, wilwoods will be a lot bigger... The rear brakes are big drums from a 63 bel air car. All suspension is custom built and frame built under the car to support the horsepower.



The Camaro was my daily driver before this one, I love the car built it from a hulk to what it is now, sbc 142 blower, full suspension, etc, etc... fun car... until I drove this one, it's night and day different and 100 times more fun.

And to think the guys with the kit Cobras are always talking about high horsepower in a short wheelbase. This will show 'em!

The plans have changed for now, purely because of the amount of fab work I'll have to do to get everything to fit under the hood...I got the Thomas Denner hood back and it's a ton of fab to get everything to fit under that hood. I really don't want to cut the Thomas Denner hood since it's so rare, so I think I'm going to toss the other front end back on the car and use my old stock hood instead of the ugly other hood. Of course I'll have to cut that hood in the center but It'll have to do for now until I can come up with a game plan on the other , which will probably entail dropping the motor down about 6 inches. That will mean I will need to cut the sides by the footwells and figure out a new way to setup the steering, plus some frame modifications. The side pipes will still be gone but there will be an engine coming through the hood now... I'll post up 2 options though, I'll post up pics here soon, but it would either be an LS2 intake with rails and 90 mm TB, or a magnacharger.... I figure if it's going through the hood, might as well go full retard.

No doubt you will have some sort of bulge on the hood. I am sure that your new engine with either option has a lower profile than the Chev small block that the car came with. If you drop the engine too low then you have the constant wory of taking out your oil pan unless you go with a dry sump.
Oh the joys of stuffing a large engine in a dinky little car!!

Cheers
Byron

So theres option A...

Then theres option B...

Both stick through the hood by quite a bit due to the sloping of the hood down in the front. I figure if it's going to go through the hood, lets make it epic!!!!!!

so obviously I have to cut this down a few inches and do some trimming front and back, also the panels will go under the dash and have a hidden audio system and 2 speakers, 1 by driver and passenger leg under the dash. The console will be covered in vinyl also, and the touch screen will be molded into the existing dash in place of the existing gauges... speedo and tach will remain. let me know what you think, I wanted to make the car something completly different and as fun as possible to drive.

have you thought about the heat and how to make interior liveable?
considered a one piece fiberglass tilt front end?
easier to mold glass than metal for engine clearance.
nice mag charger

[www.preformresources.com]

Maybe you could use one of Dave Craddock's bug eye hoods,

yeah, I looked at other hoods, not a big fan of the bugeye bonnets plus I don't think I'm going to be able to gett the cooling sorted out like I want with the bugeye hood... The interior wasn't bad at all with the side pipes, but now I'll have the exhaust running under the car and I'll put heat shielding and undercarpet padding down to help with that. The old front end I'll be using is a steel tilt front end, I'll just have to cut the hood.

there are some nice midget hoods available, I had thought about putting the midget hood on my bugeye for the reasons you stated about cooling, plus flairing of fenders would not look weird

I'm just kinda getting stuff together and test fitting right now. I plan on getting quite a bit done over the next few weeks to include painting the car. heres the new radiator and fans, it's a dewitts notched radiator and it's badass with huge fans... shouldn't have any issues keeping the car cool. The tranny cooler will get mounted under the oil pan with a fan on it to make room for the heat exchanger for the supercharger to go on the front of the radiator. The water tank that comes with the maggie setup wouldn't really work so I got a different tank that I'll mount in the trunk. Got to fab up an alternator bracket, with alot of help from John, it'll go on the driver side. Thinking of a couple of filter ideas, gotta get the hood on with the throttle body and just see what fits best I guess. Coil packs will get relocated under the dash.

Got the car torn down yesterday and started addressing the problem areas. Got a lot of the car blocked already, cut part of the hood but still got to add metal back in the back and cut some more off of the front. Old Austin Healey grill will be up front, but so far I love the look, it's totally a sleeper car!!!!! Got a good friend in town helping with the body work. I'll post up todays progress later on.

Wonder what says "sleeper" more, the supercharger or the Kilduff shifter?

Yeah, I was kidding around, there's no hiding what it is now. I can't wait to get her back on the road again, should be insanely fun to drive. The side profile pic really shows how much you'd have to do to get one of these engines under the hood. Even with an ls2 intake flipped around backwards, you'd still have to drop the engine almost to the ground and shove it back into the drivers compartment to get it to fit. The oil cap even comes through the hood on the valve cover.

cut the front of the hood and moved it to fill in the space in the back behind the supercharger, also gave me room to turn the elbow down off of the throttle body... got a lot of options on the filter so we'll see what we come up with, oddly enough the car will be a daily driver so I'd prefer to not keep it up in the elements like rain, etc... already have to spin the scoop around on the Camaro when I drive it in the rain.