Street Serpent #5

[steponz]

Cool, Can't wait to see it....

Any chance I can get a carbon fiber hood with a good clear coat on it?????

Is the car staying yellow??????


Joe

[Austin]

Looks like its coming along nicely. As usual, great work, Jeff.

[Jeff Lemke]

Originally Posted by steponz

Cool, Can't wait to see it....

Any chance I can get a carbon fiber hood with a good clear coat on it?????

Is the car staying yellow??????


Joe

Yes, we just finished a CF hardtop that looks pretty good and is very light.


Yes, the car stays YELLOH.

Jeff

[SylvanSRT]

id leave the CF top raw

[steponz]

I would like the hood raw... Can you PM me a price... I know we have talked before about it.....

Thanks,

Joe

[Jeff Lemke]

As I stated earlier, I was not satisfied with design of the uppermounting brackets for the splitter cables. The top picture is before modification and is designed to bolt through the plastic bumper reinforcement. Because of the splitter size and knowing that this car WILL see the racetrack, we've redesigned the bracket to mount to the frame of the car for increased leverage strength.




Not a very exciting update, I know, but hopefully we'll get into the swing of things here soon.

Jeff

[Jeff Lemke]

OK, this does not entirely relate to this Street Sepent project, but I figuired I'd show what's been delaying me a bit. This is a special order CF hardtop for an over seas customer. This is the first one I've built entirely from CF and it weighs in at 24 lbs with headliner and glass window.

It's quite light and very much reminds me of that showcar from a few years back. There are no plans for a hardtop on this car.

Jeff





OK, were going to take some time to organize and clean the shop then back to work on this car!

[WOT!]

Rick, I think you should add the hardtop for Paula.

I like the look of it.

[SD SRT Coupe]

I have always wondered how a yellow coupe would look with two racing stripes that were actually just two unpainted lines of dark carbon fiber running the length og the car....

[SRTLEN]

That car is gonna be bad ass!

Nice hardtop, looks alot like the Carbon Concept.
Have you changed the headliner ? Looks great.

Len

[SylvanSRT]

awesome top Jeff beautiful work as usual !

[Jeff Lemke]

Thanks. Yes, Len, there is a new headliner in the tops. If you can get your top to me, I can install the newer version no charge.

[SRTLEN]

[quote]
"If you can get your top to me, I can install the newer version no charge."


Thanks for the generous offer Jeff but I am happy with the current liner, works just fine for me.

Len

[Jeff Lemke]

Moving on to small details....

We trim the trunk lid key hole with a dremmel to the correct shape and fit the mechanism. The latch hardware is installed and the original trunk bumpers are rivited into place.






Most all of this gets removed again for the paint process.

[Billy The Kidd]

how did you secure the latch mechanism to the decklid?

[Jeff Lemke]

There is a reinforcement plate that is about a foot long and has nuts welded to it. This is located on the back side of the inner fiberglass structure just like the original decklid. The original plate can be used but it is glued and rivited to the panel and hard to remove. We made our own plate here, which will get rivited into place once it is powdercoated. For right now, it is raw steel cannot be seen in the picture. I'll try to remember to photograph it before we rivit it into place.

[Billy The Kidd]

How did you build out the bodyline gaps? The decklid I got needs about 1/4 in to be filled out where it meets the quarter. The quarter cannot be pulled in any more so the lid has to be built out. What is the best way to remedy this?

[Jeff Lemke]

What spacers are you using on the quarter panels? I'll show more detail of the rear assembly on Monday.

Jeff

[Scott_in_FL]

Jeff, have you figured out how far out we can push out the track with wheel spacers on a stock body? I've always thought the four corners were a bit "tucked" under the fenders and would love to see a kit for stock wheels to be spaced out about 15-20 mm. Of course, the wheel still needs to lift into the well without hitting the outside edge of the fender. It seems we would need the entire hub though, because the stock lugs are likely too short. Any thoughts on offering something like that for sale?

The build looks incredible by the way.

[Nader]

With the weight of the stock rims and tires and the torque of the V10, I would recommend spacers that large.

I thought the same about the stock rims setup. The rear in particular was too far into the rear well.

When I put the HRE package on my car, the offset was perfect.

here it is.

[ROCKET62]

As I am in the process of doing this conversion, I did try to find various sources for wheel spacers. The only other solution that I came up with was these spacers from H&R. Their advantage would be the fact that you do not have to remove the stock studs. Not quite sure if this makes sense to me or not? Also, I believe that there is a special tool available to be able to press the stock studs out without having to remove the wheel bearing. Here is a pic of the H&R spacer which I believe is available in 25 or 30mm sizes ($150/$170 pair):

[Nader]

I doubt they would be able to produce something like that for 6 lug pattern without compromising strength.

[Jeff Lemke]

Originally Posted by Scott_in_FL

Jeff, have you figured out how far out we can push out the track with wheel spacers on a stock body? I've always thought the four corners were a bit "tucked" under the fenders and would love to see a kit for stock wheels to be spaced out about 15-20 mm. Of course, the wheel still needs to lift into the well without hitting the outside edge of the fender. It seems we would need the entire hub though, because the stock lugs are likely too short. Any thoughts on offering something like that for sale?

The build looks incredible by the way.

I think sticking with the 3/4" dimesion is about as far as you want to go.

[Jeff Lemke]

Going back to the decklid, basic installation gaps look something like this. We used 1/4" spacers




Final fitment and sanding will bring things in nicer.

[Jeff Lemke]

Moving up under the hood, we cut the "key holes" on the inner fender to acomodate the hood bumpers.

[Jeff Lemke]

Tips on the exhaust need to be fabricated to make sure it's headed outward. The ring and final tip will be added later and is not connected to the actual exhaust allowing the inner tip to float inside the outer. The outers are hard mounted to the sill and will get polished after fabrication.

[steponz]

jeff,

Looking good so far...

I am convincing my wife slowly to do this...

Can you pm me the prices if I was to send the car to you...

Thanks,

Joe

[Jeff Lemke]

ON THE GROUND!

Here is a shot with all components fully bolted into place, wheel wells, latches, ect.

We put the car on the ground to make sure it has a good stance and measure around the car for consistancy. In this case, the car has a fantastic stance and needs virtually no adjustment to match things up.



Here is an example: This splitter is measuring 3 1/4" clearance all the way accross.

That's LOW.

I think we're going to boost the Motons a bit to at least 4"

[Jeff Lemke]

Originally Posted by steponz

jeff,

Looking good so far...

I am convincing my wife slowly to do this...

Can you pm me the prices if I was to send the car to you...

Thanks,

Joe

Always the wife...

But really, can you blame them? It's not easy to take a car that already looks pretty darn good then start doing this to it. It takes some faith.

My wife was the worst because I had nothing to show her, it was all in my head. I thought she was going to die when she saw the "butchered mess" for the first time.

She loves it now, so it's all good.

Joe, a PM on the way.

Jeff

[mike & juli]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lemke

Always the wife...
But really, can you blame them? It's not easy to take a car that already looks pretty darn good then start doing this to it. It takes some faith.
My wife was the worst because I had nothing to show her, it was all in my head. I thought she was going to die when she saw the "butchered mess" for the first time.
She loves it now, so it's all good.
Joe, a PM on the way.
Jeff

Not always the wife or GF~~in this case, I'd be all for the Viper to look the way YOUR serpent is gonna look, Jeff!!!! GREAT work, and thanx for all the illustrations/explanations on the way...this Viper Gal appreciates it!! ~juli