Voracious Cuda "UNDER CONSTRUCTION"

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone. I have been a member for a few months. Since I joined our customers have told us we need to post some of our projects on here. So we decided introduce one of our projects. A Pro-touring Cuda build that is currently UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

We started out with a typical rotted out 1970 Barracuda Convertible. After consulting with the customer on what he desired out of the build. We decided to go the Pro-Touring route. Building the car around a 345/30/19 in the rear and a 265/35/18 in front. We consulted with Art Morrison and purchased a Max-G Chassis. We then purchased a 6.1 Liter SRT8 Hemi with a automatic transmission for starters. Due to the severity of the current body condition we also purchased all new body panels from AMD.

We decided to go the none traditional way and scraped the unitized style of the original car and fabricated our own body mounts/bushings and sub-rails. From there all the inner structure was change in someway to strengthen the car, while keeping styling and functionality in mind. While fabricating the car the outer sheet metal has been altered to make the car cleaner and smoother but not taking away the original style of the car. Every panel on the car has been modified in someway shape or form. Please take a look and give us some feed back on our progress. For detailed build pictures go to our web site www.gbrestorations.com Keep a look out for our other current projects and posts on Lateral-g.com.

[elitecustombody]

Looking great, love the stance:thumbsup:

[v8livin]

I just went through the first 977 fotos:_paranoid . It looks amazing! I've never seen a project that took on such an approach. Fantastic metal skills and attention to detail! Can imagine that it will be hard to let her go when its done.

Oh yeah, the 'current' fotos are the the same as the older ones just in reverse order. What am I missing ;) !

[tones2SS]

Very nice. I love pro-touring Mopars!

[SBDave]

verrry nice!

[waynieZ]

Very nice!

[GaryBetsy]

Thanks everyone for all of the comments and positive feedback. "V8LIVEN"thanks for taking a look at the pictures on our site. Ya there is alot of pictures on there. The reason we set up pictures on the site that way were to make it easier for the customers to see updated progess on there projects. Rather then scrolling through all of the 900 pictures. We are currently looking into a newer easier way to break up pictures. But yet again thanks for the feedback. Here are a few highlighted pictures of the project from the begining. More updates and pictures to follow.

[GaryBetsy]

Here are some more updated pictures to our cuda build. In these you can see us starting to attach some of our new AMD body pannels. Also we shaved the rear marker lights and our tires came in. More updates to be added soon.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone here are a few more pictures of the car. We wound up fabricating our own rear wheel wells and fabricated some of the trunk supports. We also got our new oil pan in and got it all ready to set it up for mock up. Take a look and give us some feedback.

[PasiR]

Outstanding workmanship :bow: :bow:

[syborg tt]

Car looks awesome - looking forward to veiwing the pictures on your site tonight

[GaryBetsy]

Thankyou for all of the positive feedback. Here are a few more updated pictures. Give us some feedback.

[Al Moreno]

One of my favorite body styles. Thanks for posting. Keep the epics coming. :thumbsup:

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone thankyour for your positive feedback so far. Here are a few more pictures of our Cuda build. It shows us making our custom one off rear bumper to simulate the stock style of the original. Also it shows us starting to fabricate the rear sections of floor pans and the start of our transmission tunnel. More pictures and updates to come. Give us some feedback.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey guys here are some new build pictures of the cuda build. We wound up fabricating a tubing structure for under the dash/cowl supports. This will allow us to attach all of our under dash componets. Take a look and give us some feedback.

[syborg tt]

car looks awesome - keep the pictures coming.

[millerman340]

Love me some drop top mopar! :thumbsup:

[GregWeld]

Having done this work myself -- I appreciate the hours and hours in this build!

Subscribed! I gotta watch this go together! Love these cars....

[GaryBetsy]

Thankyou everyone for all of the positve feedback so far. Here are a few more build pictures. We wound up fabricating our own firewall from scratch using all 16ga. sheet metal. We also locked in our front sections of floorpans. Take a look and let us know what you think. More pictures to follow.

[SuperB70]

Looks great, are those slots on firewall for some kind of hinges or for forward braces?

I like old school stuff made with Ewheel/Phammer/Shrinker& Shretch hand fab not buy from catalog/ bolt on style :thumbsup:

Want to see more...

[GaryBetsy]

Hey SuperB70 thanks for the positive feedback. And those slots in the firewall are for a front mount. More pictures to follow. But here is the new news. The current owner of the car is flirting with the idea of possibly selling this build. But we are determined on seeing this car all the way through to completion. We thought we would post this on our form to see if there is anyone that would be interested in seeing this project through to completion. There are alot of parts ordered and project is still moving forward and fabrication is almost finalized. We do have alot more pictures of the car they just have not been updated yet. Contact for more information.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone here are a few more pictures of us fabricating our motor mounts, transmission mount, and front sub structure mounts. Also us locking in our front cowl structure. Take a look and give us some feedback.

[CornHusker4Life]

That is one B.A. Mopar.

[millerman340]

Hope the owner finishing the car, It's too sweet of a ride not to finish.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone here are a few more updated pictures of the build. We wound up ordering a set of off the shelf stainless headers to try and help keep build costs down for customer. Were not to sure whether we are going to go the polished route or coated but with some minor modifications we got them to fit with plenty of clearance. Also our new radiator came in with the cooling fans. We fabricated our radiator halo and started to mock up our front sub frame structure. Also our new AMD shaker hood showed up. We wound up cutting the opening bigger and started to mock up hood opening. Thank you for all the positive feedback so far. Take a look at the new pictures and tell us what you think.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone here are some new and updated pictures of our build. We wound up ordering a set of off the shelf stainless steel headers to save on build cost. With some minor alterations they actually fell right into place. We removed the top collector O2 sensor and are going to install them in better locations when we get to fabricating the exhaust system. Also our all aluminum radiator came in. We fabricated our radiator halo and started to lay out our front sub frame structure. Take a look and give us some feedback.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone here is a few more pictures of our cuda project. We wound up ordering all new front sheet metal from AMD including a shaker hood, upper header panel, and lower valance. We aligned the fenders and started to square the nose. Due to the engine set back of 8 inches, we then determined to lengthen the shaker opening rather then moving the entire scoop back on the hood. We felt that by extending the hood opening would look proportional to the car rather then moving the entire scoop back. By extending the hood we wound up shaving the hood vents and went with he smooth style hood. You can see how far we moved it in the picture of the stock shaker trim ring compared the extended opening. Here are some pictures of our hood customization. Take a look and give us some feedback.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone in this next set of updated build photos you can see that after we locked in the location of the hood and front end sheet metal we continued with fabrication of the front tubing structure. We bent it all out of .120 wall DOM tubing and fabricated frame stand offs out of 1/8" plate. Here are a few of the pictures of us getting the structure all tacked together. Take a look and tell us what you think.

[SuperB70]

You got talent.

Looks nice, keep pic coming.

Are you mounting anything else than radiator to the support, just wondering why is it build so heavy or is it supporting hole front end sheets?

[GaryBetsy]

Thanks SuperB70. We really like how this project is coming out so far as well. Here is the next set of build pictures. In this set you can see how and why we laid out the front tubing structure the way we did. It not only supports the front end sheet metal but also allows us to mount our radiator and duel transmission coolers that we are running in series. This will allow us to run the auto trans at the proper temp and not allow it to over heat or get sluggish. After welding the front structure together we weighed it in comparison to what was originally holding the front and sheet metal. Not only did we add tons of more strength but we shave 50 lbs. Take a look at this set of pictures and give us some feedback.

[rjsjea]

Great looking work....thanks for posting:thumbsup:

[GaryBetsy]

Thanks everyone for all of the feedback. We do appreciate it. Here is our next set of build picture updates. In this set of pictures after getting all the front end sheet metal installed and gapped out we discovered that the body line in the new AMD front fenders wasn't lining up with the door body line. It was 1/4" off. You can really see it in the picture with where the body line was drawn on and where it was suppose to be. So we cut and welded up the fender and made/adjusted the body line. Also after we removed the pinch welds we had to fabricate a new lower fender attachment set up so we fabricated our own lower fender mount. We wound up drilling up through the rocker and attaching the fender in from the bottom. Take a look at this next set of build pictures and give us some feedback.

[G_T]

Nice solution for dealing with the pinch weld and bolting on the fender. I'm gonna have to remember this. :D

Awesome progress - keep it coming :thumbsup:

[elitecustombody]

Gary, that looks great. Do you know if the fenders are AMD or Golden Legion made by Dynacorn ?Did the part number start with an X ?

[GaryBetsy]

Elitecustombody: The front fenders are ordered right from AMD along with the rest of the body pannels we ordered.

Hey everyone here is a few more updated pictures of our cuda build. Well as posted earlier people wanted to know what we were doing with the marker lights in our front fenders. So we stuck with the rest of the theme of the car and went ahead and shaved those as well. Here you can see how we laid out to cut out the marker light recess. We cut out the recess so we can hammer weld and metal finish our welds to require no filler at all. We also make templates of the actual contour of the panel. We pre stretch all patch panels with the English Wheel, to fit the proper contours. This requires less metal work to the actual panel. Here are a few pictures of us performing this next step.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone here is another update of our build. This is step one of our front end bumper construction and lower valance. After spending the time to go ahead and fabricate our rear flush mount bumper. We started to look at the stock front bumper and decided that it just wasn't going to work. So we fabricated one from scratch just like the rear bumper. After looking at how we changed the shape of the rear quarters to fit the stance better we went ahead and used our same jigging plates from the rear and used them on the front. After doing that the lower valance was too narrow and we went ahead and changed that as well. We fabricated our own bumper mounts and fabricated the bumper out of 1/16" ga. steel. This stage only shows the basic shape and lay out of us fabricating the bumper and extending the lower valance. Stage two of the front end to follow. Take a look and tell us what you think.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone here are a few more build updates of our cuda build. This is Stage 2 of our front bumper and lower valance fabrication. In this set of pictures we finalized the new smaller opening of the lower valance. Also finilized the shape and fit of the valance to the new bumper. We fabricated the ends of the bumper and welded the bumper structure all together. Take a look at our new build pictures and give us some feedback.

[GregWeld]

That's turning out real nice Gary!

I like that nice tucked up tight look.

[KPC67]

This car, and your work are awesome!

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone. Here are a few more updated build pictures of our project. In this set we wound up getting our Rick Stainless Steel tank in and started to fit it in. We fabricated our own tank mounts and started to get it square and level in the car. We tacked in all of our mounts and then fabricated the start on our filler neck. We didn’t make the whole neck up still deciding on where we want to put our filler neck inlet. Take a look at our pictures and give us some feedback.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone. Here are a few more updated pictures of our current cuda build. We finalized our rear section of floor pans screwed them all in a welded them all up. Also we fabricated our trunk shelves acess covers and installed them as well as final welding up our filler neck on our Rick's Stainless Steel tank. Alot of progress has been made and we are going to be updated it as soon as possible. Take a look at this set of pictures and give us some feedback.

[waynieZ]

Beautiful work!

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone here are a few more build updates and pictures of our cuda build. You can see a side profile shot of the back half of the car with the quarter removed of our trunk shelf covers installed. We fabricated the top edge of the quarter panel to resemble the stock style revel due to the fact AMD only makes quarters with a sail panel. Also we fabricated a drain tube out of Stainless Steel to control how the flow water drains from the convertible top. Instead of leaking down the wheel well and filling up the quarter we have redirected it to flow through the tube and right infront of the wheel well. We have the whole back half all squared up and are waiting to make our decklid hindge assembly. But in the mean time we recieved our side mount brakeing system from Kugal, our Lokar E-brake assembly, and our Vintage Air mock up system. So we fabricated all the mounting tabs. With some alterations we got everything to fit under the dash. Take a look at this new set of pictures and let us know what you think.

[Tuske427]

Incredible work! It's looking awesome.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone we haven't been updating as much as we should but we have made some serious progress on our 70 Cuda in the past couple of months. Here are a few of the over seeing pictures of some of the fabrication we have been up to. First of all we modified our Hedman S.S. headers by removing the ball end style clamp and replace it with a V-band style to keep the exhaust tucked up in the car. Second we fabricated our custom exhaust hanger brackets and finalized our exhaust system from the headers to the mufflers. Next we fabricated our battery box for our Odyssey batteries and finalized our welding on the sub rails. We also welded in our front sections of floor pans. Finally we had our new deck lid hinges water jetted out. We finalized the machining and fabricated our mounts and got the deck lid swinging. No prop rods here we used all gas shocks. Take a look at these few pictures and tell us what you think.

[GaryBetsy]

Hey everyone, here are a new set up some updated build pictures of our Cuda. First of all we finalized our recesses in the fenders for our fabricated bumper. Second we welded up the front half our exhaust system including the headers. Finally we welded up and started to lay out for our new bear claw latch assembly with poppers. Take a look at our next set of build pictures and let us know what you think.

[dug]

It looks very good. You do nice work. I want to see the gas shocks/hinges all assembled- those turned out really nice. Keep at it:thumbsup:

Oh, and the stainless drain tube is genius.