Avenger188's 1975 Avenger race car build

[avenger188]

Hey guys,

We have started to work on the Avenger we picked up last year to build into a race car. It was used as a race car years ago & had been sitting idle in a paddock for at least a decade before it was bought by us.
Here are a couple of photo's of it not long after we got it home.




We have decided to upgrade the front brakes & suspension first, mainly because the brakes were rusted on & prevented us from moving the car easily.

The car already has Ford Cortina calipers & rotors on the front but we have decided to replace these with Austin Princess 4-pot calipers & 2.8 Capri vented front rotors. This combo should help to pull the car up nicely.

Here is a comparison between the Cortina & Capri rotors




Here's one with the Capri rotor bolted to the Avenger hub



This shows the Austin Princess calipers - the caliper on the right in the top photo has a spacer kit in the middle to allow the wider Capri rotor to fit. Calipers will need to be rebuilt & cleaned up before they go onto the car.





For the suspension we have modified the struts using adjustable platforms bought from autolign. To start with we will run 475 lbs front springs that we had on the shelf in the garage as spares for one of our other cars. We will play with the spring rates once the rest of the car is completed.

This photo shows the strut with the adjustable platform welded into place



and this one shows the completed strut



While the suspension was apart we also cleaned up & painted the suspension arms, here are a couple of before & after shots




Bolted it all up & this is how it looks, excuse the dark photo



We will post more updates as we get more work done in the coming weeks

[avenger188]

Just a quick update after working on the car today.

Bolted the rest of the front suspension up & sat the car on the ground for the first time with the coil overs installed.



We still need to adjust both sides so the car sits level but this is an indication of the ride height.

We then started to remove the engine & gearbox....





in preparation of putting this in the car instead.....




We decided that we are going to run a Nissan SR20de engine & gearbox out of a S14 Silvia.

Will continue to remove the engine & gearbox tomorrow once we have borrowed the engine hoist we are going to use.

[avenger188]

Finished pulling the motor out today,




Then pushed the car outside, covered the engine bay in de-greaser & water blasted it to get rid of all the grime that had built up over the years,





That's all for today, the next thing we need to do is put the new engine & gearbox in so we can see where it needs to sit & then fabricate some mounts for it

[vitamin c avenger]

Hey what are you doing with your old motor and gearbox?

[mikeystoy]

would the early capri rotors fit the avenger hubs without mods? do they work with the stock calipers?