Project Street Fighter Debut

Today on muscle car, the guys pick a fight with a 71 Ka

and Ford picks a fight with Ferrari plus how to make your own windshield trim removal tool.

Hey, welcome to muscle car. The 71 Barracuda is our next project. Now UFC President Dana White, he needs a car that's gonna reflect his personality. So we're gonna build it for him. He's a man's man and project street fighter is a man's car.

The Barracuda was born in 1964 from the bones of the Plymouth Valley.

Over the next five years, it evolved slowly from a lumbering small block fast back to a respectable big blockhead turner

70 was the year Plymouth introduced the smoldering E body

and nowadays 71

Kotas are considered the cherry on top of the model line.

These babies are hot, hot,

hot

UF CS Dana White is gonna be pushing the pedals on this right. If we're gonna personalize it

on the quarter panel where you would usually advertise how many cubes you're packing around.

It's gonna have a big UFC with a brutal 440

modern suspension. Married to Chip Foose's take on the classic Mopar rally wheels. The only way we could make this baby any cooler is with a fancy pants, modern entertainment system,

which we are

after six months of sniffing around. We finally found a 71 that had more sheet metal than Bondo.

In fact, it's still wearing most of the original paint.

This car came from the factory as a standard Barracuda with the Slant six.

When we got it, it was missing its leaning tower of power, but that's ok because this show is called muscle car. Not

we,

for once we got a car that's clean enough that we don't have to have it blasted.

We're going to hand strip it, fix any minor problems. We know we'll run into and suit it up on UF CS signature black and gray.

There's a lot of reusable pieces on this car. Original Mopar parts are stupid expensive. So we'll be keeping as much as we can.

We're keeping all the glass except the windshield because it's taken a few hits over the years.

Mao's windshield removal kit makes cutting through the rock hard, 38 year old seals a lot easier.

The first thing we want to do is strengthen the skeleton and XB Motorsports help us out with the subprime connectors that will keep the front half of the car and married to the back.

The guy we got the car from already put in these nice fuel lines. So we're going to protect him by clamping them back out of the way and covering them with some welding paper,

undercoating and welding arcs. It will make the best of friends. It's a three M stripping disc and a couple of grinders give a shiny metal in no time at all.

And exhaust jack does a fine job of holding the connector in place while we market to trim for a nice tidy fit.

We're using a dye grinder because the amount of metal that needs to be taken off is minimal. No need to whip out the plasma torch here

when the part seats up tightly like this, that minimizes the need to weld up gaps between the metal and that means the car will be just that much stronger. Remember, the floor pans are a lot thinner gauge metal than the frame connectors. So when welding these in place, I got to be careful not to blow holes through the floor

with the sub frame connectors welded in. It's time to step it up the front end. So don't go anywhere because after the break, we're gonna chop out this old core support

and make room for some new steel

coming up on muscle car project. Street Fighter works out some weak points.

Hey, we're still here working on Project Street Fighter. Our plans for the suspension of this big old fish calls for a lot more than your basic bolt in components, but that means we need to address a factory weak link before we even touch the suspension score sports way too weak for what we've got planned. So reduce flex, we're gonna install a brace at Sean Highland.

Soon

the body side might be noisy but it makes a nice clean cut. Most of the old support is going away, but we're leaving some of it intact. We have something to weld to later.

A couple of passes with a grinder, knocks off the snaggle and makes for a clean weld.

Hey, this thing is strong enough now to jack the car up with

another source of unwanted flex with these inner fenders. Now from the factory, it's not a bad design, but it is an area that could really benefit from some reinforcement. So adding some bracing in here will really make a difference. You can feel when you're throwing this thing through the twisties.

The sheet metal, this bar needs to attach to is flimsy at best. So we need to box it in for strength.

Once I get the primer out of the way, a few pieces of plate will keep the bars from tearing out of the strut tower and firewall.

Uh

Now we told you we had something special planned for the front suspension and a project street fighter. And here it is XV Motorsports sent us their stage two front suspension kit and it's designed to make new Corvettes. See C

A tail lights

like every ride from the muscle car era. The 71

C has left a lot to be desired in the handling department. XB Motorsports engineering team analyzed the weaknesses and came up with a highly engineered suspension package to bring the A B and E bodies into the 21st century.

Now, the bracing we just installed as part of this kit, but here's the meat and potatoes.

The control arms are all aluminum and incredibly light

and these spindles are based off the Corvette design.

This K member is engineered to work with the 440 that horsepower built and has race car geometry built right in

before the new components can go on. All the old brackets have to go

the brake line brackets in the way. So it's out of here.

The coil overs come complete with their own bump stocks. So they're out of here too,

man. This looked like a rust free car. It's nearly 40 years old. So it's no surprise. We found some hiding under these brackets.

This needs to be patched. So I'll be working on this while we take a break

up next. An exotic Italian sports car meets American blue collar muscle.

Today's flashback, a 1972 Ford Pantera.

You may be asking yourself why am I looking at an Italian sports car when this is supposed to be a show about muscle cars? Well, this ain't your ordinary exotic car. It's a 1972 Pantera, an unlikely marriage of Italian style and Ford Muscle.

The story begins back in the mid 60 s when Ford was trying to compete against the Corvette and Ferrari. At

one point, it even tried to buy a Ferrari.

But when that deal fell through, Ford looked elsewhere.

De Tommaso, an Italian sports car manufacturer had been using Ford Motors and its cars for years, but they weren't sold in the American market.

They had a new design on the back burner. One that piqued the interest of Ford.

It had a monocoque chassis based around the new 351 Cleveland,

they inked a deal and in 1971 Ford brought the Pantera stateside as the sole distributor and marketer.

This unrestored numbers matching beauty is well loved by its current owner.

Oh, it's, it's a hoot. It's a throwback from the early seventies when we had muscle cars. It's just a lot of fun to drive. Handle. Great. Sounds great.

If you want to check out the Ford power plant, don't bother looking under the hood

to see the engine. You got to raise the trunk instead,

that's where you'll find the 351 Cobra jet

that pumps out around 300 horsepower. Thanks to the deep breathing heads, hot camshaft and a huge four barrel car.

The mid engine placement means less power loss, better visibility and better weight distribution, making it a breeze to drive at high speeds.

It handles like a race car. Thanks to its fully independent suspension with upper and lower a arms

coil over shocks, front and rear sway bars and four wheel power disk brakes.

You also got a five speed Z up transaxle pulling a posi

traction, rear end

wheels are cast magnesium and feature wider rear tires to give it better traction. Sporty styling cues include nifty pop up headlights and chrome bump,

barrettes, front and rear

really feels like a cockpit on the inside with its two seater set up and a huge assortment of gauges and switches.

The first year's models were plagued with problems, most notably the faulty ignition

Elvis famously shot his when it wouldn't start,

many of the problems were resolved by the next year and sales went up in 72 from 791 to 2061.

They are priced at around 10,000 as the

used to say

Ford intended it to be an elite sports car when that would draw customers into the show room, but sales never fully matched Ford's expectations and the partnership with Dave Tommaso

was dissolved in 1974.

Panterra

continued to be built and sold overseas until 1993.

Building a solid following of devoted fans. Just like this one.

It's an adventure to drive the car every time you're in it.

You got to be careful or you get a wife

after the break, find out why using tools to make tools is cool.

I like that

build on a budget, muscle car projects that save you time and money

well, Brent patches in the rust on the

Kudus frame rails. I'm gonna show you a little tip on how to save some cash and save some of your trim by making your own trim removal tool. Now, this stuff is easily damaged when you've taken it off if you're not careful and some of it can be darn near impossible to find.

Earlier in the show. You might have noticed I was using a specially designed tool to pull the trim off. Project Street Fighter, but you don't need to go out and buy one to get it done. You can make your own.

Now, all you need is a piece of scrap metal. I found some 16 gauge laying around that I'm gonna use and you need something to use as a handle. I'm gonna get fancy use an old piece of pipe.

I'm just gonna freehand this because the shape is pretty simple. A stem to attach the handle and a wide U shaped blade with a horn on each tip.

Now, I know most of you don't have a band saw, but that's ok.

Since we're working with thin metal, you can use a hack saw for even a grinder to get the shape you need.

Once you get the rough shape, cut out, go back and fine tune it with a grinder until it's just right.

The blade needs to be offset from the handle. So I'm using the brake to make the first bend but you can use a vice and a hammer just as easily

for my handle. I'm cutting a short length of tubing. You could also use a piece of wooden doll for this. Just make sure you attach it solidly to the body.

Another simpler option is to cut the whole tool, handle it all out of one piece of metal, then wrap the handle with padding and tape,

sweet

set to cool off and see if it works

now just because you got a tool doesn't necessarily mean you know how to use it. So I'll give you a little lesson here, slide it in behind there

and slide it up until you feel the clip behind it

and then roll it out

and pop it loose.

Kinda like that

cool works good, man. This thing is basically free. In fact, it works better than the one I paid 15 bucks for now using tools to make tools is cool, but we got a K member to install and Brent's probably done patching the frame rail. So I'm getting my butt back to the shop.

Hey, right on, man. That's

looking good. Appreciate it, man.

About ready to put this K member in. Yes, I am.

The KMM

bolts up using a combination of original mounts and holes. We need to drill.

XB includes a center punch designed to help locate the possession of the holes.

Once the ones in the bottom of the frame rail are marked, we can drop it down and get to drill it first with a small bit for the pilot holes. Then with a half inch bit to make room for the sleeves, we'll be inserting later.

The K members got to go back on so we can mark the holes on top of the frame rail, then it's back out again for more drilling,

these sleeves will keep the frame rails from crushing. When the K member is tightened down

the center punch we use to mark the holes assures that the sleeves will be installed perpendicular to the frame rails.

Once the wells are ground down a little, the K member can go in for a final test.

We plan on chasing Corvettes with this thing, but these old A

mounts would give up the fight. So they got to make way for X VS mounts designed to work with the customs.

They got the mount welded in, man. That looks great. I'll go ahead and fill in these holes. Sounds good to me. Cool. Hey, any professionals got to train hard for a fight and project street fighter is no different. We put the ko

on a dot and started building some muscle, but there's still a long way to go before it can roll into the octagon for its first fight. And next round, we're gonna be working on agility and finishing up the suspension. But for this week, we're out of time. So until next time we're out of here.