FRANKEN-JAV… NASA American Iron AMC Javelin update

It’s been a little over 2 months since I brought the Javelin to Evil Genius and now it’s back home. John took a total disaster and turned it into hope. I have a foundation again and can finish the job of getting this thing back to being a working race car. it’s so weird to have this totally intact race car from the doors forward and then have this mostly stock back half (except for the fuel cell mount). ALL the little things that were done at the back half have to be re-done. It’s like going back in a time machine to the way the shell was when I was first building the car. As much as this all sucks it is interesting to have a chance to re-think things and do some things differently. The list of things I need to do is long. I need to start picking away at this list and see how quickly I can get back on track. Here’s what needs to be done (not in order):

1. make a new battery mount. I had been using a small battery located in the trunk but am considering going with a bigger battery and moving it forward of the axle, in the back of the passenger area.
2. need do a bunch of misc. body mods like – pull the side trim, fill the side marker lights, fill the trunk keyhole, grind down a bunch of trim clips
3. repair the damaged rear spoiler and mount to trunk lid
4. repaint the interior, new cage bars, trunk interior and bottom of trunk lid light gray. I’m going to get a quart of paint mixed and borrow Jeff’s spray gun and try to do this in my garage.
5. redo the wiring to the tail lights
6. remount the accusump
7. weld brackets in the trunk opening to hold the trunk pins and drill holes in the trunk lid for them
8. one of the rims has a bent lip. I’m going to call one of those mobile wheel repair places and see if they can fix it.
9. one rear tire has a blister and the other was damaged in the wreck (had a piece of metal jammed into the sidewall, although it still holds air). So, I need to buy 3 new tires (I have one new, shaved tire already) and get them all mounted so I have fresh rubber on all 4 corners. I’ll keep the two front tires as spares.
10. get the exterior painted blue and have the yellow stripes redone on the trunk lid
11. get all the graphics on the back half of the car redone
12. need to get the car scaled and aligned

then there’s the stuff I need/want to do that’s not related to wrecking it.

13. I want to redo the way the front swaybar is mounted. it’s too low right now. need to figure out how to get the arm mounting point on TOP of the control arm (instead of on the bottom like it is now).
14. need to redo the front grill block off. basically I need to make one with no holes. I need to do this to try to keep air from getting under the hood and creating lift.
15. Al at Control Freak sent me 850# springs for the front (thanks Al!). I’m running 550# springs now and the consensus is those are way too soft. So I need to swap front springs. Also hoping Al comes through with a drop spindle setup so I can get the car lower.

there’s probably 50 more things but that’s the big stuff. Of course I need to nut/bolt the car again before I take it back on track. Need to see if there’s a track day I can shoot for to shakedown the rebuilt car and then see if I can make a race this year. Here’s some pics of how it looks back from Evil Genius.