Been awhile since I've been around here. Been working on pieces for my '87 so that I can hopefully get it to Norwalk this summer for the Dick Miller Olds Nationals and the OCA Hurst Olds Nationals.

Here's a few pics of the progress:













Those were just the beginning. LOL My friend is doing all of the body work at his shop on the side. When he put the car up on the frame machine to check its alignment he noticed that the body was leaning towards the passenger side a little.
It turns out that the body had rusted through at 4 places on that side where the body mounts are located. So the body was sinking.

I bought the Energy Suspension polyurethane body bushing kit and told him to go at it. He's cutting out the floor just above the body bushings because most of the bolts are just spinning. We're going to make removeable panels for these so that if I ever want to pull the body off the frame later down the road, I can pop the covers and get to the backside of the bolts.

Here's the pics now that he's replaceing the bushings:





He pulled the entire front clip "just in case" the bolts to the body mounts where the firewall and frame meet, were rusted and started spinning. This way he could get to them easier.

But now with the fenders off we'll be able to cut the holes in the inner fenders to allow direct air access to the GNX side vents.

The windows were all pulled due to the fact that the front and rear windows had major leaks and we wanted to make sure we took care of any rust that may be under there. Along with fixing the leaks.

In the process, I plan to have the window tint stripped from the windows and have a darker tint reapplied. They are 35% now and I plan to go down to 20%.

I'm also converting the doors over to power windows and locks. I'm using the Electric-life power door lock kit with their Keyless entry system along with it. So that I don't scratch the car with my keys getting in.
We also need the keyless entry to get into the trunk as we are shaving the lock.

Tonight I'm working on getting the side pieces of the body kit finished. I'm having to make those myself out of fiberglass as they don't make these pieces.
I have currently bought the complete FE3X ground effects kit which includes the front air dam, fender flares and rear valance. You can see what these look like installed on the original Darth Vader '85 concept car here:

http://black85.oldsgmail.com/fe3x.htm

I also have a 4.5" steel cowl hood scoop that we will bonding to my stock steel hood. This way I have some room to play a few different engine induction setups. I'll be able to go back to my 2" 4-hole carb spacer which the 455 really loved.

The chrome trim that I am keeping (window trim, etc.) is all being powder coated satin black. Everything else is being pulled off. I always though GM went a little haywire in the '80's with the chrome trim. Just seemed a little too gawdy for me.

And finally, one of the last things that will be on the list is notching the rear frame rails and mini-tubbing the rear inner wheel wells. The plan is to notch the frame to about the center where the two halves of the frame meet. This *should* give me the required room to runner the wider wheels and tires that I want.

I'm hoping also by Norwalk to get the rear wheels intalled.

Right now I'm running 17x8's all around with 245/45ZR17 Yokohama A520's up front and 255/45ZR17 Yokohama A520's out back.
A plan to step up to 275/40ZR17's up front on 17x9" wheels and 315/35ZR17's out back on 17X11" wheels.
With the frame notch I'll still be able to lower the car and keep the wheels/tires inside the wheel wells so they don't have that "redneck" look. LOL

The color I've picked for the car is the Chrysler/Dodge Dark Blue Pearl Metallic.
Its the dark, dark blue you see on a lot of the Dodge Magnums, 300's and Dodge Ram pickups. It should look pretty good.
I'll post more pics as I get them. And hopefully I'll get the final pics posted later this summer.

Looks very good!
Can't wait to see some finished pics of your Oldsmobeast!

I am personally wanting to do body work on my 87 Delta 88, and I'd have to agree on the chrome, they put A LOT of chrome all over the place. Around the doors, around the fenders, around the windows, around...well you know!
I plan to take most of it off, except for the bumpers and around the windows. Keeping it the stock Medium Garnet Red.

Are you shaving the side door mouldings off too? Are you just shaving the locks or the door handles and putting poppers in? Are you going to install a back-up battery so that if the main battery dies you can still unlock your doors?

You're going to have the chrome pieces power coated satin black, but the car is going to be a dark blue? :?

Sounds like you got it all planned out...and it sounds good! That FE3X ground effects will look awesome!

TOC Admin
Brando

Do you mean the door guards that protect against dings and such? Yes, those are coming off. The only reason they were still on the doors is because I knew I was replacing the doors so there wasn't any reason to pull them off.



I'm just shaving the trunk lock. The door handles and door locks will be blacked out. I bought a pair of Grand National door handles that are already blacked out.
I didn't want the extra expense and complexity of shaved door handles. Not to mention the fact that all someone had to do to get in would be to find the hidden cable.





Yep. Look at a Dodge pickup trunk with the dark blue. They window trim pieces around the doors and such are black. The blue is going to be so dark that your not going to be able to tell unless its in direct sunlight.
My friend is going to use a black sealer so that it makes the dark blue look darker than if a lighter color was used underneath.



Thanks. The biggest part about this kit is figuring out how to mount everything. We want to make sure that it will hold up to sustained 100+mph speeds. Which means standard 3M double sided tape is out of the question. LOL
We plan to mount the front and rear pieces by screwing it to the fenders/quarters to locate holes. We then plan to take a few strips of stainless about 1" wide and shoot studs onto them.
The strips will be epoxied to the backside of the ground effects and then we should be able to bolt them down. Hopefully.

Also forgot to add that I'm also adding a pair of C4 Corvette power/heated mirrors. They're larger than the G-body mirrors plus I'll have a power side passenger mirror.
I'm trying to make this car into a sporty luxury car. Afterall, it is an Oldsmobile.

A few pics of the body kit progress;







Had to order more clay. Thats about 10lbs worth on the car now. LOL

I plan to do one whole side of the car with clay. Make my fiberglass molds and then start all over again for the opposite side.

I'm experimenting here so we'll see how it goes.

Anyone know of a trick to making a mirrored duplicate of the side I'm working on now? Or am I stuck starting from scratch again and eyeballing it?
Thanks,

Took a few pics of the '87 this weekend.

This was the first time I was able to see it tore apart in person.

Overall view:


Passenger side engine:


Driver side floor pan/body bushing:


Passenger side rear floor pan:
http://home.woh.rr.com/designsofarch/in ... G_0368.JPG

Trunk showing drivers rear tire/wheel well:


Trunk behind rear wheel passenger side:
< this is one of the places where the frame needs to be repaired around the body bushings. We're using 1/8" larger steel washers to weld in place for the body bushing.

Close-up of body bushing, drivers side rear:


Overall rear view:


Drivers side floor pan:


Close-up of body bushing behind driver seat:


Floor plan under rear seat:


Driver side engine:


Remote starter solenoid:


I also ordered a Lauren Engineering Stage II rocker kit today. After doing a lot of mock up and different ideas, I felt the Mustang rockers and my homemade fiberglass pieces just weren't going to look right with the rest of the body kit.
But I should be able to incorporate the Lauren kit rather easily. I hope anyway.

hey thats a sweet setup...if i could see the thing..im failry familiar with the darth vadar cutlass but could u put some more pics on so i can see what it looks like on a 87 cuz i got one too and im really interested in what it looks like

Sorry, I don't have any pics of the kit installed. The car isn't even that close yet.

After today, this is all the farther it is:



















Most of the welding is complete on the frame. I just need to weld up all of the engine mount holes (other than the Olds mounts). No need to have the Buick, Chevy, etc mounts up there. Then we're blasting the frame clean and painting it satin black.

I'll just warn you, the kit isn't cheap. Expect it to come in around $3000 for the pieces and I have no idea what the cost would be to have it installed.

great man!! looks sweet..
-Joe