Hi,
A new member from Finland joined and planning to start a 81 build for a street and occasional street car drag event use . This is not my native language so please forgive my typos.
The car has been sold as new here in Finland and we actually do have quite a bit 5th gen Caminos here. That's because in 80s they were relative cheap as they were sold as tax free delivery vehicles. At 80s we did have about 100% tax on top of factory price for normal passenger cars, nowadays it's a bit lower but still a lot. The car did originally have a V6 and most likely th200. During winters we have have normally quite a bit of snow here and they are salting the roads so rust issues are more than likely for older cars. Also this one have had quite a bit of issues and some earlier owner has replaced basically the whole underside of the car with sheet metal and not very nicely.
The owner before me did also spend some serious money for this as the motor was replaced for a factory new Goodwrench 350 and also the trans is brand new TH350 with some shift kit installed. Also all brakes were renewed as well ass diff with some anti spin lock and about 3.55 gears. This has been some serious money as we need to ship and import these parts from States. Shipping itself is pricey and on top we need to pay about 30% taxes when importing.
However as the body and floor repairs are not done very well there is no any big reason to try to keep the car original anymore so I did buy this for a build project for next winter. The plan is to build a relatively fast street car which is not very easy task here as we do have mandatory yearly inspections for street cars and if you are changing for example a motor you need have approved inspection for a change also. We also have quite a bit of rules what you can do and what not, so this will be interesting journey to see if I'm able to have this inspected after changes.
I've been collecting a bunch of parts for this already and I'm starting to pull off the motor in a week. I'll sell the motor as it does have quite goo resell value here and there is no point to mess this engine as it is very well working one for some cruiser. So at least the motor and rear end will be changed. Maybe the tans is usable at least as long as it holds the planned engines torq. The motor will be iron block truck LS with a quite big turbo. So yes, this will be another LS swap but first one for me. However I still hope the build still interests most of you. Motor will use stock wiring harness and stock ecm with boost os patch, at least that is the plan. Rear end will be Ford 9 inch with 31 spline Strange axles which I already have. The axle will be shortened and all brackets will be planned, laser cutted and welded if I don't find a reasonable priced ready made bracket set. Frame will most likely be boxed and some ways to drop total weight will be inspected. Interior will most likely remain stock for most parts but a roll bar or cage will be in the build list. Maybe a fuel cell etc but we'll see during next winter.
A new member from Finland joined and planning to start a 81 build for a street and occasional street car drag event use . This is not my native language so please forgive my typos.
The car has been sold as new here in Finland and we actually do have quite a bit 5th gen Caminos here. That's because in 80s they were relative cheap as they were sold as tax free delivery vehicles. At 80s we did have about 100% tax on top of factory price for normal passenger cars, nowadays it's a bit lower but still a lot. The car did originally have a V6 and most likely th200. During winters we have have normally quite a bit of snow here and they are salting the roads so rust issues are more than likely for older cars. Also this one have had quite a bit of issues and some earlier owner has replaced basically the whole underside of the car with sheet metal and not very nicely.
The owner before me did also spend some serious money for this as the motor was replaced for a factory new Goodwrench 350 and also the trans is brand new TH350 with some shift kit installed. Also all brakes were renewed as well ass diff with some anti spin lock and about 3.55 gears. This has been some serious money as we need to ship and import these parts from States. Shipping itself is pricey and on top we need to pay about 30% taxes when importing.
However as the body and floor repairs are not done very well there is no any big reason to try to keep the car original anymore so I did buy this for a build project for next winter. The plan is to build a relatively fast street car which is not very easy task here as we do have mandatory yearly inspections for street cars and if you are changing for example a motor you need have approved inspection for a change also. We also have quite a bit of rules what you can do and what not, so this will be interesting journey to see if I'm able to have this inspected after changes.
I've been collecting a bunch of parts for this already and I'm starting to pull off the motor in a week. I'll sell the motor as it does have quite goo resell value here and there is no point to mess this engine as it is very well working one for some cruiser. So at least the motor and rear end will be changed. Maybe the tans is usable at least as long as it holds the planned engines torq. The motor will be iron block truck LS with a quite big turbo. So yes, this will be another LS swap but first one for me. However I still hope the build still interests most of you. Motor will use stock wiring harness and stock ecm with boost os patch, at least that is the plan. Rear end will be Ford 9 inch with 31 spline Strange axles which I already have. The axle will be shortened and all brackets will be planned, laser cutted and welded if I don't find a reasonable priced ready made bracket set. Frame will most likely be boxed and some ways to drop total weight will be inspected. Interior will most likely remain stock for most parts but a roll bar or cage will be in the build list. Maybe a fuel cell etc but we'll see during next winter.