Hello all,
Back in june one day, when driving home from work I spotted a purple car half-buried in the bushes. Curious, I stopped to take a look. What I found was a 1987 Daytona Shelby Z with t-tops and a faded purple paint job.
It just killed me to see this interesting car rotting away in someones driveway so I decided that if they would sell, I would buy. After all, I had been looking for another car project to keep me busy.
Long story short, I walked away with a $300 daytona that hadn't moved or ran under it's own power in at least 10 years. The previous owner had damaged the engine "driving home" and it had the valve cover and oil pan off for the duration of it's rest.
Something I noticed almost immediately after buying it is a small sticker on the drivers side door that reads "modified by cars and concepts on 4/87." Does anyone know about this sticker, what it means and what they may have done to the car? I can't find any info online. Was it the t-tops or could it have been the purple paint job and what I assume may have been a long-gone aftermarket stereo?
Anyways, onto the car.
The interior is really rough as the car sat ~1000 feet from the ocean here in rainy Oregon but the body is in really good shape. No rust that I can find, no dents or dings, just peeling purple paint.
I immediately began to dig into the engine and found a burned piston and spun bearings all along the crank. This motor got hot. Over the past 6 months my machinist and I have rebuilt the bottom end. .020" oversized Wiseco Pistons from Turbos Unleashed, stock turbo ii rods, refinished crank, and arp rod studs. I've got a new melling oil pump and high flow pickup waiting to be installed. It also appears the p/o put some bolt-on aftermarket parts onto the car. It came with a mopar performance coil, k&n drop-in air filter, and what appears to be a homemade hard pipe setup from the intercooler to the throttle body. He also claimed it had a larger throttle body on it, I haven't confirmed either way yet.
As for the interior, I want to go with a stock style look but rebuild it myself using the materials I have. I decided early on that I wanted to have my enthusiast seats redone in black leather. After getting quotes north of $2000 from all the local uphlostery shops I bought a set of stock leather seats on ebay for $450. Not quite as nice as aftermarket leather but much more affordable. The door panels are trash, I plan to recreate them with new materials. I'm still not sure what color/style I want to make them, as I don't want to clash with the black seats/blue interior. The carpet will need to be replace eventually but the rest of the interior is in decent shape save the missing stereo system.
That's all I can think of right now, I plan to keep adding on to this as I work. This is more or less the work I've done to it over the last 6 months.
I bought it knowing it would be a massive project to get it to where I want but I wanted another project. Hopefully this thread will help to keep me motivated.
Side note as I'm uploading pictures: I found this blue paint underneath all the grit and grime. This wasn't the factory color, was it? Why would this be there?
Back in june one day, when driving home from work I spotted a purple car half-buried in the bushes. Curious, I stopped to take a look. What I found was a 1987 Daytona Shelby Z with t-tops and a faded purple paint job.
It just killed me to see this interesting car rotting away in someones driveway so I decided that if they would sell, I would buy. After all, I had been looking for another car project to keep me busy.
Long story short, I walked away with a $300 daytona that hadn't moved or ran under it's own power in at least 10 years. The previous owner had damaged the engine "driving home" and it had the valve cover and oil pan off for the duration of it's rest.
Something I noticed almost immediately after buying it is a small sticker on the drivers side door that reads "modified by cars and concepts on 4/87." Does anyone know about this sticker, what it means and what they may have done to the car? I can't find any info online. Was it the t-tops or could it have been the purple paint job and what I assume may have been a long-gone aftermarket stereo?
Anyways, onto the car.
The interior is really rough as the car sat ~1000 feet from the ocean here in rainy Oregon but the body is in really good shape. No rust that I can find, no dents or dings, just peeling purple paint.
I immediately began to dig into the engine and found a burned piston and spun bearings all along the crank. This motor got hot. Over the past 6 months my machinist and I have rebuilt the bottom end. .020" oversized Wiseco Pistons from Turbos Unleashed, stock turbo ii rods, refinished crank, and arp rod studs. I've got a new melling oil pump and high flow pickup waiting to be installed. It also appears the p/o put some bolt-on aftermarket parts onto the car. It came with a mopar performance coil, k&n drop-in air filter, and what appears to be a homemade hard pipe setup from the intercooler to the throttle body. He also claimed it had a larger throttle body on it, I haven't confirmed either way yet.
As for the interior, I want to go with a stock style look but rebuild it myself using the materials I have. I decided early on that I wanted to have my enthusiast seats redone in black leather. After getting quotes north of $2000 from all the local uphlostery shops I bought a set of stock leather seats on ebay for $450. Not quite as nice as aftermarket leather but much more affordable. The door panels are trash, I plan to recreate them with new materials. I'm still not sure what color/style I want to make them, as I don't want to clash with the black seats/blue interior. The carpet will need to be replace eventually but the rest of the interior is in decent shape save the missing stereo system.
That's all I can think of right now, I plan to keep adding on to this as I work. This is more or less the work I've done to it over the last 6 months.
I bought it knowing it would be a massive project to get it to where I want but I wanted another project. Hopefully this thread will help to keep me motivated.
Side note as I'm uploading pictures: I found this blue paint underneath all the grit and grime. This wasn't the factory color, was it? Why would this be there?