The Reaper Capri - mediocre Project

[Phoenix]

As I have been on here for a few months now and there is some interest in the project/drift car I am building I have finally pulled my finger out and started a right up in my boredom. Some of this is copied and pasted from another thread and is pic heavy so please bear with me. The project is still very much underway with the metal work not even being finished but enjoy

Phoenix disclaimer: THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE DONE ANY METAL WORK OR ANY PROJECT TO THIS EXTENT AND I AM DOING THIS TO LEARN AS WELL. ANY COMMENTS PROVIDED THEY ARE CONSTRUCTIVE ARE WELCOME


Here goes....

This is my fifth Capri. This one only set me back £650 and has a lot of hidden goodies (and baddies). Literally the day after I picked it up I began messing around with it and taking advantage of the cheapo paint job...










The body work was the first thing to be tackled as I actually plan on having this car look half decent and turn some heads while I drift it...

Goodbye sponge rear spoiler...








More work has since been done to remove the boot lock and to fit of all things a Pug 405 rear spoiler but those pics will be shown later...

[caged]

wow mediocre

[Phoenix]

A view of the standard rear quarter complete with bumper mount holes and standard gas flap. All of these are to be smoothed out with a little work...

My first time welding too...







A jump forward to a few months for one moment to show the work done on the gas flap...

Still in progress....


Looking smoother....




Fot those of you wondering why the car is now red...it was always that color :P The previous owner had pattern wings fitted (which I removed because the fitment was piss poor - this will be shown in the upcoming posts) but because he couldnt afford to have the wings matched to the car, he painted the rest of the car satin black and lef the wings in their factory coat

[leeham_86]

wow mediocre

i sense sarcasm whats the plans dude? engine ect ect?

[caged]

i sense sarcasm whats the plans dude? engine ect ect?

boredom and sarcasm! sorry!

[Phoenix]

Pintos are Fact. I have had a few. Spaffed a load of cash into some and they have still been pretty lame. Fun but lame. My aim is to fit the front subrame and suspension from a CA18 200SX and modify the bulkhead to fit a Skyline RB25 lump. First comes more external bodywork...





A pretty sorry state right now but it gets even worse....

This is the reason I want to remove and the refit the passenger side wing. Its suprising what people will pass off as "workmanship" these days...



Go go gadget grinder!!!

Goodbye to the old passenger side wing. The white substance you can see just infront of the door line is white silicone sealant!! Great job



From what I can figure out, the car has had a fender bender in the past as the headlamp bowl has had some work (not bad work either) the front valance is a little creased (can be repaired) and the top lip that the wing was braized to had the skin of a previous wing still there. The whole lot was removed and I cut the metal back to the original metal of the inner wing...

MUCH NEATER...


A cheeky little coat of rust proof is always a good thing for 22 year old metal....


And then for good measure, a fresh coat of under sealant..


Work is pretty slow as I am doing EVERYTHING on my own, learning as I am going and I am still a full time student so bear with me....

[Phoenix]

i sense sarcasm whats the plans dude? engine ect ect?

Plans are to sodomise the DW catalogue and get as much stuff as possible

I will be running 200sx suspension and steering (with uprated goodies in due course). Rear subframe and open diff welded until I can afford a decent 1.5 way LSD) and an RB25 up front.

I'll be honest here. It wont be completed any time soon. The 200 donor car doesnt turn up til mid Jan and I have my 200SX daily driver to get back on the road and the RB25 to source yet. The thread is also kind of inspiration to pull my finger out as I dont like working much in cold weather outside

[leeham_86]

just out of interest.... why e you grafting trying to mate up sx suspention? take your front struts to gazz in bassildon and theyle work there magic into coilovers,(fairly cheap too) also im sure i seen a classic ford this year with the same convertion ( rb25 ) might be worth checking it out... just seems like a waste of time trying to graft up sx suspention to fit? will be watching this anywho... best of luck dude

[Phoenix]

Lame ass Recaro interior....





And goodbye.....




I'll save you the images of the strip down but lets just say the floorpans arent in the best condition....

Previous repair, not even sealed..






My first patch repair. Ignore the rusy water on the surface all the work is done outside and the car is very mucgh in the elements in sunny Wales. Doesnt look pretty but it gets the job done and with new sound proofing and fresh carpet. They'll never get seen.

More treatment for the other side...


And finally a floorpan that doesnt resemble a seive!!

[Phoenix]

just out of interest.... why e you grafting trying to mate up sx suspention? take your front struts to gazz in bassildon and theyle work there magic into coilovers,(fairly cheap too) also im sure i seen a classic ford this year with the same convertion ( rb25 ) might be worth checking it out... just seems like a waste of time trying to graft up sx suspention to fit? will be watching this anywho... best of luck dude

At first the plan was do buy the sleeves from Rally design and convert the coilvers myself but my intention is to make the Capri handle as much like the 200 as possible. While the coilovers would have cured the rebound/spring rate, the bottom of the struts wouldnt fit to the 200 front x member without alot of faffing about. The dimensions of the 200 wheelbase are similar enough to the Capri that the x member can be fitted without too much work and 200 suspension mounted to that easy enough. Plus it hasnt really been done before and I'd like to see if it works. Cheers for the heads up on the other project. I remember hearing about it on the capri forums, I think the guy is from Ireland?

[Phoenix]

Cheeky shot of the smoother tailgate and tinted rear lights... Still not entirely happy with the rear end though...


The pinto of gayness....




And about 2 hours later....




The with some good light and a shifty of the car into a corner of the yard where I knew it would be out of the way..... goodbye engine!!!







I have seen the RB25 into a CA18 conversion many times and have never been entirely happy with the fact that cylinders 1 and 2 seem to hang over the front of the cross member. As I dont want to upset the balance too much, the plan is to remove a section of the bulkhead below the scuttle panel and blister it so I can move the engine as far back as possible.

The battery tray would also be a problem as it sits right where the air filter of the RB25 is so good bye....


More pics to follow...

[Phoenix]

This pic shows how much material I salvaged from the front wings to use as patches on the car



I managed to get some rare time alone in the garage so did a little work to the engine bay and stripped all of the black paint off the car as well as pretty much removing every last part from the car...

I also managed to source a second hand wing and got down to fitting that and smoothing it out...









The inner wings still require some work, but based on the level of car cancer that she had when I first bought here, the have turned out well considering they have only been half done at the moment.





And a view of the front with the metal cut out ready to shape an air duct for the FMIC...

[Mad Cas]

Pretty awesme. Are you converting the whole front suspension to nissan stuff? (adviseable)

And what colour is it going?

[Phoenix]

In order to prepare the car for her new coats of paint, I stripped the car of EVERYTHING that is remoavable, the doors a tailgate will be sprayed seperately as I want to do a decent job and will be spraying the inside of the car too.







The rear window washer jet has been removed from the roof nd the hole welded in...


The exhaust holes have been cut out of the rear valance, but need to be rounded. This will be happening as soon as get my die grinder





I also finished welding up the inner wings and applying the new undersealant. Should keep it protected for a while at least :P

[Phoenix]

Pretty awesme. Are you converting the whole front suspension to nissan stuff? (adviseable)

And what colour is it going?

Yeah buddy the whole lot is going Nissan. I dont have much faith in mixing and matching parts of suspension as there is a greater liklihood of it going wrong and lets face it, there is never a good time for suspension to fail especially if being treated like this one will be. I'm gonna go for gloss black with some red detailing. Boring in the eyes of some I know, but I love the look of a good black paint job and it will be easy to touch up the cone rash that will happen from time to time

[drax]

Im liking the effort going into this build

[Phoenix]

The doors are now ready for paint. A fair bit of work went into getting them smooth due to years of trolley dings etc. I just need to wait for the weather to get warmer as I'll be doing all the paintwork in the garage





And now the car is back out in daylight, I could get a long shot of the rear end to see how the rear exhausts will sit...


With the car backoutside, it meant I had more room to move again. I attacked what has been the most challenging for me so far, and something that took me two attempts to get to a stage where I was happy with it..... The rear arch that was previously made of fiberglass and filler...

Using a section of an arch lip from the remains of one of the front wings, I managed to come up with this....










As I have since decided to run without the crappy standard metal bumpers, it means some more smoothing out of the rear valance but once that is done. The rear 3/4 of the car is ready for paint. I still need to mount the other wing and fabricate a front valance and air damn. I am also buying a fiberglass hood to save some weight (about 16kg in total) and will be fitting a Camaro induction cowl to the hood to aid in cool/induction and to give the care a more aggressive look...

[Phoenix]

Im liking the effort going into this build

Cheers for the comment There are times when I question my sanity as what little disposable income I have seems to go on cars. The plans have been changing ever since I bought it (It was meant to be a daily driver that was gonna have some light bodywork done to freshen it up)

But you know the score....once you start picking holes, the holes get bigger, then you find more and before you know it you have a stripped out car begging for a decent engine.....r is that just me?

[Phoenix]

Another simple little mod that isnt that big but something I was pleased with how they turned out was removing the big ass door locks in favor for the older style door handles....



One door, plus part of the old front wings cut into an appropriate patch, so far, so simple.....


Test fit = A, ok


I like to keep things easy and quick, so instead of farting about trying to mark out a patch with a scribe....


The joys of spray paint


Then being VERY careful with the angle grinder and plasma disc...precision cutting


Welded in place. Not pretty but the gas was contaminated...


Not that it matters as it was all to be ground off...


Trial fit of the new door handles...


The door handles will be going body color and wont really be noticed. Its just another attempt at getting the car as smooth as possible. Although the car will be used for drifting I want it to look good as well

[caged]

Welded in place. Not pretty but the gas was contaminated...

Looks as tho non of the paint had been cleaned off?