My 83 Daytona 500 Restoration

[transformula87]

Just thought I'd post up my restoration of my Daytona Pace car. I bought this car in the summer of this year (2007) and have been working on it since. It was bone stock, but not running when I got it. It has the Crossfire 305, 700r4, and has 36k miles. I pulled the motor because it was locked. Dont know why yet. I'm in the process of tearing into it now.

Here it is when I first got it (after I pulled the motor):











Heres how it looked about 5 hours after:

[TAdan]

Looks like you picked a good one to restore. Nice and complete, the body looks nice and straight too.

Have fun with the resto. Will you be keeping it stock or adding any mods?

[transformula87]

I'm going to keep it as stock as possible. I will be adding my own sound system, but I am leaving all original wiring/speakers intact. I just need an original radio for it.

I am making some fiberglass kick panels for some 6.5" speakers, but I am using extra kick panels to keep the originals.

The motor for now will probably just be a stand-alone 305. My Crossfire skills are, well I dont have any. So I'll wait a while before I get the original setup going again.

Other than that, I havent done much else unoriginal. I put POR-15 on the floorboards too. Didnt need it, but while I had it torn down I figured I'd go ahead and do it.

[mrturbota]

I like struts you are using on the hood and rear hatch! ;D
You may want to get them from Autozone, as they are much cheaper than GM, and have lifetime warrenty.
I went thru 3 sets of original NOS GM ones, and they only seemed to last 2 weeks.
One of the non-stock items on my 20th TTA.
Looks like she cleaned up real nice.
Great to see that you got the mats as well.
Nice car!

George

[transformula87]

I've actually already changed the shocks. I work part time at Advance auto, so I got a good deal on them.

Those pictures are from a while back when I first got the car, I've done several more things since then, I just havent had time to upload more pictures.

Maybe next week I'll have a day off and will be able to get some more.

[Agent13]

Welcome to the forums!

Good luck with the Daytona and keep us posted!

[transformula87]

Well heres some more pictures I had uploaded. They are from when I was tearing down the interior of the car. I didn't find much of any rust, just a few spots of surface rust.









Steam cleaned the carpet while it was out:



And heres a couple after I found another headlight assembly, and cleaned up the tree sap all over the hood:







By the way, if the rear end of the car looks jacked up, its because I have the whole rear end out so I can clean it up, as well as under the car.


Derek