the amazing journey of a shelby GLHS

[ScottyB]

pretty cool story, although this is probably better than porn for Jeff.

Story taken from teamshelby.com. The person who did this, Neil, is in a local SRT-4 club I'm in. Just wanted to share his incredible story:


This details a project I did on someone's 1986 Shelby GLHS (#432/500). GLHS stands for Goes Like Hell - Shelby (or Goes Like Hell, S'more, depending on who you ask). The GLHS was a Dodge Omni that Carroll Shelby took, and turned into a monster. This one is more like a monster's monster. If you want to know more about what a GLHS is, and what makes it special, just type Shelby GLHS into a Google search, and be prepared for the mountain of info. The GLHS is very much the predecessor to the SRT-4. I really think of the SRT as being the GLHS of the 21st Century. Cheap, fast, fun. OK, below is from teamshelby.com, and I do leave out a lot of details, as it is assumed that you know what the original configuration is. A real quick and dirty rundown is, originally the car had a 2.2L SOHC engine making a (rated) 175hp/175ftlbs. 5 Speed manual (A525) transaxle with rod actuated shifter, steel flywheel and wimpy clutch. Koni struts/shocks all around (impossible to find nowadays), 10.25" front discs, rear drums. Noted for being fast, but a complete rattletrap, very unreliable, and very bio-degradable (they rust). Quality on these cars was horrible, in other words. The project was to restore, improve, preserve, and take it up a notch or two in performance and reliability. Oh, and it needed to look good, too

If you would like to read the whole thread, with all the comments, you can follow this link: http://www.teamshelby.com/foru...-guys/, but you will need to register to view it. Enjoy!


Wow! OK, well, this is truly one of the most incredible automotive journeys I have ever taken! I will try to retrace the steps this whole process has taken, but if anyone is wanting to see pics from beginning to end, please goto: Link to the GLHS Restoration Pics!

To understand this story, you will also need to take a look at the restoration of my old 86 GLHS #053 (Invoice #102) GLHS #053 That is truly where this all started. I owned that car for many years, raced it, got through school in it, dated my Wife to be in that car. When I finally had a few $$$ to do it some justice, I spruced it up, and made it tastefully better wherever I could. I put decent paint on it, and added all the 'right' mods. This eventually caught Chris Papademetrious' eye. I had built a car just about the way he would do it. Almost. You see, Chris owned GLHS #432. He owned it for many years, raced it, got through school in it..... See a pattern here?

Chris and I have known each other through mailing lists and chat rooms over the years, and were more or less casual acquaintances. He changed that in mid 2007 with the idea of having me restore his GLHS. To be honest, I blew him off more than once. When he contacted me in late summer again, he was a bit more serious. I told him this was not going to be a cheap or fast process. He said, it can take 5 years for all he cared. I agreed. In early October, the car was shipped from Pennsylvania out to me in New Mexico. It was a sad sight. Very low on compression, fluids leaking everywhere, and the rust. Oh the rust! Rust through all four doors. Rust through the floorboards. Rust through the hatch, the trunk and more! Dents in the hood. Dents in the doors. Dents in the roof. Then there was the upholstery. OK, let's skip all that for now. The car was rough. Real rough. But under all that was a diamond, we just had to remove all the unwanted bits. This is what it looked like when I first picked the car up to bring it back to Raton. The picture makes it look good. And at 100', the car was good. Walk any closer, and you wanted to constantly adjust your glasses. The car was a heap!



When we first approached this project, the goals were a bit overly simplistic. Get a fairly good paint job, and build a hot engine, do a little brake work, and make everything work. Projected budget: $20-25k. Wow. We can do that! On my way home from the shipping place with the car, I stopped in to Hot Rod Restorations in Pueblo, CO. The owner looked the car over, and said, "Yeah, we can do this right. Bring the car back to me with nuthin' on it." He meant it, too. His price? Well, let's just say the budget was nearly gone right there. A call to Chris went something like this: N: "Well, Chris, here's the deal. We can do this nice, or we can go first class." C: "Let's go all the way." And that was that. From that point on, every time we came to a decision on parts, methods, etc, I always presented Chris with an Option A (high price) or Option B (not quite as high price), and Option A was always the answer. You see, the farther we got into this, the more Chris wanted this car to approach perfection. That's a tall order when trying to restore a 21 year old (at the time) 200k mile, rusting econobox. Sprinkle on top of that Chrysler being bought and sold like a penny stock, and old parts inventories getting scrapped in the process, and it becomes easier to restore a 1929 Ford Model A with nothing but NOS parts, than fixing this car (and having pulled that stunt, too, I can tell you first hand that it's the truth!)

So, body shop chosen, budget thrown to the wind, the work begins. We had an opening at the body shop. I had to get the car back to the shop within 8 days. So I stripped the car. No, I _stripped_ the car. If it was not there to hold the doors, hood, hatch or glass on, or trim it came off. The rest would come off at the body shop. Here it is, as a bare shell:



At this point, we saw some real signs of what all those years, miles and a few bumps did to the chassis. Many spot welds throughout the unibody had broken, resulting in sheet metal separating from the frame. It was very obvious in the front end, as we could now see where a previous wreck was not properly repaired, and the inner fender sheet metal on both sides of the car was completely detached from the frame

There was lot more to see, and again, you can look at the pics here: http://www.chrispitude.net/ind...art=0 , if you want to pore over the hundreds of photos.

While the car was at the body shop, we formulated the plan for the driveline. The goal was to build a good, reliable powerplant, capable of quite a bit of power, then toned back down to ensure long life. We also wanted just enough refinement to not cause issues, but it needed to have that same sort of 'roughness' that the original engine had. You see, with modern technology, and newer model parts, it would be possible to build a firebreather that idled like a Cadillac. We did not want that. OK, I did, Chris didn't Chris wanted to maintain a little bit of that original 'character'. But we would be pushing it where possible. We started with a late 2.2 "Common Block" engine. Forged TII rods with Venolia forged pistons. A high volume oil pump rounded out the bottom end. Up top we used an open chamber "G" head, ported and polished. A TAFT S2 roller cam, ported 2 piece intake manifold with a 58mm throttle body. A ceramic coated VNT exhaust manifold and a Garrett GT2871 dual ball bearing turbo (also ceramic coated). For fuel, we used the stock fuel rail with Mopar Performance +40% Super 60 injectors. On the driveline, we used an aluminum flywheel, Centerforce DualFriction clutch, and a very nicely built and powdercoated A568 transaxle built by Cliff Ramsdell with custom gear ratios and a Torsen type differential. Axles are chromemoly custom units built by the Driveshaft Shop.

Here's what the completed drivetrain looked like right before it went back into the car:


Meanwhile, work progressed at the body shop. They stripped the shell to bare metal.


When the bodywork was completed, all the original welds were repaired, rust in the floors and doors were replaced with patch panels (all original sheet metal was retained - no replacement panels!) The patch panels and the associated metal work was so good, you will be hard pressed to ever find them, even if you disassemble the car! All contours and shapes in the floorboard metal were retained, so it looks all original. Over 10 pounds of bondo was removed from the hood (not a joke), and the metal was straightened. A cart was constructed, and the shell was placed on it. It made it easier to move the car around while working on it. I picked the car up on this cart, and towed it home. This is what the shell looked like when the body shop was done with it:




From the get-go, we knew we wanted rear disc brakes on the car. I had them on my GLHS, and I really liked them. We had new Koni struts and shocks, LRE racing springs, poly bushings, and a bunch of other goodies. Chris also wanted one of my Traction Control Systems in the car. Well, that setup is designed for newer Chrysler products, primarily the 2003-2005 Dodge SRT-4 and the 2008-9 Dodge Caliber SRT-4. They have ABS, and a rear ABS sensor is needed to make it work. So, one of our conversations was, well, we need to put a rear ABS sensor in to make the TCS work. OK. So, this was my chance to talk Chris into something Why stop at the sensor? Let's put the entire braking system in from a Neon SRT-4! Yes, let's get the big brakes, ABS, and electronic Dynamic Proportioning! I have to say, I was hot on this, Chris wasn't at the time, but he warmed up eventually (more on that, later!). I was so proud of myself for coming up with this 'brilliant' idea. I would come to rue the day! First I acquired the complete brake system, including lines from a wrecked 2005 SRT-4, along with all the engine bay wiring. I cannibalized the ABS unit, brakes, and wiring for the ABS portion. I figured out where the ABS unit would go (it is VERY hidden from view, BTW), and how the hard lines and flex lines would need to go. I had the lines made by Classic Tube. That was a bit of a disaster in itself, but after sending lines and fittings back and forth a few times, we finally had stainless steel brake and fuel lines in the car. Happy days. Front brakes had a few bumps, but the main things were, we ended up using SRT-4 knuckles, with a bit of machine work done to them. We had the DSS axles custom made with ABS tone rings. Lastly, we used a 15mm hub spacer to space the Shelby Centurion wheels out far enough to clear the massive SRT-4 rotors and brake calipers. That wasn't too hard, but the rear brakes more than made up for it. The rear brakes were, umm, difficult. I will spare you the details, but the hours into figuring out what combination of parts to use seemed endless. There are brake and rear hub parts back there from no less than five different Chrysler models, spanning 1986 to 2005. I kid you not. Did I mention that this all started because we wanted to adapt one of my TCS boxes to work in this car?



Chris and I had a little back and forth on the electronics in the car. The original Logic Module based wiring harness in the car had had it. It was in horrible shape, so there was no saving it, and no going back to it. Chris was fortunate to have bought the Mopar Performance Super 60 wiring harness back in the day, and it was new in the bag. So, nice, new wiring to work with. However, S60 is based on SMEC electronics, which I abhor. I tried to talk Chris into modifying the S60 harness to work with the newer SBEC engine controller, and its superior sequential EFI, but he won out on this one, so we stuck with the SMEC. Something about not wanting to make the wiring too complicated. Yeah, um, OK there, Chris So we took the 'simple' wiring, and made it complicated. Hiding inside the wiring harness is all the wiring for the TCS, MultiCal setup, Wideband O2, ABS, and heavy-duty wiring for the E-code headlamps and relays. He did not want to see ANY of that wiring sticking out. So, I took the brand new S60 wiring harness, completely disassembled it, and rebuilt it, with all the extra goodies added in. There were plenty of smaller things tossed in there, just to spice it up, too. This same approach was taken with everything in the engine bay. If it wasn't stock, then it needed to either be completely hidden from view, or darn well look like it was stock. This extended into every area. The brake booster? Well, that looks like a stock GLHS piece, but it isn't. It's an SRT-4 unit, modified to bolt in the exact location and position as the stock one. That shifter? That's not a stock L-body rod shifter. It's from a 90 P-body, and the shifter cables are hidden completely. Stock height and position are retained to maintain the stock illusion. In fact, only the truly trained Shelby Dodge eye will spot the differences, and that was the idea. On the exterior of the car, only three giveaways. The ride height (lowered 1.25"), the exhaust pipe, and those cool looking red calipers peeking through (and Chris wants to paint those gray to hide them!).


Interior started coming together at this point. It was completely reupholstered with NOS materials.



So now the engine is bolted in (would be months before it actually fired). Still had to put tons of parts into the car, including exhaust, wiring, and well, everything you touch or works in a car. Seriously, you can hot rod a car, swap engines, even rewire a car. Until you have had it down to pretty much every last nut and bolt, and then have to put this giant 3D puzzle back together, you do not know the definition of work!

So next, we worked on the exhaust, which is a 2.5" mandrel bent system, going up and over the axle, through a muffler and out the back. A big thanks to Vic Dobney for the fabrication help on this one. It is tucked in real high and tight to the body, and does not hang way down, like many aftermarket systems do.




The GLHS #432 was finally alive! The funny thing was, I did not even plan for this moment. Most things (not everything) were ready, but I had planned on getting things a bit closer before trying to start it. But, I had the camera out, and thought, why not? Let's give it a go. And right off it went!

A few (real) work projects came into play at this point, so I had to walk away from the GLHS for a few days. More like a week. When I came back to it, I put more of the engine bay together, and began to tune the engine. I ran the engine several times, but always had the car up in the air. On the 21st of December, I was going to load the car onto the trailer. That's when a serious headache began. I put the car on the ground, hitched up the trailer, and opened the garage door into the frigid 6┬░ air. Started the car, pressed the clutch, and put it into reverse. I said, I put it into reverse. Let's try that again, PUT IT IN REVERSE. No, it would not go. Mind you, I had been through all 5 gears AND reverse when the car was in the air, no issue. But now, it simply would not go. A little diagnosis revealed my last minute nightmare. There was something wrong with the clutch! If you have never endured the pain and suffering of changing a clutch on an L-body, especially one now equipped with the even larger than normal A568 transaxle, then you have just not lived. I kid you not, I thought I was going to cry. You see, in an effort to get this car done before Chris would arrive, I spent lot of nights up late. I was averaging 4 hours of sleep a night, work all day for (real) work, and then work all night on the GLHS. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I can count on one hand how many nights I had not worked on this car until midnight or 2 AM. Did I mention that it was 6┬░ out?

My bigger problem was that this was a Centerforce Dual Friction clutch for a 1992 Dodge Spirit R/T. Oh, you never heard of a Spirit R/T? Well, I was pretty sure that the local parts guy in Raton, NM, population 7000 was not going to have heard of it either. It was an even safer bet that he would not have a Centerforce Dual Friction clutch for a 1992 Dodge Spirit R/T on the shelf, either. The next day, I got up, did my (real) work, then proceeded to drop the transaxle. (It sounds so easy to just type that in a short sentence!) A phone call on Tuesday, 22 December to Centerforce would be a bit of a game changer, however. The folks there were very helpful. They did tell me that the clutch is an unusual one, and that it would have to be custom made. My heart sunk a bit. They called me back, told me the clutch was done(!), and would be shipping it out! After stalking my poor FedEx lady, I received the clutch on Christmas Eve, and put it all back together. Thank you very much Centerforce, and an even bigger thanks to my Wife, Donna, who took pity on me and ran the floor jack in my 10┬░ garage, and helped me get the transaxle back into its home. I drove the car up and down the driveway a few times, declared victory, then loaded the family up in the Explorer to take off for Christmas!

On the 28th, I loaded the car on the trailer. Time to get an alignment. My day was planned out. Chris would be arriving around 4pm. Alignment appointment was at 8am. Alignment takes less than 2 hours. I can then drive the car around town a bit, work out some bugs. Take it back home, finish 99 little projects, and then detail it, all before the highly expectant owner arrived. Great plan. Didn't work. That would be because the car spent 7 1/2 hours on the alignment rack. Yes, those wonderful SRT front knuckles were coming back to haunt me. I spent time in that workshop, modifying tie rods, all while an overly nervous dealership owner kept insisting that the service manager kick that 'non-employee' out of the hazardous work area. Thank you, Randy for running interference for me. At 3:30pm, the car rolled off the alignment rack. Chris drove up at that very moment. Phew.

Here's probably the only time a Shelby Dodge was ever parked on the lot at the former Cimino Brothers Dodge in Raton, NM:

[ScottyB]

After one more quick, successful ride into town and back, we decided to go for broke (well, we hope we didn't actually break). We headed south out of Raton, down US64 toward Eagle Nest, NM. Our trip would take us through Cimarron Canyon to the "Enchanted Circle" which is a route that goes through Eagle Nest, Red River, Taos, Angel Fire, and back to Eagle Nest. It is some of the most scenic roadways in the nation. Definitely on the top 10 most beautiful rides in the country. We made a few stops along the way, and here are some pics:




From here, we deviated from course a little bit to go look at the Rio Grande gorge. If you have never seen this area, I will attempt to describe it to you. The land around the gorge is very flat. There is no hint that you are coming up on a hole in the ground a quarter of a mile deep. In fact, you cannot see it until you have nearly fallen into it. For reference, here is a picture of that car eating, people killing, vertigo inducing hole in the ground:


Beautiful, isn't it? Before you get the the steel structure bridge that flops like a wet noodle on a windy day whenever a truck goes over it, there are small dirt and gravel parking areas on either side of the road. The lots run right up to the edge of the gorge with a flimsy barbed wire fence separating you from certain death. In this parking lot area that has the fence that separates you from certain death, there is also quite a bit of packed snow and ice. The roadway that goes beside the parking lot area that has the fence that separates you from certain death, and also has quite a bit of packed snow and ice is a 65 mph road. And that was what we were doing when Chris suddenly yanked the wheel, and pulled off said highway at 65mph into the dirt and gravel parking area (ACK, THE PAINT!), and AIMS for the snow and ice. At this point, the fence that separates you from certain death was approaching fast. I kid you not, my first thought was, "He's going to wreck this car. He is going to ruin all of my hard work!" I got my senses about me, and literally put one hand on the seatbelt latch, and the other on the door handle. I was preparing to bail out. Chris thought this would be a fine, fine time to ops check that awesome ABS system. And you know what? The darn thing worked.

After I checked my drawers, Chris very nonchalantly got out of the car. As if he had actually planned this whole thing. We walked over to the bridge, where he got his first glimpse of certain death. I think he needed to change his drawers at this point. He didn't want to hang around too long after this. I got this picture of where the car stopped. What you cannot see is that my back is up against the fence that separates you from certain death. Yeah, it really was that close.


Hanging out in the freezing garage, late into the night on 29 December, we got to talking. This car is REALLY nice. I wonder if Carroll Shelby & Co. would be interested in having this car in the museum for a while? Ooooh, now that would be cool! Logging onto ts.com the next day, I messaged Steve T. about it. Of course, I was a bit more excited about it than he was, but he was good about it. After a bit of back and forth, he finally squared up with me about it. If we wanted to put the car in the museum, which was a huge maybe, since only two other cars ever in the museum did not actually belong to Carroll, we would need to sell Amy B., the president of SAI on the idea. OK, I said, we'll send pictures and info on the car. Steve thought that was not going to cut it. "Your best bet is to have the car out here for the Shelby Vegas Bash." That was a bit over a week away! I still had lots of interior trim work, a wiring issue or two, and LOTS of smaller jobs under the hood. If that was not enough, Chris was so kind as to provide me a list of 38 things he wanted addressed before the car was considered "done". OUCH! OK, when is this Vegas Bash thingy? What?!?! A week away?!?!? Oh man! Steve then tells me, "Well, you need to get tickets, and then be out here by the 8th, anyway. Phew, a whole extra day! Chris proceeds to contact the event organizer, who promptly tells him we have missed the deadline, and no more tickets would be available (this was the organizer, not SAI). So, I write Steve a message, tell him we cannot make it, and take a few days off. It was New Years', it was the weekend. I wanted a break, so I did not even look at the GLHS for three days. Big mistake.

Monday morning, Steve calls me. Asks why we are not coming to the Bash. I tell him what happened, and he says, OK. We talk a while and hang up. A few hours later, he calls me, and lets me know that he has secured tickets, and that he really wants us to come out with the car. I call Chris, and give him the news. He tells me to 'make it happen'. Yeah, that'll be easy. Ahem. It's Monday night. I work until 3am. Tuesday, I get up, work (for real work) for 8 hours, and get in the garage for an hour, get cleaned up, go to a meeting, come back 3 hours later, and work till 2 am. Repeat on Wednesday. Thursday, I take off from work, work from 8am till 2:30am. Get the car on the trailer. Crash for 4 hours, get up, drive 900 miles to Vegas with the world's most expensive GLHS on my trailer. OK, I can think of only one other GLHS that might be worth more

The ride out was excellent. Weather was perfect, traffic was light, no complaints.

at the raceway:

at SAI:


We came back from SAI, and Steve had me park the GLHS amongst all the latest models of Shelby awesomeness. This is where things started getting fun.

At this point, Amy B. was there, making the rounds, and Steve went over to talk with her. A short while later, they both came back over to the GLHS (where I was also standing at the time). Steve introduced her to me, and we started talking about the GLHS. Steve was really working at this point. He explained the history of the GLHS, and that this was a production version of Carroll's car. We talked a bit more, and Steve told her that the owner would be willing to lend the car to SAI to put on display for a year or two. This changed the mood a bit. It went from a cordial moment to an all out inspection. Amy opened doors, poked her head around, and very quickly came to the conclusion, "This is a really nice car." A little more discussion happened (and I felt like I was on the HOT seat during all of this!), and the deal was done. The car would go into the currently empty spot in the museum, where Shelby Lancer #001 is usually parked. WOW! Words could not contain my excitement at this point! After our conversation was done, I picked up the phone and called Chris. "Hello Chris? This is Neil. I have good news and bad news. The bad news is, I will not be able to get everything on your list taken car of. The good news is your car is going in the museum." Yeah, he was a bit happy about it, too.

After all of this, the pressure was off. Mission accomplished. And the fun kept coming. The GLHS had such a shine on it, that it looked like a brand new car. Parked right beside all these other new cars, I had more than one person come up, and ask for specs and pricing on the "new" Shelby model! I think Steve had the same thing happen to him. It was awesome! The folks buying the new Shelby Mustangs do not hold the same grudge that the SAAC guys do, and they find the Shelby Dodges to be just as interesting as a GT350 or a Cobra, for that matter. The Shelby Dodges are part of the pedigree of the new Shelby Mustangs, part of the history, and definitely part of the family. I enjoyed the rest of the event, the car show, and the great time with all of the SAI folks.

being backed into the museum:


in the museum:


In the history of Shelby's museum, there has only been one other car in the museum that did not personally belong to Carroll Shelby. In addition, one of his personal cars (Shelby Lancer #001) was moved OUT of the museum to make room for this car. For Shelby Dodge guys, this is a big, big deal.
[/QUOTE]

[WRXtranceformed]

I just have to....laugh.

Only because I know that it takes a LOT of love for a car brand to spend that much time money and effort into polishing a turd.

But I can appreciate the love for the car and the money/time spent, I've been there myself :lol:

[Evan]

cool car....


I personally dont get putting that much time and money into it, but to each his own I suppose.

[fiveoh2go]

[ViPER1313]

I think the GLHS is a cool car, and the restoration was done superbly, but I could never spend that much money restoring something that far gone unless it was a lot rarer and more valuable than a GLHS. From a pure economic standpoint, there is no reason to dump 25+ grand into a car when you could buy a much better starting point for $5g and build it for 1/2 the price..... but I guess that particular car was important to the builder.

but to each his own I suppose.

[Jeff]

That is a ton of money to spend on an Omni. Even I have to admit. A decent GLHS should cost you like Sho said...maybe $5? That woudl be a car that runs and drives WELL and just needs a once over. If you are going to modify it with big brakes, better clutch, etc. etc. why not just spend $1200 on a decent GLH (the not "shelby" version) and build that up? Whatever...they are neat...but I'm at the point now that $2-3k into a FWD turbo mopar is just a WTF.

[REED]

but I'm at the point now that $20-30k into a FWD turbo mopar is just a WTF.

FTFY

[Jeff]

Tru.. thanks.