Project Violent Valiant sure is coming along. We recently caught up with builder Kevin Tully at his shop, Ho Rod Chassis and Cycle in Illinois and he told us about the recently progress on the car, when it is heading to paint and what’s been done to keep the driver safe in the even that things go a little sideways on him during a run. The answer was that there’s a lot going on with the safety situation here. The Valiant is going to be a very fast street and ultimately it will be used in competition on the track as well so rather than cheat and slap a bunch of heavy duty safety stuff in the car at the last minute before we want it, Kevin decided to augment it all now in the building phase so when it comes time to race it, the car will be ready and raring to go.
Along with the safety there was the fabrication of the exhaust headers which Kevin had 40 hours on to build. When you see the photos of the headers below you will understand why he had 40 hours into them. They are not store bought pieces…not by a longshot. The car will sport a NASCAR style exhaust with the oval shaped openings announcing their presence on both side. Rather than blather on and on about how sweet this whole setup is, scroll down to check out the photo and see what’s new!
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE NEWEST PROGRESS PHOTOS ON PROJECT VIOLENT VALIANT –
This six point Simpson belt system is really nice and will keep the driver of the car planted in his seat while attacking the cones or the road course. Kevin went with the cam-lock style of mechanism because it is easier to eascape from when the going gets HOT.
Hey, the engine is in! Yayyyyy…not so fast. That’s a mockup of the aluminum blocked Max Wedge that will be in the car shortly. The actual engine is in final assembly stage at the engine builder show.
Here’s another aspect of the safety system that has been added to the car, a fire suppression system. These systems have saved more cars than we can ever remember.
In this photo you can see some of the routing of both the fire system plumbing and the headers as they kick up and dive down right below the floor to connect to the rest of the exhaust.
This is a Fire-Trak fire suppression system and it does not use halon as other systems used. This baby uses a patented 3M fluid that doesn’t necessarily starve the fire because it uses a specially formulated vapor to attack the fire and essentially break up the fire reaction around it,
Here’s the start of the show in the form of the fire bottle. Some guys just run a fire extinguisher in their car but we went the full boogie system because we don’t want ANYTHING to happen when on the track.
This Painless Performance inertia switch is an important but hidden piece of the puzzle. This switch will kill all the power to the car when it is jostled violently, if the car is turned upside down, or if someone hits it.
Floor work continues as well. The work on the bulkhead areas is fantastic and really, really nice. We’ve leave stuff like this is bare metal but Kevin like to see stuff get done!
No back seat for this pro touring terror. Again, simple rolled panels which you know are handmade at the shop add a nice touch here and certainly follow the design ethos of the car.
Here’s the first peek at the completed headers on the driver’s side. This was 40 hours of work for Tully and he said that is SOP for any header that he builds. This has to be one of the most challenging parts of the whole build.
The headers have a sort of “in and out” design with some pipes coming outside of the frame and other tucked inside. Dig the welds!
Here’s a look at the exhaust which will use a NASCAR style oval tube which is boss and it should sound really good as well. We’re thinking that Kevin will have both pipes dumping on the same side for the full stock car effecrt.
Awesome!
This is looking great!
Ah, loving the build more and more. Great job guys. Curious, any impact on turning radius with the in-n-out headers?
None at all. They take up the same room that the front sway bar arms.
I worked for six years as a fabricator for a well-know pro-stock/pro-mod chassis builder here in Missouri, and the quality of the work on this car is top notch. I love it when someone comes up with a car too ridiculous to exist, and makes it anyway.
As a steel fabricator(35+yrs) I have to say this car is pure artwork the design, fitment, and welding are simply beautiful. Thank you for sharing this Picasso.
If it turns out half as good as your GTO,Its The Goods!!