I'm building a '72 Vega wagon. It will be a Motion ZLX Phase III clone. Power will come from a 454 Chevy with aluminum heads, early Edelbrock tunnel ram and will have the look of the Phase III Motion engine. I am going to use a Jerico transmission however. M22, Muncie four speeds are to expensive these days. The rear end will be a 12 bolt Chevy with factory 4-link suspension and Strange Engineering internals. I'll use Cragar S/S wheels like most of the original Motion cars had and Pro Trac tires. The car will more than likely be dark blue with my own spin on the white Motion stripe. It will also have the ZLX Phase III scoop and center hood stripe. The engine is at the machine shop and I've got a good start on the parts list. I got lucky a few weeks ago and found a set of nos Hooker headers on Craigslist. The owner had bought them back in the 70's, and never had used them. I'll keep pictures posted as things progress. Thanks, T
Must be some big shoehorn to get it in there. All those rice-rockets in your rearview mirror. What a site that'll be!
It's tight, but it'll fit. I had a '76 GT wagon a few years ago that I prepped for a 396. I ended up using a small block instead. But man did that big block look good in that engine bay!!
I'm sure most know that big blocks are 2" longer than small blocks. That being said, Motion took care of that buy cutting the radiator support opening and moving the radiator forward toward the grille. This made getting to the cap impossible so the radiator was filled through the upper hose. I'm going to get around that by using the water neck that has the cap made into it. Alot of the Motion cars had Thrush side pipes. I'll more than likely use straight Thrush header mufflers. I don't know how well the picture will show, but the first one shows the side pipes. The second picture of the Camaro shows how the Vega will look in the end. Also the link attached shows a 69 ZLX Camaro. http://www.corvettes-musclecars.com/Supercars/69ZLX/index.htm
Phantom SS was asking about the LS3 Camaro project that I posted a picture of. So I thought I would share that info on this thread. It is a 69 Camaro that we done last year for a customer. It has a 2009 LS3 that has been warmed over. It makes 527 hp at the flywheel. The front frame is a Fatman unit with Air Ride Tech. four link in the rear.
Back in the mid seventies my buddy had a 70 Z28 he put an L88 in and did the big spoiler out back and paint like Motion. No scoop up front though. It looked dynamite. For his birthday in about '73 he walked into the Chevy dealer and bought himself an L88 crate engine. He still has it in the Camaro but knocked the paint back to stock and the small spoiler out back.
I love going back in the old magazines and looking at the prices of those crate engines from GM and places like Motion. Even though those prices seemed high, according to working people at the time, ( I was only 2 - 3 years old..lol ), I always hear them say they wished they would have bought a truck load of them.:banghead3:
Man...that Vega is a typical west coast car. I've not seen a stock Vega that clean and straight in a long time. Being from WI, I was blown away when I moved out to CA for awhile. The old cars driving around out there looked like they just came out of the showroom. My best buddy and car builder just sold his Vega race car. Had a 400 in it and ran low 10's. He didn't want to get into the 9's but could have. Anyway, Motion...that's a really nice Vega wagon. A great car to start with for your project. I will be watching here to see more of your impressive work!
Thanks. Some of my buddies gave me a hard time about paying the 950.00 to get the car transported. But they changed their minds when the car got here. The only rust the car has are two spots at the bottom of the windshield, under the trim. As soon as the new windshield gets here I'm going to get that fixed up. I'll post a couple of shots of the floor pans. A buddy of mine is also doing a small block version of a Motion wagon. He found his car in Ohio. It's in better shape than mine. We plan on doing the trans tunnel mods. real soon. He is installing a T-101 from a Nextel Cup car.
The floor shots are of my wagon. His wagon is just as good though. But he had to remove the factory undercoating. My car being from California, did not have any.
Don't ya love Cali cars? My Vega was from southern California too. Too bad I sold it. It's sitting in a garage somewhere in Jackson, MI collecting dust and mice.