66 Corvette Mako Shark

[xtrmes]

Now for some progress. I gutted out the interior to find a mess of wiring. Somebody tried to install a painless harness in an attempt to get the car street legal and just made a mess out of it. I spent two days trying to straighten it all out and just ended up ripping it all out and starting over. Going to be installing a Painless 10 circuit race car harness.
You can see theres also no transmission tunnel. Somebody removed it for some reason. I found one online so I will be fixing that.




Everything cleaned out. I also removed the shifter.



They had this tiny little master cylinder that was made in England. Just tied into all four calipers. Good for a car thats not driven but not this one. So now it has a Wildwood dual master cylinder setup. One for the front and one for the rear.



Nice new dash from Dashworks. Doing some modifications to it. Adding four gauges in the waterfall section.






Then lastly for now the motor I'm going to be installing dynoed at 1023HP at 14 pounds of boost but I'm going to be running it at 6 for street use. Should be around 850HP so I figured I'd add a bit of strength to the frame.
The pics you can see the foam I'm planning on wrapping all the tubes in fiberglass and blending them in. Keep it smooth under the hood. The tubes will be run all the way to the rear of the car to tie it all together.

[xtrmes]

For the gulwing doors they came with no hardware. I couldn't find anything that would work in a gas rod you can just buy over the counter.
So I ended up having to have a custom set made from a company over in Germany.
They had to custom design these and retool. A total cost of $1000 just to hold the doors up.
These are 400 pound units and they came with a tool to let out some pressure so I can adjust them to the perfect pressure.

[66larkgs]

cool project.. lets see some pictures of the new motor

[xtrmes]

This is the motor that's going in. Should make it fun to drive.

[xtrmes]

Now some progress pics.
Got a new dash from Dashworks and doing a few mods to it. Making a removable top so I can easily access the master cylinders.
Also adding some 1 5/8 tubing through out the car to stiffen it up. Going to have allot of HP. I also wanted to add some strength to the front subframe.

[Tig]

Awesome project.
That is going to be one fun car to drive with that motor.
What transmission are you going to use?
The history on it is awesome.

Keep up the great work, lookin forward to your updates.

[xtrmes]

I have a TCI full manual with reverse valve body TH400.

[xtrmes]

Got some more progress done today. Did some more tube work inside to tie the front tubes together inside and tied them down to the frame. Its going to continue all the way to the rear.
Also relocated the reservoirs to the center mounted on the cross bar. I made an access hole in the top of the dash to access them.
I trimmed up the dash pad. Needs a bit more shaping then it will get wrapped. Going to keep it easily removable to access the reservoirs.

[FlyDoc]

I like the changes to the dash that you are doing.
just thinking that the suspension may be lacking in handling, because it was made for show not go.
any plans on checking or changing the geometry?

[xtrmes]

Once I get the motor and trans in it and back on the ground I'm taking it to a friends shop. He has a brand new digital alignment rack.
Then we can see where's it at. I'm sure it can't handle any worse then factory. Lol

[xtrmes]

More progress today I'm keeping a clean look under the hood so I decided to cover all the tubes in fiberglass. Its adding some more work but once its done there will be nothing in there but the motor. All the wiring will be hidden too.

[85coupe50]

Very cool to see some old national show winner car being resurected into something MORE fitting to the times. The car was interesting in design but for sure it shows it's age.

[xtrmes]

Its a bit more then I originally thought. Its to bad it was long forgotten for many years.
But its been a fun project so far. I have allot in store for it.

Very cool to see some old national show winner car being resurected into something MORE fitting to the times. The car was interesting in design but for sure it shows it's age.

[xtrmes]

I started doing some work on the Corvette again. I posted a pic above the gas rods for the doors to hold them up. After many months of trail and error I fially got yhe doors to work correctly. The mounts where not in the correct spots for the doors to open and stay open.
So I had to move the mounts and do some redesigning. Now they work good and stay up.
And after speaking to the builder of the car he said they never really stayed up correctly.

[xtrmes]

I also spoke with S&W Race cars and they are building me a pair of rear frame rails for it. Since I discovered it doesn't have any. I also ordered a cage for it. Once the parts come I can get them installed and make some progress.

[High Plains Mopars]

No offense meant by this, but it looks pretty close to a 78ish Corvette to me. I wonder why they didnt just start with that year instead of a 66?

The '65 Mako Shark II is what drove the inspiration for the C3 Corvette design that started in '68. The original Mako Shark was made in '61. wiki has a good overview of them; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mako_Sh...concept_car%29 This car even has some Manta Ray clues in it with the bare dash.

[OLDFATGUY]

Does anyone know how to get a hold of the owner of the 66 mako shark? I actually helped work on this car. If anyone knows please inform me!!! thanks, Dino

[Alwhite00]

I like it!

[Motown 454]

Great project! I'll be watching.

[ryeguy2006a]

Super cool thread, but being that the last update was 7.5 years ago I doubt the OP is still around.