300rag
It's Not Going to Shift Itself
A lot of time and money went into this, I'm sure. The video is a little hard to watch, though.
POSSIBLY THE LARGEST CAR BUILD PROJECT EVER DONE AT HOME IN THE GARAGE
My fifteen minutes? perhaps… Anyone that's known me for any length of time knows about “the Mirada project” – AKA “Miranda” (the woman in my life) – This car project started out with my friend Jim asking me if I could put a modern new (bigger) engine into an older 80’s car that he wanted to build as a tribute to his dad – His dad had the same year make and model 1983 Dodge Mirada CMX in Nightwatch blue with a white top. His dad’s car had a 90hp six cylinder engine – this car not only has the 425hp 6.1 hemi V-8, but rather than try to figure out how to make this old 80’s car drive & handle better, we decided to transplant the entire new SRT-8 Charger chassis into it so as far as the car is concerned it is just “wearing” different sheet metal, but it is otherwise all SRT-8 Charger…. As you can imagine the job was much more difficult than the concept was to come up with. The Charger wheelbase had to be shortened 7.3 inches and the suspension had to be narrowed 3” to fit it all underneath the Mirada body. I was told by SRT engineers that the suspension could not be narrowed after I was already well into the project and I just don’t believe in the term “can’t be done”. This car has been in my life for the last NINE years. It was delivered to me in December 2007 and I was pretty much finished with the major part of the build 4 years ago. It has been sitting in interior, paint & body shops since, trying to figure out the painful logistics of the fine detail finishing work. There have been many periods where we’ve either hit roadblocks or life got in the way, so the car sat untouched for long periods of time. Well it’s FINALLY finished & getting ready to ship home to Washington. I spent the first 4 days of 2017 in front of the computer making this video. It really brought me back to remembering EVERY painstaking step of this process. I learned a ton building this car, I’m definitely not looking for more work – I just thought this would be interesting for others to see and possibly learn from. This project represents thousands of hours of work, hundreds of sleepless nights, most of the grey hair that I have, a few of the ulcers and it answers a lot of questions about me that you may have wanted to know, but were afraid to ask. Many thanks to my kids, mom & friends that have helped me make this all happen. For more info visit www.facebook.com/SRT8Mirada
POSSIBLY THE LARGEST CAR BUILD PROJECT EVER DONE AT HOME IN THE GARAGE
My fifteen minutes? perhaps… Anyone that's known me for any length of time knows about “the Mirada project” – AKA “Miranda” (the woman in my life) – This car project started out with my friend Jim asking me if I could put a modern new (bigger) engine into an older 80’s car that he wanted to build as a tribute to his dad – His dad had the same year make and model 1983 Dodge Mirada CMX in Nightwatch blue with a white top. His dad’s car had a 90hp six cylinder engine – this car not only has the 425hp 6.1 hemi V-8, but rather than try to figure out how to make this old 80’s car drive & handle better, we decided to transplant the entire new SRT-8 Charger chassis into it so as far as the car is concerned it is just “wearing” different sheet metal, but it is otherwise all SRT-8 Charger…. As you can imagine the job was much more difficult than the concept was to come up with. The Charger wheelbase had to be shortened 7.3 inches and the suspension had to be narrowed 3” to fit it all underneath the Mirada body. I was told by SRT engineers that the suspension could not be narrowed after I was already well into the project and I just don’t believe in the term “can’t be done”. This car has been in my life for the last NINE years. It was delivered to me in December 2007 and I was pretty much finished with the major part of the build 4 years ago. It has been sitting in interior, paint & body shops since, trying to figure out the painful logistics of the fine detail finishing work. There have been many periods where we’ve either hit roadblocks or life got in the way, so the car sat untouched for long periods of time. Well it’s FINALLY finished & getting ready to ship home to Washington. I spent the first 4 days of 2017 in front of the computer making this video. It really brought me back to remembering EVERY painstaking step of this process. I learned a ton building this car, I’m definitely not looking for more work – I just thought this would be interesting for others to see and possibly learn from. This project represents thousands of hours of work, hundreds of sleepless nights, most of the grey hair that I have, a few of the ulcers and it answers a lot of questions about me that you may have wanted to know, but were afraid to ask. Many thanks to my kids, mom & friends that have helped me make this all happen. For more info visit www.facebook.com/SRT8Mirada
