Unlike most of you on the forum, I'm not starting from scratch, but have purchased a 7 kit car built in 1991. It has been through 5 owners and each has 'added' their own touches!
The Centaur has been mentioned in a couple of older posts and I understand was a popular build in the '70s and '80s. Instead of following 'the book' and building a frame, it came partially assembled and builders welded a number of pre formed pieces together. Formed mainly of 14 gauge material, the finished product was heavier, but plenty sturdy. (It comes in at 1500 pounds).
Mine was powered by a 1982 Mazda 12A Rotary and has a new Holley 4 barrel with custom intake manifold. I'm told it rates out at 150 HP.... I bought it from a Kijiji ad on December 31st and have discovered it needs a bit more work then I thought to get back on the road...engine seems fine, but the wiring/electrics were a mess.
The ad stated that anyone over 5'7" should forget about it and as i'm 6'3", I have discovered that perhaps, in stock form, he was right. It was designed with a very short cockpit and the firewall is about 4" shorter then most. With the Ford Mustang pedals being at least 6" away, it made for pretty awkward knee placement....! I'm extending the whole driver's side 4" and have tweaked the pedals to allow me to be a bit more comfortable.
A word on the wiring of these cars.... the book mentions taking the steering column and wiring from the donor vehicle and installing after clipping off unused wires....my builder (?) decided to just install it all and roll anything up and tuck under the dash....after 5 owners each added a wire/instrument/switch/whatever, you can imagine the mess...I took side cutters and removed about 2 miles of wiring...have ordered a simple 12 fuse 'hot rod' wiring kit from 'Weekend' and will try to simplify matters.
The donor car must have been a Ford Ranger (and some Mustang) as the steering rack is 3.25 turns lock to lock (no wonder I had a tough time driving it down off the trailer and into the garage...) This will be replaced with a Mustang II, or a racing 'doubler'....not sure which I will use yet.
I also removed the stock steering column and went with a straight tube...much lighter and simpler.
The dash had been built in '91 and half the gauges were broken or not connected (found the oil pressure tube coiled up in the middle of the wiring mess)....anyway, having a background with British Cars, I sourced out MGB gauges and have redone the dash ready to be wired into the harness..
Will do the odd updates when I run into things which might interest builders doing their own from scratch...
Been interesting following all your builds, and extremely impressive seeing the talent on this board....
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gblawson (
Gordon)
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http://gblandco.com/gb/cent/cent.html