The Żuczek Project is more than just a car restomod to me. It is an attempt to really delve into areas of automotive and other work that I have little to no experience in and force myself to learn a variety of new things along the way.
Sure there will be things I’ll likely end up sourcing out to professionals, but to me, to just give money to professionals to make something like a custom car without even trying to do as much as possible yourself somehow defeats the connection and bond between owner and vehicle.
When you’ve spent 1000 hours disassembling your car, restoring and modding it piece by piece, making decisions that could turn out amazingly right or horribly wrong, and forcing yourself to be patient and careful, there’s so much of you in the car and the final car in you that it is more than just some thing you paid for. It is art.
As of today, I have much to learn and the coming last month of December and far more likely the Winter of 2019 will be a lot of hands on learning focused on engines.
Engines
My goal is to have 2 engines for Żuczek, all built by me and my son.
Engine A (1641cc)
The first engine is the complete rebuild and upgrade of the original AH engine that was in the 74. I hope to have this running by March and it will consist of:
- Engine drilled, tapped, and plugged.
- Engine completely set up for full flow remote oil filtering.
- 87mm cast pistons
- 69mm counter weighted cast crankshaft
- Lightened flywheel
- C20 SCAT camshaft
- Dual 34 EPC carbs
- Electronic Ignition
- EMPI GTV-2 Dual Port Cylinder Heads (40 x 35.5)
- SCAT 1.25 Rockers
- Stock 1974 IRS Transaxle
Engine B (2110cc)
The second engine will come far later after I prove to myself that I can build a solid daily driver engine. This would be the engine that would be put into the car after all body restoration and work is done. The basics are really only planned for now since I really need to learn a whole lot about combinations of parts to reach ideal performance. This could all change.
- Engine drilled, tapped, and plugged.
- Engine completely set up for full flow remote oil filtering.
- 90.5mm forged pistons
- 82mm counter weighted forged crankshaft
- Dual 44mm IDF Carbs
- Freeway Flyer IRS Transaxle
With any luck, I’ll pull the AS engine out of Żuczek and put in the AH rebuild. This will allow me to have some time to try and break the new engine in a bit while I finish up trying to get the 74 fully functional. I’ll clean up the AS engine and decide if that goes in the 74 or if the AR engine I’m also building does.
I’ll likely have to make a commitment to planning the 72’s tear down sometime in the Summer as I’d like to at least have the body off and start restoring the chassis in Autumn.
I need to acquire the equipment and learn to do basic welding next year.