Project cars are always demanding. Regardless of the planning and preparation, something is bound to go wrong, even under the best circumstances. Undertaking a project in order to compete in the Grassroots Motorsports $2003 Challenge adds just that much more strain to an already complicated endeavor, because when something goes wrong, a competitor doesn’t necessarily have the funds to make …
Making the SHO Go
Once Bill had both cars for a starting point, he began to cut and sell. Nearly everything from the Taurus was parted out except for the engine, transmission and subframe, netting $634.37 for Bill’s pocket. However, in accordance with Challenge rules, he counted only $600 back into his budget. (You cannot credit the budget with more than you paid for the car, no matter how much you receive from selling off parts.) “It really was a simple process,” Bill says of mating the two cars. “I measured the stripped SHO. I measured the Festiva and cut the rear out of it. I backed the Festiva up over the Taurus subframe, lined it up and started making adaptor plates.” To allow room for the engine, the full width of the Festiva was cut out, as was about three feet of depth. “The cutoff point was exactly where the floor pan kicks up vertically,” Bill says. The entire Taurus subframe was used except for the four original mounting ears, with these being removed to make room for the engine and accommodate the Festiva implant. Once the Festiva unibody and Taurus subframe were lined up and spliced together, Bill welded in a roll bar to strengthen the combination. A few problems crept in during this part of the project, but nothing too serious. Since the stock SHO water pump wasn’t capable of pushing coolant from the back of the car to the front-mounted radiator, an electric pump was added, claiming $180 from the budget in the process. (Ironically, the water pump that Bill used on the Fastiva was made by a company called Shogun Industries.) Within two weeks, Bill had the major part of the build complete, and he turned his attention to making it move down a drag strip and around an autocross course. “I used a complete Taurus front end on the car,” Bill explains. Salvage yard scrounging paid off handsomely…
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