Mike's 1964 Elva Courier MkIV Build Thread!

[mulletman]

150 horses in a car that little will be seriously awesome.

[ELVA164]

150 horses in a car that little will be seriously awesome.

Fingers crossed! :twisted:

[Nick_S]

I knew the name Elva sounded familiar because of this thread. I came across this the other day on my local craigslist.

http://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/4373935063.html

[ELVA164]

I knew the name Elva sounded familiar because of this thread. I came across this the other day on my local craigslist.

http://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/4373935063.html

That car is the real deal, and a very cool piece. Elva made most of its cars with fiberglass bodies, but produced two aluminum-bodied prototypes of each model for both testing and body finalization purposes. Unlike some other manufacturers of the period who would then update the prototypes when the production run started, Elva kept the cars as they were. I've seen the other MkII prototype before and it's a very "50's space age" looking car. Unless it goes into a museum, that car will require a complete teardown and restoration.

[ELVA164]

Big update today! The body is back on the car!

We did some quick work on the nose, just to get the basic shape of the headlight bucket back.

Some of the next areas to address are the side of the front cowl:


And where the cowl attaches to the dash:


Additionally, when we were placing the body back onto the chassis this happened:


Turns out this area had been previously repaired with bondo and WOOD:

If you can't tell, that's a big piece of plywood that someone used there for strength I assume. Looks like we might need to take a closer look at the bodywork from now on.

We got a nice gusset welded to the front of the new floor and the new rocker panel:


We have to do some modification to the new front chassis tubes to make things fit, but the trunk lines up almost perfectly!


We have the dummy motor and gearbox in there as well, just trying to see how things line up:


It looks like the motor is a couple inches too far forward by our initial measurements:


We do still need to cut a notch into the firewall just behind the cylinder head though. On the original Ford-powered cars, there was a notch just behind the head where ours is flat:


Still a lot left to do! Unfortunately, the incident with my E30 now requires all my time and money so the Courier will have to stay like this for a while.... :(

[flyboyx]

what ford engine was in this little car? i was thinking that a 2.3 pinto engine might be nice. 87-88 thunderbird turbo used this engine and was 200 hp. later rangers used a dual spark plug head.

some people figure out a way to put a 24v volvo head on that motor and get crazy hp gains. something to think about......

[Farbin Kaiber]

WARRIOR would accomplish the same without Volvo parts...


Every time I see this thread, I think of my dads old Ford Courier pickup truck.

[ELVA164]

what ford engine was in this little car? i was thinking that a 2.3 pinto engine might be nice. 87-88 thunderbird turbo used this engine and was 200 hp. later rangers used a dual spark plug head.

some people figure out a way to put a 24v volvo head on that motor and get crazy hp gains. something to think about......

Thanks, but this is going to be a vintage race car and therefore can only use engines it came with from the factory. As such, it'll be getting a pre-crossflow 1500cc Ford Kent engine (from a Cortina GT). Looks like this all assembled:


Sorry, I can't find a good picture of one outside an engine bay.

My car should have around 150hp when it's done. Nothing crazy, just a medium-power reliable engine.

[JRKOUPE]

I missed sumthin:

wa happened w/ the e 30?....

[ELVA164]

I missed sumthin:

wa happened w/ the e 30?....

One of this winter's snow storms got it. I was cresting a hill in fourth at maybe 30mph, and it turns out the top of the hill was sheet ice covered in wet snow. Lost almost all traction and managed to save the car from a tree by rotating it with a downshift. It still really upsets me to think about 3 months later.

[ELVA164]

A small addition: You can see here where the fabricated front chassis rails meet the nose. We have some measurements for the location of the stock brackets (and may still be able to use the brackets from the bent front end), but it'll have to wait until I have the funds.

[ELVA164]

Really exciting update today! I've been chatting with a friend who is a longtime Elva fan and expert, and he offered to search around for any info about MkIV Couriers and my car in particular. Look what came in the mail!

He put together an awesome collection of period magazine ads, road tests, and an article about the restoration of another Courier MkIV, but this was BY FAR the coolest part:


That's the original bill of sale for my car! Holy crap! It's awesome to know where the car came from, what options it had on it from the dealership, and to look at some of the interesting details like the original owner trading in a 1962 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spyder for a whopping $500 credit. Very cool stuff! :D

[JRKOUPE]

wow......very very cool...

[SkiFree]

That Bill Of Sale is pretty dang awesome. I'm greatly enjoying all the updates.

Googled and found this .... http://fredopertracing.com/index2.htm

[ELVA164]

That Bill Of Sale is pretty dang awesome. I'm greatly enjoying all the updates.

Googled and found this .... http://fredopertracing.com/index2.htm

How cool is that?! Looks like they were a pretty new dealership when they sold the Courier!