I'm floating around the idea of scratchbuilding a front bumper for my 87 GT. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a veilside look, with some good concave/convex curves. I want something super aggressive, but without lots of silly little spikes jutting out all over the place for no reason. Any photoshop guys want to take a crack at throwing me some ideas? I'm looking for something pretty unique and wild. I will be keeping the pop-up lights, I will delete the side lights and replace them with a single 1.25" x 10" rectangle light. The hood will be the stock profile, with a GT40-style reverse scoop. Lengthening the hood, or modifying the fenders isn't an issue for me.
Post some pictures of the angle you want done and what kind of front you're looking for and we'll put something together for ya... I'm not doing the research though.
I'm looking for a head-on angle. You can use any 4th gen as a base image.. mine wouldn't be a good one, as right now it's bumperless/fenderless. I'm thinking somewhat along these lines. The problem with all these is that they are a bit too curvy for the 4th gen. I like the sweeping forward lower swoops on this one, and the way they curve upwards. I also like the little side scoop. I think it curves inwards a bit too much though. This one has a nice side scoop too. Not a big fan of the little scoop in the top center though. This is nice, but the front is a little bit blunt.
with all the work youve done i'd chop the core support shorter and put on a lola front end. or something similar. the rear of your car reminds me of one of those. or a f40. either way i'd look at those before leaping to a shogun style front end. f40 lola
Yeah.. I really like that F40. The blue race car less so. I think if I went with the F40 look, I'd want basically that F40 bumper, but with a little of the shogun style to it, to give it a little edge. When you say cut the core support, how do you mean? Lop off some of the top of the core support so the hood drops lower? If so, I'm not sure how much I could get out of it. An inch or so at best would be my guess, and that would involve a pretty intensive rework of the fenders and unibody where the fenders connect. So I assume you mean something else.. I'd definately prefer a longer sharpnose front end, like a 2nd gen supra/F40. I just haven't been able to envision how it could work. There is such a big drop from the front tip of the hood to the bottom of the car. I really like the direction of the F40 though. Perhaps if it just extended out an extra 8-10" I could get enough of a drop to finish it off. Here is a picture of my front end, perhaps you could mark it up with details on the chop you mentioned?
for the f40 style front end you'll need to cut the fenders down a bit. i'd sy 3" in the front. then drop the core support accordingly. actually, why not go with a 1 peice front end. it'll be much easier to fab. similar to the stock viper front end. then you don't have to worry about fenders and such. plus you can make the front end wider to match the rear a little better.
yep, it'll work. lose the stock hood, fenders, headlights, bumper support. leave the core and the rest of the front end. make 1/4 fenders for right in front of the doors. then make a front endfor the lower section of the nose. attach that to the bumper mount/frame. then add a support bar with hinges and make the rest. the challange would be making hard mounted headlights into the hood assembly, like a mini. and of course not making the front end 3 feet long. cardboard time!
I'm having a really hard time envisioning how that would work. The fenders attach to the unibody right where the core support crosses the front end. Looking inside the engine bay, even if I was willing to start cutting down the front unibody to move it, I don't see how I could get much movement down out of it. What I could see, is deleting the little bullnose drop where the hood makes a sharp dropoff of about an inch at the front, and basically flattening that out. Then put a piece in front of that that follows the gradual downward curve of the hood and keep it moving forward for about 10-12" Probably get a 4-5" drop from it. Then extend the fenders to match, and do.. umm.. something with the rest of the lower section. I'd really rather not do a viper-style front end that tips up. I'd like to keep the same hood mechanisim I've got now, even if I hack the hood/fenders to hell to do so..
I've been thinking some more on this, and I think my current plan of attack is such: 1) Flatten out the lip at the end of the hood so it's straight, rather than bent down. 2) Get rid of all the crap on the bottom of the headlight, and then flatten the bend out on that. 3) Put in a plate all the way across the front end, that meets the end of the hood/headlights and extends out about 8-12 inches. 4) Slowly curve that plate downwards, and when it is low enough, drop straight down like the front end on the F40, and put a huge opening in there for the air ram. 5) Make the air "tube" thing angle upwards and route it in just above the bumper. 6) Probably yank the big steel black bumper off the car to give more airflow. 7) replace the radiator with a 26x14 radiator off a nissan 240sx (aluminum) 8) gt40 style hood. 9) Fill in the front sides of the fenders to get rid of where the side lights used to be, and extend them so they continue to gradually come inwards on the nose of the car.
Well, allways hacking, allways cutting. Here is my design for the new bumper (basic shape, still needs embelishments. Ideas for additional scoops or holes or whatever are welcomed (actually, please do). The tape obscures the front opening:
Dunno, looks like a Kremer Carrera front to me & when it's finished the car will look like a 300XZ? How's this for aggression? Personally I'd like to see someone graft the TRD MR2 front kit onto a 4th Gen
I knocked about 6 inches off the back end, so it's a little less long than you would think, but yeah, I had to add a lot of length to get the right rake on the front end. That TRD MR2 is pretty close to what I'm going for. I plan to have turn signals that are very similar to that design.
Oh I'm still at it. I don't often have visible progress, because alot of it is just shaping and banging and welding this to that over and over. The rear end and passenger sides have been keeping me busy for awhile. Now I'm playing with the front again. Six inches off the back might be an a bit more than reality. I don't know if I can easily measure it. Basically, I ganked the rear bumper completely and made the rear end flat. It gives it the illusion of being longer, when in reality, it is actually a bit shorter. Also note, that while the front end looks incredibly long, you have to remember that the entire bumper structure is gone. I suspect it's maybe only 6-8 inches longer than a normal celica in the front end. The bumper interferes with the intake on the radiator, and I plan on moving the radiator forward 5 inches so it sits in front of the cross-support. Basically mounting it where the little metal tabs that hold the grill in place are.
Took a quick measurement, from the end of the hood, straight out to the end of the new bumper is 13". I no longer have an unmolested celica, would someone be willing to measure theirs and tell me how much longer my front end is, just out of curiosity? (I took the measurement flat, not along the curve of the front end)
