Part Two

Words and photos by Jok Nicholson
2/17/03

A swap meet is a great place to look for parts for our low-buck project car. It was pretty busy and this was set-up day. Thousands of people poured in on Sunday morning. A great crowd with pockets full of money - and we got a little bit of it to help with the Back-2-Basics budget.

Our new tech project Back-2-Basics will be a totally different approach to magazine project cars. This one will be completed with a total budget of $12,500, and that includes the purchase of the used race car, a 1972 Vega that has been back halved with a 4-link and coil-over.

It will take a lot of searching for the right parts and there will be no frills on this car. What I am shooting for is a safe, fun car to race. I want it to be competitive in Footbrake, Delay Box and 10.90 heads-up Super class racing. I am NOT planning on having a delay box or any throttle stop timers. My total expense for throttle stops so far is $10.00!

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The first thing I had to do was come up with a plan. It started out with me stripping the parts off the car I would not be needing and reserving a spot at the biggest performance swap meet in Iowa a few weekends ago. I sold $425 worth of parts off the Vega. I didn't buy too much stuff because I am still figuring out what it will take to accomplish my goals. I did find an "antique" Moroso throttle stop plate with an adjustable "nut and bolt" to limit how far the throttle arms opens on the carburetor.

The car has some great parts on it like the MSD Programmable Digital 7 ignition, Dana 60 with Strange spool and axles, AFCO aluminum radiator, Lexan windows, Hurst shifter and C0-2 shifter and some new batteries.

Here are some pictures I took at the swap meet; I think you could have found ANYTHING there. I looked at 632 inch, 1200 hp engines to 5 hp junior dragsters and everything in between.

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