Who the hell stances out a Dodge Omni?

[km670909]

I gotta get some pics uploaded of the gutted interior so I can keep moving with the story.

till then..

Oh my word it looks awesome! Keep up the good work!

[dart165]

So i went to pull the carpet out to fit up the cage and found a few things:

The original build sheet was plastered to the floor in the rear pass footwell:



The carpet was also full blown melted to the floor over the tunnel since the 3" exhaust hugs up super close. Lol, time to invest in some dynamat!

[Earl]

Were you able to make out any of the writing on the build sheet? That is somewhat of a cool surprise. Did you keep them or did you toss them?

[emotive]

God damn, I love Omni's. Looks mint.

[dart165]

Were you able to make out any of the writing on the build sheet? That is somewhat of a cool surprise. Did you keep them or did you toss them?

I kept the piece in the photo, but the rest was so plastered to the floor that it took hittin it with a wire wheel to remove it!

[dart165]

Next Step: Interior time!

The factory interior has always been in decent enough shape, but the seats are mushy as hell. Picture taking a corner at 60mph on grandmas couch..lol
On top of that, the car has quite a bit of body flex. Pushing the power that it does, it gets super squirelly, and lets face it; Dodge Omnis weren't exactly produced with the intention of supporting almost 300 hp.

Recently, I found an old NOS Mopar Performance 6pt cage that had never been installed and bought it. It was in nice enough shape, but it was banged around from sitting around for so many years, so I had it stripped and powder coated in semi gloss black.

Pulling the interior:








The floors are solid, but the front floor was all wore to bare metal, probably from getting the most action, so I gave it quick coat of POR15 (better to be safe). I'll proabably paint all the floors but I need to get some gloss black and all I had that night was some ultraflat. I also need to Dynamat the floors, so I dont melt any more carpet!

[dart165]

Chapter ...7: Shifter maddness.

Ok, this is a nerdy tangent, but was a fun side project anyway, so here we go.

As I mentioned early in the story, I bought this car when I was a broke college student years ago. My buddies were all aware of how big of a shit box my car was. Even after I got it running (on and off anyway,) they continued to refer to it as the Bomni, on account of it threatening to explode at any given moment. Unrelated, or possibly related on some level, I was in an Army Surplus store and saw that they had old de commissioned grenades. I bought one for the hell of it, figuring it might make a cool shift knob.


Years later, here I am, tearing out my interior in preparation for the cage. The center console has been out since I swapped out the old 555 for the cable shifted 555, since the Shelby-Z shift bracket doesn’t fit without modification, and I have it mounted rearward of the original shifter position, to make the ergonomics better. I decided to pull the shifter assembly out and give it a much needed tune up.

Stock 555 shifter assembly the I robbed from the 89 Shelby-Z parts car:



As it looked mounted in my car:



you guys see where this is goin? ...

[dart165]

The shifter has a T handle style reverse lock out. I figured if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it right. Any shift handle would have to have a means to trip the lock out.





Here's the logic:

[Zic]

Hahaha, awesome idea man.

[Aquito]

Awesome build. Did u ever take it to the track ?

[dart165]

Awesome build. Did u ever take it to the track ?

Quarter mile, yeah, but never a track track. After I get the cage, seats and harnesses in, it's gonna get some track abuse in the spring.

[dart165]

I polished/filed all the parts and pieces:


Everything coming back together, regreased and squeaky clean!








Wiring up the trigger for the reverse block out:

[dart165]

Final result!






I still have to pull everything apart again when I paint/insulate the floor, but it's up and running. You pull the lever and the shift gate allows you to put it in reverse.

[QT-220]

What the...
This is a hell of a car.
I really love it. Reminds me so much of a mk1.

Im so in for some more chapters!

/edit: also: subbed

[dudly]

Awesomeness. You don't see too many Dodge's like this.