Restoration Inspiration – One of the nicest custom street X around …and I’m tired

Matt Brannon - Midwest Bayless

Matt Brannon - Midwest Bayless

Mad.Matt
So, I teased this spring with pix of a pretty big build we were making.

As of today the build is finished and has been handed off to the client.

Unfortunately the car likely won’t see many shows or appearances, as it was a commissioned build for a private collector and will land aside an extensive assortment of other hardware. An X1/9 was the client's first car.

This car is completely custom. Among the highlights.

• Dallara wide body with custom metal inner fender liners.
• Factory metallic Mica blue over black primer.
• Body shell completely sealed inside and out.
• Bumper mounts and trim holes delete.
• Custom Euro front signals
• Custom metal grilles
• 15” Jongbloed 3-Piece race wheels with Toyo Proxes
• KONI Double-Adjustable Coil-Overs
• Wilwood 10” Brakes
• Sway bars front and rear with mounts integral to the body.
• 5-Spd with 3.6:1 Strada Ring and Pinion
• Custom rear control arms.
• 1500cc FI, stroked to 1600cc
• Forged JE inverted dish pistons
• UNO Turbo application with all the plumbing fun (oil, water, etc.)
• Sealed spare tire well with custom intercooler and Hobbs-switched fan drawing fresh air from modified right-side scoop.
• Fully functional and sealed rear trunk.
• Mandrel bent charge tubes.
• Cam-mounted distributor.
• Stainless tank, aluminum rad.
• Dual Outlet Vibrant exhaust with tips color matched to wheels
• All hardware replated
• Functioning AC
• Custom black interior with blue stitching, Alcantera Suede, Black Leather and Black Perforated Leather.
• Bob Brown LED custom cluster with all gauges and 02 sensor
• Digital boost gage where clock used to be.
• Momo wheel and shifter
• H4 Headlights, Headlight Relays, LED marker lighting
• Yes, we changed the spoiler from the Dallara style to the one shown per client request.
• Every subsystem (fuel, cooling, clutch, trans, brakes, electricals, AC, etc.) fully refurbished/renewed. etc.

This was the biggest and baddest full resto we've ever done.

And it was the last client-spec service/restoration/swap that Midwest-Bayless will perform.

We’ll continue restoring cars that we own, on our spec and our timeline, and offering them for sale.

...But this is our last client-defined project. It was a decision made quite a while ago, and this was the last project "in the pipe", so to speak, remaining to be finished.

I can’t share any more details on the build, as requested by the client.

Hope you enjoy the show on this one.

I'm going to take a couple of days off now...

-M


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Incredible work

And appreciated too! Nice job Matt! :thumbsup:
I hope to see this at FFO's from time to time, if possible.
Likely one of the very best looking Dalaras in existence today.

Thanks for sharing!
 
Matt Brannon - Midwest Bayless said:
This was the biggest and baddest full resto we've ever done.

And it was the last client-spec service/restoration/swap that Midwest-Bayless will perform.

We’ll continue restoring cars that we own, on our spec and our timeline, and offering them for sale.

...But this is our last client-defined project.
Click to expand...

Must have been one tough customer... :wink2:
 
Just curious as to why there would be an intercooler in the spare tire well?

I don't see where this would be of any benefit at all. What am I missing?
 
That's one of the details he can't mention I guess

roadster27 said:
I don't see where this would be of any benefit at all. What am I missing?
Click to expand...

I have no idea what was really done, but here is my guess. :dunce: The side scope has been redirected into the spare tire area. If you already have the fenders cut off and are creating "custom metal inner fender liners", I am thinking redirecting the side vents air go somewhere else wouldn't be that hard.
 
Damn. Stopped to edit a bit and Matt steals my thunder

:)

I had a good guess.
 
Thanks Matt, I missed that when reading your very detailed description

Great work BTW.

I can't say that I blame you for not wanting to take on these kinds of jobs in the future. Glad to hear you'll still be building cars for sale under your own direction and vision.
 
Wow spectacular..
You should be proud of that masterpiece!!!

hey didn't Mark Cuban own an X1/9 when he was young..:laugh:
 
Spectacular indeed.

But is that a tube-and-fin (OEM R-12) condenser I am seeing in there? How does that work? Did you keep the R-12 system?

Lots of other things I am seeing I don't understand. Probably never will!
 
Truly Spectacular Work!!!

The attention to detail is awesome.

Not clear on how the IC mounting location is going to work in practice - if air is being fed into the well through the IC, where is it supposed to exit?

Seems problematic, but then in practice, this car may not ever be driven hard enough for it to be a concern?
 
How much HP

Matt,

How much HP is that 1600 turbo putting out? Have to say very nice work and I know what you were talking about at FFO. You guys always do the best work. If I need anything for my X I will go through you always!

All My Best,

Brian
 
lookforjoe said:
Not clear on how the IC mounting location is going to work in practice - if air is being fed into the well through the IC, where is it supposed to exit?

Seems problematic, but then in practice, this car may not ever be driven hard enough for it to be a concern?
Click to expand...

it looks like it exits into the engine bay, right in front of plug #1. No issue with that IMHO.


So Matt.... how does it "go"?? I've yet to start rebuilding my 1.3!
 
So Matt.... how does it "go"?? I've yet to start rebuilding my 1.3!
Click to expand...

Plenty of torque down low with no boost, and it pulls right along otherwise when it's being force fed. The wastegate on the IHI Turbo we used is set to 7lbs, which we could have modified, but decided to leave as-is.

It's not a K20, mind you, but noticeably quicker than normally aspirated.

We fully expected to need to use an aftermarket controller, but decided to try the stock control electronics first. It ended up behaving much better than we anticipated.

We used a rising rate adjustable fuel pressure regulator at 40/41lbs static pressure, which seem to have given a nice linear increase in fuel to accommodate the increase in displacement. It allowed the stock ECU and AFM to control everything quite elegantly.

-M
 
Not clear on how the IC mounting location is going to work in practice - if air is being fed into the well through the IC, where is it supposed to exit?
Click to expand...

Myron nailed it. The fan pulls air from the tire well through the IC, with the inlet being the right-side scoop.

Since the engine bay is a low pressure area, the scoop should, in practice, continue to act like a NACA duct and allow continuous flow of air through the IC, which is aided by the fan which activates at 3-4 PSI.

We chose this design because, quite honestly, nearly every other U.T. install that we've seen is a spaghetti fest of charge tubes and an intercooler crammed down in the corner, or in the rear trunk, etc.

...which you all know I feel about designs that retain a usable rear trunk.

This was our solution for the most elegant Turbo install that we could envision. I haven't seen another one with this minimal amount of charge tube routing.

While the pix don't show it very well, the U.T. AFM is mounted down low, above the trans, with a cone-style filter feeding from the left side scoop.

-M
 
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