Greetings,
I've been roaming these forums for awhile, first a few years back, and lately the past month or two, with a little more money and will than back then. I have a black Astre Formula, and have been trying to do all the research I can on here, but most of the relevant posts are from years back, with dead links, missing images, and no longer active users. So I'm looking for a little first-hand help. If you have any relevant documents, sites, or advice, I'm all ears.
More about the car: it was my dads, I don't recall whom he got it off of, but he had his fun with it years ago, it got too rusty to pass inspection, so he parked it with a few other car's out behind his mothers, to patch up/restore at a later date. Like many projects, that later date never came...years down the road, his mother passed, the house needed to be sold. I had to have been early teens at the time, so I don't remember the details too well, but we went back there with the wrecker, and it wasn't too pretty. The car had sat down quite a bit into the dirt by then, so let's just say the rear axle didn't come with the car when we pulled it... Long story short, and fast forward to 2021, she needs a donor car for sure, but all the formula pieces are there: steering well, spoiler (it's a hatchback, not the ultra-rare wagon), et cetra. I'm not sure how well any of the handling components have survived, but my dad seemed pretty convinced at the time they were fine.
The plan: find a reasonable condition Astre or Vega, and make one car of the two. Obviously a standard 77 Astre would be the easiest, but they're not the easiest to come by. The goal isn't 100% original, but rather 100% enjoyable, and respectful to the original car. Definitely want it to look the part. Mine has the hood decal, but I'm on the fence about whether I'd do that on the restore, both due to difficulty in replication, and it's kind of loud and flashy for my taste... I think I saw a non-bird Formula had "Duke" stripes? But the one in CO up in the Classified now doesn't seem to? I'm not planning on keeping the little iron duke in it, but I think all the LS swapped Vegas are...a little much? That big of an engine in that little car is probably great for drag racing quarter miles, but I'd like something a little more balanced that you can lay into a bit on back roads. I think I saw someone do a Buick V6 swap, and also saw an Ectotec 2.4L in a Cosworth Vega on BAT, and that's more along the lines of what I'd go for. My dad has a few GM...engines...of some sort...laying around that he mentioned as potential replacements, but I don't remember any details there. Definitely would cut down on cost, he's probably not going to use them on anything of his at this point, and if he's held on to them through the moves, they must've been worth it. Conversely, if if I find a donor car that's had a swap done fairly well, then that'd be fine by me. When it comes down to it, time and money will be the real bottlenecks. My dad's an amazing mechanic, and 60's & 70's GM is his thing, so though my knowledge is rather limited, I know he's got the know-how and was equally interested in this project. But I'm a college student, so despite going to a fairly cheap school, I don't have a ton of spending money. I do work nearly full-time while in school though, so pouring some dough into the project is possible and fully expected. Time-wise, I'd mostly just like to get cracking on this while I'm still home during the summers, and my dad's not too old for all this.
Any advice from those who've been down this path already? I can also take some pictures if anyone's interested.