No insult taken, I wish you were correct and I had less into it than that
I have owned the car for a few years now and as every car guy knows these things are just money pits
I tried to gauge some rough figures of what I have into the car to help answer your question.
Car- $2,000
Paint- $1,500
Wheels and tires- $700
Hood- $400
Brakes- $1,000(re-did everything master cylinder and slave cylinder all shoes done twice)
Rear 8.5 10bolt- $500
Suspension- $1,200
Exhaust and Hedders- $1,500
Engine Block- $2,500
Heads, intake etc- $1,000
Cam package- $500
Carb- $500
Dyno & Machine Shop- $1,500
Car Trailer- $1,500
That's pretty close to $17,000, I was trying to guesstimate as best I could. To answer your question about the T-tops I have taken every precaution to make sure this car can handle the added power and not blow the t-tops out. The subframe connectors are both bolted and welded in for maximum effectivness. The torque arm, lower control arms and panhard bar are all in place to make sure the body stays as rigid as possible. With that being said a regular hardtop non t-top would be best but I built this car as a fun street car and track car. The car was originially a 305, I think I mentioned that in the original post, the transmission is not a standard T5 it is an austrailian T5 packaged with the ws6, buddy who has a trans shop in pa said they used nickel when making the trans' and as a result they are a bit stronger. As I've said I've been running more than double the power through the car and it hasn't given me an inckling of problems.
I promise you I am not offended in the least, the reason the car has been for sale since Feb is because I originally posted this as a feeler and that I was more interested in a trade. I have since moved to south jersey and it is slowly becoming more and more of a necessity to sell the car. My worst fear is that I would neglect it and all the time and money I've spent on it would have been in vain.
Thanks for the interest,
Tyler