Twin Snail Mail
So Ugly It's Cool
By Mike Earley
#TwinSnailMail started its life as a 1965 Jeep FJ6A Postal delivery truck. Yes it is Right Hand Drive!!! After running its daily postal routes it was retired by 1972. Where it was purchased by a Road construction company and converted into a onsite job trailer, before becoming a shed parked next to a barn for 40 years.
Fast forward to 2012 while out wondering the in-laws farm, I stumble upon this goofy little "ice cream" truck. I had to take a closer look. What windows it had left were boarded up and it was pack to the roof with random collections from the farm. I pried the door open cleared off the seat and to this mysterious creatcher for pretend drive. I had no idea what I would do with this thing but I knew if the chance ever arose of owning it I had to have it "its so UGLY its Cool"!
I made my way back to house and told the in-laws if you ever get rid of the thing let me know cause I want it!
Ten years after that faithful day I got a phone call from Toni (in-law) saying "if you want that old mail truck you better come get it. We are cleaning the farm up. Bring your trailer or its going to scrap" I responded "Perfect next time we come out I'll get it" To that Toni said "Sounds good we will see you tomorrow, you guys are coming over for dinner"
"Crap I haven't even cleared this with the wife" I thought
On the drive home my mind was racing "what do we do with this thing?" Its needs a V8 right? man this thing would be cool layed out on the ground! 20" rims? it needs a power adder Turbos? LS swap? what would make this thing even more ridiculous then it already is. Snail Mail thats what we will call it! No even better Twin Turbo LS swap it and put it on air ride with big rims. We will call it Twin Snail Mail!
With that brainstorming session the blueprint for Twin Snail Mail was drafted.
Let The Sparks Fly
We wasted not time, cleaning Twin Snail Mail (TSM) out and pulling the body off the frame. The next day with the frame in the garage, the neighbor stopped by and said he had a set of Dodge Ram 1500 20" rims for sale that might fit and they are already
painted red. They fit perfect! Check that off the long list of things todo. I was unsure of how we would get TSM to lay the body on the ground it needed to be lowered about 12". We quickly figured out we would have to do away with the solid axle front end and all the leaf springs. We were definitly going to be C notching the frame. After doing countless hours of research and consulating with friends I decided to go with a parallel 4 link in the rear and a Mustang 2 front end.
So I ordered a 4 Link setup and a Mustang 2 crossmember from Paul Horton's Welder Series, and had Turner Design Works cut me out some custom rear C notches. With the suspension parts sorced it was time to start cutting and welding!
Project Prelude stripped down and in primer before it went into storage
While the car was in storage I did a 5 lug conversion, using factory 5th gen Prelude parts, so we could install a set of RSX type S rims.
With the car back in the garage it was time to start tackling the body work, which included small rust repairs in both rear quarters, shaving the engine bay, and fixing dents through out the car. The body was pretty clean for its age with just the typical Honda rust areas starting to show.
We made a custom firewall panel to smooth out the firewall, and began the daunting process of stitch welding every lap joint in the engine bay and laying down a few coats of fiberglass filler over all the lap joints. Followed up by Evercoat Rage body filler and countless coats of Feather Fill polyester primer. We repeated this process on the rest of the body where needed and began block sanding the car.
With the car block sanded and sealed, its time for paint!
With all the body work done we sprayed the car with 3 coats of Starlight Black Mica and 5 coats of clear coat.
With the body and paint done, it was time to turn our attention to the motor. We stripped the factory wiring harness down and deleted all the unneeded sensors and wiring. We then routed each plug in the cleanest way possible and did a complete wire tuck in the engine bay. We mounted the under hood fuse block behind the glove box. Once the wiring was complete we began gutting the upper and lower intake and doing a knife edge port on the lower intake manifold. We also gutted 3 "flapper valve" plates and had them welded together to add some additional plenum volume. Can you say High Rise Intake on a Honda! Up next was installing new valve springs for the JDM H23 Blue Top that could handle the lift of the Crower stage 2 cam shafts along with adjustable came gear and Gates Racing timing belt. It was now time to mate the engine to the transmission, to do that we got a lightened flywheel and a ACT 6 puck clutch, and installed the motor.
A car is never complete but I have a running and driving 4th gen Prelude again! I have grown older and my taste in cars has changed, but this car still hits me right in the feelers every time I look at it. There is something about being young and wild and this car takes me back to the early 2000's every time. It makes me smile thinking of all the good times and memories!
I truly did build the car of my 21 year old dreams!
