Vectorsolid, When you get good at welding the barrel of the can, not the rolled ring at the top, try the foil in gum wrappers. Yes the foil. I worked with a guy that could do it. I was impressed.
for a dash mounted auto shifter look at Dodge vans and RV's from the 70's What thickness of aluminum is that seat? Mine will look similar.
Yep, 1-1/4 sch40, .140 wall thickness. 90% of dirt track hobby stock cars in North America are made with it. The 1" stuff is some DOM .120 wall with a .166 outer diameter. I've got the correct dies. I've seen some foil welded... impressive. Yea, RV, that might be the ticket. Have to look around a bit. Seat is .1 thick.
I hear and see a lot of discussion concerning the safety of useing pipe instead of steel tubing. As Vectorsolid said, a great many oval track cars have been built with this stuff. I personaly have stress tested it, (very unwillingly I might add) and I can tell you that if it's correctly braced, it's pretty tough. I always used the 1 1/2 .125 wall variety. The bucks up guys used the 1 3/4 .095 electric welded cold rolled steel tube. We once did a test in the shop, to see how each performed. We took one 5 foot section of each material, and supported it between two jack stands. A large weight was dropped from a fixed height at the dead center point. What we discovered was that the steel tube tended to dent or partialy collapse through it's cross section before it actually deflected. The black pipe tended to deflect pretty evenly over it's entire length, but retained it's cross section shape better. If correctly braced, the pipe was very tough. The steel tube was no doubt marginaly stronger. All this said, in a Hamb Dragster application, with the short lengths of tube in between bracing, and factoring the light weight of the car, the pipe should be more than adequate in holding the track up off your head in the event of a rollover. I've wiped out violently in a 3300 pound stock car that had only the roof and door skins between the cage and whatever tried to come in, and had the cage only deflect silightly over it's entire structure. Is the steel tube better? You bet it is....and lighter too.
Steel is steel, it weighs the same per cubic foot. just that a moly cage can be made of thinner wall material, thinner wall makes the end result lighter.
Hence the allowance for Moly to run .083 when mild steel is spec'd at .118 and this is thicker yet at .140 A calculated decision.
We sold a local tire dealer on the concept of branding the car. We get a set of 4 brand new tires. Perfecto. More to come on that as it sorts out. Gotta get 16" rears though, no decent tires (from him) in a 17, that aren't current truck tires. possibly 7.50-16's in some kind of trailer tire. We're gonna let him pick the look for the car. Gonna save us near $600 on the build. We don't give a shit about traction as long as they emit smoke and we have fun.
battery box, made and mounted switch mounted. Seat and seat belt mounts, mounted. Next cars are gonna get a FLAT floor with minimal "humps". Speed up the build IMHO. I think I'm gonna add some side wings to the seat with little "speed" holes in them.
tire comparison. "likely" on a local level, I see us running the 30" dimple wall tire you see. 5 ply 7.00-15. those bad boys run us $114 mounted and balanced. Similar in size to the cokers but 60% cheaper. For all we know they might work like shit, but they are similar in physical dimension and as good a place to start as any. "locally". The 32" tall 7.50-16's are about $150 Also, they make enough different sizes, you can get similar tread tires front and back to enhance the visual appeal of the car. I'd say the group of us here are leaning toward this series of tire as our spec tire. If they suck real bad, back to Coker.
Exhaust flanges didn't get here on time, so we made us a tailpipe. Seat looked narrow from the back, so we added some wings to it. Feels better to sit in it. X and K braces on the cage. Used 1" .125 DOM for them. Gave us 3/8 " more room for your hand around the shifter. might not sound like much, but it adds up. Wiring for the battery is in place. Also... CRIKEY, it takes forever to weld up all these little tubes...
Steering and shifter are in. Scrounged up a ratchet shifter. Submarine strap mount is finally in, seat cut to match. fuel line bent. We're toying with the idea of running idiot lights on the dash instead of gauges. "if you see lights on the dash, you need to shut it down, or SHIFT..."
talked to a guy tonight that just pulled a 250 and 4 speed out of something he did a V8 swap on. Says it runs perfect, no issues. I can have the pair for $100. Gonna pick that puppy up! I might bail on that 305 for the other car. Even locally, good deal or not... The respect level is proving low for a v8 gas rail. 2 less pipes to worry about on the header anyway.
Looking good. Are the artilleries wide enough to use on the finished car? They'd be sharp, eh wot? Also like the idea of idiot light in lieu of gauge, at least for oil ....
Oldrodder, artilleries? Couldn't find the shift nob, so we made this little bugger, and started on the body panels. Lot to do if we're gonna have this on the track by Sunday... time will tell. Gotta get REAL lucky in a Lot of areas.
Ah, the rims. Sad part is, I think the rears are gonna get the boot. This build is for a friend. He's got a pretty tight budget... VERY tight. the tires we found for it on the 17" rims in the pic priced him out of it. We need to scrounge some 16's to save him a few hundred bucks. I'd love to leave those rims on there though. Gotta go where the wallet points ya. And we need the gear ratio those 32" tires are giving us. I got it pencil'd out at 3500rpm = 89mph. 30" = 83mph Mostly an 1/8 mile car (home track is 1/8 mile).
Got the firewall designed and installed. I'm glad we put the bead roll on it. Got the pocket for the left foot about mounted and started on throttle linkage. rebuilt the steering box ...again... something in it feels funky. And we're adding another support heim just above the starter. It turns "heavy". little over 1.5 turns lock to lock. I think we need a different box. But we'll see how it does when we get to drive it up and down the street. Might not steer as heavy as a person might think. A quick build tip for any noobs thinking about a build. Before you go knocking in the driveline take a HARD look at where the floor boards are gonna be. the flatter you can get them and the less humps and curves the easier it will be to finish that area. This means setting the engine low in the frame and or running the frame rails higher. Look at bobw's build. Much better floor design, more room, easier to fab. Thread can be found here. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=325361&page=5 Still can't get the body panels mounted. After 30 years in the same location, JEGS decides that my last order should be more scrutinized than usual and they delayed my "next day air" order for a day while they checked. 30 years, same location...Lot's of 4 figure orders. This one for $300 for dzus fasteners, they gotta really check out. I suppose I get it though. the amount of fraud in the mail order business is rough. Great story on the tires. First of all we got them for FREE from our local tire store, as they dig the car. How cool is that. 7.50-16's. Just got to put their name on the body, and the lettering should be done in the AM. I took my model-a down to the tire store to check on when they could get to them, guy said their done. I wasn't about to drive all the way back home to get a truck so we just stuffed them in the car. Was a tight fit, and they were precariously wobbling around and leaning on each other. But I figure, no big, I'll be home in a jiff... Took 9 ounces each to balance them by the way... What's the deal with bias ply tires being kinda sucky? Half way home, I'm going 50 around this corner, the tires decide to roll off each other and head toward the dash and they knock the shifter into reverse... There I am, sidways, tires squealing and trying to also get this 60 pound wedged-in tire off the shifter while not sliding into the rhubarb. I'm sure the guy behind me was curious WTF was going on.
Thanks man. It's gonna be close. Lot's of things have to go right. And we are slowly running out of shipping days if we need anything critical. Like a shifter cable or a heim for the throttle linkage... although, that's kind of all that's left. I'll youtube the initial startup and launch up the street. It's all fun and games until the cops show up. We'll either be at the track this weekend, or driving it around Montana backroads.
Just sell'em on a build. It can be done. Why is it that clean bead rolling makes a panel look so damn professional? Very nice. Your tires looked really familiar, so I walked out and looked at ours. Identical tread with mildly different "pie crust". Concievably the same maker? Ours are just labelled "Freeway".
Mine steers very hard and very quick sitting still, too. At the track it was not a problem. Coulda let go of the steering wheel through the traps. And, not enough power to get the car to move around on the launch and down the track. 10 degrees of caster and a quick ratio (long pitman arm) caused it.
Thanks guys. We're at I think 15 degrees for castor, that might be the hard steer. I'm gonna put the car on the lift until we have 15 degrees of body angle, putting the front end at zero, and see if it stills steers hard. Then at least we can put a finger on what we are seeing. Next build, I'm putting in the MW funny car steering box. Based on the amount of work to adapt and trouble shoot other options, it's a bargain. Dzus fasteners... I would love to watch a professional mount a body on a tube car... Both side panels done and mounted. Correct tires on. Had a flat, rim had a hole in it. They tubed it. Starting to finally look like a race car. What's left? Hood section. starting and on off switch interior floor on both sides 6" section of scattershield up to the firewall Transmission cable throttle pedal and linkage
Got the hood done, and all the tins are off to be painted in the AM. Whipped up a little bracket to put one more heim on the steering shaft. Scattershield is getting close. Entertained the idea of running a bead on the hood, but decided the windshield will add something to the panel and as we haven't worked it out yet, hate to have the windshield interfere or hang up on a rolled bead. Rest of the body tin is 18ga, hood is 24 gauge.
If you get to much caster the thing steers hard and won't backup worth a flip. 12 degrees is about good for straight line stuff, if you go more than that it starts getting harder to steer and the tires start doing funny things backing up like flopping back and forth. The reason it gets harder is the more caster you are lifting the front end up when you turn the wheels. Turn your wheel and put a measuring tape on the front frame and see how much it comes up, the more it comes up then the harder it is to turn. The more caster the more the wheels want to go straight.
Got the scattershield and floor finalized and welded in. Started looking for things that needed to be welded that we forgot. little things here and there. Got the fuel tank painted mounted with filter.
Spent more time than I care to admit trying to put an engine turn finish on the seat. here it is with 5 coats of clear on it. We rousted up an old motorcycle blinker that looks pretty slick, it's gonna get mounted on the battery box when we're done. The tins are drying at the body shop. Should be on the car tomorrow. Sadly, we have blue seatbelts for the car. Gonna need to pick up some black or red ones to match the rest of the car. Hopefully be driving it, in less than 24 hours. Rained all day. There are races in the morning, I'm confident they are rained out for Satruday. It's still raining right now. We're still gonna push for a Sunday shakedown at the track. We'll see.
Getting closer. Got the battery box done and added a panel on top to match the seat. Throttle pedal in. Tow/tie-down hooks put on the front. Got an overflow tank built and mounted. Got the shifter linkage run and mounted
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