bob... there is no 'modified' class. look in the E.T. handicap racing section in the front of the book. section 1A:4, and 1A:7 (pages 20 and 22 in the '07 book) have the info. on your altered... how fast were you planning on running it and in what class?
Here's the chassis. Chris Alston cage. Best 1/8 mile is 7.52 @ 93mph. Leaving at idle shift @4,500. 87 octane engine. Room for improvement. 6.99 1/8 mile is considered 10.99 1/4 mile. The Fiat was considere an 'open-bodied' car because of the roof and no doors. In the General Regulations 4 options for 'open-bodied' cars; rear engine dragsters, front engine dragsters, street roadsters and altereds. Each has a very specific requirement for the roll cage, none ofwhich are a typical roll bar or closed car cage. An I correct in believing the General Regulations apply to all cars including those running brackets?
the general regulations apply to any car that REQUIRES that it meet the spec regardless what class. 'open body' is open for debate. section 1A:7 says may be chopped, channeled, sectioned, streamlined, etc. fiberglass body permitted. must have two driver exits. doesn't say anything about doors being mandatory. as i see it your car has 3 driver exits. the top and two windows. under section 1A:4 it calls for a 'roll bar' for a 'convertible' (yours is really a 'sunroof' but 'open' none the less) that runs 7.0 to 8.25. now under general regs 4:10 your chassis actually EXCEEDS the spec. diagram. in my opinion, you got hosed at brainerd. that's one of them things where you hand 'em the book and make 'em show you or prove you wrong. just for giggles... here's a link to jim higby's t bucket. it looks pretty similar in construction to yours and he has NO problem at the NHRA tracks out here. http://jameshigbyengineering.com/Jim's%20Cars.html
Last summer I replaced the Fiat body with a Crosley Wagon body. Now I have doors and I passed tech at Brainerd. Got rained out though. Yep, if Jim Higby can run, I should have been able to run the Fiat. Sorry to consume so much space with this issue. I hope it was somewhat helpful in understanding NHRA and their rules.
funny... there's two guys with crosley wagon bodies that run in our group... this whole time i was thinking about thier cars because they're both center steer but DON'T have a funny car cage. one runs 12's the other a bit faster. the problem with all of this is that often its left to the discretion of the tech inspector who may be at odds with the opinion of the division tech director (Who's never there when you need him). i always start there so i have ammo before heading to the track...
It's been over 7 months, and apologize for surfacing an older thread. But it's still topical, and rather than start a new thread with the same stuff in it, here we go. Easier to find if it's all in one spot. And we have a whole additional season under our belts now. I read the whole thread again. What part of the HA/GR car needs to be changed to get out of the 10 second dragster classification? I read mention of "suspension changes everything".. Well that's great.. LIKE WHAT? I'm getting old, our return lane sucks, I'm planning on some rear suspension anyway. nice high arch leaf. I read that doors would help. I think I could whip up a nice tiny door you'd barely see. So what, it's part of the fun of the build. I read one thread where an inspector mentioned that a piece of the roll bar, at the very least had to be bolted in. I don't know if that's accurate, but stuff that's bolted on, that can get you through tech is a positive compromise in my opinion. For the guys that are interested (and not all of us are, I've read that too), what changes need to be made to make the cars breeze through NHRA tech? And how can we make these changes look good on these cars? What does an NHRA legal HA/GR look like? What's the build spec? There's some compromise here somewhere. I'd like to see what it is. But I'm not smart enough to know what it is. That's where you guys come in. Anybody have an NHRA legal, HA/GR car we can look at? I've watched 2-3 good build threads and most guys had drivable cars in 2-3 weeks. You don't have years into it, or $50k... Fix it. I'm really of the opinion that 4 very skilled guys, in a good shop, could knock an HA/GR car out on a long weekend. So let's make a few small changes "in the spirit off drag racing". I'm a fabricator, let's build the damn thing already. My main fab/rod buddy is gonna be back next week. I'm perfectly willing to build this one NHRA legal and we can dissect it and see if it can be made more in the spirit of the bug, AND nhra legal. I really don't care. Let's get some parameters and tweak it. The "spirit" is still there folks. people want to do this. to bitch about nhra rules at their track is like complaining that your buddy makes you take your shoes off in his house... and you don't at yours. THIS is the "spirit" of drag racing. (at least to me it is.) Crowd loves it, we had a good time, and it's all we talk about... I need new tires now though... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39wp2RmTgqM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHElHPqkO7g ....
"What does an NHRA legal HA/GR look like? What's the build spec? There's some compromise here somewhere. I'd like to see what it is. But I'm not smart enough to know what it is. That's where you guys come in." Just take an NHRA Funny car, remove the body and put a '55 chevy 6 in it with 6" bias ply treaded tires on the back and they should be happy.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=271448 Look at FalconGasser's altered and imagine it with a flathead or inline and with a HA/GR body. His altered meets NHRA's 9.99 or slower altered requirements.
Perhaps an NHRA rulebook would be a useful purchase for building to NHRA specs? Simply build to suit the bracket catagory most befitting your car. Then to NHRA you're driving a bracket car and there's no quibble.
Did, very cool. I like it. What's the major beef about an HA/GR compared to this altered. I see a LOT of similarity in the build. Is there a less complicate way to do a build to say 12.50 and slower? Agreed, and ordered one (we're IHRA up here). The part I'm familiar with is racing Sport Compact, you want to hammer those rules home I can help . The issue is that I don't know what to call it and what I'm looking for in comparison to Altered, dragsters, bracket car, etc. I'm not against doing the research... I just don't yet know what you guys have already figured out. And that is, where we don't fit and what makes tech directors bitch.. I don't know that.
Old6rodder, I tried that with my Fiat. No go. If you could get by that way, then all kinds of early dragster chassis would be used in the slower brackets without retrofits. They don't care if your altered or FED runs 9.99 or 19.99, the general regulations are the same. If you have a roof and doors the requirements for brackets are less demanding. At least, that's my experience.
======================================================= ya the coiled vent tube is what I run in 1/4 inch id any smaller and I starve the injection . I use about 4 1/2 to 5 gals of alka in a run.
vectorsolid.... there is no such thing as an NHRA legal HA/GR because as far as NHRA is concerned, the HA/GR does not exist. WHY, you ask? because its not in their book. this style of car does not meet ANY of the current NHRA classifications for dragster, altered, dune buggy, convertible or door car. the only reason Old6rodder and toymakers cars go down track is because the tech guys at Famoso have a shred of common sense. your track may differ. if you build something according to the NHRA rule book, its not an HA/GR anymore. thats what is so sticky about the whole deal.
And they're knowledgeable enough to help out with advice pertaining to our individual applications rather than simply down-checking us. We regularly hear the phrase "in your unique situation, you could try this ....... ". We've already instituded several of'em and will be adding two more (from last weekend's good advice) over the winter.
I'll argue with ya, but it's for fun. There is no blueprint associated with the word "spirit" in the HA/GR guidelines. There are no wheelbase, width, height, weight or color requirements. As far as I can tell, there is no spot that says, "make it look EXACTLY like this". It's about the "spirit of the bug", not exact carbon copy of it. That Spirit thing is gonna mean different things to different people.
I have to agree with victorsolid. I was over at Fomoso this last weekend and had a chance to meet and talk with Toymaker I believe. He handed me the rule sheet and we discussed the car. After doing some reading the past couple of days I thought I might chime in on this a little. This is just my opinion and am not trying to tell you all how to do it. It seems that some have a problem with not being able to run their cars because of the NHRA rules. Bottom line it that back in the 50s life was a lot simpler and people were not so quick to lay blame onto somebody else ( lawsuits). All the track owners are trying to do is keep the few tracks that are left open for us to be able to race our cars. With that being said the rule that stands out to me is #25. The car must be built in the sprit of the “Bug” and other early rail jobs. So what does this mean? What comes to my mind is build a low budget car out of basically the scraps left laying around and then being able to race it on a very small budget. I know that I am going to piss off some here but I do not think that building a NHRA approved roll cage is taking away from the looks of the car.
And I couldn't agree with you more. Do we build a car that is true to the spirit and look at it in our garage until mid August and make the trip to MO-KAN or do we give a little in the looks dept. and build it so we can run it at other tracks all year long? It is all in what you want in life. I have many friends who build cars and want to only polish them and look at them, they are works of art. I am just a guy who likes the race. I want my car to resemble an early rail in every way it can. I also would like to race that car against like cars. It is not winning or losing just racing. I loved racing 2B Banjo the 3 times I lost to him and loved the one time I beat him. 2B and Cowboy Bob make 1200 mile trips down here to race so the racing part must be a part as well as the looks. Single hoop roll bars look good but there were a lot of drag racers killed in the 60's and you can get killed at 80 mph just as well as 200mph. Roy
I totally agree with "348chevy", I don't have to add to that!!! Part of what prompted me to add a 2nd roll bar (besides being able to race after traveling any distance) was seeing Cowboy Bob's crash at MoKan last yr. He hit the guard rail head on, went air borne for a bit. If he would rolled & got the front portion of the car over upside down & skidded along, with only the 1 bar, he would not be here today. Since putting on the 2nd bar I have not heard 1 negative comment except here, so if you only want 1 bar, do it, I don't want my face ripped off. I try to run all the engine parts that are the spirit of the "Bug", but safety & being allowed to run my rail prevail.
has everything to do with it. according to nhra, if it has a solid mounted rear axle it has to be either a dragster, funny car or altered and as such, it has to meet their chassis specs.
I believe that posting photos of injured drivers is inappropriate in this forum. I am an advocate of safety, but I'd rather not look at that photo.
Thought about it, took the photo down. Was just putting a pic with a discussion. I thought it was pertinent to the discussion. Guy was okay, BTW. Pic was of a guy in a rolled car and they were trying to get him out. He was fine. Nothing gory. Just made a person think. Well, made me think anyway. My apologies if it was taken in any way that wasn't with the best of intentions.
Well with all this said lets just go out and build those cars. The more that show up the better. It is all about the race and what happens after the race. I myself have found that camping out in the pits sometimes is the best part.
Oh one outher thing. I am looking for a front axle. I have never played with a split wishbone but I am willing to learn. I have a 230 6, a 10 bolt and three 3 speeds in my back yard right now.
Our car is running over 120 MPH and should be even faster after I get it tweaked next spring. That's fast enough to warrant a double bar, regardless of what anyone else thinks. I'm sure all of us involved in the HA/GR movement would feel awful if one of our cars got on it's top and the driver was hurt or killed because it only had a single roll bar. I personally don't want to have someone meet a "spirit" just to be in the "spirit" of the class. Ron
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