Projects Northwest Vintage Dragster Group Build.

Still up in the air, we have an early mustang box and a Corvair box here.

We were talking about how much effort would be needed to turn it with the skinny tires and wondering if you could just use a bell crank on the end of a shaft instead of steering gear. Any thoughts?

 

I used a volkswagon bug box on mine , easy to mount and extend the sector shaft. Never did like it. Steering to loose( to many turns lock to lock) Ended buying a strange super gas /funny car box from summit 500 plus but it was worth it. It`s not in the catalog but it is available online

 

Well I didn't snap any pictures this week, we were managing to incorrectly bend tubing repeatedly even without that distraction..... good thing we are going to need a lot of short pieces.......

 

Yep, short piece supply's never empty here.

 

Enjoying the project. Looking forward to more!

 

Sounds like it's coming well! Enjoying the progress! Keep up the good work!

 

I used a Strange box--available --in stock--3 shaft lengths--works perfectly! Excellent customer service--all that after waiting forever on a Stiletto then ordered from Strange and had it in 3 days--pretty important piece to skimp on
Steering "speed" adjustable with length of steering arm on spindle--we made one change and slowed it down a little and it is perfect.

 

building alter ed with much the same design and I like your's better for another project that's going on could I whimper snivel hang on your cuffs to get a set of drawings as you generate them with appx dims. from pics so far this should be no problem to sfi cert 7.50 and slower

 

Those do look interesting
http://www.strangeengineering.net/p...components/steering-boxes-racks-tie-rod-kits/

 

I used a Strange box in one of the cars, and incorporated the mandatory "leg hoop" as a shaft support.

 

Marty, looks like your using engine plates, we were planning on using removable crossmenbers and factory mounting points so we can put in different engine trans combos into the same chassis. Any thoughts on this?

 

When we set out to build these cars, I wanted to make sure they would certify @ 7.50, so that if the class failed, they would still be suitable as an Altered, or Comp style car. Using a motor plate is a simple way to have a solid, sealed firewall along with controlling and engine "rock", when loaded. It makes it easy to mount pedals, and support the removable steering mount. The only drawback is, the 1/4" plate, requires some modifications to the nose of the torque converter, and spacers on the mounting pads.

 

You guy's do really nice work! keep the pic's coming!

 

Oh this is gonna be COOL !

 

Satler started us off right with some Hells Canyon Smokehouse


Then we started squaring the tubes we bent last week and bracing them to the table.




Next up was copeing the bottom tube to the shoulder hoop. i picked up one of these pipe masters for the 1 3/4, i am pretty impressed with it as it saved us a boat load of time trying to figure out how to get the longer pipes mounted in the mill.


Because we had so many mistakes last week and a pile of pipes that were just a little too short to meet in the middle like Marty's cars we opted to lessen the dip in the middle of the chassis and then make the rear of the shoulder hoop a sperate piece. this let us use up more of the material we had on hand. here are the 1.5"OD liners for the joints installed so we can know we have full penitration on the welds and also keeps everything aligned in the process. we did end up cutting these tubes shorter so the hoop wasn't hanging back too far.




While Randy and Satler were busting out the rear end of the shoulder hoop i coped a cross tube for the bottom of the chassis.



It took some finessing to get the rear bar on as it had to go threw 3 bends and then end up being a certain width. they nailed it on the second try.



I got a couple of verical braces made before it was time to call it a night. we are pretty stoked to see it start to take shape.

 

Man making my mouth water just looking at this photo.

 

Looks great guys. Really nice work!

 

Lookin good Rob, the only thing I would question is the inner sleeves, they should be 6" long, 3" on each side of the joint. Just something to ponder.

 

That's why I'm glad your here, that wasn't something I was aware of. one half of the sleave would be inside of the bend but i do have a 1.5" X 7" clr die where i could probably pull that off, do you think that would be acceptable or should we re-bend that back section and move the joints farther forward? that would put the joint right where the uprights connect.

 

I would re-bend the back section as you stated, and if the splices fall in the middle of the weld joint, that would be great. I drill 3/8" holes for plug welds, 4 on each joint.

 

Man that's looking great! It's really inspiring watching this build! I hope to try to build one also! Thanks for all the input!

Sent from my XT1254 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

This has been a fun build so far, it doesn't use up a lot of cash and it progresses pretty quickly. Good for those of us that enjoy instant gratification.

 

So last night was my night to cook, chili and corn bread. I forgot to get a picture but I assure you it was a full 5 star quality meal.....

We started out by burning out some rear axle brackets. we used 3/8" on the axle and sandwiched that with 3/16 on the chassis. Then we got the idea to build up a jig for welding them on so that we would be able to swap the rearends between the cars.



Then added some stands for the jig to save some time wth leveling and squaring things up next time.



Next i hopped on the plasma cam and burned out this front spring perch.

Marty, how much caster are you guys liking in these things? we have it tacked in at 12 °.......too much?



Couple of victory shots for the night


Randy goofing off a little

 

According to this thread my 12 degrees may be a little too conservative
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/caster-on-front-engine-dragster.166516/

 

We used a mopar steering box

 

This is as far as we have got

 

That is a clean looking setup for sure. i need to build a dragster just to hang from the ceiling...adds a little something to a shop

 

Twelve degrees should be plenty for your application. I normally run my dragsters at 20 and altereds at 15 or less. FYI when I was at John Force Racing the funny cars only ran 6 degrees (and ran 330 mph).
On another point the rear axle mounts should have 4 bolts (7/16" min.) per side.
And finally although your car will probably not fall within the SFI parameters any splice in the shoulder hoop should be between the forward and secondary roll cage hoops.

 

Thanks for keeping us on the right track, we will make the corrections on the axle brackets and the rear hoop on the next shop night. This build really is a ton of fun.

 

Love the headers! I can imagine hearing the BLATTT of the throttle.