Am interested in building a Belly Tank Salt Flat Racer in the future. Does anyone know where I can get a set of plans? I know there is a big learning curve when involving speed, so dont want trial and error here. Thanks.
Do a search on this site as there are lots of pictures and information on this board. Go to landracing.com and look through the build diaries in the forum section. Depend on the class you plan to enter, there are variations on how you will want to build the car. John
Have a look at three different posts on this board: 1) Belly Tank Build Underway Bonneville 2011 2) A Little Progress On A Belly Tank Build 3) Belly Tank Powered By The Fabulous Flathead
Like it is said, search "bellytank" or "lakester" on the board and sign up on www.landracing.com in the forum section. Also order an SCTA rulebook as well as ECTA since you are East coast.
I haven't seen any plans for a lakester out there, not saying there isn't, just havent seen any. I think a plan would be tricky since no two cars are excatly the same. A lot depends on the tank you decided to use and the motor you plan to run. I started building my tank before I had ever attended an SCTA event. Looking back on that now, it was a mistake. After I finally made it to Bonneville I relized about 30% of the parts I had already made were going to be useless. This was very disappointing and a huge step in the wrong direction. If you are serious about building the car you need to get out to Bonneville and watch the racing, talk with the people racing and building the cars, ask a thousand questions, and take a million pictures. Just my two cents.
Have you been to Bonneville? My high school friends and I went for the first time this year as we are contemplating a belly tank project. You learn a huge amount from going there and witnessing tech. As others have said here, there are many, many tank build projects documented on here. I have saved scores of pictures as ideas and references. Lastly, from all of this I have some ideas floating around in my head on how I want to build one. To that end, I just completed an AutoCad course in my local adult education school. I want to plan this thing out on paper before any cutting and welding begins. Bad thing I learned from the course is that I can only do two dimensional drawings. Hopefully 3D course will be offered in the spring. You can download the software and use it for a year if you are enrolled as a student.
If you can find a mentor/teacher/buddy that is racing it would be a huge wealth of info. I started mine laying two pieces of plywood on the floor and drawing out what I wanted.. I still have alot to do to pass tech..
Step 1 get a rulebook, best $10 you'll spend on the whole project. Look around here and landracing, lots of builds around, most that are building are glad to help. When I started asking questions about running at the salt (not all that long ago) I tried very hard to make my questions coherent, intelligent, and not something explained in the rulebook. Did I always succeed? No, but not for lack of trying.
The Jalopy Journal
