Well I've taken the plunge. I commissioned a small shop to build me a slingshot chassis. The car will be a blown methanol SBC driving through a shorty glide to a final drive 9" ford. The reason for the fairly short WB is that it will be stored in my garage and unfortunately UK garages are not very big. I'll keep this updated as things progress. I hope folks like my build and any advice you can inpart would be greatfully recieved.
Well it's here, car has arrived at my house. Now the hard work starts, before returning it for the bodywork at fuel tank build.
will be a common old garden 350ci, but trying to retro build it so it looks more like period correct. Will have a Hurst style front motor mount.
You might want a loop over the drivers head just in case you get it rubber side up someday. Other than that it looks like a lot of fun. Even 400HP in a light dragster will be fast.
It has a 5 point hoop, doesn't show well in the pictures. We custom built it to my size, keeping it as tight to the limits as possible whilst having max layback.
Thanks guys Now all I need to do is find a vintage fuel injection system and a Mag with a tach drive. Well there is lots more to do, but that's build wise. It the vintage parts I am trying to collect.
While an exilent first build, and not knowing your situation and material availability, You went kind of overboard on some of the tubing , the diagonals as they can be smaller and still function just as well as the larger dia ones without sacraficing any strenght or safety. Only thing gained was the added weight.. Should you go about removing them or selling the chassis and start over---Hell No, put it together and run it
Kick ass. I will be building one of these some day. Had lots of drag cars but one of these has always been a dream of mine. Sub'd
Great build, nice frame. If you get tired of it, I will store it in my shop! LOL. I will be following along, been entertaining the thought of building one also. I guy up the road from me builds feds at his shop.
Glad to know there's still people out there that like to test their sphincter strength once in a while!! Looks cool as hell; it ought to be a blast to wheel down the strip.
Been thinking about building one of these after my T-bucket. Small block chevy too! I like how they rev up fast.
All the very Best with your FED! If you have not had a chance to Drive one yet, you really cannot possibly know how much fun you are going to have!
Weight, none in it. It's chrome-molly tubing, the chap who built it could pick it up on his own, It is tag'd to SFI 2.4C so good for upto 6.00seconds, and with my bum only 3" off the ground I would rather have more safety than needed.
He sure did, think it became a full rolling chassis in about 3 months. He builds stuff to keep himself busy as he is retired, otherwise he would just keep tinkering and modifying his FED
I could tell it was moly from the pics and also I know that you used the drawings from the DLong Old Master dragster (who was my shop neighbor for 20 years ).Don taught me a lot about design an function in building frames to which having used that info to build many dragster chassis. Like I said, nothing basicly wrong and a nice build, but to use the old I WANT IT SAFER LINE ,is just added weight and more work. You wanted opinions and you got one, don't get upset. If increased safety was your concern, you would be looking at the placement of the diagonals above the uprite intersection and not thru it for maximum design strength.
Ummm, listen to DRE. He is a professional that has forgotten more about dragsters than most of us will ever know! Nice digger.
Seriously, learn about dragsters before making those statements. Modern chassis thru engineering are assembled useing proper techniques and smaller tube dia. and hold up quite well for the 330+ for the RE and 260 for the modern FE. Rear ends blowing and/or coming out of the car happened almost 50 years ago, things have changed a lot since then and most racers both young and old do not consider this a concern. Again for the third time , this is a nice build
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