DragStuff

I had to run into the shop today to finish the crate to ship the 12 bolt that was just sold. While I was there I wanted to test fit the new Kirkey seats to make sure the upper funny car seat cross bar was in the right position in relation to the shoulder harness cutout in the seat. I like this bar to be very close to the same position so the seat belts would pull against the round tube instead of the sharper edge of the aluminum seat.

I think I'm gonna go ahead and put the seat back against the main hoop. We do this when the rules allow as this helps move the drivers weight back some which can help the F to R weight bias some. This does create some further work on my part as the brake pedal needs to be extended back some and a new gas pedal fabricated to move it back, the steering column needs to be redone so drops more and extends back almost 4" more and lastly my shifter will need to be moved back. Alot of extra work, but I feel at this point in the project it's worth the effort.

Just a quick FYI.

I just took the doors off my car and while at the shop, weighed one on the digital scales. This is a complete stock door with hinges, crash bar removed.

90 lbs

Almost dropped the dang thing when I went to take it off. I left the door panel on and didn't have any of the inside holes to grab on to.

I'm switching to fiberglass doors from Glasstek and lexan side windows. I have a 4th gen Firebird door I just completed which is darn near the same physical size as a Malibu door...total weight was 18 lbs.

So even if you round up to 20 lbs, that still a 140 lb weight savings.

Great looking work, which I've come to expect from about anything that you play with. By any chance, did you keep track of weight differences? Just out of curiosity...

John_Heard wrote:Great looking work, which I've come to expect from about anything that you play with. By any chance, did you keep track of weight differences? Just out of curiosity...

Thanks John.

No, I haven't really done anything about checking weight. My intention was to just weight the completed car when done. I think I have notes here somewhere that had all the tube lengths in the old cage and weight per foot of the tubing for a total of the old cage.

I can easily measure up all the new tubing and do the same calculations to get a rough idea of 8.50 .134 wall 10 point cage vs the 25.3 cage.

Lots of variables in the end though with all the other changes happening at the same time.

Understood... was just curious how much difference there was. I'm hoping mine was a wash more or less from the heavy wall mild steel to the CM. My target weight is 3000 lbs w/driver, not sure I'll get there or not.

John_Heard wrote:Understood... was just curious how much difference there was. I'm hoping mine was a wash more or less from the heavy wall mild steel to the CM. My target weight is 3000 lbs w/driver, not sure I'll get there or not.

Same here.

Was your car done as 25.5, 25.2 or 25.3?

We did a '69 Camaro that had a 10 point mild steel 8.50 cage, .134" wall tube. We weighed it before and after a 25.5 chromoly cage and the car was within 5 to 10 lbs before vs after.

It's setup for 25.3 now. Haven't done the cert yet, going to wait until it's much closer to race ready. No sense in wasting x months on a cert that is time sensitive - they aren't cheap anymore.

I'm pretty sure I'll get to 3100 or dang close based on what's came out of the car, just not too sure how much everything that has to go back in will tally up to in the end. It was at 3350 w/driver before all this work started with the old cage.

AWESOME work Todd. You should be very proud of your craftsmanship.

that IS some damn nice work. WOW keep the px posting

Wow very nice work and seriously nice welds too.....

Bruce

Here's a couple close up welds of some work I did for a customer's Malibu.

Sweet... Nice work Todd.

Some very nice welding there

Here's a quick update from todays work. Monday and Friday evening I worked on a template to build the front roof line/windshield bars. Friday evening I bent those bars up and did a rough fit. This morning I did the final tweaking, tacked them and moved on. I then got the windshield bar and dash bars set in place. Next up was the inner funny car cage bar, two upper helmet bars and the inside/lower f/c bar. All bars are tack welded and ready for final welding.

Tomorrow afternoon I plan to work on the roof X as well as all the roof gussets. I need to work on the welding of all these bars as well. I won't get a full 8 hours in, so not sure how much I'll get accomplished tomorrow.

Most of the pics from today did not turn out well, so hopefully tomorrow I can update with better pics.

Here's a couple that did turn out OK.

One last update for the weekend. I worked on the roof X as well as the required gussets in the roof area. I need to get the argon bottle filled before I can continue with the welding.





I've been asked by a couple people what the new cage would weigh since it's alot of bars compared to the old 10 point cage.

I took some time this evening to measure all the bars that are in the car right now. I was also able to estimate the bars yet to be installed.

The old cage weighed 140#, plus what ever the Chris Alston's clevis style swing out kit weighed (kinda heavy being solid steel).

From my calculations, the completed 25.3 cage will weigh right at 175#.

Now, the new cage incorperates both a built in trans crossmember as well as tubular driveshaft loop. The ones removed weighed 11#.

175 - 11 = 164#.

Now, I also removed the upper coil spring pockets although I didn't weigh them, I estimate they were around 4# each.

164 - 4 - 4 = 156 #net weight.

So the old cage was 140#, new one sits at around 156, so the gain is approx 16# heavier.

Other weight reduction things not associated with the cage are:

stock dash removed for the VFN fiberglass. 15# - 5# = 10# loss
remove rear floor wood storage compartment = 12# loss
replace Bassani mufflers with Coast Fab approx 3#

So these small items account for an additional 25# of weight loss.

Also remember the f/g doors which will knock an additional 140# off the car.