FrontEngineDragsters.Org Forum
Drag Racing Discussions => Front Engine Dragsters => Topic started by: RacinJacin on November 01, 2014, 02:48:02 PM
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Well I jumped in with a couple posts, but I should have done an intro so here it is:
I'm a hands on engineer (day job) who happens to love drag racing and other mechanical things and at night I love toying around in the garage running the mill, lathe, welder, etc.
I guess around 12 years ago I realized I wasn't getting any younger and I NEEDED a Front Engine Dragster and since no one was gonna give me one I had only 1 option...BUILD IT. Naturally I knew nothing about them but was lucky enough to run across a bunch of people willing to share their wisdom with me (I see a few of them here - Rooman is one, Hanna is another, plus many more) anyways with their help I was able to construct my very first VERY LOW budget genuine front engine dragster. Sure it took several years because I am stubborn and HAD to have certain things - like a hand formed aluminum body and of course I knew nothing about those either so there were several learning curves involved here! Any ways a svelt 7 years later it was done (ok not really done, but close enough to drive). I got the chassis certified and we were on our way.
I built pretty much every part of this car and "wasted" who knows how many hours machining parts I could have easily purchased, but didn't really have to money to buy so all in all it worked out pretty good.
I've been running the car for 5 or 6 years now (who knows maybe longer) and have been having an absolute blast with it!!! Surely not the fastest car on the planet, but durable and affordable for my tight budget!
Here we are earlier this year at our local track - yes that's my tow vehicle as well. I'll see if I can add a couple pics showing the various parts I whittled on - no CNC's here - just some fumbling around on some outdated manual machinery. The resplined axle I did for the tow vehicle - not my dragster.
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Nice work! What is the wheelbase & drive train?
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Thank-you. I'm running a hilborn injected 392, 'glide and a 9" 180" wheelbase.
With the very best parts the swap meets have to offer :-)
RacinJacin
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very impressive ! There are not too many guy's that can say they did it all by them self!
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Cool ride. As another do it all or as much as can, I can more than appreciate the time it takes. Great looking work too. Best thing is that while winning is sweat , winning in a car you built yourself is just ten times that.
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Jacin I was just looking at the video of your trailer ! You spend a lot of time thinking I like that !
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Jason did you build the aluminum girdle also its all very nice.
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Larry, Nope, I can't take credit for the girdle. I bought the girdle and pan about 25 years ago used from Hot Rod Paradise - for roughly SCRAP value - they didn't know what it fit, but I did. The pan was in very rough shape so I remade that with some small changes - I moved the back side forward a tad so the diaper would fit. Not sure what pump they had back then, but I had too many friends that lost a pickup because of this or that so this was my answer to that problem - left the bolts heads stick up to ensure pan clearance.
Masracing - thank you for the "thinking" comment. I do try to think things thru - I may not always get it right, but it won't be from a lack of effort. :-)
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Jacin,
I am happy to see you are on board here. I have always appreciated your many tech posts on the HAMB and have referred back to them several times - most recently when building my own FED. I appreciate your 'out of the box' approach to the problems we encounter building these projects, as well as your time that you take to share your many solutions. Thank you.
Art
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Thanks, good to be here Art, not sure what took me so long???
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Is Kerry on here too?