Hey guys, I'm a bit of a lurker here. I'll post an intro when I get a min. But I'd like to chime in on my chassis experience.
My car was originally built in '71, it's been front halved and back halved leaving only about 2' in the middle of ugly work.
Chassis cracks are not something to be too concerned with when buying a used fed as long as you're buying a good car. Hopefully you have a mill, lathe, and tig welder. I couldn't imagine racing without them.
The problems I've encountered with an older car are:
The shoulder hoop is really narrow (I barely fit) making it harder to sell should I ever want to.
The motor is really far back making the car want to wheel stand and more difficult to remove the tranny. (Mine is 30-1/2" out, I have a shorty glide, with a shorty coupler, right into the rear end.
Most older cars were built with Chrysler 8-3/4" rear ends. This is good and bad, they're lighter and use less hp than ford, but there's less gear ratios available. A bit of a problem for me with a low redline rpm.
If the frame rails were used for breathers, alcohol and moisture may have rotted the inside of the frame in places.
It would be too much work to make this car cert to 6.0 so I am limited to 7.50.
Old cars just aren't as well thought out, so things don't always make sense.
Although they sometimes look cooler.
Spin the front tires and look for flat spots in the rims. New hoops ain't cheap.
My advice is to buy the most modern lightweight car you can afford. Parts will be easier to get. It takes less hp to go fast in a light car. Less hp is less maint and less money. Maybe look for a guy that runs jr fuel and is upgrading to an on-kill N&P chassis.
If you don't have a good trailer, in the long run, it will probably be cheaper to buy someone's whole operation with spares, etc. all those little things add up to time and money.
See if it comes with a chassis stand.
Fwiw, if you get an altered, you can also run in a,b,c gas if they don't have the NE classes. And altereds fit in standard garages and trailers. But dragsters are sexier
When you do finally get a chassis. Take it all the way apart-every single nut and bolt. Literally. You want everything that is wrong with that car to be your fault. Not the last guy's. Lord knows I found a few things that might have literally killed me.
I stripped the paint off the chassis too so I could look everything over carefully.
Good luck in your adventures.
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