Enablers... Assemble

In reply to New York Nick :

Thank you. I have a bit of work to knock out tonight. Watching this is my reward and my dessert. 

In reply to jh36 :

Don't get too excited, it's just a 10 minute highlight reel, I couldn't find the full race. But it's still cool. 

Jesse Ransom said:

The Somerset is a billion times cooler than the modern-style Muscle Car bodies. An easy billion.

Yeah, that's just simple math.

I'm just not buying that they have 108" wheelbases, though. I'm going to try and get in touch with Tommy Riggins next week, though. He's built a bunch of them and if anyone would know he would. Heck he may even still have molds up in Jacksonville. 

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

Is he the guy up near the airport?  I always drive by that place and wonder if I should risk stopping in.

Stampie said:

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

Is he the guy up near the airport?  I always drive by that place and wonder if I should risk stopping in.

No I think he's on the west side, right near where 10 and 295 come together.

In reply to New York Nick :

That was fun...it is interesting watching this in the context of having this chassis and engine setup. Thanks for the share. 

In reply to jh36 :

Happy to share. They are great cars, you did yours so fast and so well I am super impressed. Glad to see that car getting a second life. 

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

Great another area I need to avoid now.

So, quick update, and a few things I've learned since we last chatted.

Apparently all ASA car center sections (firewall to firewall) were built by Howe Racing, then the chassis constructors licensed to build complete cars added their front and rear clips. Most of the front and rear clips I've seen are basically symmetrical in construction, but the mounts are offset for ovel track use. For example, in the pictures that Jack has sent me of the chassis I'm getting, the left front lower control arm is a lot shorter than the right front lower control arms, because the mount is shifted to the left. Also, the motor mounts appear to be slightly left-biased. Also, some of the cars had different front spindles on the left and right, with the right side having built-in negative camber and the right side having positive camber. 

While this sounds intimidating at first, it's only intimidating when you're coming from a production tub mindset. In this case, you can simply cut the existing mounts away back to the symmetrical frame, weld on brackets which can either be made or bought shockingly cheaply from a number of sources at whatever location you deem to be ideal for your intended application, and go from there. Same deal in the rear. The rear looks fairly symmetrical, but if it needs lower mounts relocated, it's usually as easy as some drilling, cutting and welding.

It also looks like a lot of the accessories are mounted on the left side. So stuff like the battery, oil tank, and other heavy accessories are mounted for a heavy left side. So some accessory relocation will likely be in order to get the weight properly arranged. Likely the rerouting of the hoses and cables will be just as complex and expensive as the actual fabrication for mounting.

I also talked to Tommy Riggins, who's probably forgotten more about tube framed race cars than I'll ever know, and he's totally down-to-clown in a consulting capacity. Basically he said "Yeah, I'm always here. Bring it by the shop on your way home and we'll figure it out." So that sounds helpful. Probably the most interesting thing I learned from him was that all of the Somersets has stock roofs, from a-pillar to c-pillar, and stock metal door skins. He said he'd make a few calls and see if there was any bodywork hanging around anywhere that might be interesting.

But his feeling on the car in general is that the fact we're not constrained by any real rules package, we should be able to build what is essentially an "outlaw" TA2 car that could run a TA2 pace with less power. Since we're not limited by aero regulations or wheel size and brake size or minimum weights or specified suspension geometry, we have some room to play around.

So, yeah, I'm excited for sure. Like all projects, I'm sure my excitement is making me ignore a lot of plainly obvious hurdles to getting things to wok properly, but it'll be fun figuring it all out.

One thing that I'm definitely excited about is the simple and modular nature of the car. And parts, compared to Corvette parts anyway, seem CHEAP. Need some new wheel bearings, and want the best? That'll set you back thirty bucks. Need a trick upper control arm? Sorry, that's a whopping $200. Riggins used the term "catalog cars," which is a pretty accurate description of just how common and available the had parts on these things are. 

But, we'll see. This will definitely be a whole new world for us. It's basically the first full-sized dedicated race car project we've ever done. We've done smaller stuff like Per's LeGrand, and the Formula Vee, but thrse were sub-1000 lb cars, so it'll be interesting to see how similar approaches translate to 2500 lbs and 450hp.

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

This is awesome. I'm not sure I put this in my thread, but my oil tank is now in front of the right rear wheel. The battery was behind the driver...now is in the "passenger seat".  We now have perfect cross weights.

Outlaw TA2. That's a great way to look at it. Aero, tires...whatever. It will be fascinating to see how you set your course with your experience and input from experts. I can't wait to watch this evolve. See ya soon. 

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

I'm going to follow the heck out of this story no matter how you skin it, but you can't tell me you've seen the Radwood-era TA stuff and would still be as happy with those. They're all a bit... Lego Duplo.

EDIT: I'm sure it'll be obvious soon that I should drop this broken record repetition around the Somerset, and it'll dawn on me a little after that.

Jesse Ransom said:

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

I'm going to follow the heck out of this story no matter how you skin it, but you can't tell me you've seen the Radwood-era TA stuff and would still be as happy with those. They're all a bit... Lego Duplo.

EDIT: I'm sure it'll be obvious soon that I should drop this broken record repetition around the Somerset, and it'll dawn on me a little after that.

Oh we are in complete agreement on principle here. But, as with every project, we still have to do the math of what we expend budget and effort on for what return. A red-era body would require a) to br found and acquired and b) some non-insignificant chassis reconfiguration. Then, when faced with the challenge of "why did you do it this way when you could have just bought off the rack?" our only real response would be "because it's cool."

Now, "because it's cool" is plenty of justification for me, especially when it comes to Somersets. But is it enough justification for most of our readers? That I don't know. Luckily we have some time to figure it out.

Update. Chassis is on the trailer. Block, trans, wheels/tires and big stuff in the bed. The crew cab is chock full of neat stuff. I will organize a bit before rolling south ...but it's getting real. 

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

My enthusiasm for the project goes from 11 to 0 with a roundy round body honestly. Pick literally anything else. 

And if you're only constrained by the center of the chassis, sounds like wheelbase can be made to match that Somerset no sweat.

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

Woot, Caddy. 

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

And if you're only constrained by the center of the chassis, sounds like wheelbase can be made to match that Somerset no sweat.

Greenhouse shape and location is also a concern. Also completely solvable, but, again, we'd have to answer those "why did you re-engineer something when you didn't have to just to make it more expensive when a solution already existed?" emails. Personally I feel that "Because Somerset" is a perfectly valid engineering reply to these criticisms, but it's not all about me.

JG Pasterjak said:

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

And if you're only constrained by the center of the chassis, sounds like wheelbase can be made to match that Somerset no sweat.

Greenhouse shape and location is also a concern. Also completely solvable, but, again, we'd have to answer those "why did you re-engineer something when you didn't have to just to make it more expensive when a solution already existed?" emails. Personally I feel that "Because Somerset" is a perfectly valid engineering reply to these criticisms, but it's not all about me.

There's also content interest though. People that are looking at tubular chassis to make track cars out out of are going to buy one with a body if a roundy-round body is fine with them. Nobody looks at a late model soap bar and thinks "yeah, I'll totally spend $3500 to make my car look like THAT!" Conversely, people who are considering this kind of thing are more apt to be like Jack and have a good idea of what they want and will be interested to know the cost and logistics that it takes to make it look like a 69 Camaro, or a Somerset, or drape some metal skin of insert-cool-car-here, or how to find some ancient GT1/TA body panels. Somebody that doesn't have a car like this on their radar, are they more apt to become aware of the GRM project from the "We made a RAD car!" article/cover or a "We spent 2x the Challenge budget on a generic fiberglass blob!" article/cover?

My 2 cents

In reply to jh36 :

Our Busch car was set up to move the fuel fillet, oil tank, battery and oil cooler from left to right road courses.  It was about half a day to switch from one to the other. 
 

Skinning a car with production sheet metal isn't as easy as a late model body kit but entirely doable. I've seen a lot of different cars done, my favorite being a 90s El Dorado. Some tracks used to give a weight break for cars running factory panels and some creative cars were built. 
 

In reply to Wally (Forum Supporter) :

What era was your car?  What body, etc. Do you have any images?  Putting a fiberglass gen1 Camaro body on my tubeframe required some tube cutting, welding, recutting, rewelding...but it wasn't as much as I thought it would be. If I were to build a second car, it would probably use factory sheet metal skin for the bump factor. 

Is $4k for bodywork that lacks cool an unhappy medium?

Neither cheap enough to fit the overall ethic of most-racecar-per-dollar nor cool enough to be a pride-of-ownership awesome DE/TT car?

The eagle has landed. Complete with sketchy abndoned building meeting spot. Couldn't have gone better.

Tomorrow we unload and inventory. Watch this channel.

That looks pretty good. Excited to see your coverage of this build. 

That was a pretty smooth transfer. Good to see you again...and looking forward to what you find in your research. Good times, straight ahead!