rat rod race car

[old doc gully]

im in the planning stages as i am about to spend 2-3 years abroad but when i come back i plan to build a open wheel rat rod that handles like a modern sports car. handle like a C5 corvette to be exact (possibly C4). and should have the same level of reliability/driveability, something i can drive to the grocery store or the racetrack and back. the idea is very similar to just picking up a vintage modified circle track car (which would be a hell of a lot cheaper) but i really would like a bit more street friendliness out of it (aka wife wont mind riding in), but that image in your head is definitely right on target.

i plan to use the full C5 chassis - suspension, frame, engine, trans, wiring, everything down to the AC and radiator - strip the body work and glass, cut the rollover bars and basically drop a 1935+ body on top of it with a roll cage.

the biggest question is what body to use. i really love 32-34 coupes (dont we all) but too much money and wouldnt want to do the amount of hacking this is likely gong to entail to one of those. to me, chopped truck cabs come the closest as far as aesthetics. wouldnt mind having a bed out back either. the main alternative is a 35+ coupe, which would give more of a stock car racing look, whihc i'm ok with.

length wise, either should work. the truck cab is obviously cramped no matter what; but i dont think id like to undertake stretching the cab/doors. some photoshops of both to scale, both are 37 chevys as thats what i have found measurements for online

coupe:

truck:

so width is the key consideration. i have another approximate photoshop ill upload as well. the C5 firewall (door hinge to door hinge) is just about 59". i know the truck cab is about 58" at it widest (rear) and that the inside of the B pillars on the coupe should be about 62 1/2".

so at this point what i'm really trying to get a feel for is how much the body is going to taper from the back to the doors to the firewall? i'm ok with cutting and spreading out the firewall but moving door hinges is going to be a major undertaking. i presume the best course of action would be to just widen the whole body by some 2".

can anybody help me with some measurements of the firewall width or width on the inside between front door hinges? (about same as width of the dash?) obviously theres going to be some variation between year/manufacturer but some ballpark ideas would go a long way as far as figuring out an approach, or how much more work the truck may be compared to the coupe.

lastly, if anybody has any ideas on particularly wide truck bodies (prefer to stay 30s though..) or coupes that would fit particularly well i'm all ears. ill post up some more pictures for inspiration

thanks for reading.

 

[skull]

in

[P[P[P

as for the vintage mod, if you get the car with fully adjustable suspension they drive very well when the front end shop aligns it like a normal road car. the one we built for my friend drives awesome, l drive it all the time and it handles like a slot car. l have driven performance cars that don't handle as well as the vintage mod we did.

another option is a newer nascar chassis, tons of adjustablity. seen many of them done for the street and the street legal crafstman truck my friend has drives like a freakin' new car, smooth ride, responsive steering and with the huge brakes it stops on a dime.

the silver/black #3 and the black 1935 chevy mod looks close to what l think you are envisioning.

links for ideas:

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...vXMAhUGw2MKHcHICR8QMwgjKAMwAw&iact=mrc&uact=8

http://www.streetlegaltv.com/news/readers-wheels-a-dirt-racer-taking-it-to-the-streets/

http://bangshift.com/bangshiftapex/...maro-unique-homebuilt-corner-burning-monster/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyUruRVR2zw

https://www.carthrottle.com/post/own-a-street-legal-nascar-race-car-for-21000/

http://www.speedville.com/1969-dodge-nascar-truck-racer-built-street/

http://thelarrywhiteproject.com/

http://www.americanracecar.com/ARC/newlook/content_page.cfm?if_page_id=296

Later

 

[old doc gully]

truck is really my first choice if it all works out. might cut out a section under the rear glass to have some storage
we all know how great chopped trucks look, but you dont see a lot of trucks setup like this. Jared Seganti's 37 dodge is definitely a big source of inspiration for the idea though. incredible craftsmanship and detail there:
http://www.speedhunters.com/2014/02/jared-seganti-37-dodge/

some coupes as well - i should mention, since fitment wise a coupe seems like the most obvious solution, as far as metal work im probably more intimidated by the task of chopping one of these than anything. the squareness of a chopped pickup cab also gives it more of a hot rod look to me, so the coupe is still plan B at this point.
probably the best representation of what id end up with out of a coupe:

some other fenderless to give some inspiration

 

[sgtpontiac]

Great Idea....

Really look bad a$$....wonder why more people don't try this? [S....what's a set up like that cost to do? Just curious?

 

[skull]

grocieries

building a car is like abag of groceries, depends on what you put in it.

the 35 mod that was built by my friend cost about 8K, but we got a screaming deal on the car when he bought from the guy who was retiring from racing and just wanted it gone.

my 4Oish jalopy cost a lot less as the guy l got from said it was old & he is building a lighter, faster car to be more competitive so he sold her to me at a good price and because l am a packrat and had most of the parts and the body was donated by a guy who bought it for parts and was getting rid of the rest of the stuff he did not use.

the 2 seat sprint car that some friends built was over 5Ok because he wanted the best of the best and everything was custom built or purchased new.

a company in 0regon builds nascar street legal turn key trucks & cars and 5Ok to 1OOk is not unheard of.

the red sprint car in the mod pic build and in the pics of the 3Oish and jimmys truck has been street legal since 1983 and we rebuilt it in the spring of 2O15 for about 5K.

so from my experience there is not one really good answer on cost[S

Later

 

[sgtpontiac]

Well that puts it in perspective....

a range of 5k isn't too out of hand but 50k or more might deter the majority into going another direction...Thank skull for the info... as always...

 

[old doc gully]

It always depends but I've efinitely seen the majority of vintage modified circle track cars for a bargain relatively, seen a lot in 3-5k range. Often just needing a powertrain. Would always take some work to get street legal but not big money. however they usually have extensive cages and welded doors. I'm really looking to improve on the "daily drivability" relative to my current 240Z which is admittedly pretty great, but EFI would go a long way (again read:wife and road trip friendly) and really a Corvette has everything more I want (double wishbone, V8, even weight distribution) and I just can't get the idea of marrying one of those to my insatiable desire for a open wheeled hot rod

 

[skull]

build

the key is if you can do a lot of the work in house saving you some money, the big money cars are when someone else has to do alot of the stuff. professional shop time ads up quick.

keep us up to date, very cool topic.

Later

 

[old doc gully]

Yeah it'll be 100% in house for me

Still just trying to find cab/body measurements for now.. will def use this as a notebook of findings as I work my way to an actual plan

Thanks

 

[willyD]

I'll try to remember to measure the fire wall on my 36 Ford cab. I measured for a set of seats that I wanted and at the point where the front edge of the seats would sit, the cab was 46" wide inside the doors. It narrows down by at least a few inches from there too. I'm going to guess that all 30s and probably most early to mid 40s cabs at least are way to narrow in the front for the vette firewall. That's just a guess though so you never know what you might find. My 51 Willys cab is too narrow in the firewall as well.

Trying to widen a cab would be a nightmare, at least for me it would be and you might end up with something that looks pretty strange by the time you widen the firewall enough to fit the vette. You mentioned the squareness of a truck cab but the 36 at least is curved in darn near every direction possible and is not at all an easy chop. It's my first chop so I don't experience with other cabs/cars but from what people tell me and from my experience so far, chopping a coupe may well be easier since you have more room to mess with stuff to get it lined up. Otherwise a 34 or older that is in fact a lot more square is likely going to be easier. That being said, they are even narrower!

 

[old doc gully]

thanks Willy. I just mean squareness aesthetically of the truck cabs compared to later coupes w round windows etc. the body def still have lots of curves.

At this point I'm basically assuming I'll have to widen the cab. I know I will the firewall, but widening things in front of the door hinges will be easier compared to the whole cab. so the question is how much and will it look stupid in which case I'll start figuring out a plan b. But damn 46" at the front of the seat is starting small! Hahaha ****... that means widening the cab 14" which is insane and would prob look ridiculous (I'll have to photoshop that...)

Thanks again Willy, let me know if you get a chance to bust out the tape measure - knowing the width at the hinges/dash and inside back of cab would be great!

 

[willyD]

I measured my cab. The dash is 43" across and the front of the firewall is only 37. I think windening a cab like that as much as you would need to do would not really be realistic. Also, I think that only widening the front which would remove the taper would make the cab look odd because it would be changing the proportions in an unusual way. Just my 2 cents.

 

[old doc gully]

Thats just what i needed to plan this out - thanks WillyD. i agree widening that much would look odd - especially on a short truck cab. i was also entertaining the idea of a miata chassis with V8 swap, although they surprisingly really arent that much narrower at the firewall.

i think my options come down to:
1) using front and rear subframes and fabricating a whole tube chassis (the smart but time/labor intensive way i am trying to avoid)
2) a mixture of widening a reasonable amount and hacking up firewall and/or placing the cab inside/ontop the frame rather than over
3) revisiting options 1 and 2 with a coupe cab, which really isnt that much wider
4) just buy a ****ing vintage modified circle track car already

 

[willyD]

I guess if you are set on having a vette/race car setup it might be hard to find a proper fit. If you are mostly interested in a good reliable road tripper though, you could always go to an S10 chassis and swap in an LS motor. They have decent suspension with loads of off the shelf cheep bolt on upgrades and swap kits available for most motor setups. You'd probably want to run fenders if you did that as the front of the s10 frame is kinda ugly. It would make for a fairly easy body swap and could be made nice and reliable and wouldn't cost a mint. Down side is that it's been done a lot of coarse. But then the stuff that's the hardest usually hasn't been done as much

 

[akatao]

I don't know if you like the looks but the B model Mack cabs taper from 53" at firewall to 60" at the widest point shoulder height.

 

[jamesgs4]

chevy AD trucks are wide

 

[skull]

dodge

pilothouses are wide also, here is one as street legal race truck from my friends web site, street legal oval track cars. ----personally the rear fenders gotta G0

don't know much about the #7 truck but l think it looks cool.

facebook links, tell him skull sent you to join,

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1818046445088846/


https://www.facebook.com/groups/161176690732893/


Later

 

[05snopro440]

chevy AD trucks are wide

That cab is actually narrowed, and the chassis started life as an S-10.

 

[old doc gully]

Awesome - this is great input guys, exactly what I was looking for - any of these I'd be willing to make work, and they're definitely a lot closer. close is fine, I think I can avoid the vast majority of work (widening) with close

Sounds like the 40s cabs were generally a bit wider (?) - guess that makes sense. And also that in later years the bigger trucks had bigger cabs (doesnt seem to be the case in 30s)

 

[old doc gully]

i think no matter what i'm going to have to split and widen the whole cab, of whatever body.. this is, as noted above, a daunting task. does anybody have any experience or can point to any blog/thread documentation of similar efforts? i dont even know what the correct hot rodding term would be... its not sectioning... i cant imagine its the first time this has been done in 100+ years of hot rodding!