Please Help I want to learn build Funny Car Chassis

[eddiejr79]

I am looking to taking on the task of building me a drag racing funny car chassis . Now the kit I am looking it has already pre bent and notched tubing. I am a complete rookie at this and been reading all the resources on this site. How hard would this be to do? Does anyone have expeirance in building a jig to do this? Any help would be great. As a rooking would the $1700 tig welder Diversion 165 be ok to use? PLEASE HELP ME!!!

[JSFAB]

Why limit yourself to such a simple job as this? A person with your ambition should be building his own rocketship, to go to the moon with!!

[FusionKing]

I am looking to taking on the task of building me a drag racing funny car chassis . Now the kit I am looking it has already pre bent and notched tubing. I am a complete rookie at this and been reading all the resources on this site. How hard would this be to do? Does anyone have expeirance in building a jig to do this? Any help would be great. As a rooking would the $1700 tig welder Diversion 165 be ok to use? PLEASE HELP ME!!!

In the order of the questions...
#1 Pretty hard even for exp. and certified pros....you must be a top notch welder and have a full knowledge of the material and the procedure.
#2 A few people on here have but not sure if they are posting regularly.
#3 Yes, that welder would be ok if you were the guy in question #1.

Even if you did this you still must pass inspection to run this and it would probably NEVER even pass a visual test if done by a rookie learning how to weld.
In a nutshell...This would be about like deciding you wanted to go skydiving for a new hobby but wanted to sew up your own parachute and you went to a sewing forum and asked about how the new Brother machine would work.

[Kamikaze]

A chassis kit is NOT the place to learn on!!!

You need to have better than decent fabrication and TIG skills to build a safe and tech-legal chassis to run in any form of competition!

If you have not had the experience fitting up the tubing and gaining the right clearances before TIG welding them, you will make more of a mess and end up wasting money and time on something you will not be able to run at the track! Even pre-bent and pre-notched kits need additional work and tweeking to make the proper fit-up since TIG is not the right process to "fill-in" large gaps!

The Diversion 165 is a decent home and small shop unit! Some PRO shops have it in their track trailers and do very good work with it! In the hands of a skilled operator, it will provide a good tool to do the job of chassis fabrication and repairs.

Since you stated you are a complete rookie, I highly suggest you take some classes and practice! Practice! Practice!!!! Get out and visit some shops and builders! See if you can make contact with people at the races and car shows to see if you can get in their shops and learn and gain experience!

Maybe you have some skills and can have a better eye for detail than the average person. You might be able to learn and do this on your own! But the law of averages and percentages are realistically against them.

I'm not trying to discourage you but with the way liabilities are these days, you could be held responsible if the car breaks and hurts the driver or spectators! So it really pays to gain the skills and proficiency where you can do top notch welds that are safe and secure! In almost any case, this level of quality skills only come with experience as well as desire!

Good luck!

[eddiejr79]

Thank you to the both of you for steering me in the right directions and nocking some sense into me. I will still one day try to pursue it however for now the best bet is to buy one already made. Thanks again.

[pro70z28]

I built my own mild steel chassis and it passed NHRA/IHRA 7.50 cert first time. I went with mild steel because I didn't trust my C/M welding skills & faster than 7.50 is faster than my pocket book can go anyway.

C/M F/C is an every year recert compared to every 3 years for a 25.4 M/S chassis.

If you do buy a ready built chassis, make sure it has a current cert tag so you know for a fact it will pass. If you buy an uncerted or out of cert chassis and it doesn't pass, you may be stuck with a pile of pipes that's only worth scrap price.

[JoshGlover]

A friend of mine and I have done alot of work to drag cars and he works on a top fuel team for Ihra up here in canada he would likely throw ur kit together fairly cheap VICTORY RACE PRODUCTS 1 519 802 2917 his name is Mark if u'd be interested. Dont be to discouraged tho i've learned the tigging part of it fairly quick and u just gotta practice, practice practice and when u think its looking good and ur their, ur not practice some more lol!!!

Pics are of an Outlaw 10.5 car we did some sheetmetal on

[UH60LCHIEF]

A friend of mine and I have done alot of work to drag cars and he works on a top fuel team for Ihra up here in canada he would likely throw ur kit together fairly cheap VICTORY RACE PRODUCTS 1 519 802 2917 his name is Mark if u'd be interested. Dont be to discouraged tho i've learned the tigging part of it fairly quick and u just gotta practice, practice practice and when u think its looking good and ur their, ur not practice some more lol!!!

Pics are of an Outlaw 10.5 car we did some sheetmetal on

jeeze that blower is tiny lol

[pro70z28]

jeeze that blower is tiny lol

Is that an F-3? I saw a prototype F-4 @ the Drag Expo a while back.

[JoshGlover]

Honestly I have no Idea that engine was nuts thats all i Know! thought he said it was the biggest procharger they made at the time? but dont quote me on that?