Here's the deal.....a group brainstorming session, using your experiences and mistakes you made while putting yours together. ALL of them....good, bad, indifferent.

Just to give you a heads-up....this is real....I actually have the below car, and I plan on doing what the group comes to a general consensus over, so let's be serious about this.

Square 1...."WE" have available an '81 Dodge Challenger with a trashed four-popper and five-gear. "We" want to shoe-horn in a slant and auto,(not negotiable), but first we need to build the car. At this point, I had planned to completely strip the thing down to a rolling body. All of it gone.....wiring, every piece out of the engine compartment, interior....all of it.

The only exceptions are keeping the original plastic overflow bottle, (gotta have one to race), and converting the power brakes over to manual. There's a few pieces inside I thought about re-using. Steering column, and a neat "switch bank" at the top center of the windshield.

Keep in mind we don't have a blank check, so it's important to use/re-use everything we have right now to get a running drag car. We aren't completely broke, but there is a budget.

A few warnings; I have this thought process going, and it lays down three rules as to whether it should be part of the car...."Will it make the car lighter? ; Will it make the car safer? ; Will it make the car quicker?...if not, then we don't need it....right?

Also keep in mind we have to build for the future, where we might be going faster, (maybe quick enough to compete with the likes of the Drake boys?), so a cage and fuel cell might be a good idea while we're at this point.

So.....let's hear it. Build a race car that will be allowed on the track, be a tightwad while you're at it, and let's have a little fun. Go on....crack open the Summit or Jeg's catalog....put some pencil to paper....fall back on your own mistakes.

P.S. I'd especially like to hear from some of the fast boys on this, too.

Roger

WHOOPS!!!! Forgot to tell you. This car was purchased from a salvage yard for $200. The title is officially "junked" with the Iowa DMV, so there's no way this can hit the streets again. It's a dedicated drag car and has to be trailered to the track. I also have a buyer for anything I don't want, (wiring harnesses, interior, etc.), so I may be able to recover the initial $200.

Sounds like a really neat project, Roger! I always liked those little cars, just didn't think there were any left up here that had not rusted to the ground.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

First major rule take off weight every 100 pounds + 1/10 of a second. So first option dump the glass and use Lexan its a little pricey but you caint go wrong Thanks Ron Possum Parker










Hell Hath No Wrath Than A Possum SCorned

I thought about that, Ron. It might be ok for the side and front windscreen, but the back has got some real harsh bends at the outsides. The rear would probably be pricey, if available.

Roger

I would leave-in some of the chassis wiring, especially the harness leading to the rear of the car.

I 'ripped-out all the wiring' on my last racecar then spent a ton of time sticking many of the removed wires back in.

The next one I do I will leave-in the factory wiring and try to reuse / re-route as much as possible.

I think the main issue will be to "back half" the car and get a decent rear end and rear suspension under it. A leaf spring set-up is the cheap way to go but that will become a limiting factor as the car starts going real fast. (mid 11's on down)
DD

Hell GTS 225 I did my car myself and have never worked with Lexan. We did some testing and found out that you could make 90 degree turns when you heated it without any distortion. You have to play with the heat but i wanted to try it. But cutting Lexan is tricky to . If you use a saber saw like i did i found a blade made by Remington that worked well. But it is also easy to screw up a 150 dollar sheet of Lexan real easy if you are not careful. Did That. Thanks Ron Possum Parker







Hell Hath No Wrath Than A Possum Scorned


























i

Should it stays streetable? It would be fun to know weight distribution first. I would first fit motor/tranny combo in place.trying to keep weight dist close to oem. I've seen couple of guys puting 340 in Arrow and kept stock rear axle. Does Challenger have a leaf spring setup oe in rear?If not trying to fit an Arrow would not be bad.One Buddy in Quebec has a Fire-Arrow with 401 AMC running 10.90 @ 126mph with stock read end and welded side gears.

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It s about A F M J body

all seats gone you need one single bucket

fiberglass hood??? i dont know about this but you deffiantly can fab one out of sheet metal trunk lid too

start from the back and move forward going the other way breaks stuff

8 3/4 with 5.13s narrowed rear-end ,tub it ,move battery to trunk run duel batteries ,fuel cell ,aluminum driveshaft

TRANS!!! 904 reverse lockout manual valve body B&M quickclick

then build you motor i have never raced a sl6 so i wont even get into this dept.

everything i mentioned above is what my uncle and i did when building his car (10.53@123 mph) 1970 challenger stroked 360 running on alcohol so i firmly believe that it will hold up as the car progresses

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my email: Crauch503@charter.net