If You Have Ever Worked With or Built Touring Cars

[SM Racing]

When you started on a new car, what steps did you begin with? Dipping the chassis? Cutting the firewall out removing other panels? When welding the cage in did you remove parts of the chassis and then build the car back up around those parts after the cage work was finished? Did you seam weld the whole car or just parts called out by the engineers? Did you weld in reinforcing panels or cut out extra/redundant panels used in the production car? Did you build new center tunnels in most cases? Did you take the roof panels off to weld the tops of the cage or did you drop it through holes in the floor?

I am looking for info from people that have built or work in the industry. If you have built super touring cars or even late model touring cars, etc, feel free to jump in here.

[elitemotorsport]

Hi mate,

I've designed/built S2000 touring cars recently, and worked as a designer in F1 previously.

It kinda depends on the shell you are working on, and the cage design that you can get in etc etc. Obviously anything that doesn't have to be there needs to go. If the rules let you get rid of it of course.

Dipping the shells, and filling the voids with 2 part foam is all pretty common practice. You are asking for the tricks of a million pound industry of course!

D.

[terence]

I

[terence]

I was fortunate enough to have been on the Fab team at RML back in 94/95. We built Clellands championship winning car [along with Alam's of course]. General rule of thumb is that nothing gets a free ride,ie,any brackets that are not used [most]are removed ,same goes for any excess material you may find "under the skin" when outer panels are removed,also a good opportunity to seam
up the joints that get forgotten about.So many points to write about [in fact I did,in the way of an instruction manual before leaving]
Because of the multi links at the bottom of the Main Hoop,we used to carefully remove some of the inner sill's to gain access to be able to weld all joints,the removed section was then cut to shape and welded back in,not that you would notice though
As the shell's came in from SA because of the 3mm thick main sill's,they also came with a sun roof,this was removed to be replaced with a common or garden UK roof panel enabling full access to the top cage joints.
No foam was used at all,not really a good idea when trying to loose as much weight as possible,only takes a slight leak in a wet race to give some unwanted ballast.

[SM Racing]

Yeah in theory I am asking you guys to share livelyhoods. If need be we can continue this with PMs.

It kinda depends on the shell you are working on, and the cage design that you can get in etc etc. Obviously anything that doesn't have to be there needs to go. If the rules let you get rid of it of course.

Dipping the shells, and filling the voids with 2 part foam is all pretty common practice. You are asking for the tricks of a million pound industry of course!
D.

I would agree with Terrance. Does the foam actually create enough benefit to offset the problems? Extra weight, decreased ability to make chassis repairs, etc?

AS for my case, there are no rules, beyond those I subject myself too. Roll cage and chassis rules are pretty free. Cage is not limited to points or connections with the chassis, want to keep it FWD, (cuz I am an idiot and apparently more interested in building a tin top instead of a sports racer), want something different. Anyone can hit the easy button and just build something rear drive with a big motor. But with amateur racing, driver usually makes more difference than equipment. Besides I like building stuff anyways.

I was fortunate enough to have been on the Fab team at RML back in 94/95. We built Clellands championship winning car [along with Alam's of course]. General rule of thumb is that nothing gets a free ride,ie,any brackets that are not used [most]are removed ,same goes for any excess material you may find "under the skin" when outer panels are removed,also a good opportunity to seam
up the joints that get forgotten about.So many points to write about [in fact I did,in the way of an instruction manual before leaving]
Because of the multi links at the bottom of the Main Hoop,we used to carefully remove some of the inner sill's to gain access to be able to weld all joints,the removed section was then cut to shape and welded back in,not that you would notice though
As the shell's came in from SA because of the 3mm thick main sill's,they also came with a sun roof,this was removed to be replaced with a common or garden UK roof panel enabling full access to the top cage joints.
No foam was used at all,not really a good idea when trying to loose as much weight as possible,only takes a slight leak in a wet race to give some unwanted ballast

Are you saying you welded the main hoops to the lower portions of the rocker boxes instead of on top of them? I am used to plating the inner rocker or the floor pan and then welding the main hoop and other connections to the top of those tubes. But those were for restricted class cars.

So about that instruction manual.

Like I mentioned before I am use to the normal chassis prep, just wondering about some of the techniques used by the pros. I notice on many of the pics I have seen it looks like the tubes actually disappear into the panel instead of attaching on top. Is that normal?

Look at this picture of an MSD built NATCC Accord Chassis that was for sale here.

What does the connection at the middle of the rear seat shelf connect to? It looks like it just "disappears into the floor? Would they run a redundant tube under the floor and connect to it? I contacted Micheal Pilbeam to see if he would share some thoughts with me about these cars, but haven't heard back yet.

Thanks for the help guys. This is a great discussion. If I ever get to your side of the pond I will buy a few rounds.