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Spirit T owners: I need a measurement

der Spieler

der Spieler

Member
I need the measurement from the front edge of the firewall to the back edge of the kickup. I'm going to start building my frame in the next couple of weeks and I will be going with the Spirit body. The length of the front part of the frame is still up in the air but I will have that all figured out when I decide which motor I'll be using. I have a 350 short block from a friend's drag car in the garage but I'm sort of leaning toward a 250" Chevy six that I also have laying around. I like being different. Thanks....Steve
 
Steve, when you say "the back edge of the kickup" what exactly do you mean? I can measure my Spirit frame after work today.
 
Lee....The "pointy" part or the "elbow". If you measure from the edge of the firewall to where the kick starts at the bottom of the frame rail. That is about the only sure measurement I will have to go by on my frame. The rest will be play by ear. If I go with the six cylinder chevy motor I have the frame from the firewall forward will have to be longer. Once I've figured out how long that will have to be then I can add the frame length needed for the body and cut the rail to the proper length from there.

RPM....Thanks for pointing out that link. I wasn't aware of that forum. I guess T frames are even less of an exact science than I thought. I think the main rails before the kick for the CCR chassis are 88". Spirit's are 93". I wonder how many other variations are out there.

Thanks..Steve
 
There is no EXACT to these cars that what makes them so much fun. I have 2 cars one on a 124" and the other on a 144" wheelbase. On my cars with a v-8 chevy I leave 42" from behind the front crossmember to the front of the firewall.


I see you are in Iowa. Hope you did not get flooded. Are you going to the BASH?
 
Thanks. My next question was going to be: how far from the from of the motor to the front crossmember. A thread on the Buckethead forum said that the small block Chevy is 30" long. My six is about 37" so I guess if you allow 42" for the small block V8 then I need to have about 48" to 50" behind the front crossmember for my six. When I find out how much frame rail I need for the body I can start cutting and welding. I was going to get most of the measurements from my old T but when I went to see the the guy who bought he had sold it so I struck out there.

The flooding was all south and east of me. A lot of farmland around here was badly flooded from the rain. Once the ground was saturated there was no where for it to go. I was down in Des Moines a couple of days after the worst of it there and there were still a lot of areas under water and roads closed. Our biggest problem around here this year have been the tornadoes. The sirens woke me up a couple of time this year but we've gotten lucky so far.
 
Did you want the kick insde or out side of the body?

If you haven't already looked at the chassis build in the Tech Articals, You might want to. In it I tell you how the frame length is figured for the frame.

Ron
 
Ron...It will be inside the body. I downloaded your plans and I'm going to use some of your ideas. I will have a question or two for you about them when the time comes. I can't afford to get the body right now and I'm trying to build a chassis as close as I can to my application now to be ready when I get the body. If the price or gas would come down to where I could afford it I would drive up to Owatonna and visit you and discuss it face to face, over a beer, a scotch (my personal favorite) or whatever. I'm 55 miles southwest of Clear Lake, IA so you're not that far away. ,,,,Steve
 
Thanks Lee. I think I have all of the pieces to the puzzle now. I'll go out this morning and price steel and get started........Steve
 
the Chevy 235 6 cylinder, smallblock, and big block ALL have the same dimension from the side motor mount to bellhouing. Have the same bellhousing and same motor mount, except th 6 cylinder has another added piece of metal with the mount.

If you were to measure from the center bolt of the motor mount to the front of the block on a smallblock. Then measure the same on the 6 cylinder, then you would see how much longer you need for the 6 cylinder. BTW the dimension from the center bolt of the mount to the front of the block on a smallblock V8 is 5.83".

When I was in high school I had a 65 Chevy van with a 6 cylinder with a cracked blok. Went to the junkyard to get a smallblock to put in it and ended up getting a 396 for $50. Thats why I know just about all early Chevy motors have the same motor mounts and can mount the same transmissions to the motors.
 
I have a cad drawing of the frame. I'll see if Josh can post it tomorrow. I don't mind if you use it to make your own frame but if you plan on commercially building a T frame please do your own design work.
 
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