Ron Pope Motorsports                California Custom Roadsters               

Just joined and thought I'd share my project.

TrackTV6

Member
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Picture 170.jpgIn early August of this year we stopped on our way to visit family in Minnesota and picked up a body w/door and a front axle from Speedway Motors. We bolted it to our trailer and dragged it all over Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota before finally ending up with it here at home in Denver CO.
It didn't take me long before I started gathering parts up through Ebay and Craigslist. My plan is to build a track roadster and use some genuine sprint car and midget parts along the way to get that racey look and feel I'm after. Within a few weeks I had a rough mock-up and knew the direction I was heading. I knew I wanted a frame very different than what is usually built for these types of projects. I had a shop here in Denver "press brake" some 1/8" cold rolled steel into a C-channel for me and I was on my way! The rails are actually comprised of 5 pieces in each side. The two front sections and the two rear sections are tapered. I joined the front and middle sections together and then proceeded to "shrink and stretch" them to conform to the shape of the lower body. After the nose arrived, I was able to determine the width of the front of the frame and move on to boxing the rails.
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Welcome to the forum, it looks like you're off to a great start on what's going to be a sweet ride.
 
Welcome to the forums. I love track roadsters and am anxious to watch the progress of your build. What engine/trans are you going to use? Keep us posted.
 
Looking forward to your build! keep the pictures coming. WELCOME to the Forums, from sunny Florida!
 
Welcome, and it's good to see you have the fire ext. handy, JUST in case>>>>
Bruce
 
Welcome to the forums. I love track roadsters and am anxious to watch the progress of your build. What engine/trans are you going to use? Keep us posted.
Track T-4, the engine is a 3.1 GM based 60 degree V6 backed by a T5 Camaro transmission with a 9"Ford rear axle. I've seen a few pictures of your track-t and was wondering about the height of your windshield? Now that the holiday season is nearly over I'm getting ready to get back after working on mine again. Seating, steering column and windshield pillars/mounts are next. I'm currently having wheel centers lazer cut to allow me to mount 15X5 steel front wheels and 15X8 steel rear wheels to the Weld Racing sprint car front hubs and Weld Racing splined rear wheel centers. A machinist friend is making splined adapters to allow me to mount the splined rear wheels to the ford axle flanges. Until he completes the adapters, I'm at a holding pattern on the rear axle width.
 
Track T-4, the engine is a 3.1 GM based 60 degree V6 backed by a T5 Camaro transmission with a 9"Ford rear axle. I've seen a few pictures of your track-t and was wondering about the height of your windshield? Now that the holiday season is nearly over I'm getting ready to get back after working on mine again. Seating, steering column and windshield pillars/mounts are next. I'm currently having wheel centers lazer cut to allow me to mount 15X5 steel front wheels and 15X8 steel rear wheels to the Weld Racing sprint car front hubs and Weld Racing splined rear wheel centers. A machinist friend is making splined adapters to allow me to mount the splined rear wheels to the ford axle flanges. Until he completes the adapters, I'm at a holding pattern on the rear axle width.
With a GM V6 why not use an S10 rear and save a lot of HP to play with? The Ford 9 inch rear takes 35 HP just to turn it that's a lot of ponies when you under 200 in the first place, Bye the way I got the HP figure a long time ago when one of the hot rod magazines did dyno tests of the most popular hot rod rears
 
How much HP dose it take to turn the S10 rear? The difference is the figure you should be considering.

Ron
 
Leon,
I have already investigated the HP difference required between a GM 12 bolt and a Ford 9" rear axle. I had originally planned on using a Halibrand quick-change rear axle, but the HP loss is pretty great compared to the 9" Ford or GM 12 bolt. I want the ability to quickly change gears from something for sporty around town driving (4:88) to a highway gear (2:73) and the Ford 9" offers that in the bolt in 3rd member. I also have access to a large selection of gears that have the Mikronite coating applied to them which brings the HP difference between the 12 bolt GM and the 9" Ford to almost nothing. I currently have 3 posi-trac units set up, a 4:88, a 3:08 and a 2:73.
 
I really like the way you are doing the frame, should leave a lot of foot room. As for the S10 rear, you will never hurt one with that 6. I had one in my old 23 with a Vortec 350 and slicks and the S10 rear never gave any problems. They are also cheap and plentiful, and some have positraction and 3.73 and deeper gears. I was running a 3.00 and it was perfect around town and on the interstate. The S10 rear is also light so you get a lot less unsprung weight than with a 9 incher.

Don
 
The 2WD s-10 rear is also narrow and fits nicely on a T. I'm using a '96 2WD rear with an Eaton 4.10 posi in it.

Jim
 
The 2WD s-10 rear is also narrow and fits nicely on a T. I'm using a '96 2WD rear with an Eaton 4.10 posi in it.

Jim
Jim, do you happen to know the ring gear size on that and what engine was in front of it?
 
Right off, I can't answer the ring gear size but the rear was pulled from a 4 cyl. 4 speed in the bone yard. It was a one wheeler 4.10 and I had a shop back in Ohio replace it with the Eaton posi unit before I moved to Florida.

Jim
 
After about 6 years I'm back to working on my project. I'll post new pics soon.
I scrapped my orginal frame and started again following the K.I.S.S. formula. I'm still staying with the Speedway body and nose, I have added the turtle deck. Still have the 3.1 V6 and T5 transmission. I did aquire a Halibrand 101 rear axle.
 
Ok, it keeps telling me my files are too large to upload, how do i get around that?

The 'edit' feature on my computer's picture files allows me to 'resize' the pictures. Try doing that in increments until you get it to a size that will upload. (90%, 80%, ? etc. of original size)

PS - You have to save it in the new size as "Picture - A" or something
 

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