Tube chassis 63 nova
 

We have started on a 63 Nova with a 5" ride height. We are going to put an Ls1 with a 6 speed in it with a Procharger. We will be using a Chris Alston front crossmember with a Chris Alston Billet triangulated four bar. We will be using Wilwood brake and I'm thinking 13 spoke Fikse wheels. We are looking at 245/17's, 335/18 with BFG. In this project we will be doing the Heavy fabrication and the New sheet metal work. I will also attempt to tell you how many hours are involved in each phase of the project to give an idea of the time it takes to build something like this.

In this project we are not going to fabricate everything, we want to make a high tech well fabricated car using smart parts. We have a handful of problems to over come in a small car with such a low ride height. The track width will be 51" so the tires can fully turn. The Chris Alston clip does not come with power steering so we are working to get a nice scrub radius with a 4.120 back space on a 7.5 wheel, we may run 8's but I'm not sure they will fit. We also need to keep the the flat hood, so engine height is important. Not to high, but not low. The location of the Procharger, How much of back seat we can have, these are some of the many issues to deal with.

We are budgeting 500 hrs to get a rolling chassis with rollcage. It looks like custom headers or block hugger shortie headers are a must already to improve gas pedal area. The cheap hooker swap headers are just not to friendly for space. The engine is set back into the firwall about 3". Wait until you see the rear frame rails

Current hours to this point are about 50, with 2 sticks of .120 DOM. And a Old nova floor in the scarp bin. The front suspension shows up on monday.

Nice outline Rodger! It will be cool seeing the time breakdown.

This looks awesome Rodger, I love following your work on John's car but I'm partial to 1st gens so this ought to be a treat. As far as 8" on the front I got this off of a Steve's post from Mike Weddle at Chassisworks when asked about the fronts on their clip:

a 17 x 8 w/ 4 3/4" bs with a 225-45-17 is an easy fit

18 x 8 could use a 40 series tire, maybe the 45.
a 235 -40 could be close, but have heard of that
going on.
__________________
Mike Weddle
Senior Sales Technician
Chris Alston's Chassisworks

Bob

Thanks, Mike is my sales guy and I have been talking to him about the exact numbers. 4.75" is the max or the car gets darty. The fikse wheels come in 1/4" increments which translates to 4.125, 4.375, and 4.625. I need to see exactly how wide I can run on the front. The track width has to be much narrower because of the ride height. I believe the bolt on clips have 56-57" Track width. I had to remove the stock Ac compressor and the Camaro alternator. Good thing no power steering or Ac on this ride.

Rodger

Looks like another great project. Can't wait to see more.

Looks like yet another nice piece to come out of your shop. Look forward to seeing this one come together.

Brent

Brent I think you just need to drive down here and check out everything. I will buy lunch from the Now Lateral-g famous Champs BBQ. I think more than 10 guys from here have been there. I wish I could get sponsored by them, my belly looks like I am.
Rodger

Rodger-

I may just take you up on that offer!! Next time I roll down that way I will make it by. After seeing your stuff I'll proabbaly want to toss my junk in the corner...or spend more $$ I don't have!! :lol:

Keep up the great work!! :thumbsup:


Brent

Some pics from Today. We will install the front crossmember and bend up the next section of the rear rails tommorrow.

Rodger

one word.

BADASS!

I like it. Jason

Very nice! Hey for us non-fab guy's is 500 Hours (3+Months of 40 HR weeks) considered budget? At $100.00 per hour for labor x 500 hrs = $50,000.00 for frame and cage (no materials included)? I am not sure what you actually charge per hour but I would think for your caliber it has to be at least $75-100 per hour. Maybe I read the thread wrong but if that is correct with smart parts the other '66 Nova your building must be twice the amount of hours :willy:
I think your doing some killer builds and fab work and look forward to seeing more progress.:hail:

Thanks for the compliments. At this point of 10pm on january 2,2008 we have 97 hours in this project from the rolling chassis complete car we started with 2.5 weeks ago. Our labor rate just went to 65.00 per hour as of last august. I ordered all the rear suspension parts today and they came to a total of 3800.00. Which is Axle housing, billet triangulated 4 link, Double adjustable coilovers and brackets, 31 spline axles, and rear sway bar. The front should be about 3500.00 with brakes. When I say smart parts I mean affordable, avalible parts that we can use to make this cheaper but still good quality.

My plan with this post was just to show people how many hours it takes to build this stuff. I hope to have it on the ground by the end of the month.

I think the post is good info. It's an eye opener for me and I am sure some others how much time (labor) is spent on some of these builds. And $65 per hour seems good as I just paid $95 an hour down South from you for some very simple things. He kinda acted like he was doing me a favor :lol: Did not even get a thank you.

hey Rodger man love your work and thanks for sharing it with us all
So its about 20k for the chassis and about 10ish for the Sheetmetal work rite?

We have a Baileigh tubing notcher that is ran by some skilled individuals. The notcher is not cheap and neither is the the talent.

Rodger

It all depends on what you want. A four link is way easier then IRS, the smaller the car the more money, for obvious reasons. The lower the rideheight the more work it takes also. The sheetmetal work in Johns car has rounded corner wheels tubs with out side faces to attach to the quarter like stock, plus the floor panel fit in between bar which takes time.

The real money in these projects come in with the details, or all the small had fabbed parts, or trick one off parts. The other big chunk is proper sheetmetal work that is metal finished and nice. I love it when You do major sheetmetal work and the customer does not know where or how you did it.

Rodger

Thanks for the info Rodger !

I doubt most of us know how much this stuff costs unless you've done one or are a pro builder like several on this site. (most people freak when they see what a quality paint job costs these days) Really eye opening what it takes to design and build a rocket like what the Pro's come up with.

I'll be following along !

Pro? Who are you calling Pro? I believe you have to make money at something to be PRO?

Maybe Addicted or Hooked or Stuck, Something But Pro, well Someday.

Thanks for the encouraging words, Dad....

UPDATE time
 

Ok so some pics of the upper rails starting and the A sneak peak at one rear rail we will install tommorrow. Enjoy. You can also see the problem we are having routing the tubing to the Chris Alston crossmember. I called ATS today and I think their pan will solve this problem. The tape line on the tube is where we cut off the previous tube and the tape line on the engine is where the ATS sump on their pan gets moved back to from stock. If worse comes to worse we may slide the engine back about a 1/2 To 1" to make things fit.

2 guys working today, without looking at time cards 20 hours ish.

Rodger

So when you build these round tube chassis, do you build them on the computer first and then lay them out. Or have you done this enough to just know what works?
Also, i see when you cross brace the floor section of the frame with the X's, you dont join the cross bars in the center of the other two bars joining perpendicular, you put them just before the joint. Is there a benefit to this rather than fitting the tube in the center of the joint?
Is that 1/8'' plate you weld to the rockers when you attatch the body to the frame?
If you get a chance to answer these questions i would be very greatful, thank you.

PS, im a huge fan of what you guys do and how you do it. Definately outside the box.

We just cut out the floor and start with the base rails, Every car is different as far as engine location, so you deal with a lot of different lay out issues, Like the oil pan problem we are having in attaching the tubing to the slugs we put in the crossmember. We only use the computer to set up the suspension geometry and then design all the pick up points tabs in Solidworks, so we can water jet them, which will come soon.

Yes we weld 1/8" plate to the rockers at that time we also shave the pinch weld to get the car just a tick lower.

We joined the X'x next to the tube and not pointing them directly in the middle, we set it just next to the joint to put the welds almost on top of each other. It would take more time to double notch the X's. We do that on the higher end builds this way make the floor a little easier. The goal of this build is to build a solid, well bulilt chassis on a more reasonable budget. Corners have to be cut some where or all the builds would end at millions of dollars.

We got the rails set in tonight before I left and they looked awesome.

Work... Frame Rails....
 

Rodger,

Are you implying that you actually leave the shop? WOW..... I thought you lived there!

This build is really looking good!

I'll be out there in a week. I need to coordinate with John one of these days to be there at the same time.

--Eric

Yeah I came home at 7pm tonight.

Rodger

I thought you were using a CNC bender........dont you have one or one of your buddies has one???

No CNC bender. Just digital degree Ercolina, I dont have that kinda dough. I bought an Eagle tubing roller a few months ago to roller te different radius's we want. But that thing is my no means an exact science, it take time a patience to get 2 tubes the same.

Rodger

So some rear frame rail pics. They look awesome, We plan to plate them in and add lightning holes and then build the tubs before we weld the rails to the chassis. other wise you could not fit them in afterwards.

Today I also figued out that I can run my 8.5 - 9.0 front rims. We got the suspension mocked up and figured out we can fit a 2 inch wider track width. So we widened the Crossmember and will reinstall it monday along with orderng the rack to go with the front end. MAN this is a tight car to fit stuff in.

Enjoy

Pic of tubing roller?


Chris:cool:

That is one sweet ride love the chassis!!!

Looking really nice - I can't watch this one

nice work as usual. I think it's cool that you are posting the $$$ side of things as well.

:thumbsup:

Thanks guys. I was trying to show that the chassis work in not the pricey stuff. The money is in the details and crazy options. Corvette IRS with a short ride height. I thought this car would be a cool story of the actual lay out of the build. I only plan to cover this till we get the rolling chassis done.
We should start on the rollcage this week, and get the rear axle in later this week once it shows up with axles and brackets. It is going to seem weird to not start with a bare housing.

We have another tube chassis 67 chevelle that is getting the DEELUX treatment as far as design and layout. But I'm not supposed to share pics. It is kinda nice to work in a bigger car. We plan to do some sweeping bends and X's in the frame and X's in the frame.

Thanks for the props guys, if you have any questions don't be afraid to ask, I'm trying to build a series to explain to the first timers in Full tilt hign end custom cars. When we finish a car for the guys who have never done anything like what we do, they always say they had no idea of what was possible until we were 1/2 way done. Customer education is key.

What is the tube size and type ? Can you provide a price range ?

Here's the IND stuff as a cross-comparision:

1.5 x 120 EW = 2.00 foot
1.5 x 120 EW DOM = 3.40 foot
1.5 x 120 Chromemoly = 7.50 foot

Thx !

:faint:

wow! this is going to be one mean nova when finished:hail:

1.75" x .120 chromoly is 5.50 a ft
1.75" x .120 DOM is 4.15 a ft

I thought you guys would be cheaper, actually. And that is Us Chromoly also, not the foreign stuff.

Rodger

not my style.... but I like it! :yes:

Update time
 

Well we have the crossmember slugged and landed with all 4 tubes. We got the lower tubes bent to clear the pan and still be able to remove the bolt from the lower a arm. The uppers tubes are landed. I have the car mocked up with 17x9 wheels. I will decrease the BS about 2 inches on the front. The rack was ordered today to go with the crossmember we added 2 inches to. I hope to have the Procharger and brackets tommorrow. I'm really interested to see if it will clear the right side tire at full lock. We are gonna chop the top here in the next few days. We are gonna do it 1" exactly and keep the roof parallel to the door tops. Are also gonna look into the gas tank and the headers and exhaust.

We have roughly 12,000 with parts and labor. We have all the suspension and axles on hand or on order. That also includes the Procharger mock up and Bracketry.

I will have hour total tonight after I do payroll and billing, Enjoy.

I Just layed 1" tape up on there and thought that 1 inch was about right. The 1.5" line I layed out looked to far. Does anyone have the measurement of the hardtop from the door top to the rain gutter? the window opening on a post is 13 15/16 - 14 1/8" .

Rodger

Measurement
 

Rodger,

I will measure my Nova tonight if you don't get an answer sooner.

--Eric

You know you could always send yours up here so I could measure it.........