How much of your current ride, did you build?

[Chris "drooze" Wertman]

Originally Posted by Wade Mahaffey

In the old days, many folks built there own cars. Or maybe a few buddies worked on a project together. But most were limited, to what they could do themselves.

Still that way at least the people I know

We had Mike P at MPR do the cage and suspension. The initial reason was simple time, he could get us in-out in a month....It would have taken me 4-5 to do the cage and chassis because well Id never done a DP Chally , Mike had.

Paul at Turbo Action did our transmission .

We did the rest, paint, powedercoating, glass, interior, (part of the wiring) all the plumbing, all the assembely, on and on. Everything except cage and transmission.

Transmissions, Im never screwing with period

Chassis work ? Well after seeing Mikes work, his low costing and fast turnaround ? Ill be hard pressed to dig out the benders and tig again.

In a way I am dissapointed I cant call the cage mine, because I originally planned to do it, but the delvery of the car was so much delayed I had no choice, in the end itturned out by far for the best.

Next one I will do myself but I will buy the "kit" from Mike....no reason to reinvent perfection.

Anyone can pay someone to do it all by other people , FEW do it all themselves, they get "looked down on" by SOME who just throw money at vendors, which is stupid as hell, Id rather have a cosmetically shaky car done all myself than a "trailer queen" I just paid people to do. People say "Oh who did X" Sometimes, not all, you hear hesitation in their voice "Uhhh I did" ....."Oh" a snooty reply from someone who is incapable of doing it themselves.

Why did we do it all ourselves ? Because it was hard. And it was and always will be what we enjoy, BUILDING it.

[SCOTT SST2871]

I did everything on my car myself other than,tom callis built the rear end housing and 36" cm ladder bars...the body shop at the pontiac dealership(oops buick/gmc)that i work at sprayed the paint i even borrowed a book and built one of my 2 transmissions.i agree that working on it is as much fun as driving it,almost!!
Scott fifield

[Casey Miles]

Racing the car for at least 39 years, the roll bar was installed locally because it had to be welded in (back in the day, bolted in was OK) and some machine work done on engine parts, other then that, all my own work. I personally enjoy working on the car and get satisfaction when the car performs at least to the index that is subscribed. Not setting records anylonger, just getting to the track is alot of work now.

Casey Miles
248H

[FED 387]

2 things I learned over the years can be summed up by these 2 sayings that I heard many years ago

"any asshole with a checkbook can buy a racecar it's what he does with it that counts"
AND
"you don't know anything about your race car until you know everything about your race car"
I keep remembering that over & over again---Helps me ---I enjoy putzing around fabricating and coming up with better ways of doing things- On my dragster I built everything except the frame/chassis and the cylinder head otherwise my partner, my wife and I did it all --Comp387

[Chris "drooze" Wertman]

I couldnt agree more....even the things I didnt do have been through (except trans)

Bikes are very very much the same except more dangerous, and Im not puttin my *** on anything I havent had my hand in everything.

With the exception of 1 accident every one was a mechanical failure. Of those 1/2 were known issues I decided to run anyway, none were anyones fault but mine, I like the fact I can never have any one to blame but me Makes life easy...I dont have to carry around animosity

Originally Posted by FED 387

"you don't know anything about your race car until you know everything about your race car"

[chris3racing]

I build everything on our car. Been doing it for a long time no reason to change now. The roll cage was installed by someone else only because he had time and equipment. He did a good job. Since I have been in the structural engineering busness for 40 years, I know the frame is welded and braced properly. Every piece of the car I look at either every week or every two weeks. Not only do I drive the car but my son drives it. Don't believe he would be doing that unless I have looked at everything.

[Mark Yacavone]

Let's see , The engine , carb, converter, trans ,rear end , sub frame connectors,suspension and alignment, wiring, body work , and paint.

Of course , the machine work was done by Rick Watters Ent / Tibor Kadar,
but I had to buy my own torque plate for a 2300, which they now have in their possession.


Same deal on the Omega before this one, including the headers, too.

I like being in control of the situation, as you can tell , but the main reason is , this is the only way I could afford to play in this arena.

[danny waters sr]

Started from scratch 3 years ago on a 66 nova 4-door 283 stocker. My son and i did everything but roll bar, engine & ,trans. this was a parts car a guy had and was keeping for the front clip. Was way cheaper than a two door and is diff and gets a lot of looks. I took before pics and after pics. As i said 3 years and still working while running it. It will be my last one that i build ,the next one will be already done ( if there is a next one ).

[Robert Swartz]

Originally Posted by drooze

Anyone can pay someone to do it all by other people , FEW do it all themselves, they get "looked down on" by SOME who just throw money at vendors, which is stupid as hell, Id rather have a cosmetically shaky car done all myself than a "trailer queen" I just paid people to do. People say "Oh who did X" Sometimes, not all, you hear hesitation in their voice "Uhhh I did" ....."Oh" a snooty reply from someone who is incapable of doing it themselves.

No doubt, this will be me, one day. if we ever get our car(s) together. Three things are driving me in the direction of doing the majority of the work this time. One, I'm a cheap bas%&#d, two is poverty and three, having been out of this for so long, I flat don't know anyone, anymore that I trust!

I'm gonna be upfront, neither my bracket car or my stocker will be show cars, no pretense at all. I am going to make the best effort I can to insure that they will be safe, sound and as nice as I can make them. Likely, they'll both look more like the cars of old, that weren't always as nice as we wish they were.

If someone wants to look down their nose at me. That's fine, I'm an old man now, I've come to be comfortable in my own skin. Trust me, I won't have a problem pulling up to that line next to ANYONE. At my age, if I put you back on the trailer, that'll be good enough for me. If I lose, ahh, come on by the trailer, there's bound to be a cold drink to share and I can BS with the best of them.