Fromthenavy
TS3 SA
HI guys, I know I'm not around much anymore. Have a lot going on with work, my small business and real life racing it's hard to find time to get down to gaming but figured I'd share how our rookie season went in the Late Model.
About a year ago I got a call from someone I knew long ago when I was racing karts from 2003-2007 and they watched me grow as a driver. This person was a car owner in the Busch North series, fielded many late models back in the day and had some local legends driving for him about 20 years ago, a few years ago he purchased a late model stock car for someone who is like a son for him but he wasn't interested in racing anymore. Around last Thanksgiving is when he called me.
The car used to be an old Pro Stock late model that raced at Thompson speedway and various New England race tracks and then sat for my guess is 15+ years. When I first saw the car it was in a tiny little Quonset hut surrounded by stuff, years of filth and dust it was quite a mess. The whole car needed to be gone through with many chassis changes needed to be made in order to race as a Late Model Sportsman. We converted the car from coilover suspension to Big spring with separate shock mounts, stuffed a brand new chevy crate engine in (602) with a 4 barrell Holly 650 carb. I fabricated new seat mounts and rewired the entire car (not much to it) and tried our best for some rookies to get it handling for the upcoming season. All this work being done in just a few short months.
Here is what she looked like before we started. It was quite a site, with absolutely zero room to work around there was a lot of cleaning to do.
View attachment 5013
Got the old engine out with a front end loader tractor, we felt a little bit redneck that night
Started fabrication for my new seat that came, I bought an Ultra Shield Halo seat for a good price and was very impressed with the quality and comfort
Fabricated seat mounts for right behind the shoulders that will mount to the chassis
After a lot of test fits pulling the seat in and out to get the right height, angle and distance I welded the finish upper bracket into the car while I still had to work out the lower support
The bottom mount that was in the car looked a little scary with not the greatest welds so we made our own bracket.
Old mount
Scary welds, probably wouldn't have held up to a big impact
Put a solid bar in across the bottom at the correct angle for mounting flush against the bottom of the seat. A lot more stable and a lot more safe. Saftey is priority at over 100mph.
Here's the mount just tacked in incase we needed to cut and change the angle.
And then a package arrives
Followed by some more goodies, Holly 650cfm 4 barrel.
Time to start tackling the wiring situation. I reused some gauges that were in the car that bench tested fine but replaced all the wire and switches, faulty eletrical is unnecessary,
Made up a switch panel and powder coated it back.
The car in my shop with my buddies cummins and frame swapped f100
We struggled a lot getting the motor into position inside the car, trial and error with custom motor mounts was a big headache. Issues with oil pan clearance because of how low it sat compared the the built motor that was in the car. We had to bend up a custom skid plate with hard spacers so we wouldn't take the oil pan out during a race. Kind of scary but it came out great, don't have any pictures of that at the moment. Getting a 2 post lift installed in the shop this week which will save my back bigtime.
Here's everything slowly but surely coming together. We started this project in Feburary after I got back
About a year ago I got a call from someone I knew long ago when I was racing karts from 2003-2007 and they watched me grow as a driver. This person was a car owner in the Busch North series, fielded many late models back in the day and had some local legends driving for him about 20 years ago, a few years ago he purchased a late model stock car for someone who is like a son for him but he wasn't interested in racing anymore. Around last Thanksgiving is when he called me.
The car used to be an old Pro Stock late model that raced at Thompson speedway and various New England race tracks and then sat for my guess is 15+ years. When I first saw the car it was in a tiny little Quonset hut surrounded by stuff, years of filth and dust it was quite a mess. The whole car needed to be gone through with many chassis changes needed to be made in order to race as a Late Model Sportsman. We converted the car from coilover suspension to Big spring with separate shock mounts, stuffed a brand new chevy crate engine in (602) with a 4 barrell Holly 650 carb. I fabricated new seat mounts and rewired the entire car (not much to it) and tried our best for some rookies to get it handling for the upcoming season. All this work being done in just a few short months.
Here is what she looked like before we started. It was quite a site, with absolutely zero room to work around there was a lot of cleaning to do.
View attachment 5013
Got the old engine out with a front end loader tractor, we felt a little bit redneck that night
Started fabrication for my new seat that came, I bought an Ultra Shield Halo seat for a good price and was very impressed with the quality and comfort
Fabricated seat mounts for right behind the shoulders that will mount to the chassis
After a lot of test fits pulling the seat in and out to get the right height, angle and distance I welded the finish upper bracket into the car while I still had to work out the lower support
The bottom mount that was in the car looked a little scary with not the greatest welds so we made our own bracket.
Old mount
Scary welds, probably wouldn't have held up to a big impact
Put a solid bar in across the bottom at the correct angle for mounting flush against the bottom of the seat. A lot more stable and a lot more safe. Saftey is priority at over 100mph.
Here's the mount just tacked in incase we needed to cut and change the angle.
And then a package arrives
Followed by some more goodies, Holly 650cfm 4 barrel.
Time to start tackling the wiring situation. I reused some gauges that were in the car that bench tested fine but replaced all the wire and switches, faulty eletrical is unnecessary,
Made up a switch panel and powder coated it back.
The car in my shop with my buddies cummins and frame swapped f100
We struggled a lot getting the motor into position inside the car, trial and error with custom motor mounts was a big headache. Issues with oil pan clearance because of how low it sat compared the the built motor that was in the car. We had to bend up a custom skid plate with hard spacers so we wouldn't take the oil pan out during a race. Kind of scary but it came out great, don't have any pictures of that at the moment. Getting a 2 post lift installed in the shop this week which will save my back bigtime.
Here's everything slowly but surely coming together. We started this project in Feburary after I got back
