Drag Racing Discussions > Front Engine Dragsters

Material For Seat/Interior Wrap

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lake_harley:
I have patterns made to do the interior wrap/seat for the FED I'm building and wondered what material to use. My plan is that the wrap will be on the inside of the roll cage/chassis structure and will extend to a vertical tube just behind the rearend housing and will also be used as the seat. I have 2 - 2" X 1/8" steel straps welded to the cage which are curved to form the seat bottom, and will be either riveted (maybe solid driven rivets), or welded to the wrap to make it one piece. My patterns are Left and Right and will be butted and spliced together with a strip again riveted or welded together in the center behind the driver's spline. I would put the splice strip to the outside, so the inside would be smooth. I plan to install it using Dzus button head fasteners. FWIW, the outer body panels (outside the chassis tubes) would extend slightly past the forward edge of the interior so they would actually have an overlap.

All that being said, I have three types of material in my shop to do the wrap and the seat bottom and wonder if any of them would be an appropriate or acceptable material....18 Ga. mild steel, .040" aluminum and .063" aluminum. I believe the aluminum sheets are 5052 alloy.

I would appreciate some input from experience and say "Thank You" in advance. There's probably a spec somewhere in some rules, but I haven't dug around the internet for it yet.

Thanks

Lynn

wideopen231:
IMO .050 aluminum is what you need. While .013 thicker doesn't sound like much but it is 25% thicker and hard to form when compared. >040 is too thin for the welding you are almost defiantly going to have to do   

lake_harley:
Thanks for the quick reply and recommendation. Ready to forge forward again. Getting the seat/interior in the chassis will actually show some visual progress for a change. Most of the piddly, but necessary brackets I've been making to mount fuel pump, fuel tank, battery, etc. are certainly part of the build and actually are progress, but the car hasn't made any real visual change in quite some time.

Like I heard many times while I was building a plane a few years ago, "Do something every day and one day all that will be left to do is fly".

Lynn

wideopen231:
Take a look at Neil and Parks catalog. They have ton of brackets cheaper than I can make them and I make everything. Great guys and super helpful

lake_harley:
Spending time vs. money....hands down I'm using up time, but I really enjoy fabricating. When I was about to start the dragster I came really close to buying a tacked together chassis but decided to build. I knew if I bought the chassis I would have been disappointed that I didn't build it myself, from the ground up. I always figure there are builders and there are racers, drivers, pilots, etc......I certainly fall into the builder category.

Lynn

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