Kit Car plans

[roundyroundman]

I got a orginal set of chrysler Kit car plans (blueprints ) and does anybody have any idea what there worth ,I,ve got a guy wanting me to put a price on them and i have no idea what there worth ,I know they gotta be hard to find ,any ideas ?

[jimm II]

Roundy Round Man ; I have a orignal set of the engine manual for the Kit car and Sales book, (all four stages of purchasing) there are very few if any left out there. You may what to get copies made and sell them as such. Maybe on this board. I would be intrested in a complete set of copies. Jimm II

[roundyroundman]

Would that legal ,I sure wouldn,t want to go to jail over it ,some of these blueprints are as big as a hood on a 70 RR ,that might get exspensive ,any thoughts

[R/T Racing]

HEY THERE ROUNDYROUNDMAN IF YOU DECIDE TO MAKE SOME COPIES OF THOSE BLUE PRINTS I WOULD BE VERY INTERESTED IN A COPY OF THOSE THINGS. I HAD A BUDDY GO TO THE BIG MOPAR SHOW IN PA THIS PAST WEEKAND AND HE MET A GUY WHO IS TRYING TO SELL THE COMPLETE KIT IF THE PRICE IS RIGHT IT'S GONNA BE OURS, I CANT BELIEVE SOMEONE STILL HAS ONE, BUT ANYWAY KEEP ME IN MIND ON THOSE BLUEPRINTS!

[roundyroundman]

Beleive or not I had the whole car at one time ,I had a freind who bought this in NC ,he said it belonged to a pitman ,who worked for the PETTY,s ,,he raced this car on pavement ,i beleive ARCA ,but anyway I had everything ,all the torsion bars ,leaf springs ,tons, of parts ,I beleive about everything available for these cars ,the story was that this cars only had about 10 races on it ,it was in real good shape ,well i sold that car to a guy in ark,said he was gonna start dupicating these cars ,never heard anything about him again ,I can,t beleive I didn,t give him the plans ,I must forgot I had them ,he would of croaked to have them ,i sold everything for 1500.00 ,wonder what its worth now ,that was back in about 91 ,I growed up watching one of these cars ,he dominated ,his name was TED SHEPARD ,if you look in your mopar circle track manual ,its the 44 car a aspen with aluminum wheels ,when i got involved racing a lot rule books banned kit cars ,but that was in early 80,s what do you think about all this 340 KING ,you might as well bring my car down here and we,ll go race it ,its just collecting SD dust in your garage ,I will kick this all around and think about it ,but I would sure like so more input

[David D]

Hey Roundyroundman,
I'd be VERY interested in those plans. If you decide to move them or make copies, I DO want a set. I've been looking high and low for a set.

[jimm II]

Roundy Round Man : If you have the copy of 1999 mopar collectors guide theres a Kit Car that was restored to just built condition ,B 5 blue challenger. Probably worth a small fortune. Wished I had known you when you had yours for sale for $1500. Any ways keep us in mind on those copies. Thanks Jimm II

[340king]

Roundyroundman,

The car doesn't have as much dust as those plans have! Maybe you should send them up here and I can have them copied at the DOT. They have several large scale copiers. Since I work in local government, they will do them for me for about a $1 a piece. Besides, that surface plate of mine is collecting dust also. A kit car would be a nice way to start.

I could go racing, if I wanted to quit my job so I could work on the car, use my Jeep as the toter, and fix my eyes since I am about as blind as you these days. SuperGoob wants to try his hand at it, and I might let him. Its just that a 500hp mod may not be the easiest way to learn.

The state fair is going on at the end of July. They race the mods on the 28th and 30th. That might not be a bad time to go.

[scott mosier]

I would be very interested in a copy also! I too grew up watching Ted race here. I know of one of his old cars that is still in this area. But I havn,t been able to even look at it, let alone buy it. A freind of mine told me of one more sitting in a barn north of here but I don,t know if it is the real thing.I talked to the owners son and his said it is, but is not sure if he will sell? Honestly I wouldn,t be able to tell.

[daveashsr]

hi guys well i'd like to get on the band wagon too !! if u do deside to make copys i'd also be intrested in a copy !!
i've been told by a local racer here that he has a complete kit car sitting in his garage brand new never raced !! sure lol i'm still waiting for a chance to see it but i wouldn't hold my breath !! lol
anyway it would bee great to have a chance to build one of them for a superstock in my area !!
thanks david

[cageman]

Now I have never seen a kit car, but it sounds like really old technology to me. I know of guys who were really good chassis guys in the 80's and they dont know jack now. I would have to say that this kit car is not so good and your barking up the wrong tree, because if you use this stuff some guy with a current car will beat you and how will that make you feel. And if it is such a good car than why didnt ma MOPAR keep making the stuff

Just my 2 cents.

[roundyroundman]

You must have just crawled out of a hole ,your 2 cents ain,t worth nothing thats for sure ,where have been ,you must be one of the bowtie boys ,monkey see ,monkey do ,you need to go gack and look at history ,you don,t have the slightest idea whats going on ,what kind of cars are your local tracks using rt now in street stock ,bombers ,sportsman ,pro stock ,,cars all from the 70,s and 80,s ,kit car was a a b e body all from the late 60,s and all 70,s ,they were so dominate they were outlawed ,why do think chrysler released Richard Petty ,because they were broke ,they stopped all there circle track involement (MONEY ) you need to pull your head out that hole its in.

[R/T Racing]

I'M NOT ON HERE TO GIVE ANYONE A HARD TIME BUT I BELIEVE SOMEONE SHOULD DO SOME HOMEWORK BEFORE THEY START BARKING.
YOU MAY BE RIGHT IN CERTAIN WAYS ABOUT SOME OF THE ITEMS BEING OUTDATED BUT HOW HARD WOULD IT BE TO GET THE UPDATED PARTS? I'VE HEARD AND READ ALOT OF GOOD THINGS ABOUT THESE KIT CARS AND MY 2 CENTS WOULD BE FOR SOMEONE TO GO BACK AND GET SOME SCHOOLING BEFORE THEY START BARKING!

[David D]

Cageman, the value of the blue prints is for those of use who are racing a stock Mopar chassisied car is that it give us the specs to build our chassis. The Kit Car program ran from about 1973 to 1980 or so. They were the most state of the art late model/ sportsman chassis available at that time. But stop and think what a late model or sportsman car was then. Around here now we call them street stock, super stock, or stock look a like. The Kit Cars were based on essentially stock geometry so, it is invaulable to those of use who are building a stock geometry car. Example; the roll cage. The common route is to buy a kit from a chassis co. or have a custom cage bent by a local builder. Now, almost all of these sources know two variations of one geometry, GM. So when you install your kit, or have that cage installed by Roger Ramjet, is the cage being installed so it does the most good for your chassis? Probably not. Now, if you have blue prints for a cage that fits your geometry exactly, wouldn't that be to your advantage?
As far as why the Kit Car program went away, it was more the advent of the tubular late model chassis than anything else. By the mid eighties, most stock stub chassis were obsolete, so a stock chassis was way out to lunch. That and the fact that Chrysler in the late seventies/ early eighties had much bigger worries than whether or not they sold a few short track car kits.

[MOPARVANN]

Put me on your list also.If you can copy these I want a set. I have been looking for these for the last 4 years.I just got back from Carlisle and if I had seen any of the blue prints I would have paid what it took to get them. These are not of any value to anyone but the few of us that run stock class MOPARS, but to us they are priceless. I have seen parts of these but not a complete set. Petty's shop says"all that blew away from here years ago." The front suspension tech is probably the most useful, it will save the average racer a whole season in trial and error.

[AVENGER29]

Put me down,may not be worth anything now,but sure would love to see what all the fuss is all about!!
We race basically a stock front clip out of a 66 valiant, but most of our front end components,including super rare nascar spindles, came from Petty Enterprise thru a friend of ours in South Carolina. Be interesting to compare to our current set up.
avenger

[sanborn]

I too used these plans in the 80s to help build a Kit Car. For anyone currently thinking about building a stock chassis based oval track car the plans will be very valuable. The plans detail what stock components to use, how to modify them and the race setups to use. The plans included a very good chassis design using the stock front and rear clips. One word of advice, use every component they specify and make every modification specified, don't pick and choose what you do.

A kit car will end up about 2800 lbs complete without driver. This is with all iron engine and 4 speed trans and the early Franklin QC(heavy). With the 8 3/4 rear you can probably lose 75 lbs. I would probably use gas shocks(weren't available in the 80s).

One other thing, use the power steering box. I remember a pile of busted aluminum manual steering boxes. They just wouldn't take any tire rubbing.

[340king]

Open letter to Cageman,

I know you were watching your old man race since you were in diapers. I too used to watch my uncle when I was in diapers. When I talk to my uncle there are a few things that get lost in the details. But this is what he told me and it is still as true today as it was back then.

1. Find a place in your shop, mark it well, measure it well and document all the measurements. This is your setup area. You must set the car up each week in the exact same spot. Is everyone doing this?

2. Follow the exact same proceedure each week. If you unhook the shocks before setting the ride height and scaling, then do it in the same order each week. How many of us write down the order in which we do things?

3. Check every nut, bolt, setting and measurement every week, every part. How many of us are using an itemized check list that is two or more pages long?

You see, racing and doing it properly hasn't changed. Just the tools that go into how we do it. If you or anyone else has the desire and the time it takes to be successful at racing, it would do you a ton of good to talk to a genuine racer like my uncle.

My uncle kicked everybody's ass here in the early sixties in the modified class. The cars were closer to a sprint car than current IMCA/Wissota modifieds. One year at the State Fair, his car lapped the entire field enroute to the victory.

Now if you ask my uncle what percentage he ran for cross weight, he would say it doesn't matter. You see the numbers and all the garbage that the computers and technicians spit out don't mean a thing. The only thing that counts is performance.

Now, as for the Kit Car stuff. The biggest changes in Stock Car technology have come in two major areas as far as chassis are concerned. First, the tire technology has advanced incredibly in the 16 or so years that I have been racing. Secondly, the shock technology and availability are incredible these days. But rest assured, if my uncle or others like him were running today, you can bet your young ass that he would be kicking butt!

Good geometry is still good geometry. You can't get much better than the Kit Car geometry with stock components. Sure, newer tires and shocks will make these cars faster than they used to be, and some minor adjustments to settings may be required to get the most out of the newer technology, but think of all the homework and testing that has gone into this thing before you even begin.

Did you check the roll steer on your car, the bump steer, the camber gain, the caster gain, the Ackerman, the cross weight gain rate?????? These things have all been looked at, modified and optimized on this chassis, so why not use it?

I hope you don't think I am pounding on you dude, cause I'm not. I just want to open your eyes to the wealth of knowledge that is available on this board and in the lessons guys like my uncle, Roundyroundman, Sanborn and 355racer have paid for in countless hours at the shop, learning by trial and failure.

[Jesse Lackman]

Hey cage wanna see a real kit car? I know where one is, about 60 miles from you. The guy who owns it is pertty radical it would probably cost you to see it let alone touch it. I've seen and touched it and paid dearly. This guy also has pictures of the origional kit car prototype. He was was at the factory when they built it.

Hey how about Mark taking that old, bent, hoover chassis of Boyce's and kicking everyones butt these last two weekends? even beat Boyce's 434..... Ha Ha. Sometimes all "new chassis technology" is for, is to sell new chassis....

Which reminds me of the e-mail I had recently;

"i have had the chance to work in a shop with a superflow dyno. all customers were interested in the chance of the operator to set said dyno to give a bogus reading so as to either sell more produts or give them an idea that they had more hp than the next person when compared to their data sheets. i know weather and other factors come on to play.my question is,is there a way for a racer to tell if he is being given the shaft or the truth. any help in this would be helpful. thanks xxxx xxxxx"

This would be very easy to do, but I haven't had that request and haven't done it either .

[340king]

Jesse,

It is possible to miscalibrate any measurement device, including engine dynomometers. As you well know, the force exerted by the brake needs to be verified for accurate measurement. Now some dynos use differing methods to extract the torque reading from the brake, but all require frequent calibration.

Another area of concern when operating any dyno is noise. I don't mean loud audible noise, but rather mechanical or radio frequency noise. This noise can throw off the measuring equipment. Sometimes the noise signal is larger than the intended measurement signal. My friend Monty just completed installing a computer data acquisition for his Stuska Dyno. Since I graduated from the engineering school where the software was being developed, he asked me quite a few questions while he was working on his project. Noise filtering, without erasing the intended measurement signal was one of the most recurrent problems. One of the easiest measurements was the most difficult to filter. That was the RPM. Typically this is a no brainer, but the circuit board that was used for the interface required an analog signal and not a digital one.

To give a false impression of torque and horse power, one only has to alter the calibration of the brake before the pull. There are other ways to do it also. I can E-mail you with my ideas on how this is done if you desire.

[J-BODY]

Hey King, I was copying an article from an old Mopar Action and ran across an ad from Sparks Brothers Performance (516-352-8149) in NY. They were advertising kit cars built from the original jig on the 108" and 110" wb platform. Magazine was dated June of 92.

[cageman]

Jesse, roger kind of hinted to me about his kit car knowledge and he told me of some springs he had and some tbars that were huge that you would put on a lathe to make them yourself. Maybe he will bring his 6cylinder IMCA car down here again for the Governers Cup this weekend and I will talk to him again.

And why does everyone get anal when I ask questions about this ever eluding kit car. If everyone had the same opinion about everything, this would be a really dull world. I have a couple books with drawings of a kit car in them from when my dad raced the same thing. That is why it looked like old technology to me.

[sscarbrough52]

I have two things to say; (1) Please offer copies of the prints, (2) I am sure that my freind has replied to you and if he had just alittle help from those prints he would spank chevy tail eveyweek. I only hope to get my car to work as well as he has so please feel free to contact me, at what ever cost you can come up with it will still be cheaper than experimenting with our cars.

[Wagonman]

I'd sure like a copy of these too...These prints will help put all the mopars in the front...

[roundyroundman]

340 king is working on the reprint of the plans as we speak ,its getting a little complicated ,we got a lawyer working and a blueprint company working on this project ,we got to be sure we can legally do this ,the plans are faded to a extint ,so were probaly going have to have them lazer reprinted or something like that ,time has taken there toll on them ,340 king is the expert on this subject (engineer) so we fully plan on selling these reprints if possible ,were going have to invest some money in this deal ,hopfully we can have something going in a few months ,when everbody building next years racecars ,be patient ,thanks

[roodypoo]

Put me down for a set also, or if anybody knows where I can get my hands on a kit car please email me I am planning on finding one to race wissota streets with next year. There were a ton of kit cars up here in Nd in the 70's- early 80's, Richie Schwangler dominated fargo with a kit car swinger, Also Ernie Dere's and Ramo Stouts kit cars ended up here, I sorta remember most of them but got a couple pics of em. This is Randy Header's Challenger taken at one of the tackiest half miles in the country West Fargo Nd. I am guessing this was taken when I was about 4-5 years old.... Cageman your dad raced a kit car? Hrm I don't remember that but I guess I was pretty young, I remember his Daytona but that wasn't a kit car. Oh Roger Raush has a kit car and the jig to see if its been tweaked but knowing Roger he wouldn't part with it.

[340king]

I thought I might update the board on the progress of this project. At Columbus, OH I spoke to representatives of Mopar. They felt that reproducing the plans should not be any major issue and gave me a card to send the inquiry to. One of them even stated that he would like a set. As always, it aint over till the fat lady is singing. I have found a source for the duplicating process. I haven't been able to get a quote however, because the original plans are larger than what can be feasibly copied. I am looking into putting together drawing sets, using match lines and smaller drawings or scale drawings.

While I was talking to the Mopar people, one of them said they would put me in touch with the original author of the plans. They felt it would be good to get an experienced view of what could or should be changed on these plans. In light of Cageman's comments, I took this as a good thing. It will be interesting to see if there are many suggested changes.

The final part of this process is going to be the recreation of the drawings in Autocad(registered trademark). This will allow scale drawings, easier reprints and especially modifications. I see this as an iterative process. First, I want to get the initial plans done, then work on refining them even more if possible.

P.S. I have a frame jig that is probably more like a chassis micrometer. I still would like to build a kit car on it as one of the first cars.

[jimm II]

340 king ; thanks for the update, I'm still intrestested. That chassi jig you have must be quite the thing to see, any pics.
Those updates by the orignal author, would be very intresting in light of the changes of the newer style chassis. Thanks Jimm

[340king]

The frame jig is from Blackhawk. It is approx. 5' wide and 18' long. It has a Phaoroh's arm or halo for three dimensional measurements. The structure is made from something like 10" w flange beams that have been welded, then milled as a unit to ensure a flat surface. I haven't had the joy of playing with it yet. I have spent 5 of the last 10 weekends working for Uncle Sam. I will try to post a photo of it in the near future.

[roodypoo]

Originally posted by Jesse Lackman
Hey cage wanna see a real kit car? I know where one is, about 60 miles from you. The guy who owns it is pertty radical it would probably cost you to see it let alone touch it. I've seen and touched it and paid dearly. This guy also has pictures of the origional kit car prototype. He was was at the factory when they built it.

Roger Rausch?