Vega drag car

[Irish_Alley]

A shop me and my buddy uses to work for subbed out this drag car for us to fix. Little history on it, this guy took it to a shop that specialized in drag cars (supposedly ) well Lyly's start with this the roll cage is tubing that's bee heated up and bent. There's even a 3" channel that's just sitting near the rear (welded ) there's even black threaded pipe in this roll cage. Then lets get to the 4link for some reason someone wanted to tig it. They used 1/8 filler rod (way too big, 1/8" we use more for aluminum ) so here's the pictures. Sorry for the quality phone sucks
It was on a 9" with a 1.25" trust welded on the back side
Problem number one the bracket they used was for 2" trust and that gives you this
 
 
Now tig is supposed to look good, heres their tig


 

Now they made this box but they missed one or two welds


 

Some nice porosity

 

 
Going to have to get some after pictures


 
 
 

[thirsty]

Kinda looks like it was thrown together on a Friday and Saturday in somebodies driveway to make a race on Sunday.

Do drag cars have to pass tech before they are run like our circle track cars do? A cage that is like what you described wouldn't even be allowed to practice on our tracks.

[Stewart G Griffin]

Nothing wrong with tigging provided it was done right.  Tig may even be the preferred way with race cars.   The shock mount bracket may technically work, strength-wise, the way it is since it is just supporting the rear portion of the car which is not that heavy to begin with.  But yeah, you would like to see a better fit.


Can you guys get it done?

[Irish_Alley]

afaik it has to pass before you even drop the motor in it. Tig ain't bad it looks good if done right. Still baffled on the 1/8" filler rod they used. I would be embarrassed to even make these welds let alone let them go out the shop.  Yeah we can do this. Bad part is the owner had to pay $1500 just to get this crap or they wouldn't release the car. He got the cops involved and the dropped it to 1k.

[Irish_Alley]

Got the boxes off that connected the front brackets to the frame

 
 
 
Nice complete weld