Thinking of building a tubular frame teener - where can I find info or plans?

Bill I have the perfect body for your project! just kidding. I will be "sitting" pretty in a few months. Literally.

You're scaring me a little bit.

Part of me says, "if you need plans, you ain't ready for a tube frame."

Another part of me says, hey, we could have a serious builder on our hands.

One thing for sure, the experience you need is here. There are a couple tube-framed 914 projects under construction right now.

So please give us more background on your experience. This could be the beginning of something really cool!

Are you going to bend the tubes and such (build it yourself) or do you want someone else to build it?

If doing it yourself, then you should really have enough background in tube bending and welding and suspension placement to not need plans (which is I think what Rand implies). I am also not aware of any plans ever existing for a 914 tube chassis - fab guys always do their stuff "their own way which is always better than the last guy" and every car tends to be different.

Look back to Excellence mag Spt 2005 at Roger Sheridan's "Hippie Chic" for inspiration - I drove the 7hr round trip to his house to take pics of his car before starting mine. In the end, mine is totally different. His car is super, super, super fast (1:23 at Willow IIRC which is smokin') and really light. I built a tank for safety. Then May of 98 had a tube chassis twin turbo car. There was another one in AZ that was really nice, I just can't find the edition right now.

Otherwise, if having someone else do the work, and you want them to build to supplied plans, that is really tough to find and you have to find someone local to do it. I had plans I personally came up with for my car, but found myself in some heated debates trying to get the fab shop to do it my way, not his way. Tough situation and the guy really needs to be local so you can swing by on a regular basis and see progress.

Lastly, if you want someone else to do the work, I think the easiest way is to go with a known, reputable shop. Then send them your car, payments as requested, and then get it shipped back complete. Roger Hamlin (IIRC the name) is in New Mexico and was highly, highly recommended to me. I spoke to him and almost sent my car there, but I am just too much of a control freak to "let go", so I went locally.

If you want his info, PM me (I am not getting emails for some reason for threads I request ) and I will dig out his info and phone number. Super knowlegeable and has built a ton of 914 racers apparently.

I've never seen plans....of the dozen or so tube frame 914s out there, I believe 3 are built the same off of the same fixture, the others are just built from the owners/fabricators imagination/experiance.

2 of the biggest design considerations are rules (if building for a class) and then the suspension. Most of the tube frame 914s use suspension based on the stock 914 suspension...a few others are 993 suspension based or custom-one-off design.

If you do a search here, there are a few posts that show different tube frame cars, some with better detail than others.

just remember to send pictures

thanks guys - your probably right - not enuf tools to do the job right.