V2Rocket

Anybody got experience building a partial tube-frame for their car? My 944 got in a mild wreck and in front of the strut towers is hosed, rest of the car is straight though (measured and confirmed). Would like to keep this car rather than transfer to a new body (not out of the question though), figured I could make something interesting out of it.

Any tips?

J richard

Is it the structure in front of the towers? Are the towers themselves ok? If so I'd get it on a rack and have it pulled out. The benefits of a tube frame are tying the suspension points to the cage to stiffen the chassis and eliminating excess weight, most of which is behind your problem area...944 shells are pretty cheap by comparison...

J richard

Do you really have 20,000 posts since 2007?! And I take it from your sig that you're 20?

Dude you gotta get out more often....

V2Rocket

im a very socially-active, double-major college student with 2 jobs...i still have alot of spare time and a car obsession...

and i dont intend to build a full tube frame. what i hope to do is reconstruct out of steel stock a front end for my car that will give me more flexibility in what i can put under there...it will be designed so that a standard 944's front end cosmetics will bolt on...i have a rough design ready to go, just curious if anyone had suggestions for it. i have thought of welding on a new front clip but figured id go the usual 'crazy route' instead

J richard

Just giving you a hard time

One thought would be to get an all glass turbo nose and then fabricate a support for that. Are the frame rails bent or did the bumper struts take the hit? The sheetmetal that supports the fender and headlight buckets is pretty much unaupported and easy to straighten out...plenty of experience with the spec car fenders...

333pg333

This should give you something to go on Spence.

https://rennlist.com/forums/944-turb...f-project.html

V2Rocket

my plans are to bolt on the turbo nose to a frame that is made for it.

the rails are tweaked - PS rail is crushed, DS has a dimple where it compressed. one bumper shock is collapsed, other is not.
thats almost exactly what i was thinking, thanks!!

333pg333

Thought you might like it. Having said that, I think a re tub would be much easier in a sense, but a good project if you like this sort of thing.

V2Rocket

In terms of crash protection for the motor etc, would it make sense to try to build "failure" points into the tube sections? My frame will be nearly identical to Hans' in the above thread, starting at the shock towers and going forward. If so, would a simple angled joint suffice as a failure point? This would take any impact force and transfer it towards the horizontal direction towards bending or breaking the joint rather than pushing straight back into the shock tower.

Also, since I can make my own rad frame, would it be beneficial to angle the radiator slightly forward for more cooling, like on a 2nd gen RX7? That would give me some extra space up front for an IC or something as well.

stownsen914

Hi,

I drive a semi-tube framed 914/6 that I built years ago starting while I was still in college, and have (almost) always been happy with it, and my decision to build it. As with most big projects, it took more time to finish it that I would have liked. You might find it easier and faster to retub the car, but it sure would be a cool project to semi-tube the car.

As to your question about building crash safety into a tube frame, personally I think it's a good idea, if done right. But you have to really careful -- car manufacturers spend a lot of time and $$ getting it right. I would think if you do it incorrectly you could wind up with an unsafe car. One option that I've heard some builders use is to use progressively lighter weight tubing as they move further from the cockpit.

Whatever you wind up doing, good luck with the project!

Scott

V2Rocket

good to know about the progressively thinner tube...thanks!

as you can see from my avatar, the frame rails are now separate from the car...now the interesting bit, the rebuild, begins

M758

check the passenger compartment. I have nice non-sunroof 924S chassis that is junk due to bent forward frame rails and due to some bends in the main compartment. I have been using that as a donor since 1998.