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Part I
We've got our work cut out - we need to
complete this car by January 21st to make the indoor mini sprint show
in Duquoin, IL.
Editors Note: We should probably have our heads
checked. You might remember a few years ago we gave this a try—it
turned out to be a bigger feat than we had imagined. We are hoping
for better results this go around, but we’ve upped the anti. This
year we are on the shortest deadline we have ever been on. The mini
sprints have been given the opportunity to run indoors on January 20th
and 21st. Our lofty goal is to have the car all ready to
go for this event. Normally we’re scrambling just to make the first
practice session of the regular season. The FOZ mini sprint is
advertised as a car that is consistent from one chassis to the next,
easy-to-assemble with parts that are readily available—here’s the true
test.
Unfortunately I am not able to write
stories as fast as this car will have to go together. We hope to
provide coverage of this complete build, but it will be through a
series of stories that will likely lag the actual completion of the
car. Our goal is to provide plenty of pictures and descriptions
of everything we are doing. We hope you find it an enjoyable
read over these winter months.
All FOZ Mini Sprints begin life in the Spike Chassis shop in
Brownsburg, Indiana. Check this shop out, neat as a pin and well
equipped and that's the way you usually find it.
Unlike our last story we will have the
luxury of starting from the very beginning. All the way at the point
where the car is just a pile of tubing. Every FOZ mini sprint begins
life at the Spike Chassis shop in Brownsburg, Indiana. The car is a
joint effort between John Godfrey and Speed Partz. The car was
actually introduced a little over a year ago.
Before the car ever hit the design board,
goals were set around what this car was to be. It was a short,
sweet list—but one that everyone wanted to strictly adhere to.
The car was to be safe, easy to work on with parts that fit right off
the shelf, of the highest quality and most of all fast. In the
car's first full season, it became a regular in the top five in both
600cc and 1200cc competition and scored 3 victories including the Mini
Sprint Madness event at Limaland Speedway for 600cc upright mini
sprints and the first two nights of the Fun Fest for 1200cc mini
sprints at Lawrenceburg Speedway.
Each FOZ mini sprint is assembled off a
set of standard jigs to ensure consistency. The Spike Chassis shop is
staffed by employees that can only be described as craftsman. Most of
the key employees have a history that dates back to the period when
Godfrey was busy building his original business, Stealth Race
Cars—which he sold several years ago.
The first step in the process is cutting
and bending all of the tubing for the chassis. All tubing is cut
and bent to exact specifications using a set of blueprints that are
identical for each chassis. The next step is the assembly of
each of the sides of the car. A jig table is used with pillow
blocks that lock the tubing into exact positions. At this point
all of the joints are tacked together.
Once all of the tubing has been cut, bent and notched - the two
sides are assembled on purpose built jig tables that have pillow
blocks which lock the tubing into the exact right position.
Once both sides are tacked together, the
car moves to another jig table where the two sides are stood up and
cross members are tacked in. At this point tabs and bracket mounts
are added and the chassis is ready to move on to the finish welder.
Spike’s finish welder is second to none. He is certified to aerospace
qualifications and puts down a weld that has drawn comments from
everyone that sees the cars.
Once the two sides have been tacked
together the chassis is moved to a stand up jig where the two sides
are stood up and cross members are tacked in and then its off to get
final welds.
The final stop for the chassis before
making the trip to Speed Partz in Cincinnati, Ohio is the hanging of
the bodywork. The bodywork for the FOZ is a combination of fiberglass
for the tail, armguard, hood and nose and aluminum for the cowl, sail
panels and side panels. All of the Fiberglass on the FOZ mini sprint
is available molded in color. Our new car will have a black tail and
armguard and a white hood and nose piece.
The final stop before the chassis
leaves Brownsburg is the hanging of the bodywork. This ensures
consistency and that everything fits up just right.
Fiberglass bodywork for the FOZ Mini
Sprint is available molded in a color of choice. Here is a
customer's car that choose yellow. We've also done white, red
and black.
The final step in this segment is getting
the car ready to assemble. This basically involves staging all of the
parts that go on the car and sending the chassis and aluminum bodywork
out for powdercoating.
We've taken everything off of our chassis and have it ready to go
back out to the powder coater to get a nice coat of black paint.
The cowl, side panels and sail panels
for the FOZ Mini Sprint are made of aluminum. We've decided to
send ours off to the powder coater's shop to be painted black just
like our chassis.
Stay tuned for our next story as we begin
hanging components on the car—we’ll be using some of the lastest,
trick parts that have recently been added to the shelves at Speed
Partz.
We've got a whole shelf set aside where
we have been staging parts to go on our new car. We're using all
of the latest, trick parts from FOZ Race Products and the many other
manufacturers that Speed Partz is a dealer for. Be sure to check
back in for Part II as we start to hang them on the car.
Our car will soon be back from the powder
coater and ready to start hanging parts on--be sure to stop back for
Part II in our series. For more information on FOZ Mini Sprints,
visit www.fozracecars.com or
call 513.874.2034.
| Part I |
Part II |
Part III |
For more information on several of the products listed above, be sure
to read our more in-depth technical articles:
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