Question about building a car from a bare frame

As someone just like you (10 races ago ) I say start with the straightest most premium frame, suspension and a un-gutted body, think bomber where gutting is not allowed, crush zones are that important here.
ALSO
We researched how well a chev dirt car would do, while feasible and as unbelievable as it seems it was realized there is a huge challenge to getting a SBC to run for 20+hours of hooning not to mention it will be a thirsty bugger that will drink all your teams budget quickly.

We chose to let all our dirt stuff sit and rot, ignored the collection 23 SBC engines and 10 saginaw transmissions then moved to a completely unfamiliar platform, collected new spares and went asphalt to turn both directions. Guess what, I have sold my best turn key pure stock, 5 engines and a transmission to help with our new passion... Road racing Infiniti cars (hint they are reliable and RWD), even the hardest core chev and ford guys on the team, including myself, now believe it was the proper call and have learned to work on and trust these Japanese jewels.Do something like this for a primary car, why you ask, because the team will stay together longer...

As a secondary car go with all the reject crap out of the scrap pile,find a name to go along with all your bent crap, oh use 305 engines, 2bbl carb and keep the revs below 4500... Sound retarded? Sorry, this is the only known formula to keep a SBC running in this sport, do not take it as a challenge, take it as advice.

No regrets on selling stuff or moving away from chev, the people are great and the atmosphere is not like any other race you have attended.

LOL...what you are describing is a "limited late model", not a "street stock" (said as a long ago roundy-round guy). Whether it will fly with the Judges I can't say, but I do know that a local team showed up at last month's Lemons race at Thunderhill with a Porsche 944 built like what you describe, complete with SBF and top-loader...and got assigned 60 penalty laps before blowing up. Oh, it must have been fun while it lasted, because they posted one of the quicker laps, but nobody was fooled.

The bottom line is that the Judges aren't a bunch of newbs who are going to wave through a wolf in sheep's clothing, even if they know it won't last. Instead, do what Team Infinniti suggests and build a Bomber with an automatic, tiny 2-bbl or TBI. Throw a middlin' rear gear at it and disconnect the vacuum regulator so it will just stay in 3rd while not going over 4500 RPM, and come out to have fun.

The "Bomber Brigade" needs more members, and you might be surprised how high they can finish on the fun/dollar scale.

Talk to Jay (510-655-5980 ext 23) before you spend any money or cut any metal on this project.

This would be far from an effort to pull a fast one on the judges, it's more like trying to find a purpose for a bunch of beat up crap I'd rather not throw away, in a manner of speaking.

What zimsport said is also something I was wondering about, what kind of crush zones can a full frame car like this have? even out of the factory, the front and rear bumpers bolt on to the frame. It is possible that when the body is stripped to just the skin that something has been removed that was designed to collapse in the event of a collision, but if the body moved at all because of contact it would hit the roll cage before anything else.

I apologize if I left you with the impression I thought you were trying to "pull a fast one". What I really meant was that Lemons might take one look at such a car and decide it runs afoul of the "$500 crap-can race car" Lemons ethos and toss you before you ever got on track, even though you could well have less than $500 into it. OTOH, for all I know Jay might say, "Bring it on!" If so, you're in like Flynn.

Judge Phil's comment immediately above is the key. Call Jay. Heck, if this approach flies you could be the vanguard of something weird and wonderful. More to the point, if this flies, I can see a $500 Corvette GTP car in my future.

many years ago a "new" team showed up with a pristine fiberglass widebody 944 turbo.......they got LOTS of laps & proceeded to blown up, plus get lots of black flags .....which is stunningly common to new Lemons teams.....

The same 944 finished its1st race with lots of damaged body panels.....& eventually ended up with a SBF engine....I think it still races & is much more "Lemons" appropriate now (think crappy)

SBC's are incredibly horrible.....so bad that they rarely finish a race......running one almost guarantees you will blow up....which helps your odds of getting in.....but I would follow judge Phil's advice and call Jay directly.....

How bad is the SBC record.....hmmm when it makes a Porsche 928 engine seem VERY reliable....that speaks volumes

I think that's the car I saw in Campbell a few weeks before the Sonoma race. Still got lots of BS laps (60!?), and managed to have mechanical issues (trans/clutch?). Posted some hella fast laps while it ran, tho...