Topic: my build story
I'm Riley, and this is my story.
I figure I will document my build, show all the steps I take along the way. Might be mildly entertaining, as I have what I would call only a little experience, and even less time. It's going to be a build from scratch, the car is still street legal. I've been involved with a few other Lemons cars, but they have already come pre-caged and pre-raced, or were built and run by others. This one will be all mine, so I'll get to own the mistakes (hopefully not too many) and the successes (hopefully some).
I'll cover my car acquisition in a later chapter. For now I want to focus on "build", so, like Adamthewoo says, "Join me, shall you?"
First, after having done some research into the costs and time involved with having a cage built by shops in my area, Hanksville Hot Rods primarily, but also from talking to lots of folks, I decided to go ahead and buy a pre-bent kit. To my surprise, it turns out there is a company making a kit for my model of car, and it comes up when you put in the right internet search terms. The company even lists their cages on ebay. It is Rhodes Race Cars in Illinois. They list the cage kit as "Lemons and Chump" legal, and at first the price seems like a bargain. Add in the $250 to upgrade to DOM, and the $125 for shipping, and the total came out to right at $700. So I ordered it this past Friday and FedEx dropped it off on the porch today.
Hmm, it looks okay, impressive in fact. I'll want to lay it all out and take some measurements, count all the pieces and so forth, but for now I at least have a bundle of steel to play with. Oh yeah, I don't weld either -- we'll be looking for help in that arena for sure. O.k. so can't leave all these pipes up here on the porch, neighbors will think I've started yet another project or something. Gotta hide this stuff quick. So, head out back to the garage, where hopefully we'll be able to get some work started. What the - Oh jeez who let all this stuff pile up?
Okay so have to do some work cleaning out the garage so we can lay out these cage pieces. Looks like I'll be busy a few nights this week. Oh well, let's go tinker with the car. I don't drive it every day, it's older, but it still (sort of) runs. Already started in on it awhile back with having a few friends over and tearing out the interior, now it is sitting in the weeds behind the garage. But a little bit of coaxing with some starter fluid and it does fire up. It won't hold idle though, so obviously going to need a good going over before much else can happen. Here's a pic of the engine bay from when I started her up tonight. 
Summit sticker = racecar, naturally. I'm guessing someone on here will know the make/model/and year. We'll see if someone guesses it before I say it. Anyway, that's it for now. Let's see how that garage looks after a bit of organizing....
Should be a pretty good Lemons car. have fun!
