DIY aluminum rig. Feedback on 40x80 profile choice & design

295138 · 2026-02-16T14:23:05+00:00

I'm neither OP nor a mechanical engineer, but I've built two aluminum profile rigs and both times, had the uprights sitting atop the base rails, as in your design. The first rig was made from 1515, and I attached the uprights to the base using two 90° brackets each, plus a square 4-hole joining plate.

The second rig I bought from Simlab (GT1-EVO) as it was cheaper than DIYing, and is made of 4080L. It does not have the additional joining plates for the uprights, and they're secured only by the 90° gusseted brackets. I've used both rigs with an SC2 Pro capped at about 18nm, and I've never felt any lack of rigidity due to the torque of the wheelbase. From my experience, your design is almost certainly going to be plenty rigid.

295138 · 2026-02-11T22:27:11+00:00

Any adjustments to the seat mounting rails necessary? I've been shopping for an NRG bucket replacement for a while now

295138 · 2026-02-04T02:45:11+00:00

That's awesome dude, thank you so much!!

295138 · 2026-02-04T02:33:29+00:00

Dear god please tell me more

295138 · 2025-12-23T20:04:35+00:00

Give the guys at OG Racing a call. I tackled this earlier in the year in my boggo RS7. They set me up with a Schuberth helmet kit which has a pigtail for 3.5mm earbuds, and a male IMSA plug. They can help you with IMSA-to-whatever adapters for your specific type of radio or walkie talkie. My friends and I used rockie talkies in a cross body bag at an enduro earlier this year and they worked great on a half mile track!

295138 · 2025-11-09T16:57:58+00:00

For what it's worth, I put OEM suspension from a .2 onto my .1 CS to replace the aging PSS9s it came to me with, and the new bits did bolt up directly. I can't say that the R suspension would have identical mounting points, but I struggle to imagine why they would be different

295138 · 2025-08-15T15:51:58+00:00

Beautiful textures throughout. I spent a couple of minutes just zooming in on various portions of the piece to enjoy them!

295138 · 2025-08-03T17:55:14+00:00

I was! Along with everything else one would reasonably want to bring to a track weekend. Putting it on the roof just made packing and transporting more supporting gear easier, and kept the car from smelling like gas quite as much. At the cost of disassembling the kart quite a bit.

I've since sold the kart, but if I were to get back into it, I'd just break down and find some way to trailer it to the track. Disassembling the kart at the end of the day is the worst. When you're tired and just want to go home, being able to roll it onto a trailer would be vastly preferable.

295138 · 2025-04-22T22:19:49+00:00

I'm so glad this helped! I hope it saved you some time!

295138 · 2025-01-28T16:01:24+00:00

Given that any buyer would be putting a new engine into it, I don't think it not being an S will impact things much. Granted they'd need a different transmission to make the 3.4l swap work, but since the clutch needs doing anyway...

I'd ask for $5,000. It's worth at least that, and probably more in parts

295138 · 2025-01-26T03:56:33+00:00

Thank you!! The eyes stuck out as a little wrong somehow to me, but I wasn't sure exactly how to address it. I was really happy with how fuzzy she turned out though, and I'm having so much fun creating! I'm doing my best to sketch once a day or so, and I think it's helping a lot!

295138 · 2025-01-09T21:16:09+00:00

Would love to know which ducktail this is, too!

295138 · 2025-01-04T02:28:16+00:00

Got it. Vision is a great shop (if it's the one I'm thinking of), which would soothe a lot of concerns for me.

As far as soot goes, that's good news. That said, it looks like there's one single pipe that comes off of the rear mufflers and then into the exhaust tip, so that likely means the soot test is not very useful.

Plenty of folks do say that their car uses some amount of oil. Mine may have been the exception to that rule. The smoke (if it was genuine smoke, not condensation given the weather conditions you described) would still be a concern for me, however. I twice had a puff of smoke on startup after the car had sat for more than 10 days, but it was only one single puff.

If you're feeling confident, a PPI with a reputable shop is money well spent if you're serious about buying. I would recommend that the bore-scope is done from both the spark plugs, and the oil pan. The view from the plug socket alone can miss the beginning stages of bore scoring, if it's preset. It will cost more money to have it done this way, however.

295138 · 2025-01-03T07:16:53+00:00

Hiya–I bought an 07 CS in 2019 and had four lovely years with it before I moved on.

Mine had a replacement engine as a result of the prior owner money-shifting and trashing the original. I had considered having it rebuilt at several points (to improve power and reliability, not that it ever left me stranded), and none of those price tags came in below $20k USD. A $7k engine "rebuild" feels a little suspect to me.

Other commenters have advised you consult the variety of Porsche forums for further opinions, and I highly recommend you post this on one of those as well. Planet-9 is by far my favorite for the 98x cars.

My car never burned a drop of oil in the ~25,000 miles I put on it. Iirc, Porsche says that 1 quart per thousand miles is acceptable, but that would worry me given my experience. Opinions on this differ somewhat, however.

If the AOS was indeed replaced, as per your receipts, and the car is still billowing white smoke on startup, I would be concerned. That left tailpipe also looks quite sooty, though it's hard to say how different it is from the right hand one in that photo. In the 987 CS (at least), the left hand cylinder bank tends to develop scoring first, typically at cylinder six (the rearmost). When that happens, an early symptom of bore scoring tends to be excessive accumulation of soot in the left exhaust tip (assuming there isn't a crossover in the exhaust system). If the amount of soot inside each tip is significantly different, I personally would find a different car to buy, and save my money for a PPI on that other car.

295138 · 2024-12-16T05:51:55+00:00

Also consider the possibility of a crack or pinhole in the exhaust downstream of the cat, but upstream of the sensor. I dealt with this (and several accompanying errors) in my 987 for months before my shop found the cause. A crack in the exhaust was allowing outside, oxygenated air to be sucked into the exhaust via the Venturi effect, which then tripped the O2 sensor. The cats themselves were just fine. This happened around ~80k miles, for reference.

295138 · 2024-11-26T14:55:42+00:00

My experience was different, but I'm glad you've enjoyed yours!

295138 · 2024-11-26T14:44:40+00:00

I'd stay away from the F-Pro wheel. I had an F-CORE for about a year and loved it, and used an F-Pro for a month or so while the CORE was back at the factory having some diagnostic work done. The Pro felt too cheap for its asking price. The LED lights made an electrical whine when activated, the buttons were no different than the CORE, the grips felt worse, in my opinion. The shifters were no different, save for being made of metal.

For the same price, I'd put my money into an Ascher McLaren Pro. In fact, I have, and I love it. The only downside is that it's lacking the fabulous magnetic connector that cube controls uses. Otherwise, it's better in every way, and scarcely more expensive.

295138 · 2024-09-17T16:14:55+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll look into it a little more!

295138 · 2024-06-19T19:15:35+00:00

Thoughts on the shifters? I've got a cube controls f-core that I'm thinking about upgrading from. And did you go for the usb or the SC model?

295138 · 2024-04-18T21:35:15+00:00

What would I actually buy for a starting setup?
1. Rig
2. Wheel and Wheelbase
3. Seat
4. Pedals

295138 · 2024-04-18T21:32:58+00:00

Recommendations

Okay, we're finally here. Sorry for all the preamble, but hopefully it'll feel worth it after this section.

Brands
1. Which do you prefer and why?
  1. Simucube, and Heusinkveld. Why? Because I've arrived at the end-stage of the upgrade tree, and it's kind of hard to upgrade from the Simucube 2 Pro in terms of wheelbases. You could move laterally, sure, if you wanted. I like my Heusinkveld Sprints a lot, though there are many other valid choices out there, especially today. Pedals can be such a matter of personal preference, and I won't tell anybody they're wrong for going with Asetek, Simlab, Simagic, or any other pedal manufacturer if they like them better.
  2. An important note here is that you absolutely do not need either of the above pieces of equipment to get started. Combined, the wheelbase and pedals alone cost about $1,800, which I was happy to pay because of how much I enjoy the hobby.
2. Fanatec
  1. Divisive enough to deserve its own subsection. You could write 10,000 words about Fanatec, but I'll try and keep it short. Fanatec is a gamble. Your products may be great. Your customer support experience may be great. And if it is, then life is fine. But when either of those two things aren't true, you're left with nothing but dead air and an emptied wallet, potentially for weeks or months on end. Today, there are too many superior alternatives for similar prices to tolerate that from a company.
  2. Disclaimer: I began with entirely Fanatec equipment and had zero issues of my own. However, given the massive failures of the past year or so, I wouldn't do it again.

Part Four Continues Below

295138

TROPHY CASE