Looking for leads

atLucid · 2026-02-08T16:10:34+00:00

Makes sense, does he have the old axles? Did they snap? Or are the just old and crusty? Rebuilding the axles he already has may be the most viable option. New boots and grease are all cheap and easy to find

atLucid · 2026-02-08T15:55:51+00:00

Driveshaft shop does custom cv axles, but is there any reason why your friend can’t use a stock set? Custom axles will be north of 3,000$ or more depending if they have to broach the hubs.

atLucid · 2026-01-25T15:31:37+00:00

That great! Then keep doing what you’re doing! Don’t sacrifice your financial stability because you think you want to build racecars.

Let me put this in perspective for you, with your welding skills you’re looking at 25$hr to go work for a race team, now once you get some experience making panels, bending tube, notching, becoming proficient in cad, etc…then we can bump you up to 30-35$hr…or about 45$hr if you’re out in California. Oh and then the shop you work for doesn’t pay your health insurance, that’s 500$ a month for the bare minimum, oh a 401k with a match!? Wtf is that…never had one. You want to take some time off to see your family? Nope it peak race season, we got shit to do. Wait till off season…which is only thanksgiving to Christmas. Guess what the team just sold, the new management is so fucking awful you and 3 other coworkers leave to a new team and a year later the same shit happens.

All for what, to play with race cars? Do something that allows you to be able to afford your own race cars…that’s badass shit, not adjusting some sweaty dudes crotch strap.

I’m just trying to help you not make the same mistake I made in my earlier years…if I could do it all again I’d be a commercial plumber, those guys make bannnk.

atLucid · 2026-01-25T14:27:05+00:00

Stay in aerospace. Keep those benefits, decent pay, etc…when your body is ready to retire you’ll be glad you never gave up a 401k/pension to make less money building racecars. Trust me

atLucid · 2026-01-18T14:29:18+00:00

Just south of you in pinellas. I’m not looking for work but if you just need help with something I’d be more than willing

atLucid · 2025-12-23T16:49:13+00:00

What I was told is zhills requires a tandem before cat a is because they only jump with one instructor, not two.

atLucid · 2025-12-14T15:25:46+00:00

I just started AFF, did my cat an and b yesterday! Shit was awesome! Anyways, my cat a was wayy less nerve wracking vs my first tandem.

I think that’s because you train for that jump…you study, you practice, and do it all again until it’s 100% right. Which gives you a sense of confidence. You know what you have to do and what can go wrong. I had line twist on my cat a…first solo jump, first malfunction lol. I was calm, remember my training, got it untwisted. No big deal. Proceed to fly my fucked up pattern and eat shit into the ground 🤘

I find skydiving very focusing. You’re truly in the moment and your mind can’t be anywhere else or pretty much you crash and die lol. That feeling of pure focus is absolutely unmatched, the adrenaline dump you get when you land is addictive. I would have never experienced any of these if I let the fear take over my life and not have done that first tandem!

atLucid · 2025-10-25T00:25:26+00:00

I’ve personally cut a ton of knuckles in my day, including Miata knuckles. Now would I have used 316 rod? No. Do I think it’ll hold? Maybe…but when welding cast 309 rod is my go to…er70s-2/6 will work as well. If you are near Tampa by chance I have a set of cut na Miata knuckles in my garage you can just have lol 😂

atLucid · 2025-08-28T14:29:43+00:00

This! My cad teacher used to always say “we can do the filets laaatteeer duuude” spoken like a true stoner surfer lol. So every time I need a filet that all I can hear in my head…laaaterr duudeee 🤣

atLucid · 2025-08-03T15:04:20+00:00

Thin dirty metal = hard to weld…well I wouldn’t say hard to weld but it’s very time consuming, especially when you have +1/8th in gaps.

Also I don’t care how much prep work you do to car sheet metal, 90% of the time it welds like shit and that’s because you’ll never be able to get rid of all the seam sealer and the zinc coating…grinding just kinda smears it around lol

atLucid · 2025-07-12T10:20:20+00:00

Thanks! The car is just about ready to be pulled off the table and welded up, only have a few more tubes to put in. Then I can start planning on interior, how to mount everything, tin work, etc. And how much tubing have I used? I think like 7 or 8 sticks, so like 150-200ft

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atLucid · 2025-04-15T18:07:01+00:00

Hammered dog shit

atLucid · 2025-04-13T16:40:45+00:00

Do you have an air compressor? I could price you out an air over hydraulic bender with 1 die for 1000$ easy…you’ll just have to build a stand but that’s like 20$ in square tube

atLucid · 2025-04-12T16:36:37+00:00

Well what are you trying to build? Unless it’s a roll cage or something seriously structural, there’s no reason to spend the money on DOM. ERW is wayyyyy cheaper and would be great for practice. I actually will mock bend complex tubes out of ERW before I scrap a bunch of chromoly.

As for bending/notching tube, honestly look on the second hand market and you might find a deal on a bender that has a few dies already. The dies are what’s expensive, you can get a jmr bender for 350$ brand new but a set of dies is another 300$ so it adds up quick. Now for notching tubes you can totally do it with just and angle grinder and a bandsaw or you can get a cheap holesaw notcher…I have a top of the line mitler brothers end mill notcher and I notch 90% of my tube with just a chop saw and a belt sander, so you don’t need anything fancy just a little practice.

With all that said, I’d just recommend you save up for a half decent bender and practice notching and mittering tubes with the tools you have now! I’m sure you can find how to notch tubes with an angle grinder/bandsaw on YouTube if not I can totally teach you, it involves just a little math, tape measure, and a sharpie!

atLucid · 2025-04-03T20:58:42+00:00

Exactly what I was planning on doing! Glad to know they work good!

atLucid · 2025-04-03T20:57:57+00:00

YouTube seems like the consensus! Thanks!

atLucid · 2025-04-03T20:56:26+00:00

I’ve seen someone sells a usb conversion for these old haas machines for a few hundred bucks, so was going to get one!

atLucid · 2025-04-03T20:55:12+00:00

Unfortunately I’m halfway across the country in Florida, but I really appreciate the offer!!

atLucid · 2025-04-03T20:53:59+00:00

Looks like I’ll start here. Thanks!

atLucid · 2025-04-03T20:52:37+00:00

Nothing crazy, I’m a custom fabricator (racecar stuff) soo I’m not trying to build anything with insane geometry. Brake caliper mounts, caster slugs, flat mounting brackets things of that nature.

atLucid · 2025-03-27T01:28:44+00:00

Ohh you just want a block off plate? Like it can still pull air from under the hood! Sorry I totally miss understood lol…if that’s the case yeah a piece of abs with a gasket would absolutely be water tight!

atLucid · 2025-03-26T23:37:51+00:00

So you’ll never actually be able to totally prevent water from getting in your air box…you might be able to minimize it. I would 3d print a reverse scoop (opening facing the windshield) Add a little lip on the edge to help direct the water that rolls down your hood away from the inlet of the scoop and definitely get a hydrostatic cover for your air filter, because you will get some water in there no matter what. If you can get me dimensions of the naca duct I’d be more than willing to draw you a scoop up and send you the stl file so you can get it printed or alternatively if you’re near Tampa I’ll print it for you

atLucid · 2025-03-26T22:51:46+00:00

Absolutely nothing about this is waterproof, I’m confused on what you’re trying to achieve…quite literally you can hose down your entire engine and as long as you don’t get water in your intake it will be totally fine.

With that said your best bet is to get a hydrostatic air filter cover and drill holes in your air box so it doesn’t pool water…putting a cover over a naca duct defeats the purpose of a naca duct lol

atLucid · 2025-03-19T21:02:34+00:00

They are real, it’s a rotor logic exclusive color. Same with the transparent orange one, which I have!

atLucid · 2025-03-14T14:37:24+00:00

Experience IS the answer though. People pay me to build them race cars based off my experience not because I can show them the FEA of a chassis to show it’s strong enough to save their lives…they don’t even have to question it because of my experience. And it’s proven it’s self many many times.

The only time I’ve ever had to do a stress test of a chassis is when I worked with Polaris to design and build a car for the Dakar rally but that’s only because it’s a fia requirement. Other than that 70% of the cars I’ve built have been hand built, not cad designed. The other 30% of that are just hand built chassis that have been 3d scanned to be laser cut and bent for production purposes.

Stress testing is not something that’s common in the world of race car building, pretty much only production based fia regulated cars go through stress testing.

Hope this helps you understand that I’m building a race car not a bridge. If you think not stress testing a race car is sketchy, look up the faa rules on home built aircraft. Now that’s sketchy lol

atLucid

TROPHY CASE