Building A Race Car Frame: How To Not Die At 200 MPH 

As my fabricator friend Phil used to say... "Anyone can build a barn that will last forever. But it takes an engineer to build a barn that will 'barely' last forever..."

I absolutely love this. I'm eager for the next episode. As someone who's built a complete tube chassis car and a LOT of roll cages by hand, I can't even begin to explain how envious I am of the laser cut chassis. I am going to have to explore this for my next tube chassis build. I may have some questions! Did you weld underneath your tube nodes where your tubes overlap? (I'm asking as I watch, apologies if you cover this later!)

Gotta respect a guy who has jackstands for furniture.

Your paper clearance method was something I learned way back in school in the '70s. It gives just enough space on a riveted pivot joint or as you used it for a demountable junction. Good job!

This is a whole new level of project cars. I’m speechless with the laser cut tubes. I feel like a caveman now using my Harbor Freight tube notcher.

In the bolted joint you need to put vertical tubes inside and flush with the rectangle tubes in order to prevent crushing when bolted together. hope that's clear:)

My newest welding helmet has a grinding setting. Used it once and forgot to switch it back kind of like your clear mask situation. Sunburn on the eyes... Good times...

I know it was a throw-away line, but “I took a class in X and forgot everything” is sadly too true. It’s especially painful when you’re still paying loans for things you’ve forgotten.

When he's explaining how the fins on the car act like the fins on a dart, the red car in the illustration is a Dodge Dart

Using the roll cage as intake runners is a very clever touch. I've heard of using them for coolant or even oil, but not for intakes! Getting the benefit from that high pressure zone at the nose without too much extra plumbing is brilliant.

+1 for spray painting vs. powdercoating for race car frames. I had the frame of my Exocet powder coated, it aggravated me every time I had to scrape off powder coat to mod/weld something.

Those bolts through the frames to attach the halves together might be a good idea to weld some tubing for anti-crush and resistance to pulling apart.

Instead of paper I keep a deck of playing cards in my toolbox. Since they're stiff and slick they make good shims and you can easily get good repeatable results side to side by adding and subtracting cards. Keep up the awesome work.

In almost no time, SuperfastMatt will actually be going SUPER FAST! Can't wait!

Love it! I guess the pit of despair is the bodywork? I made a fiberglass canopy for my hilux few months ago and man do I now hate sanding fiberglass.

Always a good day when you release a new vid. Never watched one without laughing at least once. Keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing how this project progresses. All hail the algorithm.

Paint instead of powder coat is a good idea. The salt will find it's way under the powder coat after a couple years of racing and then it's off to the powder coater again to strip and refinish the entire frame. Paint isn't better corrosion protection but it is easy to sand and touch up the rust spots. I bring a paint pen to the salt to touch up the inevitable paint chips made during the week. Another necessity to fight corrosion on the salt - chuck every steel fastener you have and replace it with 316 stainless, Bumax88 or titanium.

The Play Button is finally here! Congratulations Matt!!

Hey Matt! Heres a quick hint from somebody who's selling welding equipment for a living across the big pond. Please don't blind yourself while welding! if you're doing a lot of back and forth between grinding and welding then a lot of automatic welding Masks (even cheap ones) have "Grinding" modes, so they dont dimm down when there a grinding sparks flying around. some more expensive ones (like the 3m Speedglas 9100FX ) even have fold up visors with a gigantic clear screans for better grinding visability. Keep up the awesome work tho! Its very entertaining to watch! ^^

That is going to be pretty heavy. I assume you have taken that into consideration, but just as available space on any project magically shrinks, mysterious weight often appears as components get added. Cool project.

You should look at spraying the frame with Steel-It, its a weldable coating and a lot of the baja dudes use it on their frames. It comes in an aerosol spray can and a paint can so you can also brush it on. I ended up using it on rack for my truck and has held up a lot better than regular spray paint.

Always great when a new SFM video drops . Thanks for the great vid as always, some really good progress on the race car! That's going to be a ton of welding right there!

I love how engineering-y the whole "3d scan your body, fully equipped" approach is.

Pro-tip for welding tube at 90 degrees. Cut the tube ur attaching with 2 45 degree cuts so it has a point. That creates a bevel which helps the weld. Much easier than hole saw and much less time!

Center of pressure vs center of mass ... something VERY important with building high power (well, any power really) rockets as well. 🙂

I’m so excited for this. Land speed has always fascinated me and seeing Mat build a car from scratch is epic. Great video keep up the great work 👍🏻

Dude I wanna hang out and scan things to make other things. Thanks for the suggestion for Cal West manufacturing. Looks like they do incredible work!

Awesome video! Just some suggestions (just like everyone else and their mom is giving you). At the bolted joint, put some weld washers or something to decrease the bearing stresses on the sheet metal, it doesn't look like you have shear features so those holes may wallow out. One guy suggested welding a tube inside the square to stop it crumpling which I think is a good idea, and will increase the surface area for the bolt to dump load into. The biggest thing I have to harass you for is metal prep! I started TIG welding a year ago for my buggy chassis, and the biggest thing I've learned is prep is everything. At a minimum you "should" get the millscale off the metal and the oxidation off the laser/plasma surfaces. I like to just scotch brite and then acetone/alcohol wipe it down, but even just hitting everything with a wire wheel really fast will immensely help your weld quality. You should also leave the TIG pointed at the weld once you're done until the post flow turns off so the weld can cool a bit before introducing oxygen to it. Welding Tips and Tricks on RU-vid is an amazing source for help! Also Furick cups can help a lot for acute angles of tubes since you can get a lot more stick out. I'd also recommend beveling any future surfaces with a flappy disk so you can get full cross section penetration. Prep turns into the longest part of the welding process I've come to realize after going down the TIG rabbit hole.... Otherwise nice work! I like the alignment tabs for the tubes, I've never seen that. I want my next chassis to be all laser cut, I've very jealous!

You can already tell it's going to be amazing. At 7:12 my calibrated ocular inclinometer noticed that the leading head loop is the same angle as the A pillar of the Jagla... Tesuar... Electric pussycat... where was I going with this?

Fun fact the 5th gen subaru sambar uses the left frame rail for its intake air aswell

That is SO smart, using the frame tubing to provide air to the engine, master stroke.

Matt really great video one little tip if you put your chopsaw in a big cardboard box modify the box as needed it contains a lot of the metal chips .keeping them in the box as opposed to all over your garage… you do nice work

You're so good at designing with tubing. You should have your own business. I would call it You Tube. Congrats on the award!

Pretty awesome so far, but I'm really looking forward to the engine portion of this project. Squeezing every single lb-in out of every CC is going to be a heck of an effort.

This is amazing. Have you checked out how the human powered salt racers are designed? They probably only have half a horsepower compared to your 150, so they have even more focus on aero. Learning to ride a 2wheel streamliner while lying on your back and seeing where you are going using a camera and a screen is insane. And then there's the designs that go headfirst! I assume both are illegal for your rulebook?

I'm gonna go bed. *Superfastmatt posted. What's another 20 minutes.

Matt this has been super exciting to watch. Especially your use of send cut send and the tube laser cutting. I'm going to be getting into a build here soon and those are good resources to know about.

SuperfastMatt is becoming SuperawesomeMatt with each new video.

I would definitely invest in gas lenses and some larger tig torch cups. A good tig weld shouldn't crackle or leave behind sooty residue. As someone who taught myself how to tig weld, I can say that for complex joints, or weird transitions/angels, that the large cups and gas lenses really help. They not only make the welds visually better, but they allow for better control of the weld puddle and a stronger weld due to less oxide impurities being mixed in

"This thing here, looks like it was specifically engineered to be some sort of lightweight load transmitting structure, it's not, I just thought it looked cool"😂😂

Way to go, Matt! Your videos are always so fun to watch, and you have an attitude towards your projects that is infectiously good-natured.

Well As a German, let me say....when you're building an Uboot with wheels ...Use a Periscope😉 joke* i love your Channel and am very intressted in lots of your projects....Keep up the Hard work

You're having way too much fun with this, Matt. It's excellent. Happy 100K 57K ago. 😃👍

I came here for an electro jag, now there is some tubes which gonna be faster than that jag itself :D

Self fixturing not self jigging. A jig locates or guides a tool path. What an excellent idea!!

Bro your videos are my favorite on all of youtube. Im so hyped to see you drive this on the salt flats!

I have been gifted with ability referred to as Dunning-Kruger effect so I am an expert in land speed record vehicle design (and also aircraft). As you correctly assumed the key is decreasing drag as much as possible. Trying to minimize frontal cross section is important as you did. I wonder if ruled do not allow for the tubes to go above your shoulders beside your ears. This would allow to narrow the chassis for 2 cm on each side. With the width of 60-70 cm this is a saving. The other thing to consider is wetted area. The less surface area the air has to pass over the lesser the drag. There is a reason why some aircraft fuselages are thinned to a pole right behind the cockpit. A thinner car bodywork where it is not needed would be beneficial. Something like a coke bottle between front wheels and cockpit. Not to be confused with designs based on Whitcomb area rule. It would be so interesting to hear about your thought process.

That face sheild thing has gotten me some welding flash too. I feel so foolish each time, it's not even similar to the green view through a black sheild, but my stupid just powers on before the brain has a chance to save me. Those laser cut tubes are beautiful, it must be awesome to work with them.

Hey Matt you might want to use a Steel-it paint if its not out of your budget (I think its not bad in the USA, Canada its expensive). Its paint that you can weld directly ontop of, pretty cool stuff!

Every day’s a good day with a Matt vid.

I remember a story told buy my previously mentioned boss from when he was younger. He was helping inspect some kind of race car and he found 3 letters imprinted onto the tubbing... EMT, that vehicle did not get to run.

Congrats on your sub milestone. I enjoy watching every episode, Matt

YET ANOTHER AMAZING ONE : Informative funny fast & EVERYTHING MATT

1:40, I love the jack stand in the living room. This channel is awesome!

Awesome build, Matt. An alternative to the paper method is cut apart a soda can. Picked that up from another RU-vidr

you are the best teacher i am from greece and i am watching you from the begginig

This build is hands down one of the most interesting I'm following on RU-vid. Pretty soon you'll be able to live up to your name Superfast. Cheers!

The round tube looks sexy. The square tube does not. You know what to do Matt

Just a quick observation, the Bolted connection between the two halves of the chassis. I would make those brackets sit vertically instead of horizontally. This will increase the strength of that connection

Very Cool Matt! Just found your channel and all the cool content. Looking forward to future installments.

You should make some beer to test out the performance of your wort chiller … I mean your heat exchanger and do a lot of fancy sounding math to justify another side project… and see if you can work in a thermometer with a laser! Love your fearlessness and reminder about arc-eye

What a great series and fun project!

This is really an amazing project. Thank you for sharing!

Absolutely loving this project.

Very nice! Mandatory comment to appease the algorithm gods. Really though, super cool project. The way the frame self-jigged was a great touch.

You're sure getting a lot of mileage out of that laser sound effect!

This is such a cool project. Thanks for sharing 😊

Awesome I’m loving this project 😀 will you put some sleeves inside the square tubing to stop the bolts crushing them?

A well deserved accolade . Keep up the good work!

Congratulations on passing 100000 subs, nope scratch that 150000 subs! Great work Matt.

Your the only person Id watch build a land speed racer. Look forward to the next episode

Bonkers but interesting and very entertaining. Thanks for your efforts and keep up the good work.

Awesome, interesting, informative and witty as always Matt 😎👍

Awesome work! Good luck!

One of my favorite projects on youtube.

I'm still amazed. Cool project!

love the idea of the intake!

love this new build

Moving right along!! Do you have a specific goal in mind for speed when designing this? Going all out for the 200 mph record? Whats the lowest youd be happy with 😂

You read my mind again!!!! I wanted to watch your work and this come up! GO STAR SHIP TROOPERS!!!

Also, steel-it for paint. Great adhesion and looks good.

All Hail! Dual-purposing the frame as a duct is a nice touch. I hope it doesn't bit you in the ass later...

I want that scan image trio set on canvas in my living room. It’s awesome.

I love this channel. Every time the subscribers count increases there is a free knowledge packed video giveaway.

Love the videos, I hate waiting for the next one 😂

Tires also give you some suspension tuning, we've used air pressures to toy with a A/BFS streamliner. Do get into a habit of ignoring the relative pressures, though, you'll need to set pressures accordingly for equal tire diameter on the drive axle.

I have grown quite fond of your channel, so I hope you don’t die.

love the dart pun!

Shout out Cal West Manufacturing. My buddies from college. Use Steel-it for the painting!! Love the build.

Love your work 👍

What you said at 11:38 is exactly what killed an NHRA top fuel driver. A strut for the rear wing broke loose during a crash and stabbed through his helmet.

Finally the real button, congrats. Looking forward to the next video.

YES YES THIS IS THE VIDEO IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR

ANYONE ELSE literally make popcorn when you see a new SUPA-FAST MATT episode has arrived? its like a Disney movie but for engineers of the assberg spectrum. always over too soon tho, maybe its more like anime, especially now that there's LAZZERS!! PEW PEW PEW!!

something so sexy about those laser cut parts and how they are packaged

This is super exciting!

To the nuts!! The bridge mix man the bridge mix!

Did that dart fin have a Dodge Dart attached to the front of it? I love you Matt

Congratulations!

Oh hail! love your style...