What Exactly is a TransAm Race Car? Inside Pancho Weaver's Basement Shop - Where Innovation is King

if you ever wonder what a Trans Am car is it's not a Pontiac it's a race series and this is Poncho Weaver he's going to tell us all about it hey how you doing we build TransAm cars and have built them since ' 84 most race classes are cookie cutter and they're spec type chassis but TransAm is not like that you can uh think of what you think is the best product and the design and how it goes as long as you meet the requirements of the Class A wheelbase a cubic inch uh single shock per wheel uh lot of safety things the overall design is whatever you can come up with and whatever you can think of and that's kind of what led me to this new design back here uh which is on the far plate in the back here so the main class of TransAm is kind of like the the final frontier of the wild west where you can still it really is I mean it's uh I mean here we're in a a shop at the house on the lake uh in a basement you know and you can we've built these cars here for the last 11 years and we show up and with a very modest racing [Applause] [Music] program we can compete at the top level and wax these guys pretty regularly uh every now and then you know they uh they get in there pinard's done a great job in another team this last year won the championship we've been underfunded so that kind of you know takes takes a little bit of traction out of where we need to be TransAm started in 1966 and it's where Pinsky started his racing career with the Camaros Mark Donahue parelli was in the Fords uh Dan gurnie was in the barracudas as swed Savage uh you know you had all the cool race car drivers and famous guys and our Legends right uh started in transm and they've worked their way through all these years so' 66 it started in Sebring uh the year for us starts in Sebring as well still so they've they've continued with the Nostalgia of the class and they are purpose-built race cars I mean there's no traction control there's there's no ABS you know you have to physically drive this car our particular cars are NASCAR 4-speeds with a gated four-speed transmission a lot of the guys uh run the sequential 5-speeds uh we get a little bit of a weight break and we do play The Weight game and this particular car is is completely different in its main construction um where the earlier cars for about the last 30 years have been Square tube construction kind of like this old uh 1986 transm Championship winning car this is with the Wally doback drove it to the Series Championship win in 1986 it was U sponsored by Chevrolet it was built by protofab as a Bob Riley design and Gary Pratt was a fabricator and the and Charlie celix ran the team so the three of those guys formed a a new team they were all working at Rous in in ' 85 and in ' 86 they all went on their own Journey with Chevrolet and uh they built Chevrolet wanted these cars built to run the series and uh to win the series the championship and uh it was pretty much an open checkbook and they they actually achieved it and uh this car was the V6 actually getting a little bit back and forth with different things but the V6 you could run a V6 and um you could run about 200 and some lbs lighter vehicle um because it's weight to cubic inch right rule so uh the other protofab Camaros which they had three total the first two were uh 310 V8s Chevrolet V8s and the this car was late getting to uh the series that year uh there just too much work to do so uh Chevrolet was pretty excited about that because they were going to come out with the V6 in their passenger Camaros oh yeah and so it kind of was another and then when it won the series Not only was it Chevrolet but the V6 that was just made them over the top they were just they were just so excited about that so this car has been through a few different hands over the years and uh it found me uh about 5 years ago out of Alabama a guy had it down there for many years and um the car is honestly um a real protofab it's chassis number three uh Riley's here in town uh have chassis number one so we're kind of building them together at the about the same time and they'll probably run later later in 25 in uh California at the Rolex is what we're trying to shoot for but to to bring the story back you know and to tell to tell what TransAm is and how it all took place uh from yesterday and then into the day you know so so again we had the square tube construction which people have been doing they're still doing at the brand new Riley today are are square tube construction of course they've got a round roll cage and uh I was the same monkey following the rest of the group you know building Square tube chassis for shoot long time I came up with this with this round tube construction and boy it just surpassed everything we've ever done in the past it's uh it's torsionally about twice as stiff as this car or over twice stiff this this took 16,000 lb to twist it one degree through the shop Towers this took 36,000 lb to twist at one degree so if you got 16,000 lb versus 36,000 lb and all you did was select round tubing it's not even chromal it could be even stiffer with chromal or or some of the European materials it's basically uh stock car round ground roll roll cage type tubing it's a doom product we get it from stock car steel with Greg Finelli does a wonderful job providing what we need and Sr of course with the all the product that they have for secondhand and new parts but uh all round tube construction so the other thing that's really cool about this is the square has the four corners on it the round doesn't so you take the square material times every inch times every foot this chassis was 100 lb lighter for no other reason that we just selected round instead of square so it was like a no-brainer it's it's a bunch stiffer and it's a bunch lighter oh why not use it did people think you were weird the first time you showed up with one of those they saw it and they go well I don't know what okay know but they didn't understand you know it's just pretty basic common common sense and uh you know you don't have to be a e Elon Musk rocket scientist to figure this out you know it's pretty straightforward but um and the cars look cool too you know they're they're simple they're all TIG welded this car is uh just now finishing up we're going to deliver this car to Washington state to uh this gentleman uh Jason he owns Pacific Raceway up in Kent Washington and uh he's quite a character so he's can't wait he's getting really excited about his new toy Kenny's components does all my carbon work we we made all the molds and then he uh he does a beautiful job the dashes the dash isn't here right now but the the Bay Bar is what ties all this together of course this is a jig for the engine plate but the Bay Bar uh comes up I don't have it off right now but it's on conical receivers and so um it easily repeats the geometry even if it moves around a little bit as you tighten it up it centers itself with conical it's worked out really well just little simple things like that we've learned that actually came from the off-road days we did a lot of Baja off-road uh you know 1 the Baja 1000 then the mint 400 and the Parker 400 and I ran with parley Jones and uh Walker Evans work for that company for few years high school and um that was a lot of fun so is this going to be set up for R six Dodge like the other one this is going to be uh R5 Dodge oh yeah this is going to be the R5 uh just because he had them and um you know they're relatively inexpensive comparatively uh if if there's anything in racing that's inexpensive but uh we've got a little bit different um a steering system in this car we've got the rack and penion and I told my Engineers when when we designed this car that I wanted more mechanical grip and I wanted a stiffer chassis and I wanted this a few of these criterias that I wanted was trying to make a better a better piece you know and show up with transm and uh that's what we did did this car in CAD it's the first car that we've we've done in CAD so we could check clearances and we could check you know how things are are moving in geometry and these kind of things one of them is the mechanical grip increase was very hard to do and the engineer says look it's not going to happen I said why she said well the Eng engine crank is in the way of the steering and if you get more mechanical grip you're going to have to raise it steering rack and it's going to be in the way it's going to be right in the middle of the crank so I said well you you work on the mechanical grip I'll work on the steering so I came up with this this steering rocker and we have our rack and pinion that hooks here and here and moves these rockers back and forth but yet up here is where we go to the to the upright and that's the actual tie rod so all we're doing was just faking out what the rack seems to be in the car but it's really not it's down underneath the engine Drive which clears that but yet we got the mechanical grip through geometry and we also got zero bump steer so how does raising the rack give you more mechanical grip like what is the function when we got the mechanical grip it it it the rack had had to be higher to achieve that mechanical through through geometry through the where the points are is that classified information is why that works way it do go for the NY gritty and you you just if you don't I won't ask about it if you don't want me to but well and actually you know was I didn't really want to release a lot of the information we are now but um I'm at the end of my program you know I'm checking out this is this car here is possibly my last transm car I'll build uh so I have a signature series thing going on that uh would dedicate to that to that build and to these car these these later cars um which probably won't do anything for future sales or future uh worth of the vehicle but it might you know and I've been doing this for a long time so I figured you know why not just try to pass this on a little bit to the others and some of the things that I've learned uh throughout my career uh and the kind of product that we build um I'm sure there'll be some interested viewers out there that might want to go down that path you know and um it's it's it's been an exciting ride I mean we've done all kinds of silly things uh from stock cars work with ear hars you know from uh mid 2000 uh to 2008 started a chassis shop that they didn't have um I we employed uh I think 12 guys in our chassis program I led the program for about four years from the coot days until when the company kind of imploded in 2008 in November so when you build a car in CAD do you have like a do you kind of start at the finish line and let it work backwards from there like I want the tires to do this under this condition and then it'll help you figure out where your pivot Points need to be to achieve that finished thing and the engineer you know my engineer of choice is Chris Willis Willis engineering out in insanas California and he's helped me with the last what we call this the Generation 3 Weaver and he helped me with the generation 2 Weaver uh which was a square tube constructed vehicle but um he his talent and his background he was involved with the n on GTP with uh the braams uh back in the day uh oh my gosh it's all so so much so much uh you know engineering goes into it and the and and the I've kind of lost my track here I'm [Laughter] going so is this the same chassis as what that one is yes this this is exactly the same car can we show that one or is that secret sure now you can show yeah I'd like to see how some of these some of these components work and why you do things the way you do them and you ever take time to dig in and think about what's actually going on inside your head if that's something that's hard for you to do it could really help to talk to somebody about it with whatever those things are whether that's work life relationships 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goes on the back that's not on the car right now so it's got lots of lots of Arrow we're bringing the arrow in from the front and it we have this big shelf right here that really supplies an awful lot of down fors and uh then the radiator tams in the the top half inch or excuse me the top inch goes to the air cleaner and then the lower goes to a laid over radiator um I don't know if you can see here and then as it goes through the radiator you can see it kind of laying down there a bit yeah there's a big carbon fiber funnel that comes up and matches the hood lets the air come out the hood and then you know down the road and attaches to the one that kind of bends over the it's actually increased our our entry and Corner speed so much this last year that it's threw the gearing off a little bit so we're back into the you know readjusting the the gearing in the car just because we're carrying so much speed coming out of the corner now and more speed going down straight away this kind of helps the drivers get in and out we have this little linkage right here that kind of allows you to get in and out they call it the fat man door but uh so is there a weight minimum or anything for this yes there's a weight minimum so um I think it's 27 Nathan what's the weight minimum now 27 273 2730 2730 so do you use lead anything uh we do yeah this car has a little bit in it cuz it's so much lighter than the rest of the cars but it's uh the other cars they found that it's just pretty much they get heavy quickly you know with all the systems that go on and a lot more sensors and it's just really kind of got this is a simplified uh you know attempt to be competitive right um and the expense we're about $100,000 cheaper for a complete vehicle than our competitors 100 Grand is a lot of money you know you can you can go aways with an extra 100 Grand but um we found that we can do it quickly repeatable these chassis are also like the the chassis back there on the plate um all the tubing is bent on a CNC Bender cuz we have a cad file and all the all the joint are laser coped with laser machines uh from with robotic laser machines they cut it they rotate it they cut the other one they put it down they grab another one bring it up it's such a dance with with equipment it's amazing and but the end product is repeatability and simplicity of construction and uh so that's made a big big difference it is a bit more pricey but you're not paying as much labor to hand fit all this stuff you know so it kind of crosses over it's a great Tech n is the company that's behind me on that and that's the same company that builds the the NASCAR chassis for all the cup cars yeah I was wondering how you did that cuz I any chassis shop I've been into the walls are not this clean they're always Gray from Cut like you know the abrasive cutting dis and grinding and all that but all those tubes they just come to you in pieces and you just we fit them with the barrel sander you know we just kind of tune it a little bit clip it in our jig and tack weld it we tack weld the entire chassis and then it goes through a welding sequence as it's all you know as it's all tacked together uh the rest of the tubes are kind of holding each other you know and everything's in a in a tighter structure and uh we use at least three if not four tacks per per joint and then we go through a welding sequence and we found by doing this we can we can keep our repeatability right right at top right at the very top now what is the story with this car this car is a Dei all Dei product the transmission rear end engine it's a 2000 model um and uh it's just about ready to go to paint uh wiring paint and plumbing and I'm trying to restore this thing it was a steeve park uh penoil number one Dei car we're getting ready to uh get it back on the racetrack they've got a pretty good vintage group with these cars now and uh and some of the Vintage drivers you know the old the older older retired drivers are coming out and uh and run they run strong I mean they they these guys run just as strong as they used to in the old days but uh uh this is be a kind of a neat a neat project to get done and get it back on the highway or back on the racetrack and uh like what happened to that car what happened to those guys what happened to Steve Park you know so a lot of the guys that I know are here in town still that worked on this car so we're planning on in the future to do a segment maybe with you uh to kind of you know introduce this car back to the public and uh what happened to it and where it's gone and and what's what's going on with it now yeah wanted to do video with Steve for a long time but um usually we go into Old shops and stuff and obviously we can't get into Dei so I'm like what kind of video would we do with Steve I don't know yeah well this would be a perect this would be perfect yeah I'd love to see Steve back we can get him we can get him I had him I had him in the car about 3 months ago I think it was and he came down and sat sat in his Original Seed and you know felt the steering and the pedals and the whatnot and he says man that's it we changed a few things for him and he said okay let's go with that so we're going to put it right back where it's comfortable for him we've got a cow to build for it and the air air cleaner induction system and then finalize this Dash and then we're ready to go to uh paint Bondo and paint and wiring it's pretty much there just paint if it was painted it would look like it could be ready tomorrow right well and the guy and the guys that worked on this stuff I mean it was amazing how quick they could turn cars around one thing I did notice about those is that you're using a solid rear end I think a lot of people would say you could do is that one of the requirements that you have to have it has to be a solid axle it is a at a requirement it's independent rear suspension is not legal in the class of TransAm there's a rear end over here we're building back in the…