Floor attachment....

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
I wonder if it would be better to weld up a support on the inside of the car between the side rail and the center rail, like a stiff plate, then attach the aluminum floor panel to it - bonding to make a sandwich - that would be stiffer than either piece alone? Granted, if you needed to remove the bottom aluminum panel you are out of luck. The thing that comes to mind is the honeycomb sandwich material we use for aerospace panels, very stiff and light, but can be easily punctured. Something like this would need a hard upper surface that you could stand on without damaging the honeycomb. I'm just thinking out loud...:)
 

askiles

Goblin Guru
I wonder if it would be better to weld up a support on the inside of the car between the side rail and the center rail, like a stiff plate, then attach the aluminum floor panel to it - bonding to make a sandwich - that would be stiffer than either piece alone? Granted, if you needed to remove the bottom aluminum panel you are out of luck. The thing that comes to mind is the honeycomb sandwich material we use for aerospace panels, very stiff and light, but can be easily punctured. Something like this would need a hard upper surface that you could stand on without damaging the honeycomb. I'm just thinking out loud...:)
There are many ways get a stiffer floor attained really. My idea is basically the floor strap, but full width, and attaches in more than just the 3 locations.
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
Ron, that is exactly what I being curious about. Looks like your mod is fairly straight forward. What is the width and thickness of the stock you used?
 

Briann1177

Goblin Guru
At the risk of getting "the speech", I'm going to echo what a few others have said here: there is nothing wrong with the DF supplied strap. I can put my entire 200+ pound, pseudo sasquacth-esqe weight on the floor pan, and bounce up and down very comfortably with absolutely no feeling that I'm going to fall through the floor. Is it rock solid? Not really. Could it be beefed up for some obscure and extreme use case? Absolutely.

I will go out and say that adding any kind of support on the drivers side is 100% unnecessary. There is absolutely no way you can enter the vehicle and get yourself into position all while putting your entire body weight on the floor pan. The steering wheel position, body work, seat, etc all make it physically impossible to do so. The passengers side is a little different, but then again it's practically impossible and very unlikely that someone will need to stand up straight with their entire weight on the floor pan. I find that most of my passengers put their initial weight on the seat anyways.

Don't get me wrong, this thread has a lot of great information in it and clever solutions. When I first started my build, I wish I had gone this route. Now that I'm almost complete with mine, I'm glad I didn't as I would have found it to be a lot of unnecessary extra work, time, and money. Again, that's just me. To each builder, their own.
 

askiles

Goblin Guru
At the risk of getting "the speech", I'm going to echo what a few others have said here: there is nothing wrong with the DF supplied strap. I can put my entire 200+ pound, pseudo sasquacth-esqe weight on the floor pan, and bounce up and down very comfortably with absolutely no feeling that I'm going to fall through the floor. Is it rock solid? Not really. Could it be beefed up for some obscure and extreme use case? Absolutely.

I will go out and say that adding any kind of support on the drivers side is 100% unnecessary. There is absolutely no way you can enter the vehicle and get yourself into position all while putting your entire body weight on the floor pan. The steering wheel position, body work, seat, etc all make it physically impossible to do so. The passengers side is a little different, but then again it's practically impossible and very unlikely that someone will need to stand up straight with their entire weight on the floor pan. I find that most of my passengers put their initial weight on the seat anyways.

Don't get me wrong, this thread has a lot of great information in it and clever solutions. When I first started my build, I wish I had gone this route. Now that I'm almost complete with mine, I'm glad I didn't as I would have found it to be a lot of unnecessary extra work, time, and money. Again, that's just me. To each builder, their own.
I have also read the opposite, that some people had the floor sag in this area, and it felt like it could use a little beefing up. I am an owner of a metals fabrication shop and design walkways and cover plates all the time, so from that school of thought, I thought it needed something extra there. I didn’t spend any extra money. I had the plate already. My labor and time into it I feel was well spent and honestly was only a few hours. To me this mod will have been well worth the very little time I spent to make it happen.
 

KLMOTORSPORTS

Well-Known Member
Done some mods to my frame to strengthen the floor area for my piece of mind (added a bar, cross connectors, seat plate) and also installing a “from the top” bolt in aluminum floor vice the bottom mount sheet metal.

Will post pics in my build log when complete.....won’t need “the speech” (lol...), but rather sharing for just another way to build the cars. The small weight add is zero issue for the gained benefits in my mind...
 

KLMOTORSPORTS

Well-Known Member
Done some mods to my frame to strengthen the floor area for my piece of mind (added a bar, cross connectors, seat plate) and also installing a “from the top” bolt in aluminum floor vice the bottom mount sheet metal.

Will post pics in my build log when complete.....won’t need “the speech” (lol...), but rather sharing for just another way to build the cars. The small weight add is zero issue for the gained benefits in my mind...
Description and pictures of my frame mods in build post: http://dfkitcar.com/forum/index.php?threads/ken-leiker-motorsports-track-07-ss-sc-donor.902/post-20100
 
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