[Smitty2919]

Long story short, last year was my first autocross season and I went all out in mods more than I expected but I had a BLAST! That being said the hook has been inserted and will not come out.

With the addition of my wife wanting to get into a husband-/wife race team (I was ecstatic when she was willing/wanting to at least try) the old 95 Z will get double the runs. My stock 68k mi diff on khumo v710's gets angry and a trailer will serve as a safety net is something breaks.

So I wanted to come to the masters of Fbody racing and all that is involved. Here are some questions I had running through my head.

What to look for in a used trailer off craigslist? (I prefer double axle electric brakes)
I assume at least a 7ft wide x 16ft long. 18ft would be ideal with a 3ft dove tail?
Thoughts on "home made" trailers?
I would like to keep this $1200 and under but know of a trailer proven to work for a Fbody/Z06 owner that bought a new 18ft w/ 3ft dovetail trailer for $2000.

I'm "iffy" on buying a trailer that has been sitting in someone's back yard under a tree with rust etc on it from the simple fact of how well the wheel bearings/elec brakes are holding up. Given a trailer's function, I'm hesitant to buy someone's junk lol.

[CrashTestDummy]

There IS a towing section in this forum, and you can probably start looking around there. You don't mention what you're towing with. That may have some impact on how much trailer you can get. Definitely go with tandem wheels, and electric brakes. I'm a bit fan of the Bulldog coupler, as I've actually seen people improperly hook up the other hitch with the clamp you tighten down even though it looks good when looking at it.

I also prefer leaf springs vs. torque arms. Leaf spring suspension tends to be a bit tougher, and you don't wear out the inside of the trailer tire that can go unnoticed. Ours is a short Texas Bragg all steel trailer, and we're at least the 3rd owner. It's held up well, and we've had it at least 15 years. The trailer is short enough to fit in many home garages (we'd store the race car in our garage on the trailer). Very long steel ramps have been added to help get the low-slung car on the trailer. The ramps are HEAVY, and if we don't move to an enclosed soon, we'll be having some aluminum ramps fabbed up to replace those steel ones. The steel ramps almost require two people to man-handle them into place.

A friend has a tilt-back trailer, and we really like that design. His trailer, too, _just_ fits in his garage (he had to notch some of the studs in the back of the garage), and holds his BSP Vette well.

If I had to do it all over again, and if we stuck with an open trailer, I'd opt for an aluminum tilt-back, and spend the money for one. IMHO, $1200 is going to either get a really smoking deal, or junk. That $2K trailer is probably more common.

Getting the wife involved can really help with re-prioritizing the budget for go-fast parts, especially if they HATE to lose!! (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/2thumbs.gif)

This post has been edited by CrashTestDummy: Jan 2 2015, 04:23 PM