A lot of people want to build a rat rod but have no idea where to start. Its because its actually quite complicated for beginners who have no experience with building cars at all.
Firstly you will obviously need to choose what engine you want to put into your new rat rod. You need to consider how much weight you want your rat rod engine to power.
Depending on the budget you have for building your rat rod it depends on what engine you can get, if you have a decent budget you can get an engine purely built for performance although if your budget isn't that great the best bet is literally to go down to your local junk yard or scrap dealership and see what is available for the best price.
You need to secondly build or buy the frame. As this is a rat rod you can literally build the frame out of anything and you can make it as heavy or as light as possible you just need to make sure you are taking into consideration the speeds you will hopefully be achieving in your new super muscle car. The best bet is to build it out of strong lightweight metals such as aluminum. Building the frame again will all depend on the budget of your rat rod.
You will need to then mount the engine into the frame and install the basic power components to power the machine, make sure you take extra precaution on this step as this is the starting point of your rat rod and it needs to be extra special and perfect. This will include connection the wheels, axles and the transmissions up to the engine. Remember a true rat rod is not meant to be street legal so at this point don't worry about lights etc.. Worry about making your new rat rod a beefy machine. If your building your rat rod from junk yard spares it should be easy to find parts that fit together easier.
Now its time to test the foundations of the car, make sure its all in order. Make sure the engine starts and then moves the wheels. If that works then you can build up from there by working on the steering and suspension.
Install the steering control mechanism and gas and brake pedals, remember its your rat rod so do this however you feel is best for you, have the steering in the middle if you want that true racing driver experience like a McLaren F1, to the left like normal or to the right like European cars. Make sure you have room for some sort of seat, even if its just a little chair, you'll need one. When you will be traveling at top speeds in your new Rat rod try making sure you fit a proper roll cage just to be careful because its pretty dangerous.
The body of your car is totally up to you how you do it, just remember because you have red pain and flames on the side doesnt mean your going to go faster, it just makes it look very cool.
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