Watch out for Nick Acton!!

[Three Peaks]

I'm with Kris on this one. I noticed how the OP butchered the frame taking it apart also, but kept out of the thread, hoping a resolution was forthcoming. However, with a perfectly repairable chassis now ruined I am of the opinion you only have yourself to blame for most of this mess.
If you are a true scratch builder, you could have easily repaired the frame at the points you were concerned with and also repaired the bird cage if it required it. However, this would have required some real metal working skills, which I assume you don't possess, since you insisted on your path of cutting huge holes in the frame with a plasma cutter instead of cutting everything off flush, repositioning, and rewelding in proper placement. Probably a couple days work, max. IMHO, and I've actually done this, fabbed my birdcage, built my aluminum pieces, and modified my chassis where necessary. ( an original style chassis like yours)

I'm not really sure where the control arm mounting points were off by your pics, as the adjustment available in most of these will more than make up for any small differences in mounting. And adjustable control arms can be bought or manufactured by a decent metal worker/fabricator.

Continuing to post day after day to force a resolution to this problem is distasteful at best and embarrassing at worst.

Maybe you should consider changing your handle to something other than Scratchbuilder.

BTW, I've had great dealings with Nick over the 10 years or so that I've know him and I would trust him to build me a frame, car, or any other part if necessary any day of the week. That is, if I couldn't do it myself- which is why I'm a scratchbuilder.

Bob

[ScratchBuilder]

I'm to blame for Nick sending me a junk frame and bent to fit control arms? Nick offered a replacement ladder including front and rear towers! I even talked to him why I cut out the defective ladder and he got it. If you read the thread, the only thing disclosed to me as being wrong was the position of the bird cage, no big deal to move that.

[ScratchBuilder]

The ends on all the control arms are not even in the same plane, I started to take the car apart apart to move the body and the control arms were impossible to move on the chassis! Everything twists and moves around as you tighten or loosen bolts, Nick charged me close to 1K for front suspension assembly. I sent the control arms out for repair as the are bowed and out of plane, it's cheaper to just replace them like the defective chassis.

Note how the rod doesn't come close to hitting center of the bushing:

[ScratchBuilder]

Really think my intent here was to spend $50K with Nick over 3 years to get a botched Cobra build so that I could come back and complain on Club Cobra about it to make him look bad?

Again I was the first to put my trust in him to build me an awesome Cobra, who else has?
He failed, wouldn't address my concerns replace the chassis or refund my money. I posted on consumer watch and he offered a new ladder including the front and rear towers and claimed he had one ready to go but couldn't provide at least a pic of it and a few days later thought oh sh*t, here I go again thinking I'm going to get a good frame when I sent him an email and got no reply asking for an update.

Fair enough 99 percent are good with Nick's parts and repairs. How many are satisfied with an Acton Cobra?
Its 0% I'm 1 of 1 unfortunately and shocked Nick hasn't given me a replacement or refund.

SB