Upgrade to Enclosed Trailer?

I've talked with Patrick briefly about this conceptually but there is now an extremely good deal out there for an enclosed trailer that I'm exploring. Would like the group's thoughts. My main concern is over stressing Elmore in his current state.

For those that don't know, Elmore is my tow pig - a '67 F350. It's got a somewhat built 429 (put together 30 years ago) backed by a rebuilt (last year) C6 with a cooler and a Dana 70 with massive helper springs. Drum brakes all around. 

On race weekends, I'm towing my 16' open trailer with either the E21 (just over 2k lbs wet) or Miata (probably ~2,200) on it with probably four(?) hundred pounds of tools/supplies in the bed and tool boxes of the utility bed. I also now have a Vespa as my pit bike. I tow at between 65 and 70 mph and the truck never complains at all. The open trailer has no brakes, I give myself plenty of room and the drums slow us down just fine although that is really when you can feel the weight. 

The trailer in question is an 18 ft Wells Cargo which appears to be 8 feet wide. The seller guesses it is 1,200 lbs and it has fully functional trailer brakes. 

To me, this math seems to add up pretty well but I want to make sure I'm not overlooking anything. Really, I'm most concerned about whoah-ing the whole thing down and would have to add a brake controller but I'm also not sure how the C6 would fare with the added load. A manual trans swap will happen eventually but not this year. 

Thoughts?

I'll let the more knowledgeable respond to the truck questions, but it would question him on the trailer weight. 1,200 lbs is on the lighter end for an open steel car trailer.  Typical enclosed trailers of that size are around 3,000 lbs.

An aluminum 16' fully enclosed will be just north of 2,000lb. Add another 1,000lb for steel. 1200 might be right if it is kilograms. Even open steel trailers are over a ton. 

90% of my towing is with karting, but a few times a year I'd borrow a friend's open steel trailer to do DE with my Elise (1,900lb). I recently bought an aluminum 18' enclosed and it has been awesome so far for karting, but that's just a twenty minute drive across town. I'll be towing the Elise in a couple weeks, so I'm excited to see how that goes. 

My trailer started around 2.100lb without options. With fully finished walls, insulation, rubber floor, and finished/insulated ceiling, that all added a few hundred depending on where you check the paperwork. Either 300lb or 500lb extra. My gut agrees more with the 300lb number. Add more for cabinets, spare, etc. 

That trailer is likely closer to 3k lbs empty but Elmore should still tow it just fine.  Make sure you've got functional brakes on the trailer and plan on maybe running a little slower when pulling long hills but otherwise don't worry about it. 

Great point on the weight - hardly any chance it's that light. 

I guess someone else is coming to check it out this Sunday. We'll see where this goes. 

My 8.5x24' steel trailer was 4k lbs empty, before I added anything (bench, toolbox, winch, etc.), so yeah, 3k is probably pretty close.  I wouldn't be too worried about towing it with your rig.  What may become a problem is space.  I get that you're now towing with a 16' trailer and this will be longer, but if you're going to spend the money to upgrade, I'd seriously consider looking for a 20' trailer, especially with a pit bike added to the mix.

In reply to Rodan :

Heard. I just don't want to go down the rabbit hole of "Well, if I'm upping to 20', I may as well go up to 24' and be able to take this, and this, and this and...well E36 M3 now I can bring two cars, etc..." I really like the relative simplicity of my track weekend loading/unloading. 

The Vespa may also travel in the bed of the truck like my old pit bike always did. 

AxeHealey said:

Heard. I just don't want to go down the rabbit hole of "Well, if I'm upping to 20', I may as well go up to 24' and be able to take this, and this, and this and...well E36 M3 now I can bring two cars, etc..." I really like the relative simplicity of my track weekend loading/unloading. 

To me, the appeal of a larger trailer is that you do a lot less loading and unloading because the stuff you need for a race weekend just stays in the trailer all the time.

In addition to the vehicle you're towing, the other factor is what kind of events are you going to.  Is it just track days where you're only bringing one set of tires (on the car) and if it breaks then you're going home?  Or on the other end of the spectrum are you going to tow it 2000 miles to the runoffs with 5 sets of tires, and enough spares to almost build another car?

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

That makes sense and it would actually make some room in the garage having a permanent place for race weekend stuff. 

I generally only travel with a trailer for full race weekends. Every so often I'll hit an autocross but that's just to test something, typically. I've never brought five sets of tires anywhere but point taken - it's not just the car I'm bringing along. 

This specific trailer has been sold. So this is on hold but I appreciate all the input.

I would be looking at brake upgrades for your rig

My personal trailer is a 16' flat nose that's set up specifically for Miatas (which are 13'3" long). With that and my 6'4" truck bed, I can support a weekend of track days without much hassle and it's very easy to live with. FM also has a 20' flat nose and a 28' V. With a single car in the 20', there's a lot of extra room. That's our "car plus the stuff for the show" trailer. I've even supported a week long race out of that thing with a Craftman workbench bolted in front. The 28' carries two cars and not much else at all - the only reason we can get two cars in is the V.

There's not much difference in towing the 16' and the 20', but the 28' is considerably more of a challenge to maneuver around.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Is the 16' trailer 7 or 8.5 wide? And how difficult is it to get in/out of the Miata in those?

In reply to Hoppps :

My 16' trailer and the 20' are both 7' wide. The 28' is 8.5'. Getting out of the Miata in the narrower one is a challenge, especially a caged car. I go out the window and use the roof joists to help pull myself up. But you only do that twice per trip - one in and one out. Even in the wider trailer, if the door is lined up with the trailer axles, you can't open it all that far since there's a wheel box inside the trailer.

Keith Tanner said:

My 16' trailer and the 20' are both 7' wide. The 28' is 8.5'. Getting out of the Miata in the narrower one is a challenge, especially a caged car. I go out the window and use the roof joists to help pull myself up. But you only do that twice per trip - one in and one out. Even in the wider trailer, if the door is lined up with the trailer axles, you can't open it all that far since there's a wheel box inside the trailer.

This is what winches are for. :)

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Usually my Miatas have motors and offset tow hooks :) That combo makes driving easier than winching - but I have installed a winch in the 16' because it's acting as a garage for a non-operational NA at the moment.

I'm still able to climb out the window well enough that it's not a big deal. Tying the car down is more work.

Keith Tanner said:

Usually my Miatas have motors and offset tow hooks :) That combo makes driving easier than winching - but I have installed a winch in the 16' because it's acting as a garage for a non-operational NA at the moment.

My experience has been that offset tow hooks winch in just fine.

I would drive my Miata onto the open trailer, because it was easy to get out.  Once I moved it into the enclosed trailer and I couldn't open the door, it became much easier to winch it.  Miata windows are small and the combo of a non-removable steering wheel and a hardtop make it pretty hard to get out that way.

Now I'm towing the M3.  I will climb into it to unload the car (has a quick disconnect steering wheel), but for loading I find that the winch makes it a lot easier to position the car precisely.  It also puts a lot less wear on a race clutch.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Interesting that you're running a 7' wide trailer. That's a good data point to have - I've only paid attention to 8'+ wide thinking 7' would be way too tight. From the sound of it I think I'd still prefer the wider trailer but I can keep an eye out for big deals on the 7' wide side of things.

In reply to RX8racer :

To be fair, this is my primary concern as well but I think the incremental step of ensuring a bigger trailer has functioning brakes would be a good one. I can always upgrade the truck's brakes pretty easily if need-be.

I don't think I would consider a 7' wide trailer unless you plan on winching.  It would be a pita to get in/out of the car.  Works ok for formula cars though.  I had an 18'L 8'W enclosed for a few years with my Miata and it worked well for the limited amount of extra stuff that I needed to carry to race that car.  I sold it to go back to an open trailer.