LocostUSA.com

Hey Guys! First of all I just want to say how awesome this site is, it has been a massive help in both the design and building of my car! Thank you to all I have been in contact with on this forum, however, I would like to make a special mention to John (Wheezer) who massively helped/advised and inspired me with his epic build! - John's SV Clone build

Secondly, I do indeed plan on creating a build log - Im just no good at building a car and writing up a detailed load of posts at the same time The car is very fresh in its completeltion - passed its IVA TEST two weeks ago, registration documents came through less than a week ago, and I'm currently in South Wales with my wife and the car on holiday. In 4.5 days the car has covered over 700 miles and hasn't missed a beat..... so far - which my wife has been very happy about.

Sooooooooo where did the crazy idea of building one's own car originate from! Well, that medal would have to be awarded to my dad. From the age of 16 my dad has been fiddling around with cars, stripping them down and rebuilding them, engine / transmission transplants...... Alot of messing! Before I was conceived, my mum had an Austin mini which my dad heavily tuned/modified, to the point she was giving Porshes a good run for their money off the lights on her way into work in Leicestershire.....as a nurse! I grew up watching my dad tinker with cars, when I reached about 10 years old he started making his first Locost - which he designed himself. I would often be about doing whatever I could to help or keep him company. He wasn't all too happy with the finish on his first Locost, so a number of years later he commenced building a second! I was a young teenager by this time and had well and truly caught the petrolhead bug!!

Skip forward again a few years, when I started building my car with the help of my dad, I was 24, had been married to my beautiful wife (Emily) for 4 years and we had secured a 3 bedroom house with a garage - hence the commencing of my project!

My father in law owns a Caterham 7 and I always liked how they look and thought, that's the kind of look/finish I want my car to have, so I asked if I could nab a few measurements and he kindly said yes! I didn't want to buy a kit build as I knew it wouldn't really scratch my itch - I needed to build my own car from the ground up.

Donor of Choice was a 1997 Mk1 1.8 MX5 with 82,000 miles on the clock and 3 months MOT for a bargain exchange of 250 British Gold Coins! I don't want to go into too much detail about the car now as all will be included in the future build log. The chassis was designed by my dad, using some of the measurements taken from the Caterham, the suspension is fully independent, fully adjustable, double wishbone front and rear. Caterham doors, scuttle, windscreen, bonnet, nosescone and wheel arches - because it made my life so much simpler haha! Floor is 2.5mm thick Aluminium (can't remember what Grade, stronger grade than body panelling) bonded and riveted every 50mm. Side and rear skin is 1.2mm 1050 half hard Aluminium. The engine has been tweeked with a little, and is being ran by a Ms2 basic megasquirt. I'm yet to return to the tuners to get a final power figure as things did need to be dialed down a bit to ensure I passed the necessary emmisions tests for the IVA test. Im predicted to be in the 160bhp at the flywheel region.

The car took 3 years to build, start to finish including strip down and clean up of the donor parts. My approach has very much been do it once, do it right! - as best I can anyway. Its not really been a low-cost build, with every part being stripped and rebuilt/refurbished apart from the gearbox. But I knew the kind of build I wanted, and what I wanted the finished product to be so I just went for it.

The biggest thanks has to go out to my dad. This wouldn't have been possible without you and I could never thank you enough for helping me realise this dream!!

Anyhooooooo here's some pics of the car. Hope you enjoy.
My dad's car is the one in the background.

Thanks again to all

Jacob Armstrong

Congratulations! Looks like a job well done. Glad you're here.


Cheers

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Larry in Seattle

What a great story and awesome looking car! Thanks so much for sharing.

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-Keith

Now that is downright cheating. Starting out with Se7en DNA in your blood, Years of hands-on wrenching growing up, a family support team at your side and a Caterham at you beckon call for reference. That is a lot more than many of us had. It worked well as your car clearly shows. You dad should be proud. So should you. Nice job!

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Chuck.

“Any suspension will work if you don’t let it.” - Colin Chapman

Visit my ongoing MGB Rustoration log: over HERE

Or my Wankel powered Locost log : over HERE

And don't forget my Cushman Truckster resto Locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17766

Cheers for the replies and the kind comments chaps! Such a good forum to be a part of.

Very, very nice build. You'd think it came from a new car showroom. Congratulations.

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

Ah Mate, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you went and put the steering wheel on the wrong side. Must have mirrored the plans somehow.....

Looks really nice.

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Trochu Motor League

Haha Trochu! Perhaps I'm just in the wrong country! Have absolutely loved getting out in it. The short lived summer seems to have come to an end over here so I now have it in the garage sorting out a few teething issues. Again, all the hard work seems to have finally paid off!

Hey again guys! A little update on the car, unfortunately not a particularly great one for me.

So when I started this thread I was on holiday with my wife in Wales enjoying the car after literally only just officially hitting the road the day before! The holiday was absolutely fantastic!! We covered about 1400 miles and the car never missed a beat!! I had realised, however, that my diff was pretty much shot - whined like a mule!! We didn't let it get too much in the way of having a good time as we were tootling about on little coastal roads and therfore wasn't that loud.

We get plenty of lovely comments from passers by when we were out and about, including one chap who had owned pretty much every model of caterham built over the years - a true fanatic! He said it was the best example that wasn't actually a caterham he had ever seen! Which of course was a lovely thing to hear!

Skip forward a couple of weeks after the holiday, and I took one of my work colleagues out for a bit of a joy ride....... Unfortunately I got a little over excited and was on the throttle too hard coming out of a bend and I lost it! The car spun off the road and hurtled towards a barbed wire fence line, taking out about 3 fence posts until eventually coming to a stop!

Im sure for anyone else having experienced something like this in their pride and joy, you know the feelings that come after. Words just don't describe how utterly disappointed in myself I was, especially considering I had a passenger in the car! When I made sure both the passenger and myself were okay I got out and looked at the car..... Again words just don't cut it! Gutted! Distraught, feeling pretty disappointed with myself!

Skip forward to now, a good 3-4 weeks later, the insurance has paid out, it isn't a write off as the damage is 90 percent cosmetic. I honestly can't get over how well the car took the hits and punches! The front lower wishbones will need remaking, the passengers top ball joint snapped and the inner steering tie rod bent. I've been over the car with a fine tooth pick and nowhere has the chassis been bent or any of the suspension pick up points!!! Incredibly lucky!!

So the process has begun in stripping down to remake and refit the side skins , which is the biggest part of the job. Lucky I kept all my templates! The rear panel is completely unscathed. The rest of the parts are off the shelf from caterham in regards to bodywork, so that's not so bad. I have alot to learn from all of this but am trying to continue to spin things around and work it for good! No one was hurt, which is absolutely the main thing. My pride perhaps.. but that mends, Its another opportunity to learn, grow and mature. Its the tough times that often really shape us, I'm not going to wallow around in self pity, what's happened has happened. All I can do is move forward!

I'm sorry to hear of the accident. However, as you say, no one was hurt, and you're not letting it get you down. I look forward to seeing Invictus 2.0 in the near future.

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

Thanks Lonnie. It won't be long before she's right again!

Really a clean car. Sorry to hear about your experience. I can’t imagine the gut wrenching feeling.
I did a ride this summer that everyone with one of these 7’s needs to do because it was such a huge learning experience. Your driving experience I sort of went through without the fence interaction. It came down to cold tires. The car handles like night and day with warm tires. It handles like the idea you have in your head, curve hugging, being able to hit the throttle in a corner and drive out without the rear end giving out. We are all running tires made for 2500#+ cars not 1100-1500#. It would be nice to find tires made for the cars. I only run 15psi of air in the tires and their just fine. With out warmed rubber these cars are slippery because of the lack of weight. So should we be running considerably lower UTG ratings? Like 100 or lower?

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Steve

My build : http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtop ... 35&t=17160

MGB/GT V8 5.0L. viewtopic.php?f=36&t=20782

Okay then folks! Bit of an update, back in October i set about stripping the car back down so the side skins could be removed, re-made and re-fit. Ive got to say, even though i have nobody to blame but myself, stripping the car and damaging good work that was done in building it was horrible. I also set about replacing my horrible whiney diff. I went to a wreckers and got another one cheap and with low mileage. With that job done, which was a royal pain in the ass, my dad stepped in and together we re-made the aluminium side skins and fit them to the car.

The car then sat for almost 6 months doing nothing but gathering dust! On the 26th November my wife and I welcomed our first born into the world - Ruby Grace! She is utterly amazing and we genuinely cannot imagine life without her now. I think we've been lucky and have had a very easy going baby....i feel we've maybe been lured into a false sense of security until the next one arrives!

So as well as us having a baby, i've been busy with necessary jobs around the house along with recommissioning our MG ZS180 V6 to the road as a daily. The car had been sat for almost a year, so i spent quite some time going through it, servicing, checking for wear and things that wanted replacing. Along with a big spruce up. the headlining and door fabric was all sagged and the front seats a bit worn. So the door cards got re-upholstered in leather, the headlining in a lovely blue suede to match the car colour and i modified some BMW E46 M3 seats to replace the original fronts. (wanted nicer seats) Being able to hear the v6 sing through the custom stainless twin exhaust system again is very very satisfying!! Very understated cars these, all because of the badge on the front.

Anyhoooo, because of the current situation with Coronavirus and not being at work, time has lent itself to get back onto the car. Ive re-made all interior panelling that was damaged during the strip down. My brake and accelerator pedal were a bit too close to one another so i've altered the positioning of the pedals to allow more room. The scuttle and windscreen has been fitted along with the rear arches. Bonnet and nosecone next, along with trimming and finishing the new ali side skins at the front of the chassis where they will meet the nosecone. and so on and so on and so on !!

ooo, i also stumbled across a brand new Caterham heater unit on ebay at a ridiculously good price. So swapped out my bastardised mx5 unit (that i wasn't that happy with) for this.

Enjoy...until next time

Hello again everyone. It's been a while!! Well, the car is finished, actually its been finished for a while. Its first drive out was back in June, the 12th to be precise!! As horrendous as this Corona situation has been and still is for so many people, it was an amazing opportunity for me to really knuckle down and spend a massively concentrated amount of time in the rebuild - something that would have taken 6 months of Saturdays and the odd hour here and there.

Having gone through this i can honestly say my perspective and attitude has changed towards to vehichle and driving it. I'm so much more aware of how everything can go horribly wrong within a split second and that i really need to respect the car and the way its driven. Also, a key lesson learned is ensuring i'm running the correct tyre pressures. The wheels and tyres were a package deal from demontweeks motorsport, as such they came ready fit and inflated - the pressure was something i never thought to check until Tundra 7 mentioned on one of the above posts, so thank you for that. When it came to refitting the wheels i realised they were at 40PSI!!!!!! No wonder it spun out so bad, a combination of me being a fool, cold tyres, over-inflated tyres and a wet patch on the corner - may as well have been on ice! Im now running about 18psi which is doing the job nicely.

Plenty of things were improved/revised in the rebuild. I wasn't happy with my lower front wishbones so dad re-designed them, now utilising the mx5 ball joint as opposed to screw in units i purchased from summit racing, something we can't remember why we did in the first place. I think we thought due to the arrangement/design of my front end geometry we were going to run out of movement on the MX5 LBJ in the arc of suspension travel. .......anyway, it doesn't so thats all groovy!! Dad and I reset the suspension and geometry one Saturday and ensured we dialled out any bump steer. Which shows as it drives tremendously! The engine bay and wiring was tidied up and I just generally improved the appearance and routing of various items.

I was due to re-visit my tuner so he could put his final tune on the motor (tuned to pass emissions for IVA test). So that got booked in and my dad and I went in convoy. I was very happy with the end result, which i shall post on here... I was told on a cooler day he would have easily expected to see 150bhp, but it was smack bang in the middle of a very intense heatwave here in the UK and the humidity was unreal! The car got a final weigh in of 606kg excluding myself, which i'm very happy with considering its an SV sized car and doesn't have an all Ali engine sat out front.

In the past months i've probably put 2-2.5k miles on the clock. Feeling a lot more confident and comfortable when out and about driving now. Just enjoying having it back. Finally fixed any/all oil leaks which is a great place to be, i always wanted to get to the point whereby i can simply open up the garage, go for a spin, and park it up without having to worry about anything else in-between, which i have been doing so far!

Re-organising my pedals was a massive improvement to the driving experience, everything is exactly where i want it and the car is very easy and comfortable to drive. My wife enjoys driving from time-to-time and as passed remark on it being easier than expected!!!

Still get many folk thinking it's a Caterham, which is nice haha!!

Great to see it back in tip top shape! we live and learn

Have you done anything to adjust the balance of the car? did you feel it had abit too much oversteer after the incident or was it purely driver error and you got abit too excited.