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I have been slowly working on the car as much as I can, but have been bogged down during the holidays. I got most of the main tranny tunnel structure done and put the engine, tranny, and bellhousing togeather

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The drive line is quite dirty and needs some TLC but it will serve it's purpose so I can get my mounts in place.

I set the frame on the ground so I could get an idea as to how the engine is going to sit in the frame and see what the ride hight should be. I also sat some tires next to the frame so I could imagine what it will look like (I had a little voice in my head telling me to sit in the frame and make engine noises .)



If anyone sees something that I did wrong or needs to be addressed please speak up. Also I was wondering what normal ride hight/ground clearance for the bottom of the frame is. Thanks

Yeah, I see something wrong... You didn't sit in the frame and make engine noises, preferably while holding a steering wheel!!!


JD

I don't know if your finished it or not but many builders triangular the tunnel. It's briefly outlined in Herb Adams book but doing this can significantly increases the entire structure.

What I have done is just the basic tranny tunnel. I will add some triangulation shortly. I did order my engine and tranny mounts today and should be in tomorrow. If all goes well I will have the driveline sitting in the frame by this weekend. After that I am going to start on front suspension.

Cool projects...

For the record, go with a 8.8. Even my SVO managed to explode a 7.5...

Had some time to work on the car this weekend. I almost made as much progress as I wanted to. The engine and transmission are sitting in the car for the first time which is cool. The camera I am using is not the best, but I just wanted to show you guys the progress.



This is a crappy shot of the engine mount. It is basically two triangulated sections of square tubing with a gussit running perpendicular to
them.



Another poor picture on my part but this kinda shows bellhousing clearance to the firewall, it is about 3/4" which I hope is enough.



A better shot of the engine mount. The only thing you can't see is the gussit, which I made from 1/8" plate and is on the back side of the upright portion of the mount.





I made the tranny mount from two layers of 1/8" plate welded to the bottom side of the frame. The mounting bolts still don't hang down as far as my oil pan so I don't thing ground clearance will be an issue. That brings up one question that I have had. What is the approximate ground clearance from the bottom of the frame to the ground on some of your rigs. I just want to get an idea if i am anywhere in the right ballpark. As always if you see if I am doing anything stupid in my build let me know and thanks for the input.

Need to get that oil Pan up! lol
Photo of short pan.

that bell housing looks pretty low, I wouldn't have anything below the bottom of the car if i were you....... ONLY MY OPINION

I used 6" blocks of wood under my frame to hold it at what I figured was going to be my finished ride height. It's worked out pretty close to that and is adjustable. My oil pan is 1 1/2" lower than the frame. I havn't had any problems with speed humps or rough roads, probably because the front wheels and the oil pan are near each other. When the front wheels go up a speed hump the oil pan goes up at the same time. The track guys run closer to the ground, more like 4".

Ron

My 2 cent, with the bellhousing that close, I would make the transmission crossmember removeable. It will be a bear fitting the eng/trans in. That would allow less of an angle when swinging the eng/trans into position. Once in, then bolt up the crossmember. I wish I had and I only have a 4 cylinder and 3 inches of clearance.
Dave W

FWIW, I know of a Caterham owner who runs 3-1/2 clearance on the street (Illinois) with never a problem. Frame is at 4-1/2" and the oilpan sits 1" below that. He changes wheels for racing and ends up with 2-1/2" oilpan clearance on the track. I chose to use his 3-1/2" for the street based on his success. Only time will tell if I made the wrong decision. It wouldn't be the first time I was caught following somebody else's bad advice.

You can gain another ~1/2 inch clearance to the trans crossmember by re-sectioning. A little more can be found by grinding the rib on the bellhousing. Here is what I did to get about 3/4" to 1" clearance.

If it becomes an issue, you may also be able to gain another ~1/4" or so by grinding away part of the lip on the bell housing bottom assuming there will be enough material left to still cover the flywheel.

The typical chassis ride height seems to be around 5" (+/- 1") and it seems like ~3.5" is about the minimum safe pan clearance for the street. It is pretty much impossible to get a typical DOHC (or other taller engine) installed high enough to not have some of the pan sticking below the car.

Plus its a performance car - raising the engine raises the CG.

I've seen this fairly often, a modified oil pan used with a stock transmission bellhousing. Why bother with the pan if the transmission hangs down lower? Just wondering.

Schmidt, is this bolt removable? If it's not, as mentioned, your going to have a hard time getting the engine/tranny out. If it is removable, you should be able to just slide it forward, just make sure you don't build anything in the way.