LocostUSA.com

First off you guys have sucked in another crazy car builder. I bought Keither Tanners book early last year, actually two of them, gave one to Erik (the one building the Green Lantern sidekick). I bought both copies of “How to build a cheap sports car”, US version and English version. And I put off starting this project till October of 2010, Erik kind of shamed in that his car is almost done. So I have been burning the coal trying to catch up. So the following will be from start to current. This is not my first rodeo, as I have built several bugeye sprite SCCA racecars and a twin turbo factory five Cobra.

The Locost build started with the procurment of a complete 1996 Miata, which was disassembled and boxed. While I was doing this Erik started needing parts so the parts I had ordered from Kinetics ended up in his build. I also created molds for the front and rear fenders from scratch, that set me back time wise, but was a need to do item. I have also been playing with a Tillet go cart seat. I have sliced and diced this seat 10 ways to Sunday and you will see it in the pictures as it morphs from 12” to 16” and is now high back, still rough but the shape is getting there.

The donor






The build table is a sheet of ½” plywood with a sheet of white masonite on top (easier to write on and disposable) and four 2x4’s on the bottom and is sitting on a cart that I already had. The cart is sitting on 2x4’s because I needed to get the engine hoist under the table. Yep I have that T-shirt, but on a plus side, the table hasn’t rolled away from me.









So the frame is started and the engine is located about an inch to the passenger side, in line with the rear diff.




The dreaded upper bar bend was done with water sand a vice and the cap to my EMPTY co2 bottle to bend around. First try was acceptable and was used on the car.






The Miata rear sub frame met with my new Plasma cutter, which allowed me to get the rear located almost to the correct position as a straight axle.




This is my shot at holding the rear IRS in place with a stabilizing mount that is attached to the frame front and back of the IRS. Bolts are rubber isolated on the ends. Also used the stock sway bar and a set of coil over shocks






I built the trans tunnel out of sheet metal, instead of tubing and the drive shaft part of the tunnel bolts in



My front track is two inches wider than the rear, so the steering rack was shorten 6” and the tie rods were lengthen by 4”. Kinetics parts used on the upper A arm and ¾” OD 7/16 ID tubing used on the lower A arm, drilled and tap to ½”. Kinetics suspension brackets used to locate the front suspension.






A shot of my engine cradle to locate the engine on the table



Mocking up fiberglass





Cat fish nose from kinetics


Tilton Pedals, Miata steering column and Ebay steering wheel






This is a shot of my fire breathing dragon (Trane Gas heater), if you ever get a heater for the garage or the shop, I have found that 2 ½ times oversized is about perfect. You can get comfortable very quickly with this beast


More updates as progress is achieved.

Welcome to the club. I'm slowly attempting a similar build. Book + miata. How far does your oil pan stick out below the frame?

Yo, Tony!
Welcome to the club! (Or the Asylum...) Anybody that races/raced a Bugeye is a friend of mine!

Where is Hopkinsville, KY?

Good luck with your build, keep us posted on your progress.

JD "G Production MGB" Kemp

Where is Hopkinsville, KY? 60 miles north of Nashnville TN
How far does your oil pan stick out below the frame? 3" currently, the plan is to rework the oil pan and bellhousing, we did the same thing to Bugeye that we put a escort GT and Miata gearbox in, That was a sweet car



"Make it a GREAT day"
Tony Chiles

I made some more progress on the seven. Did not like the catfish nose

so it met up with the cutoff wheel, I think about 12 different pieces

I also added a piece of 1.5” sq to the front of the frame for shock pickup and headlights. A job made easy with the ebay plasma cutter

I also received my fiberglass seats from UPS today, the wife tried them out

I'm curious about the noses for these cars, so what was the issue with the catfish nose that you didn't like? Did you need it to be taller?

"I'm curious about the noses for these cars, so what was the issue with the catfish nose that you didn't like? Did you need it to be taller?"

I did not see a reason to have the nose flare out. I don't have an intercooler and my radiator was not near as big as the nose. I did add material to the nose to drop it lower to reach the bottom frame rail. aesthetically I thought it would look more appropriate if the nose followed the upper frame rail taper, so that is what I did and the del sol radiator fits fine.

so I have been back on the build for a couple of weeks and was making great progress on the chassis. The floor is welded in and all the joints have had a once over and was starting to think about some kind of paint and then a friend shows up with a project that he needs knocked out. So the locost is taking a back seat again until I get Four project cars done. I could have said that I was not interested but when you see a two person soap box derby car and he wants four more so the disable kids (cerebralpalsy and the like) can participate in something that I had always dreamed of doing as a kid, I couldn't say no. I have a complete car in the garage to reverse engineer, so now I get to try my production skills. All of the wood, 1" cabinet grade plywood has been cut by CNC and got its first coat of polyeuthane. So all thats left is a whole lot of fiberglass work and a steel backbone 1.5" sq X1/8 wall with some 1" sq thrown in for good measure. The mold is in pretty good shape and has only had two bodies ever come out of it. I got it prepped , waxed and PVA sprayed tonight. Start gellcoat and glass tomorrow.






more pictures here
http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k284/ ... e/SoapBox/
http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k284/ ... 1QQtppZZ16

more progress!!!
rebuilt the motor
reworked the rear upper tube
made reat trans mount
painted the chassis, irs, half shafts and front suspension and reinstalled
all suspension parts



[IMG]http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k284/hpbugeye/Locust%207%20-Nov%
2011/PICT0004.jpg[/IMG]

Very cool build! I love the pinched nose....can't wait to see it all come together!

Nice work. What are the wheels? I like them.

I do too, but I gotta tell you, that wasn't a Catfish (pronounced KATE-fish out of respect for Caterham) nose. Maybe some other locoster recognizes the nose you started with, but I don't. The rear fenders and scuttle look familiar, but the nose does not.

Anyway, no matter what nose it was originally, I think your modifications to it are a great aesthetic improvement.

Also I favor your trans and driveshaft tunnel(s) and I'd wager it'll be an effective chassis stiffener. What gauge steel are they? And are you going to put something where the flanges connect to protect the driver and passenger from the pointyness of that junction?

this kinetics nose
was cut in to, not kidding 12 pieces to make this nose. I am going to pull a mold off of it because its gotten way to heavy. the top surface of the nose, is now more rounded thanks to a lot of bondo

just like this hardtop

became this hardtop


the wheels on the locost are panasport 15x7, you can catch them used(600-700 a set), on this website
http://prodracing.com/prodcar/viewforum.php?f=4

Honest, it wasn't a Kinetic Vehicles nose. None of our noses get shipped out with a closed air inlet. You can see the KV Catfish nose at...

http://kineticvehicles.com/noses.html#catfish

Well cool! You've sure done enough on your nose to consider it original work. It looks good, more power to you, and if you want to sell them (or even sell the mold) please get in touch with me off list, I'd be proud to carry them.

As far as whoever closed off the air inlet on a Kinetic Catfish nose and then made a mold off of that (and provided you a nose as "kinetics"), well, I don't think that's very original, the closure is something they added, and which every builder will have to cut out, and I don't see where it advances the art.

In fiberglass, it's a whole lot harder to make the first one of something than it is to make a mold off of an existing part, and I discourage the pirating of current production glasswork--whether mine or anyone else's--despite how easy it is. Whoever makes an original has 50 times the labor invested than whoever makes a copy, and copies make it difficult to amortize that investment.

Your Cobra hard-top mod looks both attractive and practical. Better visibility than the way it came, plus you won't bump your noggin getting in. That's a serious challenge on a hardtop Locost, and even though the Cobra has a real door, I can see where extra headroom would be a help. When I have a roof on my Locost, I feel like a cat burglar every time I sneak into the driver's seat.

I really like what you did with the Cobra hard top. Nice!