LocostUSA.com

I've made great use of Locost forums during my build, so I thought I'd have a go at posting as well. Take it easy on a newby...

I'm building a Porsche rsk 718 replica using Subaru turbo power and transaxle; a steel tubular space frame; double wishbone rear; body in fibreglass; and VW/Merc 190E running gear. It's a little industrial in its finish but seems to be progressing well for a first attempt.

You can check out my progress on my website http://porsche.rsk.718.googlepages.com/home.

I'd post a picture if I can figure out how

ETA is 1 year away - as it has been since 2006. Then it should be seen on roads, tracks and hill-climbs in New Zealand

George

Who did your body? Excellent!
Love it....
Very cool and well done.

Looks good. It must be a lot of fun watching your foam cutter work.

Please do give us updates...

Wow, that is some amazing work. The body design and fab is impressive. That car is going to be a hoot!

Hope you don't mind but I'm going to move this to the build log section since this post leads to your website which is pretty much a build log, and I'd like people searching for such things to be able to find it.

Absolutely one of the most beautiful cars of all time. You picked a great car to replicate! Great drivetrain choice too. I can't wait to see more progress.

You appear to have a completely different type of frame than the Locost could you elaborate on why you did what you did?

Thanks for the positive comments. I see a couple of you have asked questions. My website - address in first post - will answer most questions.

Who did the body? Me. It's mouldless construction; glass fibre over a polystyrene foam buck. Thus it's built inside out. It was a convoluted process staring with a CAD model, then 144 slices of polystyrene foam computer cut to form a buck, then the f'glass. Fibreglass consists of several layers of cloth and epoxy and is only about 3mm thick. The buck was demolished to remove it from the shell - no piece larger than a tennis ball. The curves are fair, but not perfect. I'll finish the surface when its attached to the body, and will use quite a lot of filler I suspect.

Why a frame different from a typical Locost? The chassis is a space frame (fully triangulated in side and plan views - except for the hole where people sit!). Locost space frames provided a lot of inspiration and you'll see a lot of a 7 in it. I benefited from advice from other builders as I'm not a chassis engineer, or an engineer. Unlike a 7 though, I had to more-or-less follow the Porsche prototype which uses trailing arms and torsion beam at the front (shudder), a wide engine in the middle and IRS. The major challenges were to get torsional stiffness in the cockpit area through a wide sill and strong front firewall; and, like all middy builds, fitting the chassis and suspension around the bell housing was tricky. My website has a chassis graphic on one of the pages and several bare bones photos.

Impressing build so far. I really like the CNC machine that you made. Thanks for sharing, and I hope that you keep us updated on your progress!

Great build, I especially like the body buck construction.

If I'm look at this right. You made each on of the 144 sheets 1 at a time? Wow thats impressive.

evo

Now that's a spicy meat-a-ball!

Definitely some cool stuff with the body work. Nice work, keep us posted.

Andrew

always loved this car. whats the status?

Hi violentblue

I've just united the body shell with the chassis. I've glued alloy sheet to the inside of the fibreglass body shell to give it the appearance of all alloy construction. This status could not be more up-to-date as I'm sitting at my PC with sealant-adhesive on my hands that is finding its way on to the keyboard.

There only a few major items remaining. I need to match the Subaru turbo motor to the Subaru fwd gearbox. The bell housing fitting may be the same but the fwd has a smaller gearbox input shaft than the turbo. My plan is to use the 2wd clutch with the turbo pressure plate, flywheel with an after-market hydraulic actuator. I still have to puzzle out the drive shafts and c.v.s. And the electrics - which at the moment is a box of snakes.

I can see that the last 20% takes 80% of the time. There will be a lot of work to bring the body up to finished standard, instruments, testing of brakes and suspension....

I'll post a few more proud parent shots on to my web site over the coming weekend.

Oh my gosh, George.
That is absolutely fantastic!!!!!!! And I can't believe your website counter only has 815 hits. This has to qualify as a best kept secret. WOW!!!!!!!!!!
Love the seats, really googoo over the wheels, can't say enough about this. I do think you qualify as the renaissance man, what with all the different disciplines required to accomplish this project. Again, WOW!!!!!

Last, and off topic, where in NZ are you? About the best vaca my wife and I have ever had, we caravaned all over both isles for a few weeks. Great people, great places, and then there were the German tourists

Mike Bynum