Officially kicking off my first ever build thread! What could possibly go wrong?
Executive summary:
For those that want just the highlights the plan in general is: 1972 MG Midget, Suzuki Hayabusa engine (gen 1), Miata based suspension geometry and bits with Yamaha R1 shocks, a potentially awesome reverse gear solution, IRS like what would be in a Monster Miata (Thunderbird 7.5 or MkVIII 8.8 ), and keep it under 1500 lbs wet without driver.
Background:
I did Baja SAE in college and since it's limited to only 10HP naturally everyone wants to cram a motorcycle engine in one. Formula SAE gets to do that but my school didn't have Formula. So pretty much since then I've wanted to cram a motorcycle engine into something. I have a good bit of experience as an offroader and this is my very first street oriented project.
The original plan was a fenderles hotrod VW Bug with an R1 engine (had one laying around already). But I couldn't live with the Bug suspension. MG Midgets actually have decent suspension from the factory and are tiny and light. I also decided that a Hayabusa engine was going to be the way to go. So then the plan was 1) get Midget 2) stuff Hayabusa engine.
So I started down that road and naturally things got out of hand. I then had plans to "just fit" front and rear Miata sub frames to the Midget unibody and somewhere along the way I basically cut the entire car apart and am now more or less building an entire custom frame inside the body with custom "sort of" Miata suspension and a very mixed bag of drivetrain parts. BUT I believe it will definitely embody the hotrod spirit.
I actually bought the Midget back in October 2016. I was on crutches at the time and didn't work on it much. Between then and now I also spent about a year working on my 4Runner (offroader/rock crawler) and several months building a table for my wife. But I've made some slow progress and will bring everyone up to speed on where I am now. I plan to move quicker on it now hopefully and would like to have a rolling chassis by the end of this summer. In the Southeast that gives me most of the rest of this year.
References:
-I took a lot of inspiration from Matt Brown AKA Superfastmatt and his Honda S600 with a CBR1000 engine.
http://www.superfastmatt.com/
-Since I'm building a Midget, naturally Nocones Midget has been an inspiration as well. I believe mine will end up looking similar to his in the fact it will have ridiculous (awesome) fender flares.
-Also, ccrunner's N600 build thread was an excellent read as well. Spoiler alert: he and I may have similar ideas for a reverse gear. But more on that later.
-And lastly, does anyone watch Futurama? I don't either. But I've seen exactly one clip from the show that was really funny about the Ford Thundercougarfalconbird. Anyway, I found it quite humorous and thus the name of this build thread.
And now onto the first couple of pictures! It'll take several posts to bring this up to speed.
