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I should add that I'm definitely diggin' the hot-rodded build table.

This thing just looks mean. Reminds me of a Japanese old-school drift car. The ones that used massive fenders wrapped around wide but low tires. It should be quite beastly when done.

Looks fantastic!

What size tires & wheels are you using?

The tires that are on the rims now are 225/45/r16's.

Thanks for all the compliments. seeing the car look "finished", has really given my motivation a shot in the arm. I'll be sure to keep the updates going.

Thanks!
Danel.

BTW. Thanks to whomever changed my avatar! It looks great.

Check your private messages.

thanks for the Avatar Chet. I Like it. I wouldn't have thought to do that, so I appreciate it. It actually would make sense for everyone that is building a car or has a finished car to put a relatively up to date picture of the car as their Avatar.

Thanks again!

Daniel

That looks awesome. This will require a video once it's rolling/running.

<--- See my avatar for current progress.

Any chance you will sell plans after you are done?

Wow...that looks GREAT, nocones! Post some more photos of the bodywork as you get the chance!

-dave

Looks like alot of fun so far - it's must be alot harder to build to the very tight packaging requirements.

Off topic tire nerdiness...

I like your choice of the RS-2 tires, I've driven both those and the Azeins RT-615 extensively and between the two the RS-2 is a much better wet tire - at least with the kind of rain we get here in the midwest. The dry grip between the two tires is very close and I've found the RS-2 harder to overheat. I hear the Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec is also a great tire but I haven't had a chance to really abuse them yet.

Sultan- I'm probably not going to do that, because there are just to many unique issues brought about by the cramped spaces of the Midget. I'd be willing to take some more pictures and dimensions of specific items as the car becomes more completed.

dhempy- As I get closer to putting the body on, I'll be sure to take lots of pictures!

erioshi- It is very difficult to work around the tight dimensions. My frame is 48" outside to outside, and the wheelbase is only 80". It's difficult especially in the front, where everything wants to live in the same spot. It makes me respect the British engineers.. A little more..

I plan to use the RS-2's as long as they are available in the size. I will probably get some dedicated R-compounds for Autox use, but for Trackdays and street, I think the RS-2's will be nice.

Thanks again for the interest. I've unfortunatly not gotten a lot done lately as I had to clean the garage to make room for Driven5's Build, and all it's pieces. So my 24x35 garage will have 2 contraptions being built in it.. Should be interesting. I also took time to install a beacon morris 75K BTU garage heater. They were on sale at menards for like $430, and I needed to upgrade from the crappy old house furnace in the garage. So I'm finally ready to get rolling again. Expect an update in the next few days!

Daniel

I got some time to work in the garage tonight. I'll start with a picture of the new heater. I realize it's not project related, but I'm happy with how well it works. It's a Beacon Morris BRU75 75K BTU heater. As you can see I hung it from the roof. I'm very pleased, it heats my 24 x 35 minimally insulated garage to ~60 degrees. It had no problems tonight dealing with the 0 degrees with 20 mph winds that we had and keeping the garage at 55 plus. It ran about 20 minutes per hour to keep up.


ON to the Car.

I had worked on figuring out the supernode as I like to call it yesterday, but I failed. I actually had started with the tube indicated with Tape, but It didn't clear the diff. My 1" masking tape had failed me. So that pretty well finished last night, as I got frustrated because I scraped two pretty complicated tubes that took about 1.5 hours to make. Tonight, I came at it from a different direction and triumphed. There is now plenty of clearance on the diff, and I was very happy that I created the 1st tube and then just traced all 4 sides onto the mirror tube and only had to trim it to clear the different weld beads.

I've been really adamant about ensuring that all tube intersections are fully welded, so when I have more than 2 tubes joining, I finish weld 2 tubes and then add each tube on top of them.
The purpose of Supernode is to support the roll bar down tubes, and will be the "back" of the full chassis. Most tubes from here rearward will be 3/4" square, except for the 4 lowest tubes as I plan to have a hitch, and they will create a "cage" for the gas tank. I put plates under the downtubes, and drilled 3 holes in each plate to ensure bonding to the node. I then plug welded the holes.

I then fitted the down tubes, and fully welded them in place, as well as finished welding the last roll bar joints.

I think I've decided before I build the next car, I'm going to take the left over roll bar tube from this car, cut and notch it, and just practice welding roll bar tubes. The welds I've done are ok, but could be loads better.

On a humorous note, Today I got a PM from Locost member RossD and discovered he litterally lives about 200 yards from me, 3 houses down from me on the same street. So that means my garage has a pretty high concentration of Locosters, since my project, and Driven5's project will be going on inside of it, and RossD's project will be <1/4 mile away. It really makes me wonder what may be lurking in other garages in my neighborhood... My next door neighbor has a C5 Vette, across the street there is a 1950's MG TD, and down the road past Ross is a well on it's way 1955 or 56 (can't tell not an expert) restomod Chevy. And that's just the ones I know about!

Anyway that brings you up to date. Thanks for all the interest, I really enjoy hearing peoples responses to the car. It really keeps me motivated to know that so many people enjoy what I'm trying to achieve.

Thanks,

Daniel

ooooooohhhhhhhhhhh.......
i wish that my dad would let me do that to his....
i like the lights in the grill

Well It's been a little bit since my last update. I wish I could show you all my current pics and wow you with my progress, but unfortunatly things have been slow. I did get more work done on the rear of the car. I added the rear most tubes, got the gas tank mounts worked out, added a few triangulation tubes, and fitted the rear floor tubes. Sorry the pictures are a little wierd due to the fact that the chassis is currently sitting upside down.



Side view showing the angle of the rear section of the floor. This also shows how much longer a normal car rear end (well a MG midget at least) is than a locost. I would say there is probably about 24" more back there than there would be on a Locost. But my overall length will end up about the same.



Here is what the trunk floor looks like looking up at the ceiling but what would be down into the trunk. The gas tank sits sunk down in the frame rails.



And here is the underside of the car. With a ground clearance of 3.5" this view hopefully won't be seen very often.

Thanks for Looking!

Daniel

What wonderfully disorienting pictures.

I think it should be reasonably safe in an accident...Considering what you're building. Most cars will slide right over the gas tank, and your normal-car bumper height "supernodes" certainly should provide substantial rear impact protection.