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thx cheapy and russell...

I have only a couple of mitered joints, and those around the driver will get a gusset... It was the only way I could do it without bending some tubes.. (do not have an easy access to the bender..)

Finished the front clip, time to weld the complete front end...

cheers

vlado

finally finished the front clip.. The X brace on the bottom and one little tube in the front is missing. At the last moment I changed the suspension ratio, from 1:1 to 1.5:1, as I could not get the shocks I wanted in the stroke I would need with 1:1 ratio, and besides, with 1:1 and the suspension travel I wanted the shocks would be very long..
I lowered the tubes holding the rockers, and with this setup I can always shorten the wheel travel (for the track) and go back to 1:1 ratio with the same shocks (different springs obviously)

decided to finish all the welds on the main part of the frame before I connect it to the front part... that way I can rotate it around while welding more easily..

Added some triangulation on the bottom...
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Finished the front part.. added the diagonal on the bottom, so it is fully triangulated now..


I aligned the build table again, so that it is perfectly flat.. Found out my build table is warpped a bit..

Placed the frame on it.. measured the frame.. the frame is straight within 0.1 deg... verry happy about it..
Next I need to align the front and centre part with a laser and measure everything again..
The frame is blllody big.. will have to move it a bit forward to finish the rear section...

Aligned the two frame pieces today... First I found the exact middle of all the bottom tubes, marked it down, and setup the laser to go trough the middles of the front frame tubes..

Then I aligned the center section according to the light beam.... FInished off by measuring everything again with a tape measure..

Hello, great work so far. I especially like your use of tubing as rod end brackets. Crafty.

Thought id chime in as I have also done the modular construction method aswell. I found minor differences in wheelbase side to side when I aligned my fully welded subframes to the build table. I realized this after checking at the wheels. The sub frames were adjusted so the wheels were square with each other, then secured and welded. It may be of some benefit to have have suspension rigged up to get as accurate as you can rigging the subframes. They may end up being slightly out of square but your wheels will be straight. Again the minor error can easily be dialed out with an adjustment to the suspension.



Andrew

thanks for the support..

you have a good point... I have no illusion about being super accurate right out of the box... Especially as I have relatively long A arms and minor misalignment in the sub-frames will be multiplied further on... I will do the full alignment at the end, measuring the outer rodends. Unfortunately, I do not have the space to mount the suspension on the subframe right now, but I will use fine threaded rodends on the inboard points of the A arms, which should be enough to account for a slight bend in the frame.. As far as I can measure now, the front subframe itself is within +-1 mm, and I know I could make my life much easier by welding the suspension mounting points at the end, but I just like my solution for some reason and will try to make it work..

had some time today and decided to see how I'll fit the project car in the garage together with my normal car after it is finished..

I have a single car garage, 520 cm long, and a bit under 2.5 meters high.... Evo is 4.49 meters long...

The idea was to lift the rear end of the BEC a bit, and tilt the front upwards



At first I wanted to do a lifting ramp but thought, Why complicate things... so I am thinking about doing some sort of a lifting mechanism that will lift the rear end 1 metre up, and place a steel beam on the "roof" from which I will winch up the front of the car...


also, this was a good opportunity to do a side on illustration of my BEC vs. my Evo 9..

Nice work!

I was reading your radiator mounting thread and came to get a better look at your frame.
From my seat here, a gazillion miles away , it looks like you should have enough space to fit the radiator flat in the nose so that you can run a frontal duct to it and vent it from the top, kinda like a Lotus Elise.

Moti

thanks..

I am just finishing the front part of the frame.. It looks like there is enought space to fit the rad at about 30 deg angle, in the front of the frame.. and there is a nice straight line right trough the frame for a 25 or 30 mm tube on each side of the frame for the water.. but nothing decided yet... will make some mockups when I finish the frame..

having fun with the front structure...








Also made a shopping list for the steering... I had two options on the steering rack...Used porsche 914, which is a centre steering rack and about 170 - 370 bucks on ebay in the USA.. or this new rack from pegasusautoracing.com ...

which is 739 bucks now, used to be cheaper before...
Good thing about this rack is that it is the right size... Pegasus also have the other hardware, steering shafts, U joints, etc... but I am not exactly following the locost mantra..

ahh, one point, I can not fit the rad inside the front section of the frame, as there will be the shocks, steering and battery.. the rad should go in front of the frame, in the composite nose cone..

Why not a sandrail steering rack?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Steering-Rack-and-Pinion-Dune-Buggy-Sand-Rail_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem35a30bc4c4QQitemZ230368724164QQptZRaceQ5fCarQ5fParts

A virtual potpourri of inexpensive racks here, some for front steer, some for rear steer.

http://dansperformanceparts.com/buggy/susp/buggysusp%20rack&pinion.htm

thx..
I could use a 14 inch sandrail rack, but I am worried a bit that it doesn't seem to have propperly supported rack ends.. from here it looks as if it is supported only in the centre..

anyway, I contacted Titan directly, they are based in the UK so it did not seem to be smart to buy their rack from the US as I am much closer to the factory.. so we'll see about the final price..

Price up a 600 racing rack and then let us all know!

http://store.uslegendcars.com/site/depa ... 34A0874BC2

Just noticed these http://www.sacoperformance.com/products.php?cat=7 - maybe center mount but those square outriggers can be clamped quite easily. Oh and I just double noticed that they have bolt holes far enuff apart in the bottom of the casting.

both of these are in the 300 - 350 USD range...
Legends rack is not center mount.. and the others are a bit short on dimension and weight info... but will investigate further..

Still waiting for an answer from titan..

edited in:
just found this US company that has a modular (aluminium centre housing + steel tube..) custom rack...
http://www.mavalgear.com/images/pdf/cen ... 20rack.pdf

will try to price that one also..